7 Hours Off

I had 7 hours off yesterday, free from kids, responsibilities (other than a little laundry), and everything. I was sick, sure, but the 7 hours were so sweet. Lupin was my companion, and he is absolutely the best for lying around doing nothing with. He totally approves of it, and seems to be perplexed why we ever do anything but lie around--except when it's his breakfast or dinner time. 

I started the day by going back to sleep. Then I needed breakfast and came ever so close to skipping out to Tudor's Biscuit World (one block away) to get biscuits and gravy for $0.99. I mean, I was soooo close, too. I told Lupin, "Lupin, I'm going to Tudor's to get biscuits and gravy. I'll be back." I put on a big floppy hat so nobody would see my sick hair, and threw the change on  the dresser into my pajama pants. It was enough for THREE biscuits and gravy. I was already contemplating what specialty biscuit I would get to go along with my 1lb of gravy-biscuit. 

Well, then I finally did something smart. I quickly (before my brain could catch up with me) tweeted to YumYucky, who has been gracious enough to become my sponsor of sorts. I stated what I was getting ready to do, threw in "there's no good food in the house," and "Help me!" ... As you can imagine, after tweeting that cry out for help, I couldn't allow myself to go through with it. 

I had to re-assess: there were no eggs in the house, and that's what I really wanted. The other problem was that I had gotten too hungry by going back to sleep instead of eating. I decided since I had been about to scrape the bottom of the barrel for breakfast, anything remotely healthy with fiber in it would do now. Decided on a whole wheat english muffin, not toasted (I wanted some FAT), but buttered conservatively and fried on the skillet. And with TWO tablespoons of all-fruit jelly. Caution to the wind!!! 

While it was frying up, figured I better decide on second breakfast too before another crisis was on the verge. I'd been wanting to make granola for... let's admit it, YEARS... so the day had finally come. Got out everything granola-y we had in the cupboard: oats, leftover pack of Wendy's pecans from a salad, dried cranberries, dried "tropical mix" (mango, pinapple, coconut), and flax. It was a lot of fun making up the recipe, and I added cinnamon, salt, and put 4oz honey, vanilla, and 1oz of warm water into a bowl to dissolve the honey. This way I figured the sweetness would get more evenly distributed, and the water would bake out anyway. Threw it in the oven at 275 and went to eat my Breakfast #1 in bed. 

The smell was tremendous. It was all I could do not to eat it half-done out of the oven door. I waited, but did eat it while still hot. And if you've never had hot granola, you gotta try it. It'll make you wanna go throw your arms around the nearest tree, I promise. 

With hot granola in my belly, and after tweeting a half dozen more times, I went back to sleep for TWO HOURS. It was awesome. By then it was 1, and I was down to 2 hours of freedom left. I figured it was time for a glorious shower, with nobody poking their head in to ask me to wipe their butt or anything. Ahh. 

I made sure that I was folding laundry when the family came home, so it didn't look like I layed around all day (while sick) and slept (imagine!). I was back to my old self that evening too, getting the kids to clean their room, do homework, read to me... It's truly amazing what 7 hours to yourself can do for a mom.