And then, the head cold from hell.

I woke up the day after Christmas feeling tired, very, very tired, but it WAS the day after Christmas, so I thought nothing of it. By noon, I felt the head cold coming at me like a freight train. I couldn't breathe by 1, couldn't speak by 2, and I left at 3. I had to go in on Friday because we are transitioning to a new payroll and benefits system. Wait, didn't I mention that I'm also now somehow sharing the HR duties with the CPA in the office? Yeah. We both find this highly amusing and alarming, because neither of us knows a damn thing about HR and we do have enough sense to know it. Which is why he found a 3rd party company to manage it, and it's going to be fabulous and comes with a lot of big company benefits I've missed, here in this Very Small Company, and God Bless Him for this.

But anyway, only a wet baby likes a change, so there has been wailing and gnashing of teeth among the staff, who were asked to: 1. Read an email. 2. Follow the Directions to do the Online Enrollment.

But of course there had to be some drama and some small glitches, the sign-up deadline was Friday at midnight, and my non-HR counterpart had taken the day after Christmas off, so I dragged my sick ass in on Friday morning to listen to the wailing from the lost souls and render aid where I could. After he arrived and we'd done damage control and the wails subsided, I took my sneezing, coughing, miserable ass home. I spent the rest of Friday and all of Saturday in a congested misery. I'm somewhat better today, but my sinuses feel full of concrete.

I've spent my snot-filled weekend looking ahead to 2014, and goals for the new year. We already have one anticipated highlight: My daughter will be graduating with her Master's degree, and will walk in Ft. Lauderdale in June. I see a long weekend in Ft. Lauderdale, combining my birthday and her graduation into a long weekend of family fun. A Facebook friend got a cool new bike, and I started thinking of my poor, neglected bike, gathering dust in the garage. I plan to ride it on New Year's Day, and get off my ass and out of the house on a regular basis. I need to get active again.

Starting an office job again was great in many ways, but has some negative side-effects. The major negative is that I sit all day at the office and come home tired, feed the dogs, take them on a short stroll, and sit again. I fell right back into the same hermit-like, sedentary habits, knowing it was happening, knowing it's not good for me, and yet, letting it happen anyway. I need to shake up the status quo, and that is my goal for 2014. I have Ideas. Some will work, some won't and I'll abandon them, but I am making plans, and it's not just the cold meds talking.