Money Monday 6/12

Happy December, everyone!

It snowed this weekend!  I was at work when it started and it made the whole mind-numbingly boring and exhausting day worth it.  The one employee who was with me at the time and I took turns going outside just to stare up at the sky and grin like idiots.  Nothing really stuck too much in Cary (where I work), but 30 miles north in Durham/Bahama (where I actually reside) can make a lot of difference.  Here's my front yard the next morning, when it was just starting to melt:

oh em gee snow!

I know all the Yankees reading this are just going to scoff at how little it is, but it made me insanely happy :D

This week's questions (original post here):

1. The most I've spent this last week was on car insurance.  I paid my premium in full a couple of days ago, and it was...more than I'm used to dropping at one time.  A LOT more.  But now I've fully covered for 6 months, so that's a weight off. 
2. Today I feel oddly excited about money.  Or, more specifically, about the fact that I am planning to (temporarily!!!) throw my budget out the window and have a lot of fun buying gifts for everyone.  I've saved up a really nice chunk by being smart all year, and this is one of the reasons I did that.  Spent most of the down time at work today making lists of what I'm going to get everyone.  So much fun!!! :D
3. Money can't buy happiness.  One free thing I did this past week was to grin like an idiot while dancing in the falling snow!
4. I will consider this week a success if I stop eating so much damn chocolate at work.  I can't even blame it on my uterus right now.
5. My favorite holiday drink is oh man, I couldn't pick just one.  Hot chocolate (real hot chocolate, with bitter cocoa powder and whole milk and honey), with or without peppermint schnapps or raspberry vodka, hot cider (spiced as all get out), fake hot cider (apple cider vinegar, honey  and spices in hot water), teas and tisanes of all varieties...I'm also planning on trying to make glogg this year, in honor of my Viking ancestors!  We'll see how that one goes.

Right now, though, I'm sipping on one that's probably too weird for most of y'all, but I love it.  Heat up a couple cups of whole milk (I nuked this batch but it's probably better to use a saucepan) till it's very hot, then add one tablespoon of dried dandelion root per cup of milk.  Let it sit for a while (15 minutes?), whisking every now and then until the roots swell and sink to the bottom of the cup.  Heat it up again if necessary, then strain it and add honey to taste (the dandelion makes it a little bitter so this is usually necessary, even if you normally don't sweeten your drinks - I'm looking at you, paleo-ers!  it's just a tad anyways).  Sip slowly and revel.




-N

Breathe deep

So for the past 5 days now, I've been the miserable host of an utterly fiendish bronchial infection. Any onlookers would probably never guess I was sick. I'm not running a temperature, not coughing at all, just sniffing a little and acting horribly bitchy. What makes this bug so absolutely maddening is the fact that, for 5 days now, I have barely been able to take a breath that's felt "full."

Let me stress that I'm not showing any symptoms of being low on oxygen - no blue lips or nails, no decrease or lapses in mental function, no inability to exercise - nothing at all like that. There's just the near-constant, terrifying sensation that I am very slowly suffocating, that my lungs are not opening up as much as they should, no matter how I struggle to take in air. There are times when I tilt my head back, mouth opened wide, just panting and gasping, fighting to fill my lungs but rarely succeeding, and never before a good chunk of time has passed. Thank god for strong pecs and vocal training, or I'd likely be denied even those few satisfying breaths that come all too far apart.

As far as I can figure, I've got some sort of congestion in my mid-to-upper chest that is slowly working its way upwards, on top of the aforementioned sensation, which I'm guessing is at least partly psychosomatic. I've been dealing with it fairly well at home, with teas, tinctures and lots of steam, but here at work I think I'm mildly allergic or sensitive to something in the air, which is making worse. A LOT worse. It's a good thing this is a slow day, or else customers would be subjected to the sight of me acting all possessed - back arched, mouth gaping, arms flailing, crazy wheezing noises et al - on a pretty regular basis.

But at any rate, I've got the next three days off from work, and I'm going to take full advantage of this. My personal herb stores are sadly quite low in the area of respiratory issues (more focused towards general tonics, pain relievers, sleep aids and herbs for "female complaints"). I got out all my herbalism texts last night, though, and studied up a storm to figure out what should work, and made a shopping list: mullein, coltsfoot, elecampane, echinacea, whole milk and eucalyptus essential oil (which I CANNOT believe I didn't have already!). Add to that valerian, chamomile, kava-kava and lavender oil for Maggie, who's having trouble sleeping, and my grocery budget for this month is pretty much gone. :/ Honestly, though, at this point I don't even care - I'll eat crackers and apples all month if it'll mean I can breathe easy again.

Update on the first week-and-a-bit of Crossfit later today. Yes, I can still exercise without difficulty. I'm not THAT insane.

-N

Yay for unlikely edibles!

Breakfast: ~8:30am

• 1 2-egg omelette with about 1/2 oz fancy mystery cheese, nutmeg, pelargonium and a little un-mixed-up greek-style blueberry yoghurt
• 2ish c cabbage, steamed and then slightly burned. still good.
• 1/2ish c greek blueberry yoghurt
• 2 c coffee with 2% milk
• 1000mg Vitamin C, 1 capsule Omega 3-6-9 and 40 drops of ginko/gotu kola tincture in water

sorry for the blurriness! I'll try and get a better pic later

Notes: Omg you guys. You can eat pelargoniums ("geraniums," to the uninitiated, even though there's another plant entirely that properly bears that name. yes, I'm a gardening snob. shut up.)!!! I picked up this little cutie yesterday at the plant shop (for the interested, the other two plants in the picture are hosta and sweet woodruff). Not sure of the full Latin name or anything really beyond "Pelargonium: fragrant, edible," but it came with a booklet on recipes that these guys work well in. I wasn't in the mood for celery soup first thing in the morning, however, so winged it and made a simply omelette.

This particular variety was labeled as "nutmeg flavored" on the tag, and it's spot-on. I put a little grated nutmeg on the omelette to bring out the taste even more, but I'm envisioning a chilled yoghurt/milk drink with vanilla, maybe a drop each of cinnamon and clove oils, with a good small handful of this stuff blended in. Or maybe anise. Seriously excited about all these possibilities. And there are so many more varieties! Just there at the garden shop they had citrus, mint, rose-mint and apple-flavored ones, and according to the recipe booklet there are many, many more. Yay!

Dinner: ~7:30pm

• tuna tetaki (seared in smoke-point olive oil for about 20 seconds on each side; still cold in the middle)
• an herby green salad with chopped baby lettuces, sweet bush basil and sage, dressed in the bowl with balsamic vinegar, EVOO, fresh pepper and sea salt and a little handful of dried blueberries
• 2% milk
• one Mayan truffle (not shown)

The sun has just gone behind the trees when I got back from work, but it was still plenty light enough to enjoy dinner on the deck with book, cat and happy plants (alchemilla/lady's mantle and achillea/yarrow) to keep me company.

Today we had our first crazy customer at work since I'd started there. She'd misheard what one of the girls said over the phone (read: she cut her off mid-spiel) and insisted that a $10 item was told to her as being $5. She was totally ready to pay the full amount and eventually did so - her only beef was that she wanted the cashier (who hadn't even been the one on the phone) to admit that she (kid) had been wrong in correcting her (customer). Yeah. That's it. Literally just say "You were right and I was wrong." When the kids (phone and cashier) recounted to me what they'd said to her, it was painfully obvious that the customer was entirely in the wrong - and maybe she was even aware of this. But as soon as the girl tried not even to correct her or say she was wrong, just to state the actual fact, she completely blew up - far, FAR out of proportion. It was utterly ridiculous. Damn people.

6Oct09

Breakfast

• 2 medium slices sourdough bread
• 1 smallish tomato, sliced
• liberally applied nonfat greek yoghurt
• 1 slice swiss cheese
  
• 4 c tea with lemon balm, chamomile, raspberry leaf and chastetree berries

Notes: I love this sort of morning - not quite being lazy, but certainly not hurrying to get anywhere. Just sitting down to read the paper or write, cup of tea at my elbow and cat at my feet, yowling because she's sure she'd like tea if I'd just let her taste it

Loading up on Vitamin C - apparently it's an emmenagogue (along with several of the things in my tea, but those are milder). Maybe this is the way to get back on schedule. For the last two times I know it's fallen on or very near the full moon, but now it's just past and there's no (visible) sign yet. I think it would be pretty cool to have that happen every time.

Went to the herb store for pennyroyal (for the same purpose) and the assistant looked more than a little disturbed by the fact that I was asking for it - told me in no uncertain terms that they "Never!!!" carry it. After a little research I found out that there was a huge big to-do of a case about 15 years ago in which a young woman attempted an herbal abortion using pennyroyal and one or both of the cohoshes and vastly overdosed, resulting in her death. The resulting scandal (her parents and their lawyer were sure it was the herb alone that done her in, not her misuse of it or the fact that she didn't realise she had an ectopic pregnancy) gave the herb something of a nasty reputation, which is why today I can't ask my friendly neighborhood herbalist for some of it without being looked askance at, no matter how innocent my need for it is.

Lunch

• 2 medium slices of sourdough bread
• nonfat greek yoghurt, liberally applied
• ~1/2 c roasted red peppers
• 2 slices swiss cheese
• 1 small glass whole milk

Notes: Ok, getting kind of nervous about this speech. Mostly because I have so very much to say and I don't want to go over the time. Going downtown in a few to yoink some nice specimens of Plantago majus and P. lanceolata I saw growing by the Duke Wall yesterday.

Dinner

• ~1/2 c yellow rice (saffron? turmeric? not sure - mama made it)
• ~6 oz salmon
• 1 c chocolate milk
• crackers with brie while watching Afro Samurai

Notes: I get sooo fucking hungry at school! Seriously need to pack something in the car to eat on the drive. Also, Afro Samurai is seriously the best anime evar.