Well I'll be...

Last week I was traveling for work and was visiting a client in Northern Ontario, roughly 3 hours North of Cochrane.  When I arrived at Timmins airport and stepped outside the plane, I breathed in and my nasal hairs froze instantly.  Oh boy.  From then on I breathed through my scarf.  The outside temperature was -40C every morning, warming up to about -28C in the afternoon.  Add wind chill to that and you're at -50C.  Fun stuff.

That meant that everywhere I went there was heat blasting; in the trucks, in the buildings, in the "dorm" rooms.  Upon arrival, the ambient temperature in my room was 25C.  Holy shit.  That got lowered right away to a more comfortable 23C.

In fear of an asthma attack while up North for the week, I armed myself with a new Bricanyl inhaler, the type that I'd used for many years, but haven't had the need to use for over a year now.  I didn't need it once.  I firmly believe that eating properly has just about eliminated my asthma, though I do still experience minor wheezing at times.  It's not nearly bad enough to treat with the inhaler, anyway.

So, here I was, in awful conditions for skin and lungs.  To battle the incessant blowing/electric heat and hopefully prevent my skin from drying out, I applied some serious lotion (St. Ives Intensive Relief) to my body, morning and night.  I found it really helped and I only scratched the hell out of my skin the first night.

On the Thursday, I took my second dose of silicea as directed. Now that I'm back home in "normal" winter weather (between -3C and -10C), I've eased up on the lotion application so we'll see whether the silicea helps with skin ailments as much as it's rumoured to.  I have my hopes up! :)

I noticed yesterday that for the first time in memory I was not itchy.  Anywhere.  I've always had some spot on my being needing a scratch, like as if I had fucking fleas, but suddenly there was no itch.  Could it be??!  Will see how it goes in the next couple of days since I've virtually stopped applying the lotion.

In other good news, the corn on my left foot is gone!  The last bit of hardened skin came off during my trip and I can finally walk with a normal stride.  I'd forgotten how good that feels - why the hell did I resist this treatment so long?!  Avoiding chemicals, that's why.  At times they do good things, okay? :)

Hubby and I went for a hike through a section of our closest conservation area today, and it was so nice to walk normally, even when there were tree roots and rocks underfoot.  I gave my (left!) ankle a slight twist while jogging down a hill, but other than that it was fantastic.  Yay!!

Oh!  And, as expected, I did wheeze a bit after running up and down a couple hills in the cold air, but it wasn't severe enough to use the inhaler.  I'll always make sure I have it on me just in case anyway.

Homepathy Treatment Plan / Update

Helen, my homeopathic practitioner, provided me with my first prescription last week: 2 tiny little balls of silicea.  The instructions were to take one tiny ball, dissolve it in about half a cup of water, and sip it throughout the day.  Ok, done.

It's hard to believe that such a tiny little ball of something could make any sort of a difference to a 150 lb (ok, 153.5 lb as of this morning) body, and to be honest, I haven't detected anything as yet, but I'm anxious for the second dose next Thursday.

As I mentioned before I have an actual goal this year, which is to complete the Toronto Tough Mudder event in September, so I'm tightening the belt, so to speak, and hauling my lazy ass back onto the proverbial wagon.  Over the past month I was enjoying way too much sugar and grain products.  (Dearest Hubby: if you come home with another apple pie I'm gonna wring your neck!)

I weighed myself on January 9th and was semi-shocked (more disappointed, really) to see 155 on the scale.  This morning, after a decent BM it read 153.5.  Good.  It's moving at least.

Oh!  I also mentioned before that I used some heavy-duty corn removal pads on my foot and finally I am seeing something happen.  Those things basically kill the layers of skin by drying them out so that they peel off.  That's what I have happening; a disc of now-dead skin that is slowly coming off, hopefully bringing the corn with it.  About half of the disc has come up, which I've clipped off using my nail clippers, so hopefully the rest will come loose by mid-next week.

Ughhhh...stupid foot!

Lesson learned...see, I've had a corn on my left foot for over a year.  It bugged the shit out of me and REALLY hurt when I stepped on something the wrong way.  Last week I finally gave in and bought a box of those 40% salicylic acid corn remover pads and made use of them.  Yesterday I removed the second treatment (pad) and thought it would be a good idea to soak my feet in warm water and tea tree oil soap (Dr. Bronner's).  That would have been fine and dandy if I hadn't dried my feet and gone for an hour-long walk right afterward.

Stupid.

Part way along the walk I could feel a blister starting between the two smallest toes - on the same damned foot!!!  If only I had waited a little longer before heading out...

Next up, homeopathy

One day late last year was my lucky day; a new co-worker was introduced to me on her first day on the job, and she is also a Homeopathic Practitioner.  Yeehawwww!!  I bet I looked like I'd just won the jackpot! :)

Naturally, we started talking about it and covered the basics of how I'd (for the most part - I'm an addict, what can I say?) cut grains and sugar out of my diet and as a result lost some weight that has stayed off as long as I stay away from that crap.  A quick touch on candidiasis and my preference for natural personal care products and we connected.  It's not often you meet someone who understands the need to avoid the chemicals and toxic concoctions in everyday items that are EVERYWHERE.

Of course I wanted to know more and to sign my ass up for treatment.  I have quite a number of issues that I want to do something about, and last night we had my intake appointment.  She had a lot of great, probing questions about my issues, such as when did they first appear, what were the conditions then, where did you feel it at first, what did you do to treat it, then what happened, etc.  Many of my issues have been around for so long it was difficult to think back to when I was a teenager and what I was doing and feeling.  What the scenario was, even.  Holy moly.

Helen is such a kind and gentle, happy soul, though; very easy to talk to, and we had a great time.  I even showed her my ugly big toe nail.  I look forward to hearing her recommendations for treatment and seeing what is in store for me and my being this year.

Now to change the too-bright light bulbs in the dining room fixture, as they made me frown the entire time.

2013 - a year of change.

Merry xmas to meeeeeee

Christmas of 2012 was very low-key and with all the traveling I'd been doing for work, I really wasn't in the mood for shopping malls.  Never mind trying to figure out what all these people could use.  I'm done with buying them "junk" that would either be thrown into a drawer or worse.  (So they didn't like the fantastic dish-drying gloves we got them a couple years back...their loss, right??)

Anyway, my xmas present to myself this year was an Instant Pot pressure cooker -- the same one that Mark suggested on his site.  It had rave reviews on Amazon and was on sale so I went for it.  Even without paying any extra for quick shipping, it appeared at our door within a couple of business days.  After thoroughly reading the instructions and warnings I decided that chicken soup would be the first dish cooked with it.

Out came the frozen chicken thighs (bone in, skin on...duh!), celery, carrots, onion, garlic and olive oil.  The pot was washed, the veggies were prepped.  You can also saute in the cooker before adding the rest of the ingredients, so the veggies were fried in the oil for a few minutes before the (now-thawed) chicken and 8 cups of water were added.

Close and lock the lid, press the Soup button, and sit back.  I wanted to stand by to see what it would do along the way, and it performed like a pro.  It got up to temperature, then to pressure, and showed me how long it would remain at pressure; 30 minutes.  It even counted down to zero.  I was quite impressed, actually.  Once it had finished we realized that some of Lalah's curry powder mix (which we LOVE) should have been added prior to putting the lid on...so it was added at the end instead.  It was still super-yummy.