I’m set to go to a lung specialist next week. I’m ready for this because I am so tired of coughing and being stuck at home. Any effort sets me to coughing. Lon got it moved up a couple of days because he’s still worried about me.

There’s an old apple tree in the back yard, that used to be productive. It hadn’t been pruned in years and was covered with big suckers. I wanted to cut it back this spring but it just didn’t happen. We drove by a neighbor’s place and there was a guy pruning some big old apple trees. Lon stopped and asked if he’d be willing to prune our tree. So, today during perfect weather, he cut back the apple and cut down the old prune tree (which really was dead). I’ll spray the tree with dormant oil this fall and maybe we’ll have a decent crop next year. Lon has a real talent for making connections like this. And, the guy is an urban farmer, which means we can have truly local food this year, even if I don’t get a garden in.

I have been a reluctant fan of Rand Paul. I’m not fond of his father, although I respect anyone with real convictions. I couldn’t be happier about the filibuster last night. The Press is not doing its job with this administration. I can remember them going on and on about evil George Bush. When the current administration can’t manage to say that they do not have the right to kill American citizens on American soil without due process, there is a big problem. I’m glad that Ron Wyden joined in. I’ve respected his opinions although I don’t agree with his politics. I’ve spent the last four years dealing with state bureaucrats and you have got to put limits on what they can do. It doesn’t matter which party is in power. Put a stop to it and remind them that we pay their salaries.

One of the discussions Lon and I used to have, back when we were just friends, had to do about why good people die young. He was upset that Kate died at such a young age, when he knows other people that have never done anything worthwhile in their lives that live to an old age. It’s probably a common thing to think about, when you lose someone.

My latest diagnosis is walking pneumonia. After all this time, I have no energy and still crash out early on the weekends. I’ve come to believe that Jeffrey had problems with his lungs before he came down with pneumonia. He had tularemia as a kid and was spray poisoned with paraquat when we lived in California. But really, my thought is this: if it is taking me this long to recover from a milder version of pneumonia, then Jeffrey would not have been able to recover from his, even if I’d gotten him into the doctor earlier. He would have hated being stuck at the house this much and not being outside. He would have hated not being able to do all those physical things he was used to doing. It’s been difficult for me and very frustrating, because there are things I want to do and need to do. Most weekends, I haven’t been able to do them.

I don’t know about Kate, but I suspect that just maybe, she would not have been able to deal with a long, slow recovery either. We do not want to see a loved one die, after all, and we like to think that we can come back from anything. In Jeffrey’s case, I think he would have preferred a quick death to a long slow recovery from pneumonia. I’m just glad I wasn’t sicker, because this long, slow recovery is truly frustrating.

I’ve been posting over on the spindlitis site and didn’t know it had been this long. So, still recovering, still slow. I’ll have another chest x-ray next week and will see my regular doctor on the 18th. I think my lungs are clearing up. I coughed pretty badly last night, but less today. And I’ll get to catch up on sleep over the weekend which helps. I’ve been taking the Green Pastures cod liver oil/royal butter blend, which should help. I still smoke mullein a bit and use the inhaler. Any real exertion gets me coughing and I have to rest a bit. Looks like I’ll be spending another weekend at home.

I was finally able to cook up something at lunch that I wanted to make for dinner all week. We have a new Grocery Outlet store nearby. I bought a bunch of peppers, bells and the small colored mild peppers. I have some cooked up chicken thighs and lots of bacon. So today, I chopped up the peppers, garlic, onion and chicken, fried some bacon and added some Roma tomatoes. Lon isn’t a big fan of peppers but he liked this. I like to cook that way, but it’s too time consuming when you are sick.

We’ve had nice weather so far. I enjoy sun in February. I’m sure the rains will set in soon. I’m still not sure what to do about a garden this year. We continue to talk about moving down to the river and financially, we really need to do that. I’d like to find a way to sell the house. Every year, it’s a major struggle to pay the property taxes on the two places and keep them out of foreclosure. We just can’t afford two places. And, at this point, I’d like to move out of the area completely. We’ll see how it goes.

I am just beat today. It’s my second day without antibiotics, so clearly they made a big difference in how good I feel. I do have a doctor’s appointment today. I really have to remind myself that I must take it easy. When you finally start to feel like normal, it’s easy to overdo.

It is so very nice to have a sink that drains, a working icemaker on the fridge and clean dishes. It really is sad when one looks forward to doing housework again!

I just might be starting to heal. I’m coughing much less. I can do some physical work and not lose my breath. I finished the antibiotics today. I’ll see my doctor on Tuesday.

I’ve become interested in the 1000 Gifts book by Ann Voskamp. Her website is aholyexperience.com. I like her writing and I like the idea of saying “thank you” for all those small moments in your life. I had several moments when I was not kind to Lon, while I was sick. So I am looking for a way to smooth my life back out.

I’m trying to post more frequently, so there may be more odd ball postings like this.

There was a period, when I was at my sickest, that I was desperate to do something to breathe easier. I happened to remember that mullein was used in herbal “cigarettes”, created for asthma sufferers. We managed to buy some mullein and I’ve been smoking it off and on ever since. It seems counter intuitive, to smoke something when you are having lung issues. It really does seem to help, more than the albuterol inhaler that I’ve been using. (Lon of course gives me a bad time about looking like a pot smoker.)

Mullein seems to be a very mild, tasteless smoke. Some posts online have said it’s harsh, but the herb I have doesn’t seem to be. It seems to help with a productive cough and I typically stop coughing after I’ve smoked some of it. I’ve also read posters talk about a “high”. I would not call it a high, but it does seem to give “a feeling of well being” for lack of a better description.

Here’s a quote from the Wikipedia article on common mullein:

Dioscorides first recommended the plant 2000 years ago, against pulmonary diseases,[66] and this has remained one of its primary uses, especially against cough. Leaf decoctions or herbal teas were used for expectoration, consumption, dry cough, bronchitis, sore throat and hemorrhoids. Leaves were also smoked against pulmonary ailments, a tradition that in America was rapidly transmitted to Native American peoples.[27][67] They used the non-indigenous plant to make syrups against croup. The combination of expectorant saponins and emollient mucilage makes the plant particularly effective for cough. All preparations meant to be drunk have to be finely filtered to eliminate the irritating hairs.[48]

Mullein is a very common herb. In fact, we drove to the river after we’d bought this and I noticed a place next to the raised garden bed! This summer, I’m going to start gathering my own. The flowers can be steeped in oil and used for earaches.

I’m not an herbalist or a doctor of course, and I did also see a medical doctor about my condition. However, I really haven’t discussed mullein with my doctors, although I might talk to my regular GP about it. He’s an old school doctor and I don’t think he’d dismiss this out of hand. Anyway, take the knowledge for what you will.

Still trying to get over whatever this stuff is. We’re also trying to get back on track with the Paleo diet. We really didn’t go too far off it over the holidays, but I’m just not in that groove. And I haven’t been eating much and definitely haven’t felt like cooking. I ordered Paleo Comfort Foods, which is a nice cookbook. I’m going to start working my way through it and find some recipes to add to the ones from Well Fed. We did go off the diet tonight as we were both craving Mexican food. I have some tortilla recipes that I haven’t tried yet, but I haven’t yet put together a good pseudo-Mexican meal, Paleo style. I must say that the beans and rice hit the spot.

Quinn is having some unpleasantness in his life right now. I hope he can move past this one and really grow up. He’s got a good heart, but he doesn’t always follow it.

All the kittehs, doggie and birdies are doing fine. And I’ve been spinning and knitting. All I need to make life complete is to stop coughing.

It is not an upper respiratory infection. It seems to be whooping cough. I went to my regular doctor, who was concerned that I continued to have coughing spasms after 8 weeks. I’m now on antibiotics with more codeine cough syrup. (Antibiotics don’t work against viral infections but whooping cough is bacterial.) I also need to go in and have a chest x-ray to rule out any pneumonia. I’ve been sick where I coughed for several months, but this truly is about the sickest I’ve ever been. I would encourage adults to get vaccinated for whooping cough. I can understand why it would be so deadly to young children.

Since I have not been able to do much more than work, the house is a mess. I did take down the Christmas tree. It was still pretty fresh, so I think we’ll go with fresh cut trees from now on. And I tackled cutting Lon’s hair. He’s been after me to cut it. Now, I do not cut hair. I’m bad at it. Jeffrey just let his grow long. I’ve tried to talk Lon into getting a hair cut but he never gets around to it. So I took a stab at it today, until I started to feel sick again. When I left to go back to work, he was starting to hack at it. It could be scary out there!

We had a little snow the other day. It was sunny today so most of this in the front yard has melted off. I had a few windows opened today. It was nice to smell the clean air. I’ve been sick with an upper respiratory infection for about six weeks now. I even went to the doctors but that didn’t help. I have been smoking mullein this last week. It’s an herb commonly used for asthma. My lungs are much clearer. If I can ever stop coughing, I just might start to heal. The weird thing is that smoking mullein does stop the coughs. I just have to smoke some whenever I get short winded. I have been able to work through most of it. I just didn’t manage much for the holidays

It’s really a drag to be sick at Christmas. I gave up on Christmas Eve and went to the clinic. They say it’s an upper respiratory infection. I feel like I’ve done nothing but cough for a month. I managed to send out a couple of small gifts to my aunt and to Lon’s sister Davey. I got something for Lon. And that’s about it. I spent the holidays hanging out at home and moving my web site over to new hosting.

Lon was concerned that I might not be able to bake cookies, so got some just in case. We are off the diet for the holidays. It’s interesting but I really haven’t missed the stuff we’ve eaten lately. I managed to make a regular dinner tonight and it was tasty.

And here’s the tree:

The tree is still outside! I did send Christmas cards out, fortunately most won’t travel far. I think I have my Christmas shopping done. I have promised to bake massive quantities of cookies for Lon. We’ve been very good about sticking to the diet but this is Christmas! I finally got around to ordering something for him today, so it won’t make it here in time. Oh well.

We are having a work crew out at the property tomorrow to try and pull up the two sunken boats. We have to get this done. We’ve made very small progress on this, although we did have a diver hook cables to both and we have the front end of one boat lifted up. If we can move them up enough to beach them, we can start to take them apart.

I am going to be moving my sites over to new hosting. I’m taking a little time off work for the holidays so hope to have this done soon. The site will be down possibly during the transfer. I think it’s going to be a good deal and saves me some money.

I am also going to re-evaluate the sites and figure out how I want to use them. I like having Quinnscove as a picture site, although I am not great about updating the pictures.
This site and the spindlitis site need work. I’d like to experiment with daily blogging this year, if I can come up with interesting topics. More fun ahead!

Oh and cute kitteh picture:

Office kitteh

I managed to update WordPress for my blog. And I have the turkey done and am working my way through cooking the rest of the meal. Quinn is back in Lincoln City. He’ll be back out here this weekend. Work continues to tear down the 2 story houseboat. We are supposed to have a diver out this weekend. He’s going to set cables on the two sunken boats we are trying to pull up and dismantle. Fun times.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

I’m depressed about the election. What can I say? I had hoped that we might actually talk about the problems in this country and what to do about it. I guess having some sort of solutions isn’t required of the Presidency these days. I can tell you this administration is not going to look good when folks read the history books in a hundred years.

Quinn has been down for awhile. He’s tearing down the 2 story houseboat. We have to have that removed and also salvage two sunken boats by December 5th. We are probably going to need a diver to properly rig the boats. We worked on one earlier in the year and got it to move a bit. Also, we are still waiting to hear about converting the dock to a private dock in my name. I don’t know how that is going to work out. If I were on my own and there wasn’t property involved here, I’d leave the state. I’m tired of this area and would like to see a different part of the country before I’m too old to travel.

Work is going well. I drove to the office for training a few weeks ago. It’s weird because I really don’t talk to anyone when I’m there. And when I’m here, I get to have my office cats.

Ah, I’m depressed about blogging in general. I guess I’ve never really found my “voice”. It becomes just a public place to blow off steam. Sometimes it sounds more like those canned Christmas letters, where you only write about the good stuff. Life gets easier in some ways and harder in others. I seem to be doing better at commenting on other blogs than writing here.

I used to be intimidated by making mayo. Two things changed that: I got an immersible blender and I found the olive oil mayo recipe from Well Fed. This is so simple that anyone can make mayo. Just look–

I know you are wondering why you would do this. Basically you have mayo that does not use seed oils and does not have sugar. It tastes great too. You can use this for salad dressings and sauces. I like to make a pork and Chinese cabbage stir fry and add mayo with a little coarse ground mustard added.

My usual color palette is grapey purple, dusty green and burgundy. I just love those colors. Most of the clothes I’ve been wearing this summer are based around black, red and white. I seem to have a strong urge right now to go with classic fall colors. I’ve got a nice felted hat in orange. I’m drawn to more orange and gold colors. I just seem to be sensitive to color.

Life goes on. I enjoyed the Presidential debates last night and am looking forward to the VP debates. I am hopeful about the election and I want to see real change in the country, not just another four years of this same old crap. If you can’t lead, get out of the way of those that can. We are still making plans for the river place. It remains to be seen what will happen there long term. I get so tired of the leadership of this county and state. There are days when I would like to be able to live somewhere else, just to get away from it.

I don’t think I’ve posted anything about our success with the paleo diet. We’ve been on it about six months. No, we are not skinny, but both of us have lost weight and are moving around better. Lon has been able to walk much farther than at any time since his last hip replacement surgery. We do a somewhat modified Paleo. We still do some dairy and I still have a small amount of honey in my tea. We’ve also been able to eat smaller portions and neither of us has felt deprived on this diet. I picked up a copy of Well Fed (from The Clothes Make the Girl ) and it’s helped me a lot with how I cook. I make us an almond flour goodie about once a month. I am continuing to look for ways to improve our health. I joined the Vancouver Food Coop. I can’t say I shop there all the time, but it is a good place to get grass fed beef and I get a discount from being a Coop member. I also like to shop at a local Asian Market, where I can get all sorts of interesting greens. I haven’t figured out a way to do any sort of long term food storage without grains though. Most of the Paleo folks that talk about food storage admit that they would have to resort to grains if it came to that. Potatoes are allowed on some Paleo diets, but not if you are trying to lose weight. I continue to work with a naturopathic doctor too. I’ve found that taking adrenal support pills make a huge difference in my energy level.

For lunch today, we had ground beef cooked with onions and garlic, with some cabbage thrown in. I also added a few cherry tomatoes and olives with a little parmesean cheese on top. It really was tasty and typical of how we eat now. We’ve been eating a lot of spaghetti squash this week. Lon initially planned to do this for a year. I suspect that at the end of the year, we’ll still be eating like this.

I’ve been spending some time on what I feel are inspirational sites. I’m taking the Full Tilt Boogie class from Dispatch from LA . I plan to do some work on that this weekend. I also spent some time at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly . I enjoy reading her site but decided this time to go to some of the blogs on her blogroll. Seems like at least a couple of the blogs had women that have given up their dreads. I find stuff like that interesting. I do find that it’s important to keep the creative juices flowing. I’ve not had a lot of time to put into projects lately, but I am determined to change that. I have a pile of beads sitting on my work desk to remind me.

I just really feel that it’s time for some changes in my life. My personal life is great and I’m very happy with Lon. I am less happy with the clutter in the house. I’ve tried not to make a lot of changes to the things in the house, at least for my first few years here. Now, I am anxious to speed up the process. I want to clear out a lot of the stuff that we don’t need or use. I’d like to pack up some of this and put it away or get rid of it. It’s not my stuff of course and that limits what I can do. I would really, really, like to spend less time trying to find stuff I need. So I will be making an attempt over this long weekend to clear clutter and find places for the things we need to keep.

we were talking about Fanny. She is now a jumping-off-the-walls big cat. She likes to sleep on me at night and will usually climb up on my lap any time I sit down. We went down to Lincoln City to visit Quinn and see the boat show at Toledo. It’s a nice show and I really enjoyed myself. Quinn is doing well and has been staying with Laura, his half sister. He’s working again and likes his new job at the Coho Inn. I hope he keeps at it. I’d love to be able to stay at the coast.

We are about to become the owners of a 1966 Ford F-250 pickup. It needs some work and definitely cleanup. We really need a pickup. There’s so much work at the river that we can’t do without a truck. We are still moving forward on the idea of moving there and renting out this house. I don’t even want to think what a mess it will be to pack things up. I hope we can start to get rid of some of this stuff. The clutter just drives me crazy.

I did not do any gardening. We do have chickens (including two Jersey Giant roosters that we need to get rid of. They were supposed to be pullets.) It’s still something that I want to do and I have a lot of plants in pots that will need to be transplanted. I just don’t seem to have much time to put into anything these days. I spent this weekend trying to rebuild Lon’s computer as his Windows partition got corrupted. I was able to pull all his files and pictures out through a Linux partition. I was able to get a fresh copy of Linux on a new hard drive and had him use that for a few days. I’ve spent all weekend fighting to get XP reinstalled. And that would be the tech rant of this piece. XP is obsolete. It’s ridiculous to have to go all over the place to download programs to be able to do the basic stuff. I couldn’t get the wireless adapter installed until I had Service Pack 2 installed. (Luckily I had another wireless card that I could install.) I had no problems with the card in Linux and the system was basically ready to go as soon as I installed it. I’ve turned my laptop into a dual boot machine. I run Bodhi Linux for my day to day stuff, since it’s so fast. I installed Ubuntu so I can sync my iPhone (which just doesn’t want to work in Bodhi.) I like having Ubuntu One do that automatic backup too. When I replace that laptop, I’m going for one that I can run Ubuntu on. It just feels like a real operating system. I don’t like the direction that Apple is taking and I’ve never been a big Windows fan. I let Lon know that I’m not rebuilding XP again either.

If there is one thing that I do not need, it is another cat. I have cats, many cats. I love my cats, but at some point, you have to say that you have enough. Having three cats on your lap while two others circle around, waiting to come in for a landing is a bit much. (And no, I do not have just five cats.)

But…..my boyfriend’s sister has a puss cat from the family Scottish Fold line. I guess my boyfriend picked one up and then Davey wound up with one. The cat kept having kittens by a Maine Coon cat and they either were not folds or were males. And my boyfriend wanted a female. Now, I have always taken my cats in to be fixed and don’t advocate bringing more kittens into the world. We took two fold kittens from her, both males, and I’ve yet to get them fixed. That is now a priority because I have this:

This is Fanny, out of the last litter for Davey’s puss cat. She finally had her fixed so there won’t be any more kittens. Davey wanted me to have her and so I do. The good news is that she is a very smart kitten. I’ve been around many cats and this is one of the smartest ones I’ve seen. Scottish folds should not be bred back to other folds as they have genetic issues from being too inbred. This is going to be bad news for the two boy folds. For now, I am enjoying having a kitten in the house again.

We had the Messabout last weekend and I will post pictures of it on the Quinns Cove blog. It was pretty small but it was definitely nice to see the guys again. I wore a long sleeved shirt but still was badly bitten by the mosquitos. We still do not have a boat that we can take out. We have another project boat, which has me hopeful. It’s a wooden row boat, that can be used with an electric motor. It needs to be painted and we are going to tackle that in the next week or so. We have an electric motor so it’s a nice fit for us. I’d like to be able to row a bit.

As far as other updates, we have now been on the Paleo diet for two months. Lon has lost weight, but we don’t know how much yet. He is starting to get back into shirts that he hasn’t been able to wear for awhile. I’ve lost some weight but think I’m starting to stall already. I have to keep my carb count really low to lose weight and it’s cherry season. I’ve been keeping my portions small, but will probably have better luck losing when I can cut out the fruit. I’ve been freezing raspberries from our bushes and am planning to freeze some blueberries and cherries for later on. And I don’t really have a garden again. I want to put a small grow box or two in the back yard. I’d like a fall garden so I can grow some Asian veggies. We use those a lot these days. It just doesn’t seem like I get a lot accomplished.

I normally post things about the river on the Quinn’s Cove blog. But it turned out to be a nice day. The river is too high for the little boats so the Messabout will be in a couple of weeks.