Indelicate Subject Thursday: Wastefulness.

...warning: for reasons that remain unclear, I have not been able to rest until I explored this topic with my blog friends.  However, the squeamish and those whose 4th -8th graders may read over their shoulders, may wish to return to the blog on another day. 

One aspect of my daily life about which I have been fairly silent, is my interest in natural remedies.  I enjoy learning natural non-pharmaceutical ways of treating common concerns.  Not limited to chiropractic and dietary supplements, there is also, hydrotherapy (long hot soak in the bath, anyone?) bodywork (massage?) and a variety of ways of cleansing and purifying the body's tissues and internal organs in order to help us feel our best.

So I own this book that I refer to as "The Big Book of Refuses to Go to the Doctor".  It has a listing of supplements with their benefits and side effects, a section with conditions and their causes and treatments, and an alternative therapies section with a guide to doing them safely at home (like, color therapy or fasting, for example).

Deep in the nether regions of this massive tome (my first car was smaller) there is a section on...

Ugh.

(...this is the reason I am not a nurse)

Enemas. Colonic. Cleanse.

In all their varieties...

I don't remember them all, but one, I do.  I am not going to lie, Y'all.  I am offended.

Someone decided this was a treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It's wasteful; I tell you.  Someone got drunk and said, "Hey, it's 6 months until daybreak, and this stuff's gone cold.  I have an idea!"

I would never have guessed unless I had read it in the pages of a book (Wait until Levar hears about this!).

Coffee...

That's not where it belongs.

public-domain-photos.com

 Sorry, I don't know what got into me...but I can tell you what didn't.

Relief

I have flirted off and on with a cold for almost two weeks.  Fatigue, a sort of shaki- achiness, no fever to speak of and a little "hey, don't forget me! I'm here, too." from the sinuses. Until the sinuses tried to strangle me in my sleep on Saturday night. I got up Sunday morning exhausted and just a little vengeful.  Sunday night, I parried with a highly reliable natural remedy, but until that worked, I backed it up with:

TARGET BRAND OTC NIGHT TIME COLD REMEDY

You know what I mean...

Sounds all rebellious and heavy drinker-y, but since SOMEONE left the lid off the bottle last fall and it dumped in MY vanity drawer, we get the softgels.

So with fatigue, illness and self-pity driving me to bed early Sunday night, I opened the box and found the little plastic sheet of blister packaged...

~screech~

(what is that tires?  a record scratching?  you decide.)

"Son of a..."

I'm sick.  I just want to take this medicine which says, "SO YOU CAN REST..."  right on the ad for the namebrandwhichIneverbuybecauseitcostssomuchmore.

"Where are the scissors?"

struggles with the nail scissors

"Is that enough damage to the blister pack?"

tries tearing where that one (1) little cut seems to indicate a perforation of some kind.

"Gosh dang."  (or something like that, my memory is not really clear here).

Digs in vanity for BIG Scissors.

"I am sick, and I have no intention of, by gosh, going to bed without non-narcotic cough suppressant coursing through my veins!"

Slices halfway through blister pack and tears the rest with teeth.  Slashes cuticle on plastic portion of pack.

Dear OTC Drug Manufacuturers:

First of all, may the fleas of a 1000 camels...  Dude.  What was I saying?  Oh, yeah.

Are you trying to contribute to the incidence of violent crime or at least accidents in the home?  I didn't end myself from the frustration of clearing my throat every 23 seconds all night.  My husband didn't place a pillow lovingly over my face and end both our suffering.  However, there were a few moments experienced in accessing this product that had me peering over the brink.  In the end, all that resulted was another household accident, precipitated by the packaging materials of this product.

I understand that this design is useful for protecting children, reducing environmental impact, and maximizing your bottom line.  What I would recommend is that you consider more closely that older users of this product may become frustrated and try other more dangerous methods to open this package(my father comes to mind as the sort of man who overuses force, as when he used a bulldozer to jump start his pick-up).  They may choose the same method I did and sever a major artery with their implement of choice.

I have a suggestion for the name of the campaign to fix this ignorificance.  "Look Sharp!:The campaign to end the ironic injury to the cold sufferer accessing medication".

Sincerely,

Myrtle Shagnasty, Walk-in Clinic Nurse, for Maggie S.

Close the Books on Another Year

The New Year brings that time for reflection.  "What do I have to show for this revolution of the Earth 'round the Sun?"  Birthdays, too, often cause us to reflect on another 365 days of life and how we've used them.  Fortunately, for me, my birthday is only a couple of weeks away, and I can dispense with this dutiful existential examination of my belly button lint this month and move on.

You should be so lucky.

Anyway.

2011 brought me some important events...

1) Somehow or 'nother, I made the Jayme Daily, the same week I opened my Twitter account.  I don't think I've tweeted since.  It's weird and awkward.  Or I am.

2) Somehow or 'nother, I lived through the adjustment to bringing another member into the family.  I now know that it will be the job of a lifetime, and yeah, Michelle Duggar can bring new humans into the world until it kills her, but it will not be as hard as helping adopted people find their place in this world.  God made us all for a purpose, Michelle for hers and me for mine and never the twain shall meet.  I ask Him what He was thinking... a lot.

3) I can now officially say I have heard the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life.  You know that one Katy Perry song?  The first line of that song says, "Do you ever feel like a plastic bag?" 

You know what, Katy?  Maybe.  I've never thought about it, but this could explain my recent feelings of worthlessness.  I am feeling like a plastic bag.

Or is it  euphemism for an older lady who's had a lot of cosmetic procedures...  You know, "Plastic".  "Bag".

See...

Stupidest thing.

Ever.

In my life.

And the best, because several times a day, I say, in the girls' hearing, "Mickey, that just makes me feel like a plastic bag."

The girls are just beside themselves.

Hilarity.  Stupid.  Hilarity.

I dare 2012 to serve up anything more stupid than that.

It's also time to decide how I am going to write on this big blank piece of paper called the new year.  The reason for "resolutions"(such a quaint old word), is that looking back on the wanton wildness of the last year should inevitably bring to mind areas of my life that could stand an overhaul.  Or at least a little attention.

Yeah,  I have been doing that, too.

1) I have to take better care of my health. Across the board.  I would go into detail, but you've heard it all before.  I don't have any real plan mapped out.

2) Yet, again, the desktop is out of commission and I am on Mickey's work machine.  Which shines the light on my inconsistency and lack of a plan... I need a plan.

3) I have to school the fire out of these children. For all my bluster, they really still appear to believe they are running the show.  As testified to by their exceptionally saucy mouths.

Even though there appear to be 3 items in the above list, there really is only one.  I have to grow up and get organized.

I seriously contemplated quitting the blog over the last several days, but I looked back over it.  And decided to see about going with my strengths.  (I have given up the fight for a well made Cherry Dr. Pepper Limeade, but a Lemonberry Slush is almost as good.)  I find that when I look back, there is a clear difference in the types of responses and I had to decide what I was here for.

I have had a couple of interesting experiences this last few weeks.

--someone told me I was smart.  Intimidating smart. I think that is weird.
--someone else called me out on being totally snippy and not a joy on Christmas in the nicest way, "God has just laid it on my heart to pray that you will be able to find joy in the day".  I was in a place where I said, "Thank you, I really need that."  And you know what I realized?  Christmas isn't Mother's Day. I am a pretty selfish gal.
 --I got to be with friends this week.  It was just a nice week.  Backbreaking.  Non-stop.  Refreshing. Exhausting.  Abundant.  More weirderness.

On the threshold...
ready to close the door on all that.
Like forcing a too-full closet door shut.
There is pain and loneliness in there.
There is hunger and hard decisions.

I am not afraid to open the new door.
An empty room.
One nice wooden easel with a canvas
yet untouched.
No stink of failure soaked in these walls
the junk hasn't blocked
the Light.

Back turned to Him
these last few months.
Still He beckons to the pure unwritten page.

Adores.  Waits.  Plans for me.
Trusting is harder
than before.

I have nothing to lose
stepping through the door.