cabin fever

I'm beginning to go a bit stir crazy. It's been raining for days now. I've been plagued by a nasty virus the better part of a week. And just as I start to feel better, Alex catches the same bug, so I have to play Nurse Nancy for both of us. The rain I don't mind; I love it, actually -- always have. It's the being sick part that I'm, well, sick of. But I've found a few ways to occupy myself, when not sleeping or nursing one or the other of us.

I've been compiling photo albums from the mass of old photographs I gathered recently from my mother's house. Many of the pictures had been in old decaying albums, while many more were simply loose and disorganized. My mother had no interest in reorganizing this collection, so I, ever the organizer/archivist, took on the project myself. So far I've completed two albums and I've probably only processed about 1/4 of the photographs. (The snapshots of the grandchildren go on for days.) This will keep me busy for quite some time.

I've also been spending inordinate amounts of time on my computer researching ports-of-call in the Mediterranean because, get this, I'm going on a Mediterranean cruise this summer with my mother, sister, and younger brother (no spouses, just siblings). What an absolute dream! We'll be visiting destinations in Italy, Spain, Monaco, France, Tunisia, Malta, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey. I'm veritably obsessed with researching each port and its outlining areas, gathering information on possible excursions. (Cathi, Chris, and I will confer in about a month and make our plans accordingly.) I'm interested in both fiction and non-fiction books about Mediterranean travel and history, so if you have any suggestions, please pipe up. (I do have a guidebook by Lonely Planet already.)

So, being housebound hasn't been entirely unproductive, thankfully.