state of the amy address

I have been felled, yet again, by some kind of sinus thing, and I'm quite miserable. I was, as you may recall, exhausted for the entire latter half of the week - my theory is that my immune system was fighting this illness. Well, apparently my immune system lost, because I am stricken with relentless sinus pressure and congestion, and I'm just wiped out and in a fog. I took a nap mid-day - I just felt like I had no other choice. Needless to say, the Christmas tree will be with us for another week. :) Alas! I just hope I feel well enough tomorrow morning to go to the gym. We shall see.

I wish to share the following with my readers in hopes that you will be as indignant and disgusted as I: Yesterday around noon, Brian took a whole bunch of stuff to Goodwill. Among the items was a rather nondescript brown teddy bear of Nick's. He had had this bear since before he was born, and had never shown it the time of day, aside from one random week, months ago, when he was sort of attached to it. So, I felt rather confident that we could get rid of it with no ramifications. Apparently, I was wrong. Mind you - this bear had been in our basement for a couple of weeks before Brian took it to Goodwill, and Nick hadn't missed it. But amazingly, just a few hours after Brian donated it, Nick suddenly started asking about "Teddy." He just had to have him. He missed him, especially his sweet smile. I dodged his questions and feigned innocent confusion - "I don't know where he is, honey. He must have gotten lost." But Nick wouldn't drop it, and started to get really upset, to the point of tears. I know that he would have eventually been OK and forgotten all about it, but mommy guilt got the better of me, and I decided to run by Goodwill to see if I could rescue Teddy. After all, Brian had dropped him off just a few hours before. I went in clutching Brian's proof-of-donation slip and spoke to a woman who was not at all sympathetic, and really no help whatsoever. I described the bear, but she just looked at me blankly and claimed that there was no point in looking for it, because they had had a lot of donations during the day, and everything was just piled up willy-nilly in the back. There was obviously no way she was letting me back there to search. I mean, come on! You'd think she would have taken pity on my poor little boy who missed his bear! I asked if it could already be out in the store, and she said no. Well, just to be sure, I went back to the stuffed animal section and looked, and there it was, along with the other stuffed animals Brian had donated. I grabbed it triumphantly and made a beeline right back to that woman, telling her that the bear had, indeed, been out already. She then informed me that I would have to PAY FOR IT. Seriously. How grubby and low-class can you get? I mean, this bear had just been dropped off earlier that same day, and it was obviously mine - how could I make that up? And why would I? So, I had to go up to the counter and give Goodwill their precious $1 so that I could spring Teddy and take him back to Nick. Blech. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. The good news is that Nick was overjoyed, and has been clutching his bear lovingly ever since. :)