Monday, January 19, 2015

Sickling

I was tooting my own horn before Christmas when everyone was getting the crud that was going around. Earlier in the month, I had stocked up on all kinds of immune building potions from Whole Foods and I never did get sick. I told everyone about my natural cures... Mrs. Mother Earth.

 Well, last night, it caught up to me. I went to bed with a little bit of a sore throat but it really kicked in at 1:30 in the morning with my whole body aching like I had been hit by a semi. I couldn't get warm despite my flannel sheets and space heater.

Finally I decided to take a hot bath with lavender mint sea salt. I took a spoonful of honey, chewed on a on a slippery elm bark throat lozenge (special potions from Whole Foods) and by 2:00 AM I was back in bed asleep. Ha! I had kicked it!

Well- By 7:30 I was searching the Internet for which essential oils work best for flu like symptoms. Peppermint and Eucalyptus- perfect! I had both. I rubbed some on the bottom of my feet, on my temples, and directly onto my achy back. I was determined to knock this out, naturally. After all, this is one of my New Years Resolutions! New year, new medicine cabinet.

I fixed some hot water with lemon and honey, I took my vitamins....I used my Neti Pot. Apparently I added way too much salt to the water because it burned my nose and made my eyes water. Not pleasant. Those were all the "natural cures" I could muster. It wasn't working. I needed relief!

Around 9:00 I shuffled my way into the kitchen and made myself a blueberry smoothie for some sustenance. Anti-oxidants, right? Had to help. It took me about 10x as long as it normally would have to make the smoothie because I was so weak and achy. Every few minutes I'd have to pause and rest because I kept getting light headed. Back to bed.

 I tried to lay on the couch and watch TV for a change of scenery, but the lady's voice on the Today Show made me angry and hurt my head. Back to bed again.

Throughout the morning I had been texting my mom telling her how miserable I felt. She told me to take some cold medicine...that it wouldn't kill me just this once. I refused. I had to be NATURAL.

1:00 PM- I shuffled into the kitchen again and made myself some brown rice with chicken broth. The whole 30 minutes that it was cooking, I went back and forth in my mind about whether or not I should break down and take some medicine. By the time it the rice was ready, I'd had enough.

Thank God for 800 mg of Ibuprofen and my heating pad. It's now 2:30 PM and I'm good as new. I gave it my best shot.


Monday, January 12, 2015

This Is What 31 Looks Like

I'm THIRTY-ONE! 


Not quite as monumental as 30, but I'm very content as the years go on. I heard someone say today that I was "31 years young," and I couldn't help but think that I don't want to be years younger. I am much happier with myself the older I get. Although, it did hit me that I turned 21 TEN years ago. Makes me feel a little old, but that's okay I suppose.

I felt like the most loved girl in the world. My phone buzzed all day long with texts from my dear friends who I don't get to talk to near as much as I'd like. With all of them, we can pick up right where we left off. I am fortunate enough to run out of fingers on which to count all these people. That's what I love the most about birthdays....getting a quick hello from each of them. The fact that they all remember makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It means so much. I also cherished all the birthday love from those who I do have a chance to talk to every day.

It was a birthday week for sure. Kristi and Vicky surprised me with dinner and gifts two days before the big event. A small, cozy party is just what I wanted! Friday night I had dinner with my family and Josh at Cohen's Retreat. My parents slipped me some birthday cash and I spent every penny of it in the shops at Cohen's before I even left the building.


Saturday night Josh surprised me with tickets to see Swan Lake (the ballet) at the Johnny Mercer Theatre. I know it was probably the last place he wanted to be, so it meant even more that he arranged the surprise all on his own. I didn't even know the ballet was in Savannah!



He also gave me this tiny little snow globe looking aquarium called Sea Monkeys on Mars. He had my 1st grade class in mind when he bought it so that I could put it together at school. I thought that was the just the sweetest. You fill it up with water and these organisms (Sea Monkeys) come to life. Along with that, I got an audio book called "Sh*t My Dad Says," and it his pretty hilarious. Makes my drive to and from work go by in the blink of an eye. Another very original gift was a CD called The New Basement Tapes. Story behind that is...a notebook of Bob Dylan lyrics were found and a music producer hand picked five newer artists to put the lyrics to music. Marcus Mumford is one of them and his variations are my favorites. There is a documentary to go along with it if you're interested! Oh! And he also bought me some Pitcher Plant seeds to grow instead of buying flowers that will die. He gets a gold star for this birthday.

We also had an early dinner at the Gryphon Tea room and I single-handedly drank an entire pot of their Hot Cinnamon Spice tea.




Sunday, Grama and Bob came over to give me my b-day present and visit for a little while. Every time they come over, something gets accomplished around the house. This time they helped take my Christmas tree down (long overdue), change air filters, scrub toilets, and put in a new vacuum bag. What would I do without them??

He was "showing me how" to properly scrub a toilet.

Another year in the books!