maydecnc

Every so often I get curious about people I’ve met in my single days. I don’t think anyone is immune to that sort of curiosity, and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything bad if you do (or don’t!) have that curiosity. What is neat about it is that you can look back at that time in your life and come away with a greater appreciation for what you have now, even if what you have now is not perfect.

Today I searched for my last LTR on Facebook, and to my surprise, I found this person. It surprised me on a couple of levels. First of all, this person strongly disapproved of my interest in all things virtual, so to see this person have a Facebook profile was a little shocking, a little hypocritical. What surprised me more was my physical reaction to seeing the face of this person. (For those of you not on Facebook, you can search a person’s name and see his or her profile picture (if he/she has posted one), along with his/her name and a link to “request friend(ship)”.) I felt a wave of nausea wash over me from head to toe. Needless to say, I did not request friendship with this person, and I fervently hope this person doesn’t request friendship of me at any point in the future.

For about an hour, I debated whether to tell my spouse what I’d done. Then, I decided that the whole experience could be spun in such a way so that he would know how much I appreciate being with him in spite of “the difficulties of life” these past two years. He was out-of-town on business today, so I called to tell him this and that I was glad I was with him (and not the other guy). I could tell he was surprised, but happily so.

When you’ve been married for years, you tend to experience more of the “real life” the minister mentions in the ceremony but that you think will never, ever happen to you. It seems (to me, anyways) to be more work to be loving and expressive. Love seems to become more about ethics and responsibility than romance. Even so, it is good to look for the positive - whereever you can find it - and share it with your spouse.

Now, I mean this with all the niceness my heart can muster. But seriously? Why does a simple cold throw a man into a tailspin?

We’ve been battling upper respiratory infections for the past month. Wintertime is a … great time to pass them around, I guess. (I’m keeping it PG, here!) Dear Hubby is on round two, though I quite honestly do not remember round one. At any rate, on my way home from my last day at work, I picked up some lovely Mucinex DM for him. Yeah, I got a “thanks”. But what I’d like more is an end to the whining.

I’m still recovering from mine, which devolved into a nasty sinus infection. Here’s my tips for getting over winter respiratory infections:

• Hydrate yourself and the air around you.
• Try Zicam. It does work on viral infections quite well, if taken early enough.
• Use Nasopure, a neti pot, or other saline nasal irrigation apparatus to wash out the snot.
• Get rest, as much as you can manage. Note: this is tough to do when you have an active toddler.
• Have some chicken soup. Seriously!
• Drink lots of green tea.
• See a doctor if you’ve been sick for too long. I finally couldn’t take it any more after a month of feeling crappy.

So, let me know: how do you treat a cold?

Oh, I’m so excited. We finally got the Christmas tree undecorated and disassembled this evening! In the process, I had a brilliant idea for reusing those wet wipes containers. I’m not talking about the baby wipes containers, although they would also work. The containers to which I refer are the Charmin/Cottonelle/Scott “adult” wipe containers. Sadly, sometimes it is cheaper to buy the container with the wipes than to simply buy the refill, so we had about 8 such empty containers distributed about the house, awaiting a use.

I used some of the containers as corrals for office supplies in my desk at my extremely cheap place of business. (They recently stopped subsidizing the soda and snack machines. That’s a boost for morale, lemme tell ya!) This latest use for wipe containers is even more helpful, given the post-holiday tear-down task we had. In order to make some of the more fragile ornaments a little more crush-proof, I wrapped them in bubble wrap or tissue and then placed them into a wipe container. After that, the containers stacked very nicely within a plastic storage tote. Sterilite is the brand name of the storage totes we have, but Rubbermaid also makes them.

Now, I know that one can buy special plastic boxes to house ornaments, but using the wipe containers within a storage tote performs a similar service at a much lower cost.

I would love to hear how you use your empty wipe containers! I am always looking for new uses for them.