The Long, Long Winter!

Winter still has it's miserable icy hands wrapped around my throat. I will admit that I do not like cold weather. I don't even like cool weather, except in the middle of a hot spell, but this year is ridiculous. Here it is February 26th and the morning temperature was 27 degrees below normal. This afternoons high will be about 22 degrees below normal. Veracruz, Mexico is 77 degrees under sunny skies with a low tonight of 63 degrees. AAAAHHH, that's much better. I am close to the breaking point, and when I break, it won't be pretty. I'll set the thermostats up as high as they will go and when it reaches around 90, I'll dance around in my shorts.

Not only is the weather cold, I have contracted the second cold since early January. Spending an extended time in the ER waiting room at Citrus Memorial with a number of sniffling, sneezing, coughing kids, Helen observed that we would soon succumb to the germs, and we did. I was too sick to attend certification classes at AARP TaxAide and had to study on-line and at home. Lat Monday at TaxAide I had a couple who were fighting the effects of a cold, but came to have their taxes done. I could see that they were not well, but stupidly chose to help them anyway. They sneezed and wheezed, and we sat there passing contaminated papers back and forth without my giving it a thought. I finished their taxes and soon they were gone and forgotten.

I remember them Tuesday afternoon when I developed a dry tickle in my throat that turned into a cough by late in the day. Wednesday I was due to do taxes at the Inverness Library. I stopped at Walgreens to get some cough medicine, anti-bacterial hand spray, and cough drops. I was hoping that perhaps I could get done early and head home to bed. It was not to be.

Thursday I finally got out of bed at 2:25 PM and had some hot corn chowder. Then I checked my email, finished my juice, and went back to bed. In bed, out of bed. In bed, out of bed, That was the rest of the day.

Today, I feel great!!! Except for the constant cough and the slight headache. I think I'll have to do taxes with a mask and rubber gloves.

We moved from Massachusetts to Florida to avoid winter. I don't know how much more of this winter I can take.