Ugh.

I am now going on Day 4 with no voice and, I won't lie, its making me crabby. I just had my first visit to a Texan doctor. I will say this about life in the south, people move at their own pace. I was there for nearly two hours, even though I only saw two other patients in the whole durn clinic (luckily I had my most recent zombie novel from Cody in my purse- thanks Cody!) only to be told after a couple of minutes of face time and a strep test what I already knew: I need to wait it out. This news does leave me in a bit of a bind on the job front. There are no sick days for subs, if I don't work, I don't get paid... but do I go in tomorrow and hope that I get an easy bunch that I won't have to talk to that much or stay home another day and rest my sorry excuses for vocal chords? I just don't know. What I do know is that this whole staying home sick routine is getting old.

Before my vocal chords decided to close up shop for a week, I subbed in a kindergarten classroom and the teacher (who is this very sincere hippy-ish guy who has been teaching at a private school for the last 5 years) left these instructions in his lesson plans, "After recess is our meditation time. Have the kids sit on the carpet with crossed legs and tell them to close their eyes and picture something having to do with fire or firefighters (which we were about to have a lesson on). Then have them 'Om' for a minute while they hold that picture in their minds." Let me tell you people, Om-ing with five year olds might be the cutest thing ever. They all actually did it, and then shared what they were picturing. Adorable.

This weekend was mostly a quiet one. Randi (Cody's girlfriend) and I had planned a girl's day on the cheap with facials from one of the local beauty schools and time without the boys. But, as those things are more fun when you are actually able to enjoy yourself, we have postponed for a later date. Instead Curtis and I drove down to San Marcos (about a half hour south of Austin) to Randi and Cody's house to stare in awe for several hours at their new GIGANTIC high definition television. It is such an impressive piece of technology that I actually watched an entire football game on it (one of TWO entire football games that I watched this weekend, bringing the total number of entire football games I have watched in my life to TWO!). Saturday night Curtis and I ventured out briefly to Stubb's because date night had long been in the plans and we had tickets to see Cat Power, who is one of my long time favorites. Her music is very mellow which is a good thing because mellow was about all I could handle. Her voice reminds me of the cross country trips my family used to regularly take between Montana, Alberta, and Wisconsin for some reason. I love it. Sunday brought more football and round one of the stay home or schedule myself a job conundrum.

Alright, back to the recovery process (which involves lots of tea and sleep).