And a Monday, it is. Happy New Year, first of all. We had a great holiday and New Year’s, spent time with family, relaxed, Honey hunted, and it was an overall good break. Of course, it’s over now, and our first business day of the new year has been a bust so far. Not unsalvageable, but not productive. I had a beautiful school schedule planned out this week, with LOTS of great work to do, but we’ve defaulted to a lesson in pop culture with a second viewing of The Princess Bride. Everyone needs to see that, and it’s a reasonable part of our curriculum that I will defend. Today, anyway.
The Cedar, which is pollinating like crazy, is killing us. Slowly. The thing I am most allergic to is Oak, followed closely by Cedar. We live in the Texas Hill Country, where we are surrounded, thickly, by… Oak and Cedar. Go figure. The kids and I have been leaking profusely from the nose and eyes, when our passages aren’t too swollen to let anything through. I was up most of the night sneezing, blowing my nose, sniffing, spraying, blowing my nose… and on and on. I finally used so much nasal spray that I could breathe, but then I was wide awake. That’s the funny thing about phenylephrine… it sure does the job, but wires you up good. I’ve always said, though, that I’d rather be awake and be able to breathe than be awake because I CAN’T breathe. If you can’t tell… I’ve been through this before. Like, every January and February of my whole life. It really wasn’t fair for me to reproduce. The poor kids can look forward to the same thing.
There’s not much going on around here besides, well, everything that’s going on. I think my Saturdays are pretty much booked from now until June already. Baby showers, baseball, more baby showers, tea party, etc. have already filled the coming months, then it’s summer, with all those fun activities. We’ve decided that the only time we are truly on our ‘regular schedule’ is September through mid-November. The rest of the year is just flying by the seat of our pants! It’s all fun, but it’s sure a madhouse around here.
I have a retraction to make from my previous post. Honey told me that our wonderful prime rib was, in fact, NOT smoked on the Braii pit… it was a regular smoker. My mistake. That doesn’t make it any less delicious, maybe just a bit less cool. I can tell you, with all the leftovers I took home from our holiday meals and Honey’s birthday lunch on the 27th, we had a feast for over a week. When we didn’t have just ‘leftovers’, we had some creative meal that involved the leftovers. It was beautiful. Frugal cooking at it’s best – when the food was free to begin with! Hahahahaha! Thanks to everyone who threw us their scraps! I still have a wild turkey to cook, from one of Honey’s hunting expeditions, but I thought we might all enjoy a break from the turkey for a while.
Speaking of hunting… the season is almost over. Whew! We have a deer in the cooler right now to process (again), but I won’t complain about having more meat. Much. I won’t complain about the season being over, either… at ALL! I’ll be so glad for that giant pile of camo ‘stuff’ to be out of my bedroom. I believe it’s a duffle bag large enough to hold the body of an adult full of hunting equipment, two bow cases, a pair of boots, a jacket or two, and some coveralls. I think. It’s hard to tell. I just know it needs to go away. That’s probably why I sneeze all night… there’s a big pile of pollen-covered camo next to my bed. Sniff, sniff. Two more weeks… two more weeks…
It’s a diet week again. We’re trying to ‘assist’ our bodies in defending against the pollen. This week, no beef or yeast (as they are supposed to aggravate Cedar allergy), sugar, caffeine (I’ll probably cheat on that one today, considering I didn’t sleep and have to go grocery shopping), chocolate, or dairy. Ack! It’s time to break out the creative lunches… sardines, beans, pb & celery. If it makes us feel better, bring it on! One ounce of cream in that coffee doesn’t count, right? It’s half-caf!
Ah, it’s about time to leave the house, and venture out into the war zone. I’m scared to breathe the air and I don’t have any surgical masks on hand, so maybe I’ll go out in a Burka. Honey and I were brainstorming allergy masks in skin tones, with lips painted on the front to make them less noticeable. You never know….
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