It happened on Friday. I woke up to a tiny tickle in the back of my throat. Seeing as we'd slept with the window open, I thought that some random particle of pollen had flown in and up my nose, since this city is FULL of pollen at this time of year (90% of which I appear to be allergic to). However, after sitting in the glass tower for the day and still feeling the tickle going strong by 4 p.m., I gave in to it. Sick. I woke up on Saturday morning with a full-blown head cold. FAN-freaking-tastic. Since, you know, we have nothing at all to get done right now and I can totally hang out in bed with bad TV reruns with my Kleenex and my cat.

Except that my bed has been sold, my TVs have been sold, my DVDs are packed, and my cat moved away.

Oh - and it's the WORST possible time to get sick, with only 24 hours to go before our house has to be emptied, scoured, and prepped for new inhabitants.

I have to say though, I'm not at all surprised that this happened to me. It's inevitable. I was sick throughout every single exam period for my entire B.A., every stressful event I've planned for LUNLF and their clients, every move...it's just how I do. Once the stress kicks in, my formerly healthy habits get thrown out the window and I succumb to a life of limited water intake, take-out food (and we're not talking about salad), too much coffee, sleepless nights, and exhausting weekends - the time I normally take to rest. The end result is a complete disaster. I am a walking trainwreck...but I have no one to blame but myself.

This move represents a lot of things to both of us, but mostly just a fresh start. We don't know what to expect, and we like it like that. But we have agreed on a number of things that we're going to incorporate into our lives, which this move is giving us the perfect opportunity to do. Taking care of ourselves, no matter what, will be at the top of the list. There was no good reason to stop buying groceries in...oh...July. There was no good reason to stop drinking my normal 2.5-3 L of water per day. There was no good reason to incorporate all sorts of bad things into our diets which we don't normally eat but are now paying the price for. But we did it anyways. Why? Because we are lazy, and living where we do makes it easy to be lazy.

Once we've moved, this won't necessarily be the case...and I can't wait. As some of you may know from the Swedish Chefs blog, Kurt and I love to cook. We can't hang a curtain or assemble Swedish flat-packed furniture together without wanting to kill eachother, but we can create a delicious meal without so much as a snarky remark or an eye roll. This is momentous. We spent last winter trying out new recipes and planning out our meals and it was fantastic. We've got big plans for a repeat performance once we get settled. However, with groceries being as expensive as they are there, it will be interesting to see how much we spend on food in our first month. I've decided to gradually move towards becoming a vegetarian, and red meat, pork and drinking cow's milk were the first to get the axe. This will help. We're bringing our rice cooker, our favorite pots and utensils, and a whole load of brand new cookbooks for inspiration.

But...I digress.

In short, I feel like crap, but it's all my fault, but it doesn't make it any less awful or any less badly timed.