Hacking My Heart Out, Such a Great Excuse for a HOT BUTTERED RUM Toddy or Black Elderberry Tea!

My favorite "toddy" is this Hot Buttered Rum.

Yes dear friends, I have gone from dancing with my sweeper to hacking my heart out! Ye-ks! Not fun, and now Brian has started too.  Thank goodness our kids are grown as we would surely keep the whole house up at night.  Poor Molly our dog has gone to the back bedroom or downstairs to the family room to get some peace. 

No clue as to what in tar-nations this is.  No temperature, intermittent sore throat, cough, cough, hack, hack, then sneeze and blow your nose.  And, it is reluctant to leave.  I am going on 3 weeks with it.  Let me say it is much, much better now than the first two weeks.  But still, GO AWAY, please!

My Dr. called in cough medicine and when I went to pick it up and saw they wanted $80 some dollars for it I told them they could keep it.  I am WAY to cheap to spend that on a little bottle of cough medicine.  I went to hot toddies and black elderberry tea and have felt most comforted.  And I highly recommend both!

It is believed that the black elderberry contains properties that inhibit the reproduction of viruses.

Usually I have elderberry syrup made up or I mix 1 teaspoon of whatever tea I am  making plus 1/2 teaspoon of dry black elderberries together per cup and brew as usual.  Delicious.  Here is the link on  the making of the syrup.    thehiddenpantry.blogspot.com/2011/08/black-elderberry-syrup-and-jasmine-tea.html

After I came home from Church I sat and quilted until my fingers got sore.  Then I give it up until the next day and am sure as my fingers strengthen or callus I will go for longer sessions.  I am a sight as I peer through my bi-focal's  trying to make tiny hand stitches and hack, hack, hack away.  My salvation is a big glass of ice water I keep handy! 

Thank you all for all of the WONDERFUL comments you have left lately.  I have really enjoyed reading them and many are treasures!

Gotta go now, hacking again.  It might be toddy time.  Here is the link should you want one too!    thehiddenpantry.blogspot.com/2010/11/hot-buttered-rum.html

Dancing with my Sweeper!

Since Christmas and this terrible head cold I have found it difficult to get rolling along.  Not unhappy or out of sorts just making easy recipes I make over and over and "Dancing with my sweeper."  Seems like everyplace I turn a dust bunny or clump of dog hair is lurking.  Not that I ever quit vacuuming, I haven't.  They just seem to have multiplied!  The sweeper bag seems fuller than ever  sooner than normal too!

This morning after moving my church pew and vacuuming down into every crevice I did all of the cold air returns.  Ugh, I hate them....always a clump hanging back in the inside crevices to fish around for!  So it is apt to report I spend my days of late doing the upright vacuum hustle!

Next I got busy spot cleaning the carpet another "fun" job but necessary.

Between all of this I have been wrestling with the V. A. on my husbands behalf.  I find them helpful if you can get through to someone.  Yesterday for an hour and a half they had the phones looped to keep repeating the same long repetitious messages over and over until they disconnected the caller!  That made for an "OH Rats!"  Out of me!  I do have to say there are some wonderful caring people I find at the V. A. who just are extremely helpful too.

So now I leave you, off to explore how hard I want to work on dinner tonight....I am thinking soup.  But we shall see!