Colds, rice bags and bedtime routines

Just gotta love getting sick. NOT.
I caught a cold a couple of weeks ago and it's still lingering on. Mostly in the guise of some serious coughing. I'm not running a temperature, so it's viral - no good to take antibiotics for it. I just have to let it run it's course.

In the meantime, I've not done any blogging. I thought I'd better check back in with everyone.

It's finally gotten cold here in the North Georgia mountains. The temp has been down into the low 30's at night, 45 during the day.

I've been very thankful for my rice bag and shrug that I made a while back. It was so easy to make these two items. During the day, when I'm up running around, I overheat and I don't wear/own many long-sleeve shirts. Once it gets dark and I sit in my chair typing, my arms get cold, especially my right hand that I'm mousing with. Then new shrug keeps my arms warm without adding extra covering to the rest of me.

While looking at some of my favorite blogs, Chrunchy Chicken had a bit on her blog about using Field corn to make the bags. The deer corn lady has a website that gives pictures as well as written instructions for making these. They are used the same way as rice is used.

I have trouble falling asleep if my feet are cold, so I've developed a new bedtime ritual. First, I take a warm bath. I like to use scented salts instead of bubble bath. Too much of an opportunity to develop a yeast infections with bubble baths. You can buy scented salts at Wallyworld for under $3. Or you can make your own.

To make your own scented salts all you need are Epsom's salt and some essential oil or fragrance that you like. You can buy the small boxes or bags of salts in the pharmacy area of any drug store or Wallyworld-type place for about $2. OR you can go to the plumbing section and buy a 50lb bag of water-softener for about $5-8. The water-softener crystals will need to be broken up a bit - they're too big to work well in the tub. Just put some of the crystals in a bag and whack it with a hammer or drive your car over it. I'd double bag it to drive the car over it!

When you've gotten the crystals smaller, bring them in, place them in a jar - a mason jar works well, and add your scent. It doesn't take a lot of scent. Several drops will do it. Then stir the salts around and close the jar up. Let it sit for a bit so that the scent will be absorbed by the crystals - several hours to a couple of days should do it. If you want it to fizz, add 1 tbs of baking soda to the crystals and stir that into them. A couple of tablespoons to 1/4 cup will make a nice relaxing bath.

After my bath, I heat the rice pack and place it at the end of my bed. If my room is extra cool, I'll also plop another heated bag above my head. This warms me up enough that I fall right to sleep. In the past, I've found that if I put on socks, I'll end up waking up in a couple of hours to take them off - I'm then too hot. But by then I've had enough sleep, that I can't get back to sleep. The heated rice packs seem to take care of the short-term cold feet without causing me to awaken later.