Holiday Seasons Change

The other day it rained, it rained for over 24 hours straight. I can’t remember at the old house it ever raining that long unless it was storm season. This was just non-stop rain, no gusting wind and only a tiny bit of thunder when it first started. Other than that it varied from sprinkle to downpour but it never stopped.

Our road is a dirt road, as we’re out in the woods, and I watched the puddles build while looking out our window. We had gone shopping earlier in the week and I was thankful that we didn’t have to leave the house but I did feel bad for the FedEx driver that had to be out in in.

My son and granddaughter have been fighting a bit of a cold, she’s had the sniffles while he’s had a horrible cough. I was doing everything I could, taking vitamin c and drinking my tea with honey, I thought I was out of the clear when he started to cough less. I was wrong, I feel like crud. Possibly what got me was that last week, my sister invited us to go to the Christmas parade and since we’re new here, I was able to get off of work early enough to go. It was nice, having that time to sit and talk to my sister is always nice but to watch the kids and grandkids interact is so wonderful to me. It got a little chilly towards the end of the parade and I left my jacket in the car so I think this is what pushed my immune system to it’s limit. By the time this past weekend got here, I was full cough and cold mode. This one is a bit different, I get a migraine and then the cough just feels like it’s going to blow my head off! I have to hold my head when I know I’m going to cough but it’s caught me off guard a few times. With work, since I work on the phone, I told my supervisor that I brought my sexy voice to work but I just couldn’t make it through the entire day on Saturday. I told them, and it was true, that my breathing sounded like a purring cat. I left early and took more medicine and laid down. That night when I laid in bed trying to sleep more, my breathing gave way to a squeak  as I exhaled. Nothing will scare you more than waking up to a cat being almost nose to nose with you while they hunt down the source of the squeak. I jumped and I think my heart skipped a beat a few times. I got back up to try and get it to clear but it just didn’t and I ended up falling asleep in the chair in the living room.

I’m still sick today but I can’t leave work, I have to make it through (need the money). My ears have decided to play a part of my day today and have plugged up. So, I’m coughing, wheezing, sniffling, sneezing, sleepy (more-so with the medicine), feverish. I feel like I’m missing a dwarf.

Only ten more hours to get through and then I can try to sleep again. I might try soaking in a steaming tub! Wow, I can actually say that and it sounds weird. But maybe that will help my breathing and throbbing head? I want to feel better for Christmas, I don’t have to work this year and I’m super excited. I think I’m excited to know how it feels with being in a new place and all. Moving from the old house to here, so far it hasn’t torn me like I thought it would but this is a big holiday so it makes me a bit nervous. With my sister being so close now, I think that’s helped a lot. We’re going to eat Christmas dinner at her house and it’s nice to even think of doing that without having to worry about a long drive afterwards. We’ll have New Years dinner here and they can come over, that sounds nice too.

My other sister that lives exactly next door to this sister, weird enough she has only been over here twice and hardly reaches out to me. I thought it was just because they didn’t want to help with any of the heavy work but even when she knows that we’ve got the house livable and we’re keeping the front part of the yard up while we clear out the back….she still doesn’t reach out. I don’t know what else to do. She knows I’m here and I welcome her in so we’ll just have to go from there.

Oooh, I just found out that I’m making an apple pie for Christmas dinner. I haven’t done one in a long time. I’ll see if I can take a picture of it! If I don’t write anything before Christmas gets here, for those that celebrate it and even if you don’t, I hope you have an amazing holiday season! I’m hoping for one also.

Confusingly Sick

I think I’m getting a cold. Scratchy throat and runny nose, the runny nose has been here for a little bit but that’s been due to the blanket of pollen we’ve had for the last few weeks. Yet this scratchy throat that causes a little cough has thrown me off.

The stress of everything going on right now has really taken its toll on my immune system. I should have known better and done something about it before it got to this. Now I’m sitting here working while sniffling and clearing my throat. Tomorrow is a day off so maybe I can sleep some of it off.

Last night I made an emergency grocery store run to get the basics, orange juice and vitamin drops to keep my throat wet, but I forgot chicken to make a broth with. Being a good patient is not one of my strong qualities so normally I’ll close myself off in my room and stay away from anyone. It’s a good tactic so that everyone else doesn’t get sick but also it keeps them away from my bad attitude too.

When I was little and would get sick, I remember my mother would always make chicken soup if it was a cold, an upset stomach got tea and toast or ginger ale. Why do we always feel better when it comes from our mothers? Just like being sick at school or at work, we feel so much better just by walking through our doors at home. Maybe it’s just that we know we can relax and not put on a front of how we’re supposed to feel. At home, if we feel like sticking a tissue in our nose, we can darn well do it. But at work, you have to be proper with your actions and it’s uncomfortable to keep saying “excuse me” when you sneeze or need to leave the room to blow your nose. Don’t get me started on people that don’t leave the room to do that.

For my job, it takes a lot of talking on the phone and that is irritating my throat even more. I wonder how many of these drops I’m allowed to use in a day? Coffee was a must this morning but then it will be hot tea with honey. Honey is one of my go-to items when it’s cold and flu season, I truly believe it has healing powers because it does, at least with me. The biggest bottle I can find is the one that ends up on my shelf at the beginning of the season and this year, we actually had to buy a second one.

The weather this year has been so all over the place that there’s no way to know what’s going on and get prepared for it. But I can’t give myself too much flack for not knowing because if Mother Nature doesn’t know what it’s doing, how in the world am I?

I need to get some more tissues (the ones that stay cold) and they are in the other room. My body aches at just the thought of getting up to get them and no one else is awake yet. I hope it clears up quickly and Mother Nature gets her plans back in order. I’m ready for a nice summer.

Sick as a Dog?

Where did the term “sick as a dog” come from? Without having looked it up yet today, just in my mind, it doesn’t sound right. The words keeps passing over and over and yet they still sound just as silly.

Waking up with a non-stop nose and scratchy throat this morning just brought the term to mind when I said it to myself. Who would put the two together and why would we say it again. Many dogs that cross my path are extremely jovial. Head pat and a you get a tail wag so if you’re sick as a dog, why doesn’t a simple head pat make you feel better? A dog can’t tell you when they have a scratchy throat or chills. A human can normally tell when their pet is not feeling well but to a stranger, they might not be able to tell the difference. So how do we associate our being sick with that of a dog?

Maybe in the early years, dogs were watched to see if a wide spread illness was coming into the city, like taking birds into the mine shaft or someone saying that a storm is coming because their bones are stiff. Did we treat our dogs as a higher knowledge being and react to what they did on that particular day? Sounds just as silly saying it as it does to type it.

At my house, we have two cats that rule the roost and sometimes I do think I hear them talking to me. Call me a crazy cat lady but when a meow is said  in a certain way, I just seem to know what they want. They’ve been in my life for 11 years now and they’re part of my lineup of children you might say. I talk to them and they talk back; believe it or not, they’ve helped me through quite a bit. But when they are sick, I know and it’s not the same as a human. So I would never say “sick as a cat”.

I guest it’s just one of those funny sayings that you find yourself thinking about just seconds after it’s come out of your own mouth. Now I’m trying to think of other silly things I say that don’t make any sense, but find my brain is not working while on cold medication. I’ll probably read this when I’m feeling better and be shocked at just how jumbled it truly is. Maybe that will remind me just how “sick as a dog” I was.