Pain, Pain, Go Away!

Ah, the Fourth of July. The summer weather, the fat, juicy burgers, the fireworks, the last day I didn't have a cold for over a month. I woke up feeling good, got a lot done, but by evening I didn't even feel like standing on the corner to see fireworks. I called in sick the following Monday and Tuesday. On August 4--one month later, I took a turn for the worse and saw a doctor, who wrote a prescription for antibiotics and cough syrup. I called in sick for the next three days. Then I went to work--still coughing, coworkers telling me it would be OK to go home--and picked up my natural desiccated thyroid (NDT). I started taking it that Saturday--and soon my cold started getting better. As the week went on and I needed to up my dose of NDT, the cough started coming back to the point that I thought about going back to the doctor. But I upped the dose--and again, the cough mostly went away. I was thinking I'd need Sheriff Grimes on the case to kill the cold that wouldn't

It's been quite an adventure riding this sparking and sputtering thyroid. It started back in the highly stressful year of 2014 when I had mountains of work on my desk, an hour-long commute, and aging parents who themselves were sputtering along and constantly needed me to come over to help them. Then my coworker quit and I had all the work to do. I asked if I could go live with her in Mexico, only half joking. My father died. My mother nearly died of kidney failure. Then stayed with me for two weeks during and leading up to the estate sale. We surrendered her dog when she couldn't take care of him. In thanks for my hard work, I was accused of elder abuse. (The county found no grounds for the accusations.) I had a root canal and three courses of antibiotics. Then I moved across the country: I bought one house before selling the other (albeit in Denver's hot real estate market) and had no permanent job lined up in Indiana. Then finding my best friend had changed quite a

Move over, Instant Pot--you're overly hot! My Suteck yogurt maker makes special yogurt for L. reuteri bacteria that need a long, warm fermentation. And it was only $32.99. Here's my Amazon review, with a few tips: I bought this product to make L. reuteri yogurt, which requires special preparation. I didn't have any trouble--the yogurt maker was easy to program, and both batches I've made so far turned out well. I did have to shake the final product in the jars because it separated, but the yogurt stayed homogenized after refrigeration. If you wish to add water in the yogurt maker, you don't need to keep adding it during the processing. A tip: use a canning funnel if you have one to fill the jars. Another tip: don't snap on the lids before processing--they pop off during fermentation. Just place the lids on the jars.