Ha Ha! Take THAT Acute viral rhinopharyngitis!!!

Not wanting a repetition of last year's The Worst Cold I've Ever Had, when the symptoms descended on me Friday night, I took action. Yesterday was hell. Today, I'm 95% better! And so, for your queasy reading pleasure, I present to you:


Top Ten Things I Did to Show That Cold Who's Boss

10. Inhaled a Vicks steam bath.
9. Quadrupled my daily doseage of vitamin C.
8. Continued taking my usual daily supplements.
7. Used a netipot to give my sinuses a saline rinse... a pretty glamorous process!
6. Cooked and consumed organic chicken soup.
5. Practiced yogic breathing.
4. Slept and slept till I thought I would go mad with sleep boredom, then forced myself to sleep some more.
3. Took aspirin.
2. On several occasions I placed two droplets of oil of oregano at the back of my tongue swiftly washed down with water to minimize gagging potential. Damn, that's foul stuff. This is the first time I've tried it, on the recommendation of three friends. Readers, it helped!
and...
1. Took several nips of scotch. Ahhhhhh.

Curiouser and Curiouser

So... my cold has left me with no sense of smell. It is an odd state of affairs. Then, last night after my shower, I emerged from the steamy bathroom and detected the scent of the chili I had been cooking earlier. I celebrated by taking a finger of Cardhu to bed with me. (Still have a little bit to go in the bottle. I'm eking it out most admirably.) It felt wonderful to be warm in bed, with that extra warmth from the scotch spreading through my body. I could smell/taste at about 50% of regular capacity.

Then... this morning - it had gone again! Very odd. I don't want to go on about it, but it really has been the oddest cold of my experience.

I worked till 9pm, so I didn't watch Rome and I didn't cook the chicken. I will catch the episode on the weekend and the chicken will wait till tomorrow night. Another day to bring my nostrils back to quivering power.

Ahhhhhh

I haven't done a steam inhalation treatment since I was a kid. I did a couple last night and one this morning. It made a great difference to The Worst Cold I Have Ever Had.

I poured a tablespoon of Vicks steam therapy gop, whatever it's called, into a large bowl and added some boiling water. Sat with my head over it, covered with a towel and inhaled through my nose and through my mouth, alternating. What a head rush. It immediately cleared my sinuses. Ahhhhhhh... relief.

Cookies Good. Cold Bad.

I am holding the cold at bay, at great effort and with the assistance of some sort of echinacea drops, Vit. C, warm salt water, aspirin and lots of warm clothes. It hasn't fully taken hold, but it's hard to say where it's headed next. Hee hee.

In the meantime, here are yesterday's cookies. They are very moist. I made them from a Martha Stewart recipe that calls for 3 tbsp of sour cream with the usual ingredient suspects. The chips are a mixture of Callebaut and Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, so they are not very sweet, just how I like them. And no, that is not a rough-hewn barn floor they are on. Rather it is my rough-hewn coffee table, which no-one can really damage. That's why I like it.