Now, the joy of diabetes means that fighting a cold is not something that comes easily to me. It means while everyone else is recovering nicely, feeling terrific and playing in the livingroom, I'm insufferably grumpy and covered in blankets or wishing I was. This morning, Russell noted,"Mom, your cold must be bad, because you can't hardly talk." Well, yeah, I had to tell him to come in the room about 6 times before he finally heard me after he knocked this morning, so yeah, Mom's got a touch of laryngitis. Makes yelling down the hall to see if a kid has his shoes on pretty amusing,"Russell, do you have your socks and shoes on yet?"

After I drank half a quart of water, coughed up a bucket of phlegm and had a large diet coke, I was able to speak, though not without my voice cracking. I sound like something the cat coughed up and left on the doormat and I have the memory of an advanced Alzeimer's patient.

And those stupid lotion/aloe treated tissues are a LIE! My nose is so raw that I need to be careful if I hang out at a butcher shop because it could be mistaken for a small bit of stew beef.

I have all these things I need to do...like laundry, sweeping, vacuuming and I have this body that wants nothing to do with any of it and makes me sleep way too much for my liking.

And I forgot my stinkin' sudafed. Oh, no, checked my purse again and SCORE! I've got drugs!

Drugs handled, I now turn to a matter of painstakingly high sugar content. Girlscout cookies came and I was thinking that it might not matter how many I eat because I can't taste them anyhow. And where'd I put my glucometer anyhow? If I hide it and don't take my sugars, that means they're low, right? (NOT!)

And then I'm feeling guilty about eating any crap at all because it's a church day. Okay, so it's Ash Wednesday and I'm thinking to blow off lent again this year. I usually have fasted, eating just vegetable protein and fish, but last year I couldn't realistically do that with the pregnancy and I'm just too tired and stressed to organize to do it this year, which makes me feel like I'm flaking out on God. Mike and I talked about a partial fast...like no ice cream or red meat, but with nursing, I really need the iron and the calcium. We don't eat tons of red meat, but we do eat it one or two meals a week.

I'm going to services today, so I'll see what feels right then, but I think I have enough going on right now and that I will fast as I can and not aspire to a 40 day fest of it, although my big ass could use the reduction in caloric intake.

After services, I feel like a dismal failure. But they gave us things to do to show deference to the season, like daily prayer, which for me amounts to a daily blessing counting, but my experience of spiritual cleanliness is always heightened by fasting and now, I'm in a quandry. Mike hates fasting. He isn't Christian, but a dedicated Agnostic and hates not getting to eat what he wants, but always goes along with me. He feels it's a way to be supportive, but he's the first to say,"Hey, can't we just let it slide this once?" And that alone could melt my resolve.

I could make him go celibate for 40 days at the end of which I'm sure he'd explode and frankly, so would I.

I don't know.

I think I'm going to try fasting without meat, but I'm going to retain the dairy products and eggs. If I go ovo-lacto vegetarian, I still get enough calcium and I can take my prenatals to make up the difference in iron. The fasting will have to start tomorrow, because I already had a turkey sammich, but it's a start. It'll give me some time to fly the idea by my chubby hubby.