Busy and sick week

Many of you may have wondered why MerryK hasn't posted for almost week? Well, the Clan is in the final preparations for Aragorn's birthday party on Saturday, which is actually his birthday (rare of late). As always, Purring Piggy is throwing a big one based on what Aragorn wanted - a Samurai party - with all of the uniforms, armor, weapons, food, etc. She is mainly doing the sewing and oversees the progeny while they make their own armor and weapons. MerryK has been focusing on doing most of the meals (a job which she normally shares with Aragorn, Adaon and Iceman) so the others can work on party things.

A couple of things have gotten in the way so far. One is that I have been home with the flu since last Wednesday (the day of MerryK's last post) and it has been hanging on for WAY too long, mainly the fever. My doctor thinks that multiple illnesses going on (I won't go into those), which may account for the length, but the flu usually hits me hard anyways.

Adding to the stress is that I am chewing into the vacation that I had plan to use on our trip to Yellowstone Bible Camp in August. Vacation for illness, you may ask? For those that may not know, a couple of serious illnesses and a hospital stay in the last two years have chewed away almost all of my vacation and all of my sick leave. I have accrued more of both this year, but it has been eaten away on various small stuff. I still had accrued approximately seven days of vacation so far this year and should have had accrued enough to get through our two week Yellowstone trip by the first week of August, but it looks like I will chew through all of that this week as the fever and upper respiratory stuff are hanging on. For those who may be going with us and are nervous about this, we will still do our best to be there, but by another means than vacation! We really want to go and would have gone last year (good thing as it turns out by all of our friends that are going this year!), but my hospital stay made that impossible.

Why all this stuff about me? Well, besides the stress of seeing me sick and burning precious vacation days, Purring Piggy relies on me to do a lot of the preparation, mainly the house stuff. Needless to say, I have not been able to help much other than a few things while sitting on the computer. Much more pressure on her. Then it looked like she might have come down with the same illness Sunday morning, but she only had the hideous headache for a day, but was A-OK by Monday (I am SO jealous!). Adaon was out-of-sorts for a couple of days, but appears to be OK on Saturday.

The latest victim is MerryK, who came down with the hideous headache today. Our hope is that she will be like Purry Piggy and will recover tomorrow. If not, or if any of the other progeny get sick , or if I am still not available to help out at the party, we may have to postpone the party. None of us wants that to happen.

We would appreciate any prayers you could give on our behalf.