I was washing the dishes when I started feeling cold. Not the put-a-jacket-on type cold, but the I-think-I’m-coming-down-with-something kind. A short time later, the aches came, along with the feeling that I needed to lay down and do nothing except be miserable.
When Daniel woke up from his nap, we went outside. He and Hannah played in the sandpit while I laid on a picnic blanket soaking up some vitamin D to hopefully make me feel a bit better. I did feel better while I was out there, but it was unfortunately short lived.
The next day was my fortnightly all day uni day. I always have to go to uni once per week for 2 hours, but every other week I have a four hour workshop an hour after my usual class. There was no way I’d last the whole day.
I dropped the kids off at preschool and daycare, came home, and laid on the couch, missing my lecture. I popped some Panadol before heading out to my workshop so that I’d hopefully feel well enough to participate. Workshops are compulsory after all. Usually if someone is sick on the day, they can just go to a workshop on a different day, but mine is the very last one, so that’s not exactly possible. I’m sure I could get a doctors certificate and then have to do some sort of other make up work, but we were making bread. Every time I try to make bread, it turns out to be almost rock solid, caved in on the top, and not quite edible. We were also doing sciencey things with the bread, but I was mostly interested in the bread making itself.
Lucky for me, the Panadol did it’s job and I was ok for the whole workshop. My awesome lab partner (who funnily enough, worked for the same company in the same building at the same time as Aaron many years ago, but they didn’t know each other) and I followed the instructions to a tee, even taking the temperature of the water so it was exactly 35 degrees, in hopes that our bread would be awesome.
Only it wasn’t. Out of the whole class, our bread was the very worst. It wasn’t nearly as bad as all the loaves I’ve tried to make at home, but it wasn’t good either. I guess I’m just not a bread maker. Sigh.
That tiny loaf in the middle, that’s the one Sophie and I made. As you can kind of see, each one was slightly different. From left to right: Positive control (had flour, yeast, water, salt and all of the bread improvers), negative control (just flour, water, yeast, and salt) Vitamin C (F, W, Y, S, and vitamin C), Enzyme (F, W, Y, S and an enzyme that helps feed the yeast), and Fat (F, W, Y, S, and lard). Even the negative control loaf was bigger than ours 😦
The Panadol started wearing off on the drive home and as soon as I walked in the door, the couch was calling me.
Yesterday I felt even worse. I laid on the couch all morning while the kids watched Hiro of the Rails and played trains in the living room, getting increasingly bored with each passing minute. As soon as 9 o’clock rolled around, we went outside so they could play in the sandpit, on the swings, and on their little tricycles.
“Uh-oh, you’ve got the crazy eye too.” Aaron said when he came home from work. “My right eye is all red and gross.”
I hadn’t noticed my wonky eye. I mean I guess I felt that it was uncomfortable, but amongst the chills, aches, fever, and gigantic swollen and sore tonsils, the eye wasn’t on my radar.
“Oh my gosh!” I said when I looked in the mirror and saw one bright red eye with pus coming out of the corner and bottom.
I opened my mouth as wide as I could and had a look at my tonsils. The right one was still gigantic, and the left almost normal. Both had pus all over them.
“I think I’d better go to the doctor.” I said to Aaron.
45 minutes later, I was back home with eye drops for the conjunctivitis (pink eye), and a 50 tablet pack of antibiotics for my very bad case of tonsilitis.
At least I’m on the mend now. My fever is gone, and I think I’m feeling a lot better. It’s hard to tell since I’m currently laying in my bed, and laying down always made it a bit better, but I’m not freezing or achey. Just tired, which is understandable since I tossed and turned all last night and the night before.
Ugh, I hate being sick. How Aaron and I got pink eye and the kids didn’t, I have no idea.
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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson
Mommy Adventures 
Your bread will come out lighter if you sift the flour before you measure it. If you don’t have a sifter available, stir it up so it is more separated and less dense and spoon it from the container and let it fall into the cup from above while shaking the spoon a bit so it separates more as it lands and doesn’t pack densly in the cup. Scrape any piled above the cup off the top with the spoon handle before adding to the dough so there is no extra.
We weighed the flour so we had exactly the right amount and then fluffed it up together with the yeast and vitamin C before adding the precisely measured and at the right temperature water. So yeah, I don’t know what we did wrong 😦 It was a precise scientific type bread making.
Glad to hear your feeling better, pink eye is the worst at least the kids didn’t get it.