There was a plan.

While it was nothing too elaborate, in my head there WAS a plan in place with every intention to spend only a couple of hours over the (last) weekend to get back to blogging. To at least publish ONE post.

Now that didn’t happen , did it? 

In a circumstantial twist of fate, no blogging was done as the days went by. Just like that, last week flew by.  And now, it’s mid-week and we are hitting the eve-eve of another upcoming weekend yet again. 

I’ll tell you what happened though: Last Friday happened to be one of the most stressful days I’ve had in a long while. With Spud being unwell from a nasty flu, it was non-stop panic-manic the moment we opened our eyes to start the day.

As soon as I had my first morning con-call, we rushed to Spud’s and Silver Bullet’s doctor appointment.

Work was at the back of my head; I had 2 major deadlines which had to get done by the end of the day.  Thinking of it and then having to wait around for 45 minutes to see the doctor made me very antsy. When we were done with the doctors, we had to go somewhere else to pick up the medicine.

With other small errands that needed to be done at the same time, we almost forgot to pick Squirt up from school! I then sent myself off my merry-way to pick up Squirt while Silver Bullet headed home with sick Spud in tow. That was that. 

Or so I thought. 

Right after I sorted the kids out in front of the TV, I realised that I had left out 2 important things I needed to have with me to get my work done: my phone charger and my laptop adapter. I had absentmindedly left them on my desk at the office the day before when I was rushing to get home.

The best part of the story: Both my phone and my laptop were left with only 20% worth of juice and I had no spares with me. That could potentially last me no more than 30 minutes. Tops.

There!

That was a brilliant dimwit in action right there. Deadline looming and my phone charger as well as my adapter were 1 hour away from the office. And I had 2 kids with me; one pretty darn sick. The thought of hauling them back with me to the office crossed my mind.

But that would be stupid –  I would lose precious hours trying to get to my deadline.

Fortunately for me, Silver Bullet was still at home then. He was rushing to get to his office, also about 1 hour away and was about to run late for his meeting. Sensing my stress, he suggested that I use his desktop that came with a large screen and CPU instead.

The only thing I had to do was to help him carry some stuff down from the attic so he can set it up. Easy enough.

Yayyy! Plus, I managed to borrow a phone charger from my next door neighbour. Problem solved. I could work on a desktop. I’ve got my files on my thumb-drive and I’ve got my corporate email in the clouds. That could work. 

Or so I thought.

Because after spending 10 minutes setting it up and turning it on, he asked me 2 seemingly very innocent questions: Do you need powerpoint and excel? 

Errmmm…I mean, I work only mostly with nothing but powerpoints and excels! Why would I need them? And then he gave me a punch and an undercut, “Ooops. There is no excel or powerpoint installed in this desktop!”

Can you feel the stress I was exuding?

I had a deadline and I had nothing!

Can I use you laptop I asked? Surely you’d have an extra lying around in the office.

No, he said…”

Resigned at the unbelievable fate I had to face, I surrendered myself to throw in the towel for not being able to deliver the work I had to do. It felt like a huge burden to bear. I felt like the ground should swallow me whole.All because I had stupidly forgotten to bring back my adapter since I left on Thursday.

That means not only could I not do my work,  I would have nothing and nothing to blog with for the weekend! So then?!

So then…Silver Bullet seeing the wreck I was in, very kindly relented and offered his office laptop to me. After asking for the 10th time if he was for real, there was ho haste. I had no time to waste.He left home for his meeting without his machine and left it with me.

I got on it and worked through continuously for 6+ hours without stopping. The kids, to their credit behaved really well and were both quietly watching TV the whole time. It was not something they get to do all the time. I was glad they did not make a lot of fuss. 

I was still working when Silver Bullet got home in the evening. We had to cancel our dinner plans because when I thought I had finished, I wasn’t. I had another important task to do. I felt bad that the kids had quite a late dinner waiting for me to get done. 

Now here’s the clincher: Right at that very moment I sent my last email and got up from my seat to join the family for dinner, I started sneezing. I sneezed and sneezed and sneezed. Three times.

As with the Dutch tradition, if anyone sneezes 3 times in a  row, they’ll respond with a “Morgen moei weer!”. That translates to “tomorrow nice weather”.  It just means that the weather will be predicted to be good the next day.

But then, I sneezed some more. I thought it was allergy.

And a hundred times after that. Non-stop. My nose and my ears were all blocked within hours of non-stop sneezing. It continued throughout the night and the whole of Saturday as well as Sunday.

Needless to say, I was a complete write-off over the weekend: glamorously snotty-nosed, a head full of snot and a voice as sexy as a croaking frog. It was a proper bout of cold with headaches and slight fever.

By then the reality of not having the adapter did not matter anymore. I could not have done anything even if I had it.  It was as if the universe has spoken: I needed to rest and I was to continue my digital detox for the weekend.

My weekend deal was sealed alright! Just as well since we’ve been amassed by thick fogs since then and in the last few days too.  

That was a very exciting close to the weekend, don’t you think? We all need some excitement like that. And I’m saying this sarcastically.

While I haven’t the foggiest idea what would come next though, I hope the next few days and weeks will bring about good tidings. Because by now, I am feeling pretty done with this cold.

Enough already.