If I were to post more often than once every two weeks, I might not have so much to say when I get there.

Or I might remember more of what I wanted to say when I get there.

Or something.

What was I saying?

On Tuesday, nearly two weeks ago, I was hit with a terrible, terrible cold. My throat started to feel a little scratchy, and by Wednesday morning it felt like I had been trying to swallow flaming swords all night. I limped my way through Wednesday and Thursday, doing what I had to do (including taking the kids into Jude's Kindergarten Valentine's Day party, where I tried to stay far away from everyone, and everyone probably thought I was extremely rude because I wasn't talking to them, but really I had just lost my voice and didn't want to make everyone sick!), then on Friday, oh bliss!, Jason was home. I spent most of the day in bed, sleeping. I was too sick to even read. I was too sick to watch movies. I just spent the day in a feverish fog, the few hours I was awake spent mostly just laying there, staring off into space and trying to get the weird feverish thoughts out of my head that seemed they would be circling in there until the end of time. Now I know what a plush teddy bear's life is like!

Friday night the fever broke, but Saturday wasn't much better, energy-wise. I didn't really feel like I got my feet back under me until Tuesday morning. But the difference was amazing! The only thing lingering from the cold is a dry-ish cough that pops up a few times a day. (This was probably exacerbated by me leading worship at church yesterday, and the practice time that went with it.) This cold is "going around", I guess, and I can be thankful for my essential oils and Ningxia Red, because the other people I have seen hit with it, have felt it linger much longer than what I had.

The same weekend I was incapacitated in bed, our X-Box died. This is also what we used for our DVD player, which is the main thing we immediately missed. We had just rented a few movies for the weekend, and were suddenly without a means to watch them! While I was prepared to go for a week or more without a DVD player, Jason surprised me by coming home the next day with a Wii.

I never cared for X-Box. It was okay, but to me, it was pretty much a time-waster. You had accomplished nothing productive when you were finished with it, and most of the games involved punching or shooting things with kind of inappropriate graphics, so I wouldn't let the kids play (or even watch) most of them. Because of this, Jason rarely even used it except when he was getting together with "the guys" to play Halo.

Granted, a good chunk of this is that I have a constant need to be useful--even my hobbies (with the exception of playing music) have a concrete product to enjoy at the end--a scrapbook layout, a knitted treasure, or a new song.

This very "Type-A-Personality" thing about me is what drives me crazy about video games. I can't knit while I'm playing it, so at the end of it, I've got what?

Nothing.

Most of the time, you can't even call it good bonding time in my opinion, and it promotes physical inactivity--something we don't need help with in the depths of winter.

However, I have to admit, the Wii has won me over.

The free games that come with it are innocent and fun: updated versions of Nintendo's "Duck Hunt," table tennis, pool, fishing, and (my personal favourite) cow racing, to name a few. And you don't just sit on the couch and move your thumbs--you have to shoot the pool cue, yank up the fishing pole, roll the bowling ball, swing the golf club. You have to get up off the couch and move. And they really are good family-bonding games to play, just like going to the bowling alley (which burned down in our town two years ago.) (Also, just like real ten-pin bowling, I managed to throw my ball back at my team-mates yesterday instead of down the lane. Oops.)

Then, just to seal the deal, Jason bought me Guitar Hero III on Saturday. How could I not love it after that?

Productivity? What's that?

Now, more than a week later, Jude is still our Resident Champion Boxer!