Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

Oh, what a beautiful day. Oh, what a beautiful morning. Everything is going... okay.

Yes, I know that's not the proper words to the song but the proper words do not fit. But at least I'm feeling better today.

If you've been following my tweets, you know that I was down much of yesterday with a really bad migraine. DH had been up overnight because he couldn't sleep. He had gone out to the computer to check on the status of an auction on eBay. We were bidding on a new headstall for Quintas, because the pretty one that supposed to be hers I've been using on Ria because it has the bosal on. But that bosal and headstall match each other. The bosal is red and headstall has red details. They should, after all, both were bought for the same horse. What we didn't realize was that Ria would need one because she has stallion teeth.

To get back to the point, DH came back to bed after winning the auction. He woke me up because apparently I was whining, moaning, screaming, something like that in my sleep. So he asked me what was wrong, which was a migraine. Sweetheart that he is, he brought me a headache pill.

He brought me another one along with my regular painkiller before he left for work in the morning. When I first got up, my head wasn't too bad, but my hands were killing me. Sometime in the afternoon, my headache came back with a vengeance.

I took a pill and went to bed a little before three. Around quarter after, I had to run to the bathroom. I was sick. After a little while I went back to bed with my favorite bucket.

The noise was also bothering me of the traffic on the road. That I could fix with earplugs. I couldn't do anything about the blinking lights in my eyes because they were there when my eyes were closed and covered.

I guess I finally fell asleep because I don't remember anything else until DH got home. Even that I didn't hear at first because of earplugs.

When I told him about the squash situation he was mad. The first half of the squash situation is good. I put out 4 squash in the morning and by mid day two of those have been replaced by 10 kroner. When I went out to check later in the afternoon, the third was missing, but no money. I am still little bit optimistic that the person just didn't have change, so after making sure I had one in the garden for dinner tonight, I put the last one back out this morning.

Ria eats too much. She is the horse of our herd that needs the least to eat. Unfortunately, Daisy is still on the thin side. Because of an extreme lack of grass, we had to give the horses a big bale of hay. Since she's a bit of a pig, Ria stands there eating all day. Last time we were in a horse supply place, we bought her a grazing muzzle. So when DH got home last night I helped her put that on her. She handled it quite well.

So, getting back to the point of this morning, I woke up pretty much okay. My head's not too bad, but it's not great. I let the girls out right away and got a load of laundry started. After I had my glass of juice, I put my steel-toed boots on to go outside. I needed to put grazing muzzle back on Ria.

I did that without problem. However, Tracy was rubbing her head quite insistently on my rear end. I decided her fly mask was bothering her. I pulled off to find that there was a lot of hay under it and it was pretty dirty. The flies didn't seem bad, because there's a nice breeze outside. So I decided to take all the fly masks off to wash them. I took hers and Ria's and both seem relieved. Not long after I took Daisy's, she asked for it back. So Daisy is back in her fly mask.

Then I went to the garden to check on the squash. We had a new zucchini, which I need for making an omelet for dinner tonight. Oddly enough, I can't find the yellow roundish one that I had taken a picture of before. I hope it's just hiding in the leaves somewhere. The pumpkin on the giant pumpkin plant is now larger than a cantaloupe. There are also pumpkins on the other giant pumpkin plant. I'm very happy about that.

Since I have squash I need for dinner, I put the basket back out the road side. But if another one gets stolen I may have to give up this idea. I'm still hoping the person will come and leave money. Maybe they just didn't have change on them. If I knew it was someone that was starving and couldn't afford vegetables I be quite happy to give them my squash. DH thinks it's just the way people are -- that they suck.

So after that I came in with the fly masks, I got out the old dishpan and got them soak in the sink. Then I put Molly to work getting my boots off. I tried clicking and treating more often in the hopes that she would be quieter. It did seem to help a little bit, but it also annoyed her that I kept interrupting her work. However, she did her move my socks almost silently, and I clicked three times in the process.

I'm not sure how many times now change the water on the fly masks, but it seems to be getting cleaned out.

And while writing this my tea steeped (keemun with ginger). So now I'm going to have breakfast.

Some Administrative Stuff

As some of my older readers have already noticed, I have opened the blog up to public viewing, eliminating your need to log in to view my content. I am not really advertising the blog anywhere, but passing the link on occasionally to people who might be interested. It is okay if any of my readers want to pass the link on to someone else they think might be interested or show the content to someone.

I am already direct e-mailing posts to my grandmother. If anyone else wants to be added to that list, let me know. Grandmom, you may have to check my blog in your web browser to see photos and videos. I noticed that I didn't get the photos in the message when a friend added me to her e-mail list. So that is probably the case for you too.

I have also added a couple new features to the blog. I've added my "Tea of the Day" list where I post whatever tea I am drinking each day. I just felt like it.

I also set up a Twitter account and added the feed here so people can see what I've been up to lately if they want to.

You only need the Twitter Doo-Dad at the bottom if you have a twitter account that you want to log in to. I added it because it made it easier for me to get into twitter than having to go to that web site all the time too. ;-)

My 30-to-5 Rule, Herbs, and Other Babble

I think I've worked out a way that I can manage to be productive and still take care of my physical condition. That's what I call my 30-to-5 rule. Basically it means I need about three minutes of rest for every five minutes that I do something. I realize this is probably the opposite of what most people need, but it seems to be working for me. Of course, sometimes I need more than 30 minutes of rest, but at least it is the basic idea of how to cope.

We have really dry weather right now. It's sunny and there is a slight breeze and the air is really dry. So it is just perfect weather for drying herbs. We already dried and put away two large batches of the peppermint that I mostly use for tea. We found a really good and easy way of doing it. We use one of those lingerie bags for delicates in the laundry. That way don't have to worry about how long the stems are and try to tie them into bundles. Instead I just cut them at whatever length they are, shove them in a bag, and then rotate the bag a lot. Right now my bag is filled with the other kind of mint that we have. I am not sure what kind it is. But it looks more like mom's tea mint than the peppermint does. The one I am identifying as peppermint has a very definite reddish tint to both the leaves and the stems. This one has very green leaves and green stems, except the corners of its square stem appeared to have a reddish thread in them.

We have two other herbs drying right now. Those are done by that tie the stems into a bunch method. Unfortunately, I don't know what they are called in English. Instead I will give you their scientific names. The one is called Artemisia dracunculus. The other is Levisticum officinale. The latter we use a lot because it helps make old potatoes taste better.

We are using a lot of mint at the moment. Most days I am making tea on fresh mint. We were reading in DH's herb book about the values of lavender, so today we added a sprig of lavender to my tea as well. It was quite good in my opinion. I also added a sprig of mint to the bottle of cold water DH keeps in the fridge. Makes it just a little bit fresher.

In other news, my back is still improving. Or at least it was. As soon as I wrote that, Shawnee had a little accident on the floor. Her first in ages. I got her outside to finish then cleaned up. But when she came back in, she is so upset and sorry about the accident that she was glued to my feet. I turned around to go get myself a glass of water and tripped over her. I think I need my ice pack again.

I had planned to write more, but hurt too much now to do so.

I Hate My Hands

My hands are really hurting from having used crutches this week. They just can't take the strain.

Until you have pain in your hands, you don't really realize how much rely on them. As well as being painful, they are also weak and not as able to lift things. I had trouble falling asleep last night because of how much they hurt.

Typing manually is definitely out of the question. Fortunately I can rely on Dragon, so I can still post my blog. Another good thing is that my hip is enough better that I hopefully will not be needing crutches today, at least not in the house.

Simple things, like drinking tea, are painful. I use a mug so that I'm able to put my fingers in the handle, so I can't drop it.

Pouring tea is more difficult because of the weight of the pot. Making my pot of tea is outright dangerous. Somehow this morning I managed to spill boiling water from the electric kettle on to my hand that was holding the handle. I guess my wrist was shaking in its weakness. Of course I had to put it down right away and run cold water on my hand. Now that I've also put aloe on it is not really painful anymore.

Fortunately we are having leftover soup tonight for dinner. I don't have to do anything with it until DH is home. I can ask him to put the pot on the stove for me. We also have bread to go with it. Rolls that I made out of leftover pizza dough this weekend.