Sometimes I feel so good about myself, I make plans to get so many things done, help people, and just get my life under control. Then the world laughs, and laughs. There are some gross things mentioned in this post, so if that bothers you just skip this and I will do some organizing and hopefully crafting next post.

Luckily I have a job that gives me over 20 vacation days each year, the first year I was hesitant to take any days off so I rolled over the maximum number of days, 22. That means that there are a certain number of vacation days that I ‘have’ to take each years since I can only roll over 22 days. I believe I was under the threshold anyway, however I decided to take 3 days this week, the week before Christmas, anyway. Since I will be working on Saturday I was also given Friday off as a ‘comp day’. I Proctored an exam on Monday, hopefully they passed I know they were concerned. My cousin in Jersey called me while she was heading home from a funeral and expressed that she was behind on things and needed a breather to catch up. She does live 6 hours away, I calculated my plans and offered to head her way on Tuesday.

I left my house about 3:30am, I planned on leaving at 2 however I did not get to sleep early enough for that to be reasonable. The drive down was lovely, I had caffeine, a free breakfast sandwich using points from Burger King, and I arrived about 11 am. I helped out with her laundry, she fed me a lovely beef wrap with Tzatziki Sauce on it for lunch, I was only able to eat about 1/2. She and her husband took a nap while I entertained one of her daughters, the dog, and worked on folding more laundry. I don’t feel like I helped a lot, however they were very appreciative. We went over to her parents for dinner and to see them, I had an amazing sesame wheat noodle dish that I really enjoyed. She thought it was the last embroidery class for her other daughter, I turns out that is next week. We had ice cream at the store across the way, which tasted amazing. I was a bit queazy at this point, partially because I get motion sickness anyway and she did not know how to turn the heat down in her rental car. After dropping her back home, I decided that it was time to head out. This was about 6pm, so with pitstops I thought I would get home about 2am.

Less than an hour into my drive home I realized I needed to either find a pitstop or get some anti-nausea medication ASAP. Fortunately there was a Dollar General that I immediately stopped at. I purchased the medication, had a pit stop, and asked the manager if I could stay in their lot for an hour to get the medication a chance to kick in. She said I just had to be out of the lot for their delivery in the morning. I set a timer for 1 hour, put my audiobook on (knowing that my phone was going to die out because the charging cable was being stupid), pulled my jacket over my head to block out the light and keep heat in, and actually fell asleep. 40 minutes later, I know because of the alarm on my phone, I woke to a knocking sound on my window. Two officers were there to check that I wasn’t drunk, drugged up, having a medical emergency or…you know…dead. I had a lovely, awkward, conversation with them letting them know I had spoken to the manager, giving details about why I was out that way, that I didn’t want to Technicolor Yawn on the road, etc. They accepted my explanation, wished me a safe drive, after running my license of course, and I tried to get back to my rest since I still wasn’t feeling well.

I laid back down until my timer went off, saw that according to my car’s navigation I had less than 18 miles until the next rest area. I put my seat back up, buckled in, and merged onto the 3 lane highway going about 55 MPH. Then I, for the third time, proved that you can get sick while driving a car. Yay. I made it to the next rest stop, washed my shirt in the sink, and began my evening of catching 1-2 hour naps at various rest stops along the way. After I got on route 86 which is the highway I like the most since it is a straight shot home from there….though still another 3+ hours away, I stopped at the nearest rest stop and actually wound up sleeping/dozing for about 4 hours. This brought me to about 8 am. There was a Walmart about 30 minutes away and my paycheck dropped at 8:30am. Surprisingly I did not smell that bad so I went in, bought wipes for my steering wheel and dashboard, and myself, an outfit to wear home, a couple of treats (because damned if I didn’t deserve them), and the fabric I needed to bind my aunt’s quilt. I felt actually human after that stop, and got home abut 12:30pm. Yes I had about an 18 hour trip home. I might have been better off staying at my cousin’s like she offered, however I realized (after sleeping the rest of the day an most of Thursday) that my stomach has not been acting really great this week anyway so I might have just been sick there. Either way, for a rough trip this could have been so much worse. No one was hurt, I was able to get some rest, I got a new outfit and some kicking MukLucks slippers that I am never taking off, and I funny story to tell…as long as I figure out a better way to put the Technicolor Yawn part.

Wednesday I was supposed to finish the ornaments I made with the 2025 metal beads I ordered…but I didn’t feel well and Amazon doesn’t know where those beads got to…yay. This did give me a chance to message one of my other cousins wives to see if their oldest daughter was into a book series I enjoyed when I was younger, she assured me that she and my cousin don’t have their shopping done for their kids yet…and that the books hasn’t been read yet so I will get to ordering that ASAP.

Today is Thursday, I did manage to get to my libraries holiday party, lovely food that I could not finish because my stomach is still iffy, as well as a lovely present from the library board and director. Hopefully there will be some leftovers on Saturday so I don’t have to worry about lunch that day. Tomorrow is Friday and I still have the day off, right now I plan on trying to bind my Aunt’s Quilt, make Chapstick holders for random cousin’s kids, put together an email from myself and my sister with brief highlights about our year (and an apology that presents will be in 2026), and hopefully get the beads to finish up the ornaments.

All in all, I have a full fridge and freezer, vacation time to relax and hopefully feel better, and the grace to have everything completely mess up but nothing major that I have to panic about. Maybe I will get my last bookcase picked up, finish the epilogue on the book I am reading, get the binding on my aunt’s quilt, make ornaments and chapstick holders. Maybe I’ll sleep the day away, get over whatever is going on with my stomach and doom scroll through some cute pet videos. Either way I have so much to be thankful for, and most of all I can be thankful that my horrible trip back had no lasting consequences….though I wonder if my name/license is in the NJ database as ‘really weird, but mostly harmless’. LOL.

Remember to Live Life a Little More Abstract, the cops are just doing their jobs…mostly, and always have an audio book about “Early American Sex Scandals” playing while sleeping off your motion sickness in the Dollar General Parking Lot. Happy Holidays no matter what you celebrate!