To Africa and Back

I wish you could smell my house right now -- no, no, I mean that in a good way. It smells really good.

I'm cooking dinner for friends and I've whipped up a batch of homemade tomato sauce. Yes, I'm making spaghetti and I know that's not the most creative choice but it is what it is. Deciding what to cook for my own family is painful enough. You cannot even imagine the blood and sweat (and yes, sometimes tears) that I put myself through when cooking for someone else. This is what I get for admitting I like laundry.

So the house smells good. Laundry and dinner on the same day! What could be more domestic?

In other news, I have survived my bout of African Tick Fever. I know we're not in Africa (although seriously? August in the South feels like we're in Africa), but the picture of this particular rash exactly matched what I had all over my leg last week. So I had this rash, which I assumed was a bunch of spider bites. And then I discovered the enlarged lymph node.

I still did not put the two together until Monday night, when every single joint in my body began to ache. I had a fever and my skin felt like someone was pushing needles into each available pore. I thought it was the oppressive heat, until I started moving slower and slower as the evening wore on. 

Ultimately, we got things worked out and got the meds that are just right for tick bites. I felt horrible Monday evening and Tuesday morning as well. My mom was so sweet to take all the boys while I slept and then once my second dose of meds was on board things started looking up. Today I'm feeling much better.

I'm not sure what the cautionary tale is here because we all searched for ticks when we got back from our hike, the hike that I shall now refer to as The Infamous Hike: bee sting, tick bite and naked dude (more on him later), oh my! A colleague of mine wrote to say that these are the stories that couch potatoes love, "in order to justify their indolence!"

I am glad to help in any way I can.