Quote of the Week

photo can be found on Pexels

Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

 

-Samuel Butler 

Quote of the Week

photo courtesy of Valiphotos

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

-Albert Camus

#gardenquotes #fall #Valiphotos

#Albert Camus

Quote of the Week

Photo from Pexels photo by Ioana Motoc

Autumn is the season to find contentment at home by paying attention to what we have already. 

-Unknown 

Back from Covid

It feels good to be back!! After almost three years of being covid free for the majority of my household. The last of us, came down with covid. My middle daughter got it before there was a vaccine while she was at college, so as a parent, that was truly terrifying for me. There wasn't a vaccine and my child was over 6 hours away from me, and I got the occasional text messages from her since talking was a laborious task.

My husband experienced covid overseas in London. He was on a business trip and had his stay extended for two weeks since he couldn't come back to the States until he had a negative test. The only thing he experienced was two days of extreme fatigue and a slight headache, however, he was having a hard time getting a negative test result. The crazy thing is everyone that he traveled with left the day before he was suppose to leave, so they made it through their test, but came down with covid the following day when they got back home.

Now myself and three of my other children came down with it and it was very different from my oldest son's experience vs. the rest of us. My oldest son could barely move, had an extremely high fever and excruciating headache. I seriously thought he had the flu at first, because he was experiencing a scratchy throat on Saturday that we were trying to ease with tea, however, Sunday morning he had a fever and could barely rollover in his bed.

Seeing my child in so much pain was painful to watch. My first thought was try to bring his fever down. He was burning up, however, his feet were ice cold. I went to the kitchen to cut up some onions to put in his socks---this is something my paternal grandmother used to do to bring down a fever. As I tried to adjust his legs and feet to put the onions in his socks, he would moan out in pain and apologize for his moaning, I told him not to apologize, I need to hear those sounds and need to know how he's feeling if we need to see a doctor or go to the ER.

I was finally able to get the onions in his socks, cover him backup and allow him to continue to rest. Four hours later, I decided to checkup on him---see if he wanted some water or something to eat, and to my surprise he was sitting straight up working on his laptop like nothing even happened while sitting in a room that smelt like sautéed onions. He expressed how much better he felt, but he still had a slight headache and hopefully it will be gone by morning, and that he was up for something to drink, but wasn't hungry.

Next morning, my son and his brother were up getting ready for their work and school week, and my oldest was feeling way better than he did over the weekend. However, he couldn't shake that headache and he was adamant about not missing work. He'd only been at this new job as a teaching assistant for 2 weeks, and didn't want to miss any days, fortunately, I was finally able to convince him to see a doctor.

I don't know about you, but having a headache is awful on its own and then add on having an excruciating headache while dealing with 15 toddlers is unimaginable. It's one thing to try and deal with your own children under that kind of stress/pain, it's totally different trying to do it with other people's children. If course my children should expect the best, however, they get me healthy or sick, someone whose paying for my service should get the best me possible and that's what I was relaying to my son, along with, he could possibly spread illness to the kids, if he has the flu(I still thought he had the flu).

So we headed to one of our local urgent care facilities, and on our way his headache and throat were started to hurt worse. As we walked in the center, he almost fell over from his headache. The lady at the front desk recommended us going to the hospital because they probably weren't able to help us since they have limited equipment, if he had something major going on since it looked like he could barely stand coming through the door.

So we left that facility with my son saying, "The ER, I don't feel that bad." I basically told him, she was doing her own assessment from how he looked coming into urgent care, that's all. I told him before we go to the ER, I need to eat something because two weeks prior, I sat in the ER with my youngest son and it took 9 1/2 hours before he was seen, and I didn't want to sit down there again going hours without something to eat.

I stopped to get something to eat and during that time my son asked to try another urgent care place in our neighborhood. I was okay with it, but if they say, no, we're headed to the ER.

We enter the facility which used to be our neighborhood Hospital where I birth three of my five kids. The service was amazing!

My son came back and gave me the news, he tested positive for covid. From his facial expression I could tell he was devastated---he was expecting the flu. He tried his hardest to figure out where he got it from. I on the other hand, did my best to reassure him about catching it at this time: there are vaccines, you're vaccinated, you're young and healthy and now it's time to rest up.

As the week went on(3rd day) he was slowly getting better, and my youngest son came down with a scratchy throat, which lead to a sore throat and really bad sinus issues. He never came down with a fever and only experienced one day of feeling sluggish. As my older son got better, I put the majority of my energy into my younger son and his care.

On the third day of caring for my baby boy, my throat became scratchy and I began having all the symptoms my youngest son had. I had really bad sinus pressure and no fever at all, and I had energy, however, I would tire out and need to rest a bit.

Around the 4th day of my illness my oldest daughter began to get a scratchy throat, sinus issues, sluggish feeling and slight body aches. I felt bad because I really couldn't take care of her, like I wanted to, but my oldest son helped out a lot.

So, that's our covid experience, I'm glad to be on the otherside of it now and glad to be back at my blog writing and can't wait to be back at my podcast, however, that might have to wait a bit since I still have coughing spells, but yeah, it feels good to be back!

Note to Self: Garlic

September is almost over and I still haven't purchased any garlic to be planted for next season's harvest. Time is still on my side, but I still need to get moving, so I won't be rushing trying to plant at the last minute or not even have anything planted for next year. That's what happened last year, I got sidetracked and forgot about picking up any garlic bulbs. 

I know you're probably rolling your eyes like, what's the big deal, it's still September and you live in zone 7, you have until November, so there's no worry, and you're right, but I just have so much on my mind right now---I felt like if I just came to write this down, I'll have a better time of remembering and getting the job done the week before Halloween. 

Garden On,

Shelly :)

An Anniversary

Yesterday was my 1st Anniversary as a podcaster over at Anchor. Come over and check me out sometime. My channel name is A Green Haven.

Peace and Love,

Shelly

Welcome to September

Boy, I can't believe we're here already, but I welcome September, happily.  August brought forth less time in the garden for me this year and more time in my house trying to pair down.....stuff. 

August was a mindshifting month and hopefully in September I'll accomplish all or most of my purging desires.

Happy September, y'all😊