My profuse apologies to those of you who read this little...whatever...on a daily basis. I have a valid excuse but my poor little blog has been horribly neglected for too long. I'll try to get back into posting more this week. Promise.

Turns out my sickness had a cause. My kidney stones decided to come back for a visit. Bastards. Not only did they come back for a visit but they brought their friend kidney infection. Sigh. I should have known it was something like that when I started having that familiar back pain Wednesday but I chose to ignore it due to lack of health insurance at the moment. I know. Not good. Thursday I suffered through work at the Lobster with a slight fever (nothing major at the time) and just a teensy bit of back pain. By the time I got home I had a fever of 104 and was in so much pain I couldn't stand up. Eventually I called my dad, who was just leaving work, and we went to the emergency room where I spent the next five hours. Yeah. I was not a happy camper. Although, the doctor I had was cute (great southern accent) so that was a bonus. Then again, I'm not sure how attractive someone in pain with no make up in her sweats and one of those drafty hospital gowns really is. But I'm getting off of the subject. So for now I'm on Cipro for the infection and have a bottle of perscription Percocet (my new best friend) on hand for pain. I haven't needed one of those since 4 a.m. Saturday morning so I guess the little buggers have passed through. God I hope.

Next step is a follow up with my family doctor in two weeks. This is my second go around with these things so I know what he'll tell me. Lay off the cheese products, put an end to the coffee (horror!) and chocolate (No! Anything but that!), and make sure you're eating a balanced diet. Easier said than done.

Being cooped up for two days forced me to take drastice measures and go shopping with my mother and sister Saturday night. Now I remember why I don't do this on a regular basis. My philosophy of shopping is to know what you're looking for, go look for it, if it isn't there then leave. Bingo, you're done. Not my mom and sister. We first went to the Pfaltzgraff warehouse sale (they're based just outside of the town I live in) where I found some good deals on a new large bowl and some Coca-Cola glasses. Then we went to the new Target on the west end of town. Big mistake. We meandered around there for a good hour just looking at things. I did manage to pick up a rug for the kitchen and a picture frame so it wasn't a totally lost hour. After we left Target we went to the mall. But not the mall on the same side of town we were on, oh no, that would have been easy. Instead we drove back to the other side of town just to look at purses. Now I know you're saying, but Agategoddess, you're an admitted purse whore, I would have thought you would be up for that! Yes, under normal circumstances I would be, but this is my mother and sister we're talking about. They spent 45 minutes looking at the same racks of purses over and over again. Sigh. I saw one I liked and was done. My back was still a little tender too so that was making me cranky. At 8:30 (we left my house at 4) I was ready to go home.

At least I got a new purse out of it. A nice little Tommy Hilfiger number with varying stripes of yellow, red, white, blue and navy.