Sick and tired of being sick and tired.

If you know me very well at all, you probably know that I get sick. A lot.

Darn kids. The only thing my students share freely is their sick germs. If I could teach them to be that generous with other things, I would have 36 philanthropists on my hands. But, alas...that's not the case. Baby steps, I guess.

The sickness has been creeping up on me all week...started with the scratchy throat...then a runny nose...feeling tired and drained...then yesterday-BAM! It all came to the surface. It actually served as a great inferencing lesson for my students. I was sneezing incessantly, coughing up a lung, and sounding like a very nasally male singer (p.s. Try saying the spelling word "noon" and have people understand you. Virtually impossible.), and one of my students still asked, "Mrs. Bunte, are you sick?" [....insert pause while I consider how to make this a teachable moment rather than just saying 'Duh.'] Rather, I said, "Let's be a detective and make an inference--that's like a prediction or a guess--what are your clues that would make you think I'm sick?" I'm not sure I'll be turning out any private investigators from my third grade class.

Despite being sick, I have still managed to hold on to my appetite. Case in point: we went to Chick-fil-a last night. It was one of these moments: "Yeah, I'll have a large bowl of chicken noodle soup, some fries, a Dr. Pepper, and a chocolate shake...[looks at other person]...Oh, did you want something, too?"

I also haven't lost my sense of humor to my sickness. For example, we've been planning to have our [first ever] Christmas card pictures taken by my friend Amanda. It's been planned for over a month. Rather than cancel due to the fact that it's not unlikely that I'll have snot running down my face or be holding a kleenex in my hand in every shot, I'm delighting in the fact that our Christmas cards will be extremely spirited because (after countless sneezes and nose-blowings), our picture will look a little something like this:

(That's me on the right. Cute, eh?)

In other news, I learned a very valuable life lesson. Just because the Great Value (Wal-Mart brand) of Kleenex is in the cuter box and slightly cheaper: Don't. Do It.

In a related story, Wal-Mart has come out with a high-quality sand paper product. It is packaged in a cute box and can be found in the tissue section of the store.