Category Archives: Health and stuff

Under the weather

Posted on February 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

For the past two weeks my head has felt like it was stuffed with concrete — that oozed gallons of guck through my sinuses, down the back of my throat…. Gahhhh. Sniffling, coughing, blowing my nose constantly…when will it all end? And how can one head hold so much guck? I had a head cold similar to this one back in the summer, but it seems like I just got over it, and now here I am in the same boat again. This time I didn’t feel like I was getting sick — I had a little tickle in my throat, nothing major. But once the allergies kicked in to help — HELP!!!

Now my brother has come down with a cold of his own. Yeah, the “man cold.” He’s curled up on the couch clutching his box of tissues, wearing his parka with the hood pulled up. I made a run to the store for remedies — decongestants, cough suppressants, more tissues, etc.

And I decided I’d make some chicken noodle soup, because I had the “makings” in the house. I have no idea how it will turn out, but I opened a couple cans of chicken broth, added part of a box of bow-tie pasta, some frozen cubed roasted chicken breast, frozen peas, and frozen carrots. I reckon it’ll have to simmer a couple hours to go from frozen to hot, plus cook the noodles, but I really have no idea. Cooking is not my thing. But how hard can it be? Knowing those words often precede total disasters, I choose to remain optimistic. Time will tell.

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It's the simple things…

Posted on January 15, 2011 | 3 Comments

Magic Potions

I’ve mentioned elsewhere my enjoyment of cold, flavored coffee. And that when the occasion warrants, I’ll microwave it and drink it hot. It’s no big deal, but it is something I still look forward to every morning. It’s not just a necessary starter fluid for my brain, it’s a treat. I like treats.

In really cold weather I used to add hot chocolate mix to my coffee, or drink it plain. Lots of hot chocolate. But since I’ve lost my tolerance for massive quantities of chocolate, and since I seem to be more susceptible to cold in the post-menopausal world I now live in, I’ve had to find an alternative hot beverage. Of course there’s always more coffee, and straight de-caf for later in the day, but one of my new co-workers kept saying, “drink hot tea.” I’ve never been a big hot tea drinker, but that’s more about me always being easily overheated than anything else. I remembered a few teas that I liked — even hot — and, of course, they were “flavored” teas. (The common term is “herbal” tea.) I once found a variety in Austin called Mint Magic that I liked, but couldn’t find it in any local stores, so I had my friend, Tresha, bring me a couple of boxes when we met in Houston a few weeks ago to go to the Museum on Natural Science (my favorite place on the planet — have I mentioned that?). Then I discovered that Coffemate had a new flavor called Honey Vanilla Creme, which goes perfectly with the mint tea and my other favorite flavor, Sleepytime Green Tea. Yum. These are now my evening treats.

Magic Lotions

Cold weather tends to bring on a rash of dry skin, and in the afore-mentioned post-menopausal world where I now live, the cold feels colder and the dry feels dryer. Woe is me. I could foresee gallons of body lotion in my future. But wait. When I was living in Kentucky and going to a massage therapist for my aching back, she told me “use oil.” It worked in Kentucky (where it was a bit colder than in central Texas), but was always a bit too much for winters here — until now. It’s not necessary to go out and spend a lot of money on fancy body oils — baby oil works fine. And there’s a baby oil gel that’s even better. It’s even possible to add some fragrance, if you’re like me and have a few little vials of “essential oil.” That’s the stuff aromatherapists use to make their magic mood modifiers. I just like to wear it. The nice thing about using plain baby oil gel is that I can use different fragrances or none at all, and still take care of the dry itchy skin. I just put a drop of patchouli, gardenia, or Egyptian musk oil in the palm of my hand, and then a glob of the baby oil gel. Another treat, this time for my nose.

Magic Motions

I almost can’t remember a winter when I didn’t get up in the mornings with stiff joints and some back pain. Bleah. No likee. I found ways to alleviate some of the pain, and have written about those here. I still have a lot of motivation to keep up with the bicycle crunches several nights a week. If I take a break of longer than two or three nights, I wake up more often during the night, and I have the creaky back in the morning. So over the months since I started doing them, I’ve kept up with at least two sets of 50 crunches before I go to sleep. I do some other stretches and whatnot during the day when I’m upright, and now I’m a little less flabby than I was when I moved back down here from Kentucky. And this is a treat for my ego. But let me tell you, the real treat is when I bend over to open The Puppy’s crate in the mornings and my back no longer starts screaming “NNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!” It puts a whole new flavor on the day.

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When even laughing makes you sweat…

Posted on June 1, 2010 | Leave a comment

This is the time of year when I would like nothing better than to be able to live on a nothing-but-ice-cream diet. I was reading an article on The Blogess this morning, and had one of those laughing melt-downs. You know, where you start out with everything kind of contained with just some shoulder jiggling, and then you’re wheezing and snorting and shrieking and making sobbing sounds and the tears are running down your face and you about wet your pants. One of those. I had forgotten how funny her articles are. I can’t read them every day.

Anyway, after I got myself back under a semblance of control, I was soggy — all the usual soggy places. I’ll spare you the details. Obviously, being post-menopausal does not guarantee no more hot flashes. Or it could be my trying-to-save-on-the-electric-bill thermostat setting and the house being 81 degrees. Whatever. Bring on the ice cream.

Actually, I think ice cream makers are making more of an effort to include more food groups in their flavors these days. For instance, I recently found a flavor called “Peanut Butter Panic,” that is just bonkers good. Of course it has a serving of dairy. Then there is the protein food group represented by the peanuts in the peanut butter. And of course there’s the chocolate food group. All you need to do is throw on some frozen peas, maybe some blueberries and some All-Bran or something, and you’ve got a complete meal in one bowl of cold, creamy goodness!

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Confessions of a chocaholic…

Posted on April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

I will be the first to admit I have some bad habits. Okay, a lot of bad habits. And many of them would fall into the “not-good-for-me” category. But I have made some improvements. It has taken me more than fifty years, but that just proves that it’s never too late. And I still have a long way to go, so I’d better live another forty or so, at least.

For starters, there’s the chocolate thing. Now (NOW they tell us) a little bit of chocolate is not a bad thing, at least not as bad as it used to be. And at least not as long as it’s dark chocolate. Nice for me, I love dark chocolate. But there are some chocolates that I have always been prone to overdo. Like Oreos. M&Ms. Kisses. And I got away with it for a long time, with only some extra poundage to show for it. Then, not long ago, those little binges started making me feel absolutely awful. Stomach pain, pounding head, other symptoms I won’t describe. Ugh. Had to stop. Fortunately darker chocolate in smaller doses will make me feel the chocolate happy without the chocolate sick. Small victory. (And I lost some weight.)

Grocery shopping. I hate it with a purple passion. I do all the grocery shopping for the household. It is my personal hell on earth. I hate having to go to a new store, or one on another side of town. I need to go where I know where everything is so I can make my list and zoom through and get it the frak over with as fast as possible. And I have to make that list — and I have to be a little hungry when I go, so I’ll actually throw enough food in the cart to last more than a few days. Because the last thing I want to do is have to turn around and go grocery shopping again tomorrow.

Obviously with such deviant grocery shopping habits, I also have deviant eating habits. I like convenience foods and comfort foods, and convenient comfort foods best of all. And I don’t like to cook. But my recent bout of prolonged joblessness forced me to get more creative with meal components, because they were cheaper than buying all the pre-packaged stuff I normally came home with. For instance, real potatoes can be mashed or baked or cut up and roasted or pan fried or a bunch of other things. Not that I didn’t know that; I just never wanted to do the work involved until I was forced to. Well, it was more than that, really. Working in the kitchen makes my back hurt. Or it used to. A lot.

Chronic pain isn’t that conducive to forming good habits. It tends to make a person cranky and depressed. And then the cranky depression becomes another bad habit and it all seems so overwhelming and way too much to climb out from under. I estimate it has taken me close to fifteen years. Even after back surgery ten years ago to save me from disc damage and nerve damage that could have put me in a wheelchair, I continued to have back and leg pain that I thought would never completely go  away. By accident I discovered that taking an antihistamine for a fire ant bite also helped my back pain. Then I read something about B-vitamins and nerve health and I started taking supplements, which also helped. Then I read that doing five minutes of bicycle crunches every day is a great way to get and stay in shape. Ha. Ha. I decided to try that. I lasted about twenty seconds.

But I decided that twenty seconds a day could eventually turn into five minutes, so I kept at it. I’m not trying to time myself any more, because I do my crunches after I get in bed at night. So much easier on my back than the hard floor. So I started doing just ten at a time (that’s ten right-left repetitions), and now I’m up to forty. And I can do two sets of those forty. And most of the time I have no pain. That’s huge. And that’s why I think there’s some hope for me to improve on some of my other bad habits — and why I don’t ever intend to try to make myself give up chocolate completely. Because a good dog deserves a treat.

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More about the Arthritis Walk

Posted on November 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

2009DogWalkFlyerThere’s just over a week to go before the Bryan/College Station Arthritis Walk and Dog Walk. The Brazos Valley Kennel Club is sponsoring a water stop, which is also the “Dog Zone,” a special table for registering Walk participants who have dogs with them. There will be at least one kiddie pool for dogs to drink out of or walk through to cool off, and there will be other containers for more “discriminating” water drinkers. BVKC is welcome to put out Club related literature, AKC brochures, etc.

Since my “Old Guy” is the “Dog Walk Hero,” I’ve set up a team called “Chief’s Doggone Walkers.” Kind of lame, I know, but obviously dog-related. This shortened link will take you to the team page if you want to join the team. http://tinyurl.com/yaqnxqu

There are several ways to participate. You can join the team and make a donation on line. You can join the team and not put an amount in the donation box, and bring a check made out to the Arthritis Foundation (or cash) to the walk. You can join the team and mail a check to the Arthritis Foundation. You can start your own team. Or you can make a general donation to the walk from the Walk home page. This is the link to the home page. http://tinyurl.com/yc48vo4

If you want to join the team but can’t come to the walk, and you want to mail a donation, there is a form you can print out from the team page to send along with your check so that Chief’s team will get the “credit.” If you want to join Chief’s team, there is a link on his page to “Join our team,” which will take you through the steps to register, and you will have your own “member” page. On that page there should be a “My to do List” menu where you can load and print the off line donation form to mail with your check.

And since someone already asked, donations made to Chief’s team go to fund research on arthritis in general, which includes dogs — not just dogs.

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Drinking hot (ish) coffee this morning

Posted on October 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

I have gone through phases in my adult life with and without caffeine. I’ve come to the conclusion that some caffeine is required, since I’m basically a morning person but am frequently a groggy morning person. And I like coffee. I even like the decaf kind. With a caveat… I like it to taste like ice cream. And I usually like it ice cold.

I started keeping my coffee in the refrigerator earlier this summer when I would sit at my computer on a typical, muggy, central Texas summer morning (even the A/C didn’t prevent all perception of mugginess), drinking my freshly dripped coffee, and I would start sweating buckets. Seriously. Buckets. Because hot weather plus hot coffee equals hot flash equals buckets of sweat. Buckets. What am I — stupid? I thought. Put the frakking coffee over some frakking ice. Then I came up with the brilliant idea that I could make my own coffee, separately from my brother’s normal coffee, and I could have flavors! like caramel truffle and chocolate velvet. My brother doesn’t like his coffee to taste like ice cream, so he isn’t interested in sharing my flavored coffee. So I make my own pot of coffee and pour it into a bottle to keep in the fridge. Then every morning I can pour some in a tumbler and add some sweetener and half and half, and have a nice, cold pick-me-up to start my day with.

Only this morning it was chilly. So I put my cold coffee in a mug and microwaved it hot. But adding the half and half cooled it off to almost room temperature. I’m running the furnace, after all. It’s not like it’s 53 degrees in here. And I’m not fond of hot beverages unless I actually need to drink something hot to get warm.

I’m about to make a point with this. Wait for it…

I was reading Havi Brooks’s recent post over at The Fluent Self blog about being your own, authentic self, dammit, and not apologizing to anyone about it. And I thought about my cold coffee habit and my flavored, ice-cream-tasting coffee habit, and how my brother always sneers at flavored coffee (and the people who drink it, I fear), and I thought, you know, this is me, dammit. Yeah, maybe I have a few screws loose, but they are not in the area of coffee drinking. Ever since I started drinking my coffee cold in the mornings, I have fewer hot flashes all day. So there. Dammit.

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