Feeling much better...

thanks to the wonderful comments and encouragement I've received over the past few days.  I'm very behind in my journalizing, but I'll be catching up over the next couple of days, since I'm off work! 
(Well, I'm off Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday...yay!)
It feels like I've dropped off the face of the earth since last week...I took Friday off to get the birthday shopping done and I was sooo sick...and Saturday (birthday party day) seemed the longest day in history:
Saturday 11 a.m.:  Having dragged myself through the shower, I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a diet Pepsi and several different types of cold medicine, choosing the drug cocktail that will get me through the day...
Noon:  Baking birthday cake while my cousin dropped by to bring my daughter her birthday present early...
1 p.m.: Stressing out as I realize I need to get ready for another cousin's wedding (scheduled for 2 p.m.)...
2:01 p.m.:  Showing up for the wedding late, very embarrassed as my daughter and I walk into the church right in front of the wedding party...
4:00 p.m.:  Wrapping presents...
4:37 p.m.:  Sprinting out of the house as I remember that I was supposed to pick up the chicken from the Wal-Mart deli at 4:30 p.m....
5:15 p.m.:  Still in line at the deli...
5:40 p.m.:  I get to the party late, where my entire family is waiting, veeerrrryyyy grumpy and hungry.  I hear lots of, "Why did you tell us the party started at 5:00?  Why did we get here at 5 and you weren't even here?"...I respond with a glare to my bossy big brother, and collapse on a couch in the family room...
7 p.m.:  Lying on the couch again, snickering helplessly, as the same bossy big brother accidentally takes a drink out of my cup and frantically demands some rubbing alcohol or other disinfectant to gargle with so as to get rid of my "sick germs"...
9 p.m.:  My daughter has opened all her presents, and she's once again been hopelessly spoiled by my family...okay, and by me, too...but she's happy and loved and that's what's important...
11 p.m.:  My daughter, my grandmother, and I, are out at the gym helping my mom decorate some more...my mom only ever wants us to help her, and no one else...she exclaims out loud at how smoothly it goes when my grandma and I help her, to which I reply (but in a nice way)..."That's because you're a control freak and we let you boss us around", and my grandma and my daughter concur...
11:40 p.m.: In the middle of the night in Fairdale, Ky., yanking up weeds (by hand!) on a long hilly church driveway...Don't ask!
Midnight: Collapsed in bed. 
I did it!  I made it through that day, and thank goodness my daughter's party turned out well...and the big 12 is coming up Wednesday for 'just us' to celebrate, and my nose isn't running at all anymore! (um, was that too much information?)
We can always find something to be thankful for...!