Do you enjoy traveling?

I'm actually tired enough to hit the pillows, but I know that if I go to bed now (it was 9:30 pm when I started writing), I'll be waking up when my husband gets up at 4:15 a.m. That's when he gets ready for work... he has a 45 minute commute to work.

I, on the other hand, have a ten minute commute to work. I don't want to get up at that early hour. It wouldn't be so bad if I could fall right back to sleep, and there was a time when I could, but for some reason my inner clock has changed in recent years, and after I've had about 7 - 8 hours of sleep, if something wakes me up, I have to get up or I will lie in bed awake until I do.

And there is nothing worse on a workday than waking up before you have to, and not being able to go back to sleep when you have another hour or more to do it. If you could <sigh>.

I have tried getting up earlier, just going along with the inner clock thing, but that means I'm at school by 5:30 a.m, and I'm wiped out by the time 2:30 rolls around. I need to be at school some days until 5 or 6pm, so getting there at 5:30 and putting in twelve hours is definitely not something I want to get into the habit of doing.

Which is I why I'm posting this entry... I'm too tired to do any serious work for school, but an entry like this (requiring no searches or photos to upload) I can do to keep me awake until it is safe to go to bed (so I won't wake up too early).

In response to the weekend assignment posted by John at By The Way:

Weekend Assignment #141: Do you enjoy traveling? Not the arriving and being where you're going, mind you; I'm asking if you enjoy the actual act of traveling from one place to another, by car or train or airplane or whatever. What I'm asking is if you enjoy the journey as much as you enjoy the destination.

Extra credit: Any more travel planned for 2006, or are you home for good for the rest of the year?

There was a time when I enjoyed travel, especially when flying. I'm one who likes the journey as much as, if not more than, the destination.

I do not like driving long drives that take more than four hours. A four hour drive out here will get me either to the mountains of NC or the coast of NC... and into Virginia, or into South Carolina. I can probably make it as far west as Tennessee. A good four hour drive, even if I'm drivng alone, is actually exciting and pleasant, providing I have no car troubles to deal with.

Anything more than that infringes on my mental comfort, and after five hours or so, I'm ready for a major break. Eight hours and I'm spending the night in a motel if I'm not where I'm supposed to be.

Traveling, whether for a vacation trip or to visit long distance family, feels different when I'm alone versus when I'm driving with my husband. I like traveling with him more now that we're older than when we were younger.

Then, he always rushed me, questioned my packing decisions, was always in a hurry to get where we were going, cursed at traffic, and was never in a good mood during the trip. Pets never accompanied us on a trip. Traveling was not his favorite activity. He treated it like shopping: go in, get what you want, and leave. That's how he looked at our vacations back then. More than twelve years ago he was like that. I seldom enjoyed our vacations because of all that rushing around to get there.

I like to travel slowly, take my time, enjoy the drive, make some stops along the way, do some side trips... you know, like when I shop: I like to browse. If I see something I need or want, I'll buy it, or I'll look around for ideas and new products... I like to look around when I shop, and when I travel.

But after a few health emergencies that occurred when he was in his forties, my husband began seeing things with new "eyes" and a new philosophy, you might say.

He hasn't rushed me in years, and I can't remember when he last complained about my packing luggage. He takes his time. He waits for me. He suggests we stop and look around, and he enjoys the journey now. He still occasionally cusses at rude drivers on the road, but not like he did back then. He doesn't mind it if we have to take our dogs with us. I even see him smile more often.

So, travelling with him has become more pleasant. But now our working schedules are in conflict, and we don't have the same weeks off, or we differ in what we want to do with our time off. We both agree on relaxation. My mind is in the mountains, his is at the coast.

I also like traveling alone once in awhile, like during the summer when I made that trip to a mountain chalet. I had never done that before, but I needed to get away ... really get away in a spiritual sense... before the new school year started. It was the best time I've ever had alone. Well, Max was with me for companionship and to be a watchdog of sorts. He's a great barker.

Also, when I travel alone, I don't like listening to the radio, except to hear weather reports or occasionally to catch a news report. The radio becomes like so much chatter to my mind when I'm reflecting on change. I like the silence when I'm alone. I think about things I'm trying to solve, or I'll try to recall a dream I had, or think of topics to write about.

Often, I will pray when I'm driving... for the safety of the drivers on the road, including myself. When I see an accident, I will pray for whoever was involved, and I'll pray for the safety of officers on the road, and the roadworkers. I ask God to protect them, and lead them safely to their families by end of day. I think that praying while I drive makes me more aware of my actions as a driver.

Do I plan on doing any more travel for the remainder of 2006? No, I'm home for the rest of the year, except for the family visit on Christmas Day, which is usually less than 2hours, depending upon traffic.

I like traveling as long as I get time to rest when I get backhome. I don't like coming back from a vacation one day and driving to work the next. I need some down time after traveling, and time to regroup and get mentally prepared for the work I do.

Do you like to travel? Write up an entry and leave a link here or in John's journal, or write about it in the comment section here.

Now, ... I think it's safe to go to bed!

Tags: traveling

Welcome a New Journaler!

And to follow up what I just wrote about being with people you love, here's a request I found in Sheria's journal. She met a lady who left a comment in her journal. Sheria asks that we give the lady a visit because no one seems to know her journal exists.

That won't last for long once the word gets out!

Let's welcome her into our community. I don't know her name yet, but I'm sure she would appreciate a howdy-do and a big batch of brownies from the welcoming committee... <grin>... you know what I mean.

Here is her journal address.

http://journals.aol.com/jilla29680/aol.comjilla29680/

Her journal is called The Disintegration of a Female Personality.

Go by and leave a link so she can visit you.

Thank you all. Bea

Tags: http://journals.aol.com/jilla29680/aol.comjilla29680/

Love the ones you're with!

Back in 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young delivered an album called Deja Vu. I was 17 years old that year, and didn't really know much about CSN&Y. I was a bit too young to follow the Woodstock crowd, and I was headed for college. I liked their music, didn't always understand their lyrics, but there was no mistaking their intent with the song "Ohio," a protest song about the Kent State shootings in May of that year. I was not quite seventeen when I had looked in horror upon the photograph of the young girl kneeling over the body of a student killed by a National Guardsman. Those were tragic days for the students and the military, and for one president.

If you are too young to remember those days, click here for a link to Wikipedia. It will  help you get started on a search for further information.

The reason I mentioned the above was to lead into this: I bought the Deja Vu album a few years later when I was earning money and able to afford the luxury of such. There were a few songs that I loved to hear on that album, including Our House, Teach Your Children, Almost Cut My Hair, Woodstock, and Carry On. I pretty much liked the entire album.

A year later, their second album as CSN&Y was released, called 4-Way Street Album which I did not buy. One song from that album, Love the One You're With is what this entry is about.

I'm not citing the lyrics for the meaning I had read into them back in the seventies. Basically, the song is about lovers being apart, and if you can't be with that person, the philosophy to love the one next to you is touted. Free sex, free of committment, free of guilt. I didn't buy into that thought regarding sexual relationships. I was a one guy kind of woman.

But I do recall the lyrics holding a special meaning in another sense: I had been separated from my loved ones ever since I went off to college. When I moved into the UGA dorm in 1973, my parents moved the rest of the family to Connecticut. Feeling left behind, I became friends with my roommate, and her family sort of adopted me for a short time. I loved the ones I was with because I couldn't be with the ones I loved. For two years, Susan and I were best friends, and her parents welcomed me into their home and their lives. I loved them for that.

While I dated my soon-to-be-husband during my last year of college, I missed him terribly (I lived in Georgia, he in NC) between visits. That same song nearly enticed me to love another simply because I couldn't be with the one I loved. Why not love the one I'm with? I had asked myself.

But it never happened because, like Richard Gere rescuing his Pretty Woman, Steve drove to Georgia to find a place to live and looked for a job so we could be together. We got married soon after, and the rest is romantic, marital history.

Shortly thereafter, my parents moved the family to California, leaving me with my husband and his family. Not an unfair trade-off, actually, since he also had a family as large as my own (each of us had six siblings). Again, I began to love the ones I was with. They became my family because my family was 3,000 miles away.

It's a good thing I learned to love the ones I'm with because my family is scattered across the United States. I don't remember having spent Thanksgiving with any of them as an adult. Every year, I spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with my husband's family. We've been doing this for the 31 years of our marriage.

But it is stressful to  get up early for breakfast, bake or cook something to take along, pack up the car, take care of the dogs, just so we can make the long distance drive to their home, eat a meal that takes no more than fifteen minutes to consume. This would be followed by the desire to take a nap and not being ableto, of being stuffed, of chatting, and joking, and catching up on family news. When the kids were younger, it was more fun, but now that they have all grown, I desire to have Thanksgiving at my house.

This year, we did that. I couldn't be with the ones I loved, so I loved the ones I'm with. Not my family or his family, but our family. Our family is made up of neighbors and friends now. In recent years, our family has been the people we live next door to, down the road from, the ones I go to church with, or work with. In short, our friends and neighbors.

This Thanksgiving I was grateful that my son came home, that he helped me in the kitchen, that we didn't have to drive so far away, didn't have to rush the morning away, and we could relax after we ate. Sharing the kitchen with my son was a happy event for me. It was just like having my little boy home again, except  he baked homemade pumpkin pie and a green bean casserole from scratch. We did everything but have a wooden spoon "fight." It was fun having the Thanksgiving meal in our home.

Afterward, we didn't have to drive two hours in the dark to get back to our home. Instead, I drove to my widow neighbor's house and brought her a Thanksgiving meal. She is still so caught up in her grief that she didn't want to go anywhere this year, not even with her own daughter's family. She thought she would be miserable company for us. So I carried the food to her, then spent an hour visiting with her.

If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. So I gave her some time, the time I would have been driving on the road had we driven to be with our family. She could have been an aunt, or an older sister. She needed someone to love her for a little while, and so I did. I listened to her talk about her husband, how she missed him, how his death has impacted the familiy dynamics. Mostly I listened. Finally, I told her that she really is a lot stronger than she gives herself credit for, and that she wouldn't have made our day miserable.

The next day, Friday, my best friend called me up in the morning and said "Let's go shopping!"

Wouldn't I have loved to do this very thing with my own sister who lives in Georgia? You bet I would, but we can't be together at this time of year. Rather than feel down and miserable, alone and lonely about family relationships not being memorable for the past 30 years because we've lived so far apart, I choose to love the people that come into my life and act like family. I love them not only because they are friends, but also because they have become my family.

Yesterday, this friend, her pre-teen daughter, and I had the best day together. Not only did both of us get some Christmas shopping done, but the time we spent talking, sharing observations about people and life, chatting about family and philosophies over lunch, and appreciating our shared histories reinforced our friendship. There is a trust between us that only sisters have, whether the kinship is biological or spiritual, built over time, held together by shared happy and sad moments, and permanently bonded by motherhood. Truly, she is my sister, and since I cannot share such a time with my own sister (whom I will be seeing after Christmas this year) and she cannot be with hers, I offer it to the one I love as a sister. I know she feels the same way.

I have found that when I love the one I'm with, I am with the One I love. Always.

Love the one you're with and you will be with the One who loves you.

Tags: Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, family, sisters

Horehound Candy?

Jackie was the first to suggest it, a few others agreed, but it seems I am not the only one who wants to know what horehound candy is.

And since it is late Wednesday evening and I'm feeling disappointed that "Lost" did not come on tonight (it was still Wednesday when I started this entry), but was consoled with a good showing of "Medium" instead (still not a great but an okay substitute), I'm going to address that question right now.

I've done a little searching you see.

One of the things I love about being connected. Not only did I do a little searching, but I managed to renew a subscription online to one of my favorite educational websites, watched Medium, emailed Donna (D's Designs) (during the commercials) several times about her beautiful, seasonal tags and to wish her well following her surgery, uploaded one snag with motion and one tag with snow... maybe you've seen the snow scene in my previous entry? I didn't have any luck with the motion using aol pictures, but was successful with hometown file manager (after I tried several times because apparently there was some problem with hometown link being expired. However Stephanie, 'BamBam, explains how to get around it until it is renewed.

Horehound candy...

Horehound is a common wildflower in our country and Europe, an herb, a member of the mint family. The botanical description of horehound can be found at WaynesWord, an Online Textbook of Natural History, but if you click on this link, you can read it directly.

Because its flowerheads have hooked spiny teeth at the end of each cup-like blossom, they are notorious for hitchhiking on the socks of anyone walking through a fieldof horehound. This little annoying trait makes it an effective seed spreader, resulting in horehound growing all over the United States.

Horehound candy is really a lozenge that some folks swear is soothing to the throat, which is why a couple of my readers suggested it for the laryngitis I endured these past two weeks... yes, you did notice I used the word had... I'd say my voice is about 90% recovered. Horehound candy also prevents dry mouth.

I found a recipe for horehound candy. Actually a couple recipes. Here's one:

                     

                                            Recipe For Horehound Candy:

1. Make a strong horehound infusion: Boil one cup of fresh leaves with two cups of water for ten minutes. Let steep for five minutes and then strain.

2. To make horehound candy: Use one cup of horehound infusion to two cups of white sugar. Place sugar in small saucepan and stir in 1/8th teaspoon cream of tartar, then add the horehound infusion. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then cook over low heat until it reaches 290 Fahrenheit degrees on a candy thermometer. [Or until a drop of the cooked infusion in cold water becomes a hard, glossy ball.] Pour on a buttered plate and score into cough drop sizes when it is semi-hardened. When cool, break apart into sections and store in a cool place until used.

http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ecoph37.htm#horehound

 

But you can buy horehound candy from a number of online candy shoppes. Here's one: Cousins Candy and also at The Vermont Country Store. I have never ordered from either of these shoppes, but just in case you wanted to take a peek at what horehound candy looks like, or might want to order some, there you go.

Well, now that I know what it is, I would like to buy some.

Horehound candy can be stored for up to two years, and I know I'll be needing it next winter... or even this winter as it has only just barely begun for us North Carolinians.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it sounds like it may taste like mint, and I don't really care for mint drops... I like mint-flavored gum, but don't know if I want a huge lozenge of minty freshness in my mouth for very long.

But I do want to try it. I find that many of the old-fashioned remedies actually do work. How about you?... do you use any old-fashioned remedy that really works?... it doesn't have to be for a cold or sorethroat.

What is your favorite old-fashioned remedy that really works? Leave a comment or write about it in your journal and come back to leave a link here.

                 Happy Thanksgiving All!!

Tags: Horehound Candy, D's Designs

Remedies for laryngitis

                  

Just so's you know, I do read all your comments, and often I respond with emails, or go straight to your journal if you leave a comment. Then I'll read your entry, or a few, and leave comments. It's how I let you know that I appreciate your visits!

Today, I'm going to post your suggestions on how to take care of myself during this bout with laryngitis right here in the journal entry itself. What I had was acute laryngitis.... caused by stress, and I didn't yell at the kids, Greg... <grin> it was the coughing that stressed me out... yes, the coughing... <ahem>.

Lisa, Shelly, and Guido pretty much agreed that I had several good remedies already offered... and wished me to get better. I have gotten better since, thank you... and following are some of those wonderful old fashioned remedies. Some worked, some I haven't tried yet.

Many of you came up with the old fashioned remedy of hot/warm tea with lemon and honey. Jackie, Sheria, Natalie, and others agreed that this was a reliable remedy they were familiar with. However, I dislike combining lemon in my tea, hot or cold, although the honey is good either way. So I did the hot tea with honey, skipped the lemon juice. That was very soothing.

Jan's idea had a little twist at the end of her comment... to add glycerin to the honey and lemon. I haven't tried this one either... I have lots of glycerin, though, because I useit to make the homemade dog shampoo, a recipe I wrote about a few days ago. I suppose the glycerin is to keep moisture in the throat?

Then, I tried Bam's variation of honey, lemon, and tea. She suggested I try a teaspoon of straight lemon juice followed by a teaspoon of honey. I found this much more palatable, believe it or not. What I did was pour into a tablespoon a dollop of honey, then squirted on some lemon juice, and as it mixed on the back of my tongue the words to an old familiar song came to mind. I changed the words to go with the treatment:  "... just a spoonful of honey helps the lemon go down, the lemon go dow-own, the lemon - go down.... in the most delightful way!"

Tammy suggested what sounded like warm lemonade, which seemed okay to me, and that her sister tried lemon juice straight up....! I haven't tried that one yet. I agree with you, Tammy. Ick.

Jackie and Sugar also suggested horehound candy...? I don't know what that is, but I'm curious now. Maybe Cracker Barrel has some in their old timey candy barrel? I'll look into it.

Patrick suggested gargling with warm water and pulverized aspirin with lemon juice... I think I will try that one tonight. I wonder if I can use Tylenol instead of aspirin?

Barry came up with a voice technique to help me acquire a voice because I needed to continue teaching... a teacher without a voice is pretty common actually. The kids are often sympathetic and try to help out. As they did for me this week. Students who don't normally like to read out loud actually volunteered to read out loud directions and passages so that I could save my voice.

Barry, I did try to the high pitch exercise with pursing lips. I didn't hear a foghorn, but I did laugh at myself...!! I noticed that if I tried to talk a lower pitch, I could etch out something audible.

Mark and Kate suggested what the good doctor herself would have told me: to rest my voice, not to speak. Sounds simple. Like Kate says, impossible for a teacher. I cannot stay home for two weeks while my throat heals either. So I rested whenever possible each evening.

Now Sugar, the thing about the dirty sock tied around my neck... I think I will bypass that one, my friend!! I laughed with you at that one... I wondered if you had really tried it? Now I remember when I was a child, my mom applying Vick's VapoRub to my chest and throat whenever I had a bad cold, and she would wrap a sock around my neck to keep the heat in. I didn't like the feel of the sock around my neck, but the rubbing of the jelly was soothing and, the attention of her hands around my neck and chest was comforting.

Greg, I did not yell at the kids! I think I've already mentioned that! ... But I could have. I coughed too much, yes, that's my story.

Finally,Martha suggested what my French Canadian grandmother, whom I called memere, would have told me if I could have communicated with her. Martha wrote if you aren't better by now, try a few shots of booze!  I haven't tried that one either. Because it is getting better!

I will have to say that time, rest, and comfortably hot teas with honey helped a great deal. The lemon and honey mixed tasted okay, and may have helped. The fact that I'm not coughing as much as I was last week has also allowed the voicebox to heal.

I had read on the internet, whilesearching remedies, that the honey acts as an antibiotic as well, so that was good to know.

It's not completely restored, but there is audible sound. I was able to teach Sunday School today.

             Thanks for all your well wishes...

                          I do feel better today.

I'm going to find out how to get the snow moving on the lovel winter graphic from Donna... THANK YOU DONNA! ... she sent it to me and it was snowing. I saved it with GIF, and it continued to snow... It will snow again as soon as I find out what to do to get the motion here. bea

Tags: remedies for laryngitis

I want my boice back!

"Hey Mrs. Gilmore, what happened to your boice?" he asked me when I spoke to the students.

"I've lost it..." I whispered hoarsely.

"Does that mean you will never sbeak to us again?" he asked with his Hispanic accent as he lined up in the hall with the others. I was taking the first graders to my classroom for their writing time.

"No chance that will happen!" I replied. "I'll be talking normal again by next week. You'll see. Haven't you ever lost your voice?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "Nah, I neber lost my boice. But my mudder lost her boice once."

So the kids were very nice to me today, sympathetic because I had lost my voice. They thought it must hurt, and I told them my throat didn't hurt... it's just hoarse.

Now my third graders were a little wiser about these things. When they heard me talk, one asked, "Were you screaming at someone over the weekend?"

"No, I wasn't screaming. I just lost my voice, probably from coughing too much."

"Maybe you were yelling too much, then," he suggested.

I told him I hadn't been yelling, and then got on with the lesson about gallons, quarts, pints, and cups...

I feel fine today, just don't have a voice. Any home remedies out there you could share with me??? Please? I have been coughing. No fever. It's more an annoyance than anything right now.

So if you have a favorite recipe that I can make with common kitchen ingredients, like honey, tea, lemon, etc... add them to my comments or email me. I need to get on with my lessons with or without my voice, but preferably with.

Thanks! Bea

Day of Rest?

                          

Usually, at this time on a Sunday morning, I am seated in about the fifth row of pews of my church for worship. I enjoy this aspect of my life, and I regard it with a combination of solemnity and praise. I could not complete my work each day without this day of rest and worship.

Today is not to be usual, for even as my fellow congregants are singing their last hymn and waiting for the Benediction, I am preparing to drive to my classroom.

I've had my day of rest. That was yesterday, Saturday. However, I woke up this morning with a cough and an aching back, on top of the laryngitis I came down with on Friday. I called my fellow Sunday School Teacher, Becky, and asked her to take my class for me. Though she barely heard my croaking voice over the phone,  she said she'd be glad to. She always says that when I ask her. I love Becky for that.

I stayed home all day yesterday and all this morning to give myself rest, to fight off this cold-virus. I think it is working. I am feeling much better now. Even the back ache has gone. Perhaps a few hours of planning will give me a sense of organization for the coming week, and make the days easier to follow through? I can only hope.

I also hope that this is just a cold. I can handle a cold. I can conduct classes, attend meetings, make decisions, call parents, and assess students (hey, they gave me this germ to start with!), with a cold.

I hope it's not the flu. Please don't be the flu...!

Why didn't I go get that flu shot sooner?

It wasn't being offered in such a convenient manner before, might be the reason. Teachers here could drive to their closest high school, where nurses were set up to administer the shots and file the insurance automatically. No waiting in line, no driving clear across town to the doctor's office, no need to miss class time. Very convenient for a teacher who is willing and able to get the flu vaccine.

I don't know why they don't offer the flu shots in, say, late September, you know, just as the fall season is about to start. I think that would have helped me out!

Hey, I believe that was a rant. Not too many of those in this journal. Hmmmm. What gives?

Now, before I go, look in my sidebar ...  the one on the left.

See anything new?

It's below my picture!

My new VIVI award....

Chris, of Cab's Creations designed it... didn't she do a wonderful job?

Now I've got to live up to the title, Best Educational.

You don't have to leave another congrats in this entry... my goodness, you all have said so many nice things already, here and in emails. So, my thanks to you all.

Now, let's get back to our routines (and our other lives away from the computer) and do what we do best... write journal entries!

<grin>

 

Tags: Cab's Creations, VIVI Award