Lake effect

(Snow on the spiral stairs.)

It’s been snowing here in the Bogs since December 28th.  We’re lucky that it’s been the kind of fine snowflakes that don’t accumulate quickly or we’d be buried in the white stuff by now.  A front with snow moved through yesterday.  Today and tonight we’ll get the lake-effect snows.

I took the advice of (well-meaning) friends and family, and spent the past two days resting in an attempt to shake off this cold.  I finished the course of antibiotics that were prescribed almost 2 weeks ago on Wednesday and seem to have regressed since then with the return of the sore throat and head congestion that may need dynamite to break up.  The two days of rest were not entirely wasted.  I spent a good deal of the time wrapped in a warm, comfy blanket and curled up in a comfy chair reading the new Stephen King book (Under the Dome: A Novel) which I received as a Christmas gift and started reading a few days later.  Because of the size of it, I thought I might be reading it well into June of 2010 but the two days of rest have me well along the way (about two-thirds through).  I was worried it might become like The Orchid Thief, a book I finished just before starting the new King book.  While I found the beginning of The Orchid Thief fascinating at times, having started with little knowledge about orchids and the orchid hunter/collector world, I began to lose interest after a while, feeling as though the author would have been better off keeping it to a series of articles rather than a novel.  King has a way of stretching things out as well and sometimes I wish he’d just get on with it.  Mostly, though, I’m enjoying the book the way I enjoy all Stephen King novels.  It’s a fast, easy read that’s mostly entertaining and doesn’t require a lot of deep or complicated thought.

And, like most of his books, it brings on some odd and often disturbing dreams at night.  I get twice the entertainment value.

(Still visible.)

The two days of rest have put me a little behind in my 2010 Project Simplify & Declutter.  I started in the laundry room and will hopefully have that finished by the end of next week depending on how far I decide to go with it.  Painting or some other form of decorating/redecorating is still within the realm of possibilities.

Today I decided it was time to deal with the cold in my usual way:  healthy food, healthy drink, and lots of exercise.  Since I don’t have a fever, there’s no reason I can’t exercise.  I put in some good elliptical and treadmill time, helping my mileage for the year along, and then spent about 20 minutes on the yoga mat learning a (new to me) stretching routine.

We had hoped to get together with friends this evening.  Alas, we had to cancel (yet again… sorry!).  M caught my cold and is just getting into the true mess of it, I’m still not in top form, and we don’t want to spread the germs to our friends.  They say the best way to get rid of a cold is to give it to someone else but I prefer that someone else not be a friend or a family member.  Besides, that little trick apparently doesn’t work since I’m still sick after giving it to M.

Well, that’s about it from the Bogs for now.  More snow stories coming this way soon, I’m sure.