It doesn't mean anything, except "mmm, coffee." On the surface it sounds like my olfactory outage yesterday may have been congestion and not COVID.

I couldn't smell some pretty strong things before bed, and that was a little concerning with the Omicron variant and all that goes with it. I have been trying to avoid the hypochondria of someone with a few ails reading an article about serious illness with some overlap. Especially when the overlap is very common and happens in reaction to a variety of things. The dog dander, household dust, probable mold and fungus we can't see in our walls or floors, and common colds or other simple illnesses--they all cause congestion, which leads to sneezing and sore throats, and even headaches, which can wear you down until you feel fatigued.

The loss of smell is not common in all of that, but does happen. Enough nose slime builds up or crusts in place (sorry, trying to be a little gross, but not too gross...it's an icky thing the body does, but all of our bodies do it...), and the nose doesn't work right. Maybe it gets blocked and breathing starts to go through the mouth. Maybe it whistles a little. Maybe...you can't sniff or smell things because of the stuff in the way.

I cracked open my eyes this morning, stretched and yawned, and was hit with the welcome aroma of brewing coffee! Our bedroom is above the kitchen, but the windows are closed, so the odor had to work its way through our house, up the stairs, and through our slightly cracked door to where I sat on my bedside. It was a delightful relief, and a motivator to put on clothes and get some.

I dashed out and scraped the few inches of ice-covered snow from the sidewalks and about half of our driveway apron. There was no snow emergency declared, so we'd left our Jeeps in front of the house, and plows have been by to create a little crease around them and our neighbors' cars. I put the trash bins out on the clear half of the driveway, and will put the vehicles back there after I clear the other half. It is cold and a little windy, but was a nice, crisp shot of air from outside. Cleared (or froze) my airways for a bit, which was nice. Back inside I clogged right up again, giving credence to the "environment not infection" idea.

We're still looking forward to taking our tests this afternoon. A swab around the inside of your nose is easy enough to do, especially if you have big, wide nostrils like I do. We'll have to answer the "any symptoms" question differently today. And, even though my sense of smell has returned, there's that possibility of short symptoms due to the vaccine working. I'd much rather have the result come back positively for negative than find out we've had it. There are all the unknowns that go with the exposure, long damage to the body, that I'd rather avoid than start speculating on, or be actually impacted in the future.

The kids are both snotty, in a nasal sense and with attitudes, but are settled in for the day. We're both working, but with lighter loads than normal. I'm feeling much better, fatigue-wise, and my congestion isn't as impactful yet. Still there, but probably also still just artifacts of recirculating air in our likely-needs-a-good-cleaning forced-air HVAC system.

Everyone seems healthy.