Influenza epidemic in the North Country!! We've seen lots of cases at work, and this week the kids brought a note home from school reminding people to keep their kids home if they have flu symptoms.
Normally in the first few weeks of school the kids drag home colds and we all get infected. We dodged the bullet this year and everyone has been shockingly healthy.
I know now that I've put that out in the universe Karma will smack us down.
Anyway, over the years I've come up with a bag of tricks to keep us healthy. I diffuse Shield and other essential oils.
We take Airborne at the first sign of a snuffly nose or tickle in the throat.
We eat a lot of citrus fruit to make sure we get our vitamin C.
I keep the himalayan salt lamp on.
I've started making homemade yogurt with as many strains of probiotics as I can manage.
We sometimes add Elderberry syrup and honey. Yum.
When we need to use the big guns we take a tablespoon of homemade fire cider a couple of times a day and/or Oregano oil.
I also make roller bottles of essential oils and slather everyone down when we spend a lot of time in public or anytime I think they could use a little immune boost.
What tricks to you use to keep your family healthy?
Addendum: As of this week we have one casualty of illness...I'm pretty sure Lauren has influenza. She had a sore throat for a couple of days and then Thursday had to stay home with a high fever, headache, sore throat, and generalized body aches. Friday was a little better, and by Saturday she has a sore throat and a little cough. We used the methods above and had a very short lived illness, and no one else in the house has gotten sick. Yet.
A few months ago Pey decided she wanted a pet lizard and started trying to make money. She gave foot rubs, picked blueberries, wiggled loose teeth, and helped watch Nora. Somehow, with the influence of a sister and cousin, she came up with the idea that Grandma and Dusty should bring her a lizard from Florida on their next trip up. Her cousin Jena from Florida helped, and they captured some apple snails and 2 lizards. The girls divided up the snails and Pey kept both lizards. One of the lizards was much smaller than the other, and came out on the losing end of some fights. He died within the first few weeks.
On the drive up Grandma and Dusty bought some dried meal worms for the lizards. when they got here, Pey went out and picked some green caterpillars off the kale and my rose bushes. Silver lining, Y'all.
One day about two months ago I went up to Pey's room to check on things, and couldn't find the lizard in it's cage. When I asked Pey about it, she said something along the lines of "Oh yeah. He's gone. Dad and I cleaned his cage this weekend and now I can't find him."
So, large lizard loose in the house. Not much I could do about it, and I figured he wouldn't last long with no food.
One morning about 2 weeks ago Corey was in the shower and the door flung open and Pey screamed "I found him! He's alive!"
She had been standing in front of her dresser getting dressed and happened to glance down at a pile of clothes on the floor, and there he was. She was afraid he was dead, but he was just slow since it's kind of cold in her room.
Now that we had a lizard again, he needed food. Lauren noticed on the jar of meal worms instructions to refrigerate. Needless to say, when they opened it the worms were no good and it smelled like death.
After Pey's hockey game on Saturday we went out to eat with family. While we waited for our food a few of us ran down to a local store that has a pet section to get some food for him. Of course Nora wanted to go. This store has fish, mice, birds, and bunnies. Nora was infatuated with the baby bunnies, and kept putting her fingers through the bars of the cage that was conveniently located at her level. Yes, I told her no and moved her away from the bunnies. We found some food for the lizard in the form of a cup 'o crickets.
While the adult of the group (me) and the older kids looked at the nasty crickets, we heard a sound behind us and turned to find Nora waist deep in the bunny cage with a petrified rabbit in her clutches. It had taken her a fraction of a second to figure out the latch on the cage and literally take matters into her own hands.
I got her out of there, took her to the bathroom to wash her hands, and we hightailed it to the checkout counter where I gratefully accepted the check out woman's offer of a opaque bag to put the crickets in. She said "that will make them easier to carry." I said "that will make them harder to see." I don't mind a cricket here or there in the wild, but 40 or so of them in a smallish cup looks really gross. The lizard was ever so grateful for the food and has been eating them with gusto.
