What Happened?

Does my blog appear with blue words underlined in blue? What did I do? I tried to make AVG quit popping up, alerting me to every cookie it detected. Instead, I think I took off my popup protection. And, AVG is still showing me everything in a popup. Okay, I am going to publish and see if this has blue words underline in blue.

Okay, it's on mine, how about yours?

Is there a sidebar to the left with something about searches? I have never done those searches!

Streptococccal Sore Throat and Allergies

That is what the doctor said: Strep throat and severe allergy problem.

The nurse gave me an antibiotic injection called something like rociferin (sp?) and a prednisone/cortisone injection. Both hips hurt now. Then, I got a prescription for Cefdinir (some antibiotic) and 3 Prednisone tablets. Plus, I am to take Guaifenisin, pseudoephedrine, aspirin, and a antihistamine. When I do that, I am going to bed.  Maybe these spellings are wrong.

Snowbrush, I meant to write and say that a fever can occur with allergies AND accompanying inflammation and infection. When I have hives, I run a fever. At the first contact with anything I am allergic to, my temperature rises.

My life is defined by allergies. I would have been a geologist if not for allergies. What a rock was, how old, and why were burning questions when I was thirteen-years-old. I thought about being an anthropologist, not only digging up bones, but studying the bone, but again, dirt and dust thoughts stopped me. I was very young. Since I loved literature, words, and grammar, being an English major suited me just fine. But, books make their own dust. Old books are practically lethal to me. Since socio-linguistics very much interests me, I could have been happy studying Anthropology of Linguistics. Now that I am older, I see more opportunities I could have had.

I am going to bed for a while.

When I talk to exbf, I will tell him not to come tomorrow. I need him but don't want him to become ill with strep throat. sigh....I need him. Tomorrow is the only day he can come until next week.

Your turn
Did allergies or some other real health problem help set the course of your life?

Eating an Orange

eating an orange

I decided to have an orange and maybe get Vitamin C. This is how I eat an orange. I peel an orange, just barely skimming off the yellow rind. I love Love LOVE the white part, the pith. So, I cut oranges instead of peeling them. The taste and texture of the pith is superb. There is almost as much Vitamin C in the pith, the part under the rind, as there is in the juicy orange part.

 

This is a horrid orange. It is next to dry and the sections are going to mush. I know that sounds contradictory. It does not even taste like orange, just bland. The pith was the only good part, so I just peeled it off and ate it....sigh.

 

This is why I rarely buy a bag of oranges. I have been burned too many times. I bought a bag of oranges at Christmas on sale. Most of them were black rotten inside. The rest were crispy dry. I traded it for another bag and returned it and got my money back.

 

This time, I bought two oranges at $0.50/each. They will both go back if they are inedible like this one.

 

Now, I am choking and coughing and freezing! Plus, my nose is running horribly. I had a salad that was  very nutritious, but it seemed to make these new symptoms appear.

 

Your turn

Do you like the white pith or hate it like most people do? Do you ever just keep getting bad oranges? For those in California or in the know, why? When is citrus season?

Tell me I am asleep and this is a nightmare, please!

I awoke with a terrible sore throat. It is 2:30 pm, and I have not spoken a word except to tell Patsy Cline and Thelma to "come here."  My head is so stopped up. Crap is sliding down my throat. My head is pounding. I can tell I have a slight temp because all my joints ache in a way that I recognize as feverish. My eyeballs feel hot. My face hurts. I was uncoordinated as I tried to untwist a twist tie and unwrap cheese. My chest is getting full of congestion. I am wheezing. This all happened within 6 hours I slept. Yes, I need a nap.

Okay, a thermometer is in my mouth.

What happened? Last night it rained all night. The ensuing humidity during the night did this to me. See why I don't camp? Cannot sleep with the windows open even on a hot night??? Even driving in the car with open windows brings on a fever.

My daughter has asthma and could never play outdoors before 10 am or after about 5 pm because of humidity. Of course, there were days this was cruel.

My temperature is elevated 2 degrees. Yuck. It is only 99 degrees, but still up 2 degrees from my normal of 97. That always caused doctors to say I was not running an elevated temp.

When I entertained every month for two years, we sat outdoors from 3 pm until sometimes 1 am. On those simple nights of pleasure, I awoke ill the next morning. This is not fun.

OTC medications and home remedies are in order to avoid a doctor visit and prescriptions that I will not want to take. And, I did not proof this post at all.

I will be back eventually.

College Food Banks for Hungry Students

College food banks are on the rise. I contribute to a food bank at a junior college nearby. Have you investigated the possibility of donating to a food bank on a college campus near you? The Baptist Student Union runs the one here.

Your turn
Do you know if there is a food bank on a campus near you or where your child attends? Could you contribute any food to a campus food bank?

Pi is of the Devil? Celebrate "π" Day?

A young friend, middle 30s, approached me with a bit of spooky (to him) information. It seems that when pi  ( "π")--3.14--is written on a piece of paper and held up to a mirror, it reads "pie." Now, this information was presented in the same vein as listening to music played backwards, some sort of satanic or mystical message. ???

Pie/pi/ "π" Day is March 14--3.14

I wrote 3.14  and held it up to a mirror. No, it approximates "pie."

I wrote 3.14159, held it up to the mirror, and it was nothing. This was just silliness on my part.

First of all, 3.14 is not all of pi. It is a shortened version that we just use so we won't have to use 67,000+ numbers in a simple calculation. I use 3.14159 or 3.1416 for  "π". So far, no one has found that pi ( "π") is a repeating number, just still an irrational number.

I really worry when religion  tries to make a mystical connection to John 3:14 (For God so loved the world...), the ratio of a circumference to diameter of a circle, pi, and pie viewed backwards. That is hard work and lots of mental gymnastics--the world is round, the center of the circle for the radius is God, 3 is the trinity.

Rant over.

Your turn
Did you celebrate Pie Day? I love it. Kids will at least talk math for one day.

"This Box Is Just Junk"

just junk?

The day of the procedure at 2 pm, I decided that would be a good morning to organize, throw away, and box up "keeper" things in the den. Exbf was a great help. I sat. He picked up boxes. I gave orders...lol. He followed them. Seriously, I did have to tell him into which box things went and what was trash.

It all worked out until I pointed to a box near him. Is that box gardening things?

He dug around in the box, stirring around the items there.  "This box is just junk."

What do you mean by 'junk'?

"Just a bunch of junk!" He is exasperated because he knows junk when he sees it!

Oh, I thought it was my gardening things. I just knew that was the box I kept putting things into as I unearthed them from last summer or bought them.

"No, nothing in here is for gardening." He keeps rummaging in the box.

I think it is.

"Since when do you use coffee filters for gardening? And, there is some sort of pellets! Nothing for gardening, just junk." There is that perturbed voice...lol.

I use coffee filters in the bottom of pots so the dirt won't go out. Remember? The pellets are for germinating seed. Remember?

Nope, he remembers nothing of the sort.

Plus, the long, lawn fasteners like bobbie pins are in there. We used those together.

gardening things?

gardening related at all?

 

These pictures from bulb packets were up against the side of the box, pictures facing out. The poor guy must have been exhausted. At this point, I told him we had done enough. He did not argue. I think that at this point, he wanted to hang out in the hospital!

 

As long as he does not make me really listen to his explanation of how internal combustion works, he can NOT listen to gardening information. I can feel my brain turn to jelly when a person  explains internal combustion to me. I just don't care. Maybe that is how he feels about all this.

He pulled up all his shrubs in front of his house because he hated pruning them. He thinks they should be square because all his neighbor's are square. He has no flowers at all and cut down two pine trees because he hates raking the needles. I don't rake mine because I like the look of the needles. Now that I have hens, they love scratching in pine needles. Plus, I use them in their pen and nest and sleeping boxes. He told me he was so happy I told him not to rake the pine needles in 2006 when he volunteered to rake my yard. One day, he told me his neighbors have flowers, so he looks at them.

 

Your turn

Do you have a "helper" of some sort that is not really into gardening? Someone who helps if you ask? But, this someone is just not feeling gardening?