Wash me and I Shall be Whiter than Snow

Before we got sick, our washing machine broke. We've been without a washing machine for about a month now.The boys really couldn't care less, and for those weeks we were sick we all pretty much just wore our pajamas, so we've been doing alright. But you can only do your laundry at a friend's house so many times(like, once) before it gets awkward.

Yesterday we had a fix-it friend come work on it, to no avail. So Dad made the last minute decision to take the actual machine to the big city and have it worked on there. Now, understand, we live in a hundred year old house, not made to hold washing machines. The laundry area, when it was added on sometime along with the (gasp, yes, we have indoor plumbing)bathroom, was originally under the second staircase off the kitchen. To get the machine in that space, the original owners had to cut out and then replace the wood trim of the doorway.

Now, when we bought the house we inherited that same and by now rather old washing machine which was very much stuck in that area. About seven years ago, we had a baby and decided to make things even more interesting by taking out the second stairway and make it into a pantry, since it was always covered in stuff anyway, and we bought a new washing machine as well. The old one was a good twenty years old at least, and I seem to recall it had the intermittent problem of gushing water all over the floor. So, at that point, to get it out and the new one in, not wanting to cut out the woodwork, we had the stairs tore out and had to drag it through the completely empty pantry-to-be. Today, our pantry is very much fuller, and that is still and always will be the only way to get a washing machine in or out to the only place a washing machine can ever go in our old house. This is probably more detail than you've ever wanted. Anyway, last night we had to take out three whole shelves in the pantry and completely empty the floor so the washing machine could go.

We're still waiting the verdict on the fixability of our machine. I pray we won't have the expense of buying a new machine; we've already invested a bit into having this one fixed. Meanwhile, our fancy plates and canned good sit stacked on the kitchen floor while we wander about in our unwashed clothes. Please, no visitors.

How Beautiful are the Feet...

(I wrote this last week and am finally somewhere where I am able to post it)

...of those who bring good news, but since we're all still sick I guess I don't really have any good news. Now I know why people die of influenza. Now I understand why the influenza outbreaks were so dreaded: I guess one plus to this is that I can now better understand that part of history. After twelve days of a fever, Mom to the clinic and they immediately hospitalized her for pneumonia. Dad is well enough to go back to work now, and the rest of us are all in various stages of coughing and weakness. This will be a three-week illness, at least.
I bought some new sandals last week, before we were taken ill, and they are unlike anything I have ever bought before. I really needed some nice sandals to wear to church, and so I broke down and spent $8 at Goodwill(I generally set my price limit for shoes at $3, so understand how painful this was for me). I could have bought some of those fancied-up flip-flops, which Mom with her lingering 1970's vocabulary calls "thongs", to Jen's everlasting embarrassment; but deep in my soul there is a moral standard for church wear, and it will not permit flip-flops. So I bought these:
I have long resisted wearing heels. Maybe it's because I(along with 95% of all home-schooled girls) read the Elsie Dinsmore series in my youth, where one character fell down the stairs because of her heels and was permanently crippled; but I prefer to think it is because of my own common sense and practical nature. I don't want anyone to think I am at all endorsing heels: heels are dangerous and kids, do not try this at home. You may end up permanently crippled. I pray I will not.

Anyway, I had a short time to make a decision and Goodwill had a limited selection, I rarely get to town to go shopping and these happened to be in my size, so I bought them. There was a point yesterday when a few of us had hopes to get out and go to church, so I specially prepared my feet with a chocolate-scented sugar scrub because goodness, my feet SHOW in those things! The pedicure companies and the sandal companies must be in league. We ended up being still to tired to attend church, so if it were not for this post I would have sugared feet for nothing. Feel honored I am sharing with you.

On a different note, we just watched the new "Star Trek" movie, and action scenes aside it made me laugh, which was refreshing after living like the undead for a week, but do you know how hard it is to laugh when you have a cough? It's hard. I have to admit the movie made me a bit queasy during all the spinning through space scenes- but "Up" does the same thing; I can't stand the thought of people floating in space.

This post may seem a little wordy or unusually flippant; please don't take it badly; after two weeks of confinement the (hopefully humorous)sarcasm is flowing free.

Ill: unhealthy, ailing, diseased, afflicted.

My whole family has been miserably, horribly, terribly sick all this past week. There's no point to this post other than to bemoan our situation, so don't feel like you need to read it.

Thesaurus.com:

Main Entry:	ill
Part of Speech:	adjective
Definition:	sick
Synonyms:	a wreck, afflicted, ailing, below par, bummed, diseased, down, down with, feeling awful, feeling rotten, feeling terrible, got the bug, indisposed, infirm, laid low, off one's feet, on sick list, out of sorts, peaked, poorly, queasy, rotten, run-down, running temperature, sick as a dog, under the weather, unhealthy, unwell, woozy

Pretty much all of those apply to my family. Symptoms include splitting headaches, extreme weakness, a cough, and achy muscles. The coughing is almost constant when you get the eight of us together. Mom and Dad got it the worst: Dad actually had a headache for three days straight, and Mom was so weak that she couldn't even sit up for long. Parents aren't supposed to get sick, so I don't know what they were thinking. We certainly aren't strong enough to nurse them. We haven't been this sick for a long time. Illness certainly makes heaven look even more appealing.

Observations on Humidity

Nebraska summers are humid. This year has been much wetter than normal, with frequent rain and hotter temperatures, making Nebraska seem like a mid-western corn jungle. The weather has had an interesting affect on our life here: In this weather, your hair is curly whether you want it to be or not, and even if it's naturally straight. Breathing is drinking and walking is like swimming. Everything is sticky- you sit on the couch(it's leather) and you're stuck. Your fingers stick to the keyboard. The laundry never really dries. You can drink water when you're not thirsty and never have to visit the (ahem) powder room. One more month and then we'll be done with it, and we just have to take it a day at a time.