It's freaking me out

I still have no sense of smell

I feel much better

And the coughing for whatever this is has been weird

Like it's not weird for me to have a cough

Almost anything even allergy I end up with some kind of cough

So I've coughed with a lot of different things

And generally coughing makes my chest hurt

Makes my back hurt

Sometimes my ribs on the sides will hurt feel kind of stretched

I've had flus that made me cough so hard I woke myself up and I had to take codeine

And sometimes

There will be stomach muscle involvement in the coughing

Sure

But I've always experienced that as a secondary pain to the lungs or the back you know

But the cough with this I've been afraid I've been like holding myself as I cough because I'm like I'm not exactly sure how you get a hernia

But I feel like what I'm doing now when I'm coughing has to be related to what you do to get a hernia

So it was coughing and I was literally holding my gut and pushing it in as I'm coughing because it feels like I'm going to rupture myself somehow

No I've never had anything like that no sir

But today

Wellen a lot of yesterday too actually

I was on the tussin

And that is the very best cough suppressant

At least of what I currently have available to me

Not making a statement about tussin

But I definitely feel better

I'm still blowing my nose

And I'm trying really hard not to suck it back in but to actually blow it out

But there is less mucus

And I don't think the tussin that I'm taking does anything for that I think it's just a cough suppressant

So there is less mucus and that is a blessing because I am really over having snot dripping from my nose I got to say

And then I'm just trying not to cough I got into a coughing jag I don't know sometime last night when I woke up to pee or something

And I took a half a dose in NyQuil

And went back to sleep

I'm mostly only taking the nyquil half a dose at a time now

That way if I wake up in a couple hours and can't go back to sleep I don't have to do a whole bunch of math about whether it's safe for me to take anything

But

I feel less

Less like I want a cough

And when I've been coughing this evening

It's been less of a I just have to keep from going on a coughing jagg and more of a oh I just need to do a little cough here

I tried to get a lot of extra sleep

I was going to do that tonight too but I don't seem to have done it

I mean I've still got time to get plenty of sleep Don't get me wrong

But if I was going to get like you know 12 hours of sleep I needed probably to have gone to sleep a little while ago

Because I need to you know get up and be moving around and assessing my fitness for work because I'll have to have an additional conversation about that tomorrow

Also I've I think I just took one dose today of the Ella campaign and the self heal

Now self heal has an amazing reputation

I saw it very highly recommended

And I said okay

The main person that I buy tinctures from although I buy it from several people now but the main person

She had a Black Friday sale

So I looked at her shop

There was a thing I had been wanting to get from her but I was like I don't need that

But I decided I kind of did

And you know she was having a sale

Just seem like the thing to do you know

So the thing I was going to buy

Was you know

A thing I for sure don't need

It's a flower essence

And I don't know whether I believe in flower essences

I mean it really sounds like a lot of hooey

But

She sometimes weaves these little stories with her potions

And she's like

This is the mimosa tree that was the guardian of my last garden space

Her flowers soaked in spring water from some spring I don't remember the name of but probably one up by her in Eugene that she got on this sacred quest and then she got the the darkest richest honey that she could get locally it's almost like Manuka honey it's so dark and medicinal and locally sourced organic vodka

And I think there was some more stuff I don't even think I got it all but like here's what you got to know

Maybe you already do know this

But in my grain grants yard they were pink mimosas in the front of the yard

And there was a red mimosa in the backyard

And I had very personal relationships with all of the trees

Or no I guess what I really should say is I knew all of the trees some of the trees I had very close personal relationships with some of the trees I just kind of you know did my thing and they did their thing

So I don't know if that's weird

I don't think it was just a one-sided thing I think the trees were involved

And that red mimosa was definitely the guardian tree in the side yard

So she kind of caught me there with the mimosa thing and then I mean that whole story about the track to get the spring water and I mean

If this thing has any way to be a real thing

Then this would be it right

I'm not saying flour essences are real

I find the idea that they might be real fascinating

And there's that whole now I'm drawing a blank on what they're called now oh Bach flower essences

Right there's that whole society and

All English

And they are deadly serious they do not think there's any way that they might even possibly be making this s*** up they've got like a scientific system

So you know I've tried flower essences

And I've never really been sure

But I mostly have not felt like they did anything

Sometimes if I'm doing it and it's late at night I know during the pandemic I had some experiences with some flower essences

But

I feel like that might be placebo

But then I had this other flower essence that was for the ocotillo plant

I you know I read the story she was fairly new to flower essences and she or or she knew she was going to come in contact with something she hadn't been able to find before or something like that but she did a kind of a impromptu flower essence collection and she used organic vodka and they don't usually use vodka in flower essences You can but they don't usually traditionally you use brandy

But it was a plant that was like in the yard of a friend she went to stay with and I can't remember now I want to say it was in New Mexico but I also want to say it was in Joshua tree

But then I've got an ocotillo connection to marfa as well so I don't know

That was just a plant I felt like I had had not exactly a direct connection to but like I had kind of a a natural affinity for it or something

And I had used ocotillo tincture and my system likes it really well I don't know exactly what it does for me it feels like it's a gentle lymph cleanser 

So anyway when I had read that story and I had this experience with the ocotillo plant I said yes I'm going to go ahead and buy that

And then since I had that experience and I felt like that plant essence maybe had some positive effect on me

I was not necessarily able to say with any certainty that it was because of the flower essence but at the point when I was using that one I felt like I was having some positive changes

And I felt like maybe for me to believe in the flower essence

And I don't know whether you have to believe in something for it to work

But I think I felt like that if I felt a connection to the creation myth of the flower essence and if the person who made it felt like a creation story was the proper thing to do

That those were probably the flower essences that were going to work for me

So this is my new flower essence I'm working with the mimosa

But then when I was looking through her shop I found this self-heel tincture

And a tincture is not a flower essence it's a alcoholic extract of the medicinal elements of a plant and also in her case the aqueous elements

Different herbalists I guess it's what I'm going to call them do tincturing differently

She is from Susun Weed's school of herbalism

And her stuff is kind of hippie feminist she may have been affiliated with the farm at one point I'm not 100% sure

But she's not doing a bunch of ratio stuff

She's using hundred proof vodka

She's doing a lot of simple kitchen stuff

Like empowering

Here's the stuff all around you that you can use to make your life better

Not all like oh well for those kind of roots