Work? What's that?

Today, I am back at work after a week off. I wasn't supposed to have a week off - it was only supposed to be 4 days - but I was so sick on Friday that I lost my voice. I called a coworker and left a message telling him I wouldn't be in. I'm not even sure that he could make out what I was saying, but I'm sure that sooner or later it all made sense. Like maybe around 4:30 that afternoon when he put on his coat to go home, and I still hadn't shown up.

It was extremely strange to have a full day around the house with neither Chad nor the kids there. Liam and Mallory had gone to Gramma and Grampa's the night before for a sleepover, arranged long before Mallory infected me with her little germs. It sounds so great, right - eight hours! So much opportunity to do stuff! But then I went back to bed for a few hours, watched a bit of Ellen, and before I knew it the day was done and everyone was home again. I just didn't have the energy to do any more than that.

During my time off with the kids I did get a few projects done. Blind sewn and hung? Check! Drywall patched and painted where I erroneously told Chad to drill some holes four months ago? Check! I wish I could say as much for my personal projects, which have been lacking lately. I decided to start making another quilt from some leftover fabric scraps from my other projects. I got 14 of the 48 blocks done before I ran out of fabric. I don't want to buy any more since this is supposed to be a scrap project and besides, I only need a small piece of each fabric... buying even a 1/4 yard would give me tons of leftovers I just don't need. I went so far as to cut up one of Mallory's old dresses and include that (it fit perfectly with the brown/pink/orange/yellow colour scheme) but I am still way short. So that has been put on hold for a while. I also wanted to catch up on the kids scrapbooks, which have been sadly neglected lately, and I did get one page done for each of them, but that's all.

In other news, Mallory single handedly ate about a quarter pound of raw carrots yesterday when I put them out with a container of French Onion dip, something we have never even bought before, but Liam accompanied me to the grocery store and... well... you know how that goes. At least he was begging me for vegetable dip rather than cookies and candy, so how could I say no? If I had known that onion dip was the key to getting Mallory to eat her vegetables, I would have bought the stuff a long, long time ago. (I tried it myself, and I don't like it at all. I would say I will never buy it again, but if it works for Mallory, so be it.)