I wanted to make a better title, but this week was so ridiculous.  I recovered from last week’s cold and even did well walking around outside.  Compression shirts and thermals were amazing, so I wasn’t even cold in the snow.  Felt good enough to finish editing Darwin & the Demon Game and shrug off the ensuing sense of failure since I’m not publishing.  Headed into the mid-term week with high hopes.

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Then, I started getting the sniffles on Tuesday and my voice was raspy by the evening.  I didn’t have any of the big diseases, so it was a second, but different cold.  Worst part is that I had to read a test on Wednesday, which shredded my throat.  Drank enough honeyed tea to attract bees if it wasn’t so cold.  It was painful, but I still went through with work because it was an ‘all hands on deck’ week and the only thing that was wrong was I lost my voice.  Thing started coming back yesterday, so I’m doing better today.  Oh, and I woke up twice with nose bleeds, but those were stoppered by the CPAP mask . . . Don’t even try to imagine what my mornings were like if you want to keep your food down.

All the grossness aside, I would call this an average week.  I did finish the March posts and begin planning the April ones.  April is Autism Awareness Month, so I’m going to be using Tuesdays for posts about that.  Might re-post some old ones though.  This is what I was thinking about while I was under the covers trying to warm up after being outside at night for Pokemon Go.  The warm weather clothes still kicked butt, so it was really only my hands that had issues.  Makes me feel good about my son and I going out today, but we’re still keeping hot chocolate in the car and returning every 30-40 minutes to warm up.

For writing, I didn’t get to start editing Darwin & the Beast Collector.  I was going to do so at work when I wasn’t with my students, but the faculty lounge was too busy.  I went into the classroom, but that just resulted in meetings with my fellow Life Skills workers.  I got a little done on ‘Phi Beta Files’ when I managed to show up early, but that was really it for the week.  Probably for the best because my broken voice was driving me nuts to the point where it was hard to focus on anything unless I was with my son or working with my students.  I did have fun trying to answer questions through hand gestures, which the inquisitive student got a kick out of figuring out.  Going to half-days is always stressful for our kids, but they all did great and I’m proud of them.

Only other thing I was doing was dodging political conversations and succeeded most of the time.  My busted voice reminded me that I needed to conserve my words and not get into pointless debates.  Hacking coughs and whispering in a painful stopped people from talking directly to me as well.  Just not in the mood for the topic these days and probably won’t want to discuss it for a while.

This is a weekend with my son, so we’re going to relax.  He studied hard and we know he passed two of his mid-terms.  There’s a Pokemon event this afternoon and another running for the weekend.  So, we’ll go to the malls and parks a bit using our cold weather gear if needed.  Beyond that, we just want to play video games, watch a movie, and relax for the next week.  It won’t be too bad since we have Wednesday off for Lunar New Year, but there are already a bunch of appointments rearing their heads.

I will definitely begin editing Darwin & the Beast Collector this week. Need to print out more of the book as well, which is a pain.  I was going to try to print out a few chapters at a time to avoid using up the black ribbon.  Yet, I feel like I need more than the first three chapters for this coming week.  I’m nervous about this story because there were so many moving parts.  Some creatures didn’t get named early on and I had trouble keeping track of them.  The plot got changed a few times as I realized things were aiming in a different direction.  I ended up altering the entire ending at the final moment as well, which might work, but I can’t be sure.  There’s definitely going to be a lot of altering to do.  Mostly, I can’t figure out if I should change a character to be more suspicious or leave them acting normal until the end.  Have to make sure another ‘sign’ of things being weird is consistent too.  Ugh, my head is hurting already.

So, goals of the week:

1. Pokemon Go with son!
2. Watch a James Bond movie with son!
3. Play more Lego Jurassic World with son!
4. Get extra sleep.
5. Start editing Darwin & the Beast Collector.
6. Schedule a few April posts.
7. Avoid getting a third cold.
8. Finish Gameboy collage puzzle.
9. Choose a new streaming show to watch.
10. Keep drinking hot tea and hot chocolate to stay warm.