Stuff You Learn in the Steam

If any of you reading this know of some sort of salve, lotion, or potion I can use to soothe my cracked, sore, scabby, and crusty nose can you please leave a comment or email me? My nose is so sore I can barely blow it anymore.  When I do need to blow it, it hurts to the point of bringing tears to my eyes.  There is a lovely, sexy crust all around my nose, upper lip, and nostrils.

So, it’s Halloween.  What do you do if you happen to get a proliferation of teenagers sans costume showing up at your door demanding candy?  You can do what we do.  We have one bowl of candy for the regular, costumed trick or treaters and we have one bowl for the too cool for school teens.  The bowl for the becostumed crowd is full of yummy, yummy chocolately goodness.  Bob sometimes affixes some of these treats with coins and cash for an extra little surprise.  The candy bowl for the uncostumed crowd is full of yucky candy like black licorice bites, raisins, those peanut butter taffy things that are wrapped in orange and black paper, and those gum pieces that are usually wrapped in red, yellow, and blue paper and lose their flavor after 1 second of chewing.  We figure if there is no effort put forth in choosing and wearing a costume, we will not put forth an effort in the candy we give out.  I read of one blogger who saves gross candy throughout the year and she offers that stuff to the uncostumed.  Pop rocks from the 80s?  Goes in the bowl.  Lick’em Aid from last summer?  In the bowl.  A box of unopened Raisinettes found under the seat of your car?  In the bowl.  Good idea, no?

So I’m feeling better today (albeit not so much around the nose) though last night was difficult.  I intended to go to bed early but with a girls weekend away looming directly after work on Friday, school tomorrow, and Halloween tonight, I had to use last night to do some packing, organizing, and general getting ready.  I was in bed by 10 but awake again around midnight with a hacking coughing fit.  Not wanting to keep Bob awake, I got up and went into our second bathroom, turned the shower on hot, and sat in the steamy room for about an hour.  While sitting there, I read through our cruise brochure.  I learned a lot.  For instance, did you know that cruises charge $10 a day to your lodging bill for hospitality services?  Did you further know that they automatically charge 15% on all drink tabs for tips?  Did you also know that they won’t allow a baby younger than 12 weeks or a woman more than 24 weeks pregnant on board?  Yeah.  So in doing the numbers this means that we have missed the cut off for the baby.  If we were to get pregnant anytime between now and the end of March, the baby would be too young to board or leave with relatives (which I couldn’t do anyway).  So it’s a no go with trying in November or December.  BUT if we try and get pregnant in January or February, I will be too far along in my pregnancy to cruise.  So it looks like we can’t try again with the inseminations until March and beyond.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  That’s more than 4 months away.  That’s 4 tries we are giving up. It’s more time slipping away, never to be used again.  However, it’s also 4 months we can use to do everything we can to increase our odds health-wise.  Bob and I are not of the mind to put our lives on hold for any reason since we have learned that time is precious and you only get what you get so make the most of it now.  So, I guess we are going to wait until March before the next round of inseminations.