Christmas & couscous

I had a really hard time this weekend, especially yesterday, missing my family when I imagined them all together, laughing, eating, telling stories and jokes. I broke down..multiple times. I woke up sad yesterday and put on Christmas songs and just could not hold the tears back. Of course, Dekel was there for me, but there is not much he can do when I'm missing my family, but listen and hug me. I tried staying busy to occupy my thoughts so I wouldn't keep realizing it was Christmas Day and I was not with my family & friends, but it was not easy. Not that every single day isn't hard without them, but I get emotional esp during the holidays. We thoroughly cleaned the house & even sat and had to concentrate for 2 hours to do a practice timed GMAT test online. (we began a 10-week GMAT prep course on Friday)

All in all it was a tough weekend, but I made it.

For the past couple days I have had a sore throat, and just kept taking medicine, using throat lozenges and drinking mint tea to sooth the pain and was really hoping it would pass. I even tried letting a shot of vodka slide down my throat to numb the pain, Dekel's idea. Didn't work. I woke up at least 3 times in the middle of the night last night not even able to swallow and went to the doctor this morning to hear that I have tonsillitis. Ouch. I made the mistake of looking up tonsillitis and it made me want to run to stick my face in the toilet to throw up, but I knew that would be painful, so I withheld my disgust. My advice, don't look up what tonsillitis looks like.

I read on Vicky's blog the other day that she was going to go into surgery within the next couple of months to get those suckers removed. I'm jealous?

Anyways, so this whole tonsillitis thing is making eating a challenge. I decided to create the most amazing lunch ever. Prepare yourselves to drool =) I whipped up couscous, a traditional Israeli side dish, but I didn't leave it at that. After cooking the couscous (which is seriously the easiest thing in the world to cook), I added tomatoes, green onion, avacado, dried cranberries, lemon juice, salt pepper and a dash of olive oil. oh em gee, amazingness. There are many more ways to make this dish, think feta cheese, balsamic vinegrette, chicken, etc. In addition to the couscous, my throat was begging for something warm, so I created soup. Well, I didn't create soup, but made it differently than I usually do. I peeled and cut potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, carrots, cut up purple onion and added these veggies to a boiling pot of water seasoned with chicked flavored soup powder. Simple, but delish and just what the doctor ordered.

Now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go attempt to forget that my throat feels like its on fire and watch some reality tv.