darkoshi

I noticed today that Seventh Generation dish washing liquids contain benzisothiazolinone and methylisothiazolinone. Earlier this year, I had read that some people are allergic to those ingredients and can get skin rashes from them. I don't think I am sensitive to those chemicals, but I usually wear gloves while washing dishes anyway. Ecos is another brand I use, which doesn't have those ingredients.

https://www.seventhgeneration.com/product-claims

Some Seventh Generation Products contain Methylisonthiazolinone ("MIT") and/or Benzisothiazolinone ("BIT") as preservatives to keep the product stable and free of microbial contamination over its shelf life. Although these products have been evaluated to be hypoallergenic and/or Made for Sensitive Skin, it does not mean that a product will not cause any allergic reaction or irritation in any person, and that a small percentage of individuals may have some form of allergic reaction or irritation to MIT or BIT. Always use as directed.

There's A Preservative That Can Give You An Awful, Itchy Rash — And It's Probably In Your Bathroom (July 2015)

Deleo tested Lucy for sensitivity to around 70 different allergens and, at last, finally reached a conclusion: Lucy had a severe response to methylisothiazolinone.
At home, her parents tracked down the source of the MI — Suave Kids Body Wash, a product made by Unilever and marketed as “hypoallergenic” and “safe for kids’ delicate skin.”
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“Of note, products marketed as ‘gentle,’ ‘sensitive,’ ‘organic,’ or ‘hypoallergenic’ often contained MI, thus emphasizing the importance of consumer scrutiny of product choices,” the researchers noted.
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As for labels that use words like “natural” and “hypoallergenic,” Deleo says those terms mean nothing and shouldn’t guide your buying choices.

Indeed — even the federal government notes that “there are no Federal standards or definitions that govern the use of the term ‘hypoallergenic.'” The term means whatever a particular company wants it to mean… The term ‘hypoallergenic’ may have considerable market value in promoting cosmetic products to consumers on a retail basis, but dermatologists say it has very little meaning.

My skin was irritated, red and blotchy for years until I found out why because of lockdown (April 2022)

My allergies started acting up again lately. Yesterday while mowing leaves in the yard, I wore a face mask. My nose didn't get runny! It did require finesse, though, to situate my safety glasses to where they wouldn't fog up.

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I used this method for cooking some very old kidney beans:
Food Storage Friday - Cooking Old Beans

How old? I have no idea!*. As they were so old, I used twice as much baking soda and let them soak in the baking soda water overnight. Then I did it again today with fresh water and baking soda and a 4-hour soak. Then I finally cooked them in a pressure cooker.

It worked! They got soft.

*I'd stored the beans in a neat Korean glass jar, which is vaguely familiar to me, but which is also so old that I don't remember where it came from. The label on the jar is for hot chili paste, which I'm sure I didn't buy nor eat.

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Vegan Ready-to-bake Cinnamon Rolls! From Kroger, Simple Truth Organics brand. Tastes pretty good. I mostly got them for the nostalgia factor.

I also have fond memories of ready-to-bake biscuits. The kind with all the flaky layers that you could peel off one at a time. Maybe I'll find vegan ones like that someday. But then again, I have them still in my memory, so I don't really need to.

Vegan Ready-to-bake Chocolate Chip Cookie dough! From Kroger, Simple Truth brand. I'd seen them before, but this time the price was actually reasonable. I haven't baked them yet.

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I finally took down the Christmas tree and decorations.

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The border grass (liriope) behind the house was tall and thick so I used the string trimmer on it. Swarms of mosquitos flew at me. Maybe that is where they hang out in the daytime, shading themselves from the sun between the thick blades of grass. Maybe that is why there are always so many mosquitos in the back yard. Now I'm tempted to uproot all the border grass back there and get rid of it. It's a pity as regular grass doesn't grow well back there, so it was always nice to at least have the greenness of the border grass along the house. Although it is very hardy, so it might grow back. Which is the bane of having a yard; even when you cut things down and cut out as much root as you can (and feel bad about how you're killing the poor things), they keep growing back.

Those darn hardy crepe myrtles. One of them which had the stump ground keeps getting a bunch of sprouts in the same place, apparently from old seeds. The other one which had the stump ground (or did it?) still has a big root underground which I was only able to partially hack away, and keeps getting a bunch of sprouts. The one which had the stump left, and in which I drilled holes to kill it, is no longer growing back in the middle, but keeps sprouting branches along the outer edge of the stump. This last time, I cracked off a lot of the stump's bark where the branches were growing from; hopefully that will kill it.

It's not even like I even had all the crepe myrtle trees cut down; I only had a few of them cut, to thin things out.

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Yesterday, fireflies and fireworks. Not many to see, only a few here and there. But a lot of thump boom pop sounds to hear. I did some taekwondo/stretch kicks down by the lake in the dark while looking for bright colors in the sky. I spied a mostly stationary light in the sky to my left, not too high up, partially behind some trees, which seemed to fade and come back every once in a while. I wondered if it was flares or a drone.

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Thinking about how gluten can be separated from wheat, to get low-carb wheat gluten, made me wonder if one could make gluten-free wheat flour (or rather, starch). The info at that link is what I found; ie. yes you can, or mostly gluten-free anyway.

Low (and high) FODMAP Foods for Vegans - for reference.

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I was surprised to read "While citric acid is usually made from corn, beet sugar or molasses, it can also be made from wheat." I had thought it was made from citrus fruit. Then, I was even more surprised to read that it is actually produced from a mold (aspergillus niger) (a black mold, but not the toxic one), which is grown on the sugary syrup produced from the corn/beets/wheat/etc. More details here: Overview of citric acid production from Aspergillus niger

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I was also surprised to read that several gums commonly added to foods are made, not from plants as I had thought, but from bacteria.

Carrageenan (aka irish moss) comes from a red seaweed. I had previously discounted claims that it could be unhealthy, but now I'm not so sure, as it seems to be linked to inflammation.
Xanthum Gum, gellan gum, and curdlan are made from bacteria.
Guar gum, locust bean (aka carob bean) gum, and tara gum are made from plants.
Gum arabic (aka acacia gum) is made from the sap of the acacia tree.

Sources/more info:
What is Carrageenan?
Carrageenan and Gellan Gum
Gums in Foods Causing Health Problems for Many - very informative about the different kinds of gums in use.

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This was interesting, as I had never heard about it before:
Alpha-gal allergy - can be caused by tick bites. Makes one allergic to mammalian meat products. Based on the comments on this page, it can also cause reactions to meat by-products like gelatin, dairy, and even animal-derived magnesium stearate.

I've seen SW:The Last Jedi a second time, and have added some updates (tagged in italics) to my review post (many spoilers).

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I've finished putting hex fencing all around the bottom of Qiao's fence, to keep the dogs from digging out. I'm not convinced it will stop them, but it should slow them down. I'm almost finished putting small-mesh fencing all along the top of Qiao's fence, to keep the small dog from climbing out.

It's been very cold here these last days (below freezing), though not nearly as cold as in other places. I've found that as long as it is dry and not windy, I can work outside without the cold bothering me. My warm hooded winter jacket, along with my headband/earmuffs and fleece or flannel-lined pants, keep me quite warm. The worst part is that my nose is incessantly runny in cold weather. I have to blow my nose every few minutes, which leads to the skin around my nose getting dry and chapped. This year I've been applying lotion and creme to the skin, which has helped a lot. Not much cracked skin so far, and hardly even any blood in my snot.

For that matter, this was the first year I can recall not having any allergies during Fall and Winter. I'm not sure why.

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Qiao's internet went out shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve, and was out for over 2 days - AT&T finally got it working again this morning. I hate that when that happens, there's no place to check to find out what caused the problem, and what the current status is, and how long it will really take to get fixed. The automated phone message you get when calling customer support just says there's an outage affecting the area that should be fixed in 24 hours (but it wasn't).

When there are power outages, SCE&G is so much better in that regard. You can call an automated number to report the problem, and you can find out how many people are affected by the outage, and how long the remaining estimated repair time is. You can even choose to get a call-back to notify you when the power has been restored.

Often after picking up Serena and taking her outside, one of my arms starts to itch, and a few small pink bumps appear on the skin. I wash my arm, and after a bit it goes away. I wonder what Serena has on her fur that affects me. When I had allergy skin tests done in the past, they didn't indicate an allergy to dogs (or if so, not a significant allergy - I'm not totally sure how to interpret the numbers).

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Yesterday I looked through 2 photo albums with my mom. There were photos of my mom's childhood which I'm not sure I ever saw before. Even a photo of her foster parents' wedding from 1937. Trying to see details in the photos made my eyes feel tired and strained. This is the first time I've felt that a magnifying glass would really have been useful. In the past, I've not felt the need for a magnifying glass, except perhaps for splinters, as I could generally see everything just as well without magnification. Such goes getting older.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/603167.html

Sometimes I feel it would be better if I only posted creative interesting things. If I left out the boring, rant-ish, whiny, and/or unimportant posts. If my journal were inspiring and intriguing rather than mundane. If I didn't use it simply as an outlet for whatever was on my mind at the time. But then there wouldn't be many posts, and it wouldn't really reflect my life, which is mostly mundane.

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I don't recall having allergies as a kid. Not the runny-nose, sneezing, itchy eyes kind of allergies that I started getting as an adult. Yet when I was about 10 years old, I had a persistent cough. I was tested for allergies, and was given some kind of desensitization treatment.. shots or skin patches; I don't recall it well.

I never quite understood how having a cough could be due to allergies.

Yet a couple years ago after having been sick, and still having a persistent cough and sore throat, a nurse told me it was due to post-nasal drip. That surprised me, as I usually only notice post-nasal drip when it is thin and runny - like when I'm having a runny nose kind of allergy attack.

The kind that makes my throat itch, by contrast, is thicker. It's just now in the last few years that I'm able to recognize this sensation. Realizing that my throat is tickling due to thick slime oozing down back there, as opposed to tickling for an unknown reason. It's odd that this wasn't something I was able to recognize to begin with.

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I'm staying up late to see Boy George on Jimmy Kimmel... Hadn't planned to, but upon hearing that BG would be on, I figured I shouldn't miss that, right? Like old times, staying up to see an appearance. Gosh, how long is this show? Figures that he'd be the last person on.

Aw. Just one song, and not even an interview.

I've listened to clips from his latest album, but none of the songs really appealed to me. This one he sang didn't either.

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Yesterday while eating lunch, something buzzy flew into my hair. I put my hand up and flinched away when I felt something up there. So I brushed it off with my sandwich container. I turned to look at the picnic table, and there it was, some kind of cute bug. Looked like a youngster. I blew at it, and it lifted its front legs (arms? pincers?) up in the air as it to ward off an attack. So then I let it be and ate my lunch. But I turned back to look at it several times. It didn't move away. I began to feel a camaraderie with it.

Such a small thing. And yet it has a brain. What is it like, to be that insect? What is it thinking? Is it watching me? Is it feeling camaraderie with me too?

It's all in my mind. That feeling of camaraderie would quickly vanish if I saw it doing something like eating another insect.

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It's so hard, living. One has to feel compassion for anyone who's managed to stay alive, to make it so far... to stay fed, stay clothed, live to adulthood, and everything else. Even if they aren't making a very good impression. Even if they're arguing, or drunk, or conniving, criminal.

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Break on through, break on through.

How can this life be anything other than a puzzle to figure out? And if so, it isn't without merit to wonder who made the puzzle and why.

Or this life could be something without any meaning at all.

It's all up to what one manages to believe.

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There's an odd smell in this room. Like... old cat litter, maybe. Seems to be coming from the brick wall. Or maybe from one of the electrical outlets. Or maybe the edge where the brick wall meets the floor. I wonder if it is related to the rodent in the wall, though I haven't heard it in a couple weeks.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/568535.html

I wonder if dogs even notice or care whether their water is filtered tap water versus unfiltered. I've been giving them filtered water, under the premise that as they have a good sense of smell and taste, that they would prefer filtered like I do. That's what I put in their water bowl. But I also fill another shallow bowl with unfiltered water, and put their food bowl in that (like a castle surrounded by a moat - to reduce the number of crawly bugs that can get in their food). The big dog seems to drink out of either bowl indiscriminately. I haven't really noticed which bowl the small dog drinks from. Maybe I shouldn't bother giving them filtered?

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Burger King's onion rings currently include whey as an ingredient. From what I remember, they didn't used to.

But their french fries still seem to be made of vegan ingredients, as do their new "satisfries".

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I am going to stop taking the butterbur for a while, as I suspect I may be getting desensitized/immune to it. I'll try taking loratadine and/or fexofenadine every day in the mean while, to see how well those work for me. In the past, I only took them when I was having an allergy attack. Sometimes they helped, sometimes not. They're supposed to last 24 hours, but even when they did help, they often didn't last that long. Do you have to take them regularly in order to get consistent relief for a whole 24 hours? Or is it common for people to have to take multiple types of allergy medication per day to keep their allergies at bay?

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Um. Guess that's all for tonight, folks.

Oh. Halloween. Thinking about doing anything for it gave me a feeling of dread the last couple of weeks. (If I buy one of those nice pretty pumpkins, I'll have gone too far: Then I'd be stuck - I'd have to design a face for it, and carve it, and buy candy, and put up decorations, and think of something to wear, and find a way to fit the pumpkin into the fridge, and cut up and cook the pumpkin, and then make pies and meals with it...)

Today in the store, walking by the Halloween candy, it felt possibly do-able. I'm feeling a bit more energy for it. Yet in my neighborhood, I've only seen one house with decorations up. It's sad really, that it's only one house. It's sad (from the perspective of myself) to buy a bunch of candy and to have the possibility of no trick-or-treaters even stopping by. On the other hand, it would be sad (from the perspective of me thinking of potential treat-or-treaters) for me to keep the gate closed and to put up decorations and carve a pumpkin just for myself.

Re-reading this paragraph makes me think, maybe I don't have the energy. Hmmm.

My foster sister said she was having a Halloween party *this* Saturday. Eh. All I'd be able to do by then is to put on a hat and throw some scarves around my neck for a "costume". I suppose it wouldn't be my kind of party. I suppose I have never even been to a party that was my kind of party. Except the ones by myself in my own room, maybe. Maybe I should have myself a Halloween party, by myself. With the gate closed, so that there's no anxiety in the back of my mind whether anyone will be coming to trick or treat or not. Except then I'd be feeling anxiety at having the gate closed and at being part of the downfall of Halloween.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/535671.html

Yesterday evening I had an allergy attack for the first time in 20 days (since starting the butterbur). I believe it was triggered by the soapy smell of a certain item (a ziplock bag in which I had once stored soap). I drank a cup of ginger-peppermint tea, which helped for the duration of drinking the tea, but not much longer afterwards. Today, my nose has still been sniffly all day long, even though I took an extra butterbur capsule.

After an allergy attack, I seem to be extra sensitive to smells. While cleaning out a drawer this evening, I came across a bottle of foam soap which I apparently intended to give away... I must not have liked the scent. As the ingredient list looked innocuous*, I washed my hands with it to remind myself what it smelled like. Egads! Soapy soapy up-in-my-nose soapy smell! I then tried washing the irritating smell off my hands using my normal soap, but it didn't come off.

*After reading the ingredient list again, I still can't figure out which ingredient might be bothering me. Melon extract, maybe? (But I like melon, and melon doesn't smell soapy!)

Anyway. I wonder if the butterbur helps against certain triggers, but not others? Or could it be that the butterbur doesn't actually help me, and it was coincidence that nothing else triggered me for a whole 20 days?

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/535400.html

Perhaps it is too early to be certain, but the butterbur capsules I've been taking for the last 2 weeks truly seem to be helping against my allergies. The "thick throat" feeling only happened the first day, and I haven't noticed any other side effects since then. I've been taking 2 a day (50 mg each, certified free of pyrrolizidine alkaloids), one in the morning and one in the evening. I still get a slightly runny nose occasionally, but since the first 2 days of taking the capsules, I haven't had what I call an "allergy attack". Even raking the yard only made my nose run a little bit.

I've been on vacation this last week. In these last few days, I've managed to sleep 8 or more hours per night, even after going to bed at 3am. So I am still capable of getting that much sleep, when given the right opportunity.

It's been so nice outside these last few days and nights that I feel I should be spending time outside enjoying it. If I were at the beach and the weather was nice like this, I'd be sitting outside on the balcony (or on the beach) just enjoying the breeze and sunshine.

But there's stuff indoors that I want to do, and I can't imagine just standing or sitting around outside doing nothing for more than a few minutes. This evening at least, I went outside to mow the grass.

I think I should get some kind of nice outdoor chair in which I could relax. Or maybe a nice swing-bench or swinging chair. Ah, a swinging chair sounds nice. But then it would get rained on. And not sure where I'd put it. If it had wheels, I could wheel it into the garage when I wasn't using it. Hmmm. How often will there be such good weather in conjunction with time off to enjoy it, to make having such a chair worth while? I suppose that after a few minutes of sitting in a comfortable chair outside, I'd still get antsy doing nothing.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/534455.html

I'm quite pleased tonight to find out that Mr. Clean Nyplex gloves are finally being sold again, just under a different name - Bliss gloves.

I've had to patch tiny holes in my old pair of Nyplex gloves with silicon glue, in order to keep using them for washing dishes. They are 3 years old now. The material has stiffened to the point where they are no longer comfortable, and cracks/holes are becoming more frequent. As it will soon be winter, ie. chapped hands season, I'll be in need of a good pair again.

None of the other brands I've tried were as good as these Nyplex ones were.

Ever since getting to know someone who is very allergic to latex, and reading that latex allergies may be induced by frequent exposure to it, I've tried to avoid it where possible.

As for why I've never even tried using the dish-washing machine that is in this house, well. The seal looks bad; I'm afraid it would leak water. I'm not sure the machine would do a good job. Maybe it would waste more water than when I wash the dishes by hand. Maybe it would make annoying noise. I seem to have a hang-up about it, and I'm not sure why.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/533698.html

I have a theory that drinking tea - any kind of flavorful-hot-steaming-watery tea, including herbal teas - can alleviate my symptoms when I'm having an allergy attack. It's a theory I've had for quite some time.

I haven't tested it in a systematic way, as it's not usually convenient* to make a cup of tea whenever I'm having an attack. But various teas have definitely helped on some occasions.

I recalled this theory after reading this page about 5 Native American allergy remedies, 4 of which are herbal teas. (The other one is elderberries... hmmm, that is worth doing some research on.)

*such as when I'm about to go to bed, or about to leave for work. Or when I wake up sneezing in the middle of the night. Or when there won't be easy access to a bathroom, as drinking tea makes me need to pee.

As it isn't always convenient to drink tea, I ordered some butterbur capsules. Research studies go both ways on the effectiveness of treating rhinitis with butterbur. I figured that trying it out myself, especially before my symptoms get to the very bad stage, couldn't hurt.

Last night, right before dinner, I took the first butterbur capsule. During dinner, my nose got runny. An hour later, my nose wasn't runny anymore and my throat was feeling thick and constricted. It is similar to having a sore throat, but without the soreness. This may be due to:
- the butterbur drying out the mucous in my nose and throat, as could be expected from an allergy treatment.
- maybe just coincidence. Maybe I am coming down with a sore throat.
- maybe I am somewhat allergic to butterbur itself.

My throat still feels thick this morning. I definitely want it to get back to normal, before I try out another capsule.

The capsules have a distinct, sharp peppery smell. Based on this, it would be fairly easy to distinguish between butterbur and a placebo. I wonder whether that had any effect on the research studies. Maybe butterbur worked better than placebo, as the people taking it could tell it wasn't a placebo. In other words, maybe that increased the placebo effect, compared to the placebo.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/531849.html

Random thought yesterday: The glitter is going to wear off more in the front than the back. So not only will (this belt) be deglittered, but it'll be deglittered unevenly.

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My personal allergy season is starting.

I had written down "sweet coltsfoot" on a to-order/to-buy list early this year. Never got around to it. I can't remember if it was in relation to allergies, or post-nasal drip / cough, or headaches.

Another important distinction:

Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) versus Sweet Coltsfoot (Petasites *; also known as Butterbur).

Both naturally contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids, which can damage the liver. So it is advised to get products certified PA-free.

The name "tussilago" itself means "cough suppressant".
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Butterbur root extracts have been reported to be effective in reducing frequency and severity of migraine headaches.
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a study showed Butterbur extract to be an effective treatment for hay fever without the sedative effect

Treating Seasonal Allergies the Old School Indian Way..Revisited

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/526249.html

My day...

My back was achy this morning; one of the vertebrae was stiff and not moving right.
I washed.
I did Neti against my allergies.
I relaxed on the electric back massager mat for a while.

Serena's tags were missing from her collar. So I went looking in the yard, and found them. Yay!

I searched for sh*t and shoveled and buried it. This is to avoid inadvertently stepping in it, and so that when I rake leaves, I'm less likely to get nasty surprises.
While I was in the yard, my vertebrae finally loosened and snapped back into the right position. Yay.

I washed dishes.
I buried the scraps in the compost pile. I cut up the pumpkin, which had unfortunately gotten moldy through a bad spot, and put it in the compost too.

Leave it to Walmart to have most of the things on my shopping list which I hadn't found in other stores.
- queen-size fleece bed-sheets for my new mattress. Check.
- stackable plastic crates with carrying handles, for storing recylables. Check.
- S-carabiners... they didn't have the size I wanted.
- but they had some other small carabiner clips which will work as well, for clipping a small pouch to my belt. Check.
- full-metal tire pressure gauge. Check.
- comfortable athletic shoes, with all man-made materials. Check.
- another pair of comfortable athletic shoes! Double check.
- but they still don't have any hot-pink sparkly athletic shoes in my size. Oh, well. Maybe someday they will.
- blue sweatshirt. Check.

I do get a small kick out of shopping, especially when I find exactly what I'm looking for, or something unexpectedly nice&nifty that I wasn't even looking for.

Kohl's was open until midnight. I found several nice things there too, including a $42 faux-fur vest. That's more than I'm usually willing to spend on a single item of clothing, especially something as simple as a vest. The vest isn't even perfect in all ways. Yet it had appealing aspects (it is reversible, although it wasn't advertised as such, and reversed, it matches my black shiny pants!), and I figured I'd regret not having bought it. So now I have a frivolous soft black vest to go along with my frivolous black silky pants.

My back was aching pretty bad again by the time I was in Kohl's. It usually does while I'm out shopping. It reminded me that I had planned to go see a doctor about my back pain at one point. But then I decided to try exercising more... still need to exercise more on a regular basis. Hopefully the new mattress will help some, too.

Kroger was open til 1am. I picked up some groceries and left there a little after midnight.

Got home. Unloaded the car. I ate dinner at 2am. Then I had an allergy attack. (How can a nose produce so much snot in such a short period of time? Where does it all come from??) So I took a loratadine pill.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/432822.html

My allergies seem to be a seasonal/autumnal thing. In the past it's been hard to tell, since a few weeks or months of sneezing and having a runny nose makes it hard to remember a time free of them. But this year, I don't recall feeling any allergies all year long (nor did I make a note of any in my note-files), until yesterday.

Update: Well, after looking at my entries tagged with "allergies", the entries for 2010, 2009, and 2008 corroborate it being an autumnal thing. But in 2007, I had allergies in the summer too.

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/423689.html

In the last half year or so, I've increasingly been having trouble with numbers. This is new to me and disgruntling. I make a lot of mistakes when writing down digits and/or copying them from one place to another. Sometimes I'll read, hear, or say in my mind, "71" (for example), but end up writing "17". Then I compare what I wrote to what I meant to write, and wonder how I could have gotten something so simple wrong.

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I didn't want kids. Nor did I want pets. I didn't want the hassle. I didn't want the responsibility. I still don't want them.
But I didn't want a dog to die, so I ended up taking care of a dog. And I didn't want the dog to be lonely, so now I've practically got two dogs to take care of. They take up a lot of time. They're a lot of work. In a way, I'm a part-time slave, having to take care of them.
In return, I get wagging tails and hopeful eyes.

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It's always hard cutting up the jack'o'lanterns after Halloween. It took effort to design the faces and to carve them.... and then they were art and had their own personalities and were so pretty. But they can't stay stored in the refrigerator forever; they take up too much space. They would rot eventually. So one cuts them up and cooks them and makes cakes and pies and dinners from them. The whole process is a hassle, even though part of it is neat and pretty, and part of it is yummy. Like putting up and decorating a Christmas tree, I'm never quite sure if I want to go through the trouble again next year. Why do I keep doing it? Why can't I curl up into a ball and disappear?

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I read that green tea is good against allergies. So I tried drinking tea a few times when I was having allergy attacks. It actually did help, and rather quickly too. I suspect it may be the hot steaming liquid that somehow helps, more so than the type of tea. I'll have to experiment with it some more.

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From what I've been able to tell, it seems that heating the house with electric heaters may be cheaper than using the whole-house heater which runs on gas. But I'm against nuclear power, because of the long-lasting radioactive waste that it produces, and any electricity I use is likely to be from nuclear power plants. So, based on my ideals, would it be better to use gas? Hmmm....
"SCE&G operates 17 power plants throughout the state. Forty-three percent of the
company’s electrical capacity comes from coal plants, 12 percent from a single nuclear
plant, 30 percent from natural gas, four percent through a handful of hydro-electric
plants and one percent from biomass."
This page indicates that there are 7 active nuclear power stations at 4 sites in the state, not including the Savannah River Site.

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I feel like a non-entity in many ways. Sexually, socially, emotionally. No goals, no enthusiasm, no purpose, no dreams.

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I waste a lot of time on the internet due to curiosity.

Current Mood: empty

Why does me not getting hardly any sleep in a night result in me having a horribly runny nose and allergy symptoms the next day? I'd take some loratadine but I'm afraid it might make me drowsy all weekend like it did last time.

It's been cloudy and rainy and cold all week! Whine!

It's Divali. I shall try to remember to light some candles later this evening.

You know, I was thinking... sometimes you're sitting on the toilet trying to pee, and it takes a moment till you remember you have to relax certain muscles in order for it to happen. But I was thinking that falling asleep is sort of like that too... when you have insomnia, you can't remember which part of your brain it is necessary to relax, in order to fall asleep. Your brain's all tensed up and you can't remember how to let go...

I could transfer all my music CDs to MP3s and get rid of the CDs to free up some space. I was thinking about that, and then decided to hook up the MP3 player I got before the Germany trip to my stereo, to play some music. I couldn't remember where I had put the MP3 player, and had to go looking for it. That's something to be said for CDs - it's a lot harder to misplace a multimedia cabinet full of CDs, compared to a little MP3 player or flash drive.

I put a bunch of songs that I like on that MP3 player. It's so neat being able to play it on random, and to have all these songs which I like play one after the other. None that I want to skip so far.

One of these days, Forestfen is finally going to "get it" about how any unsolicited email trying to get her to sign up for something, or order something, or even offering her free things, are all spam or scams, and how she should just ignore and delete them instead of taking them seriously. And one day, she will also start remembering that when she gets forwarded emails, that she should at least check them out on Snopes.com, before believing them.

One day.

And then all my coaching her on it will have been worthwhile.

.

I wish organizations did not send letters on perfumed paper. And I wish stores did not use scented plastic bags. My allergies are bad enough. And even ignoring the allergies, the scented plastic bags smell nasty.

Small fleas are coming out of the woodwork (apparently) trying to bite me when I sit by my computer. I've caught 2 over the past couple weeks, and 2 others got away. I can't figure out where they are coming from. It's a tile floor in here, and not much in the way of upholstery or rugs for them to hide or breed in. Even if they came from the kitten, it seems odd that they are still around now that she's been gone a couple weeks.

Also, my allergies have been bad all week. But oddly, they have been very bad each morning while at work, yet after lunch I have been mostly fine. Is there such a thing as a morning-allergy??

Heheh, maybe I am allergic to getting up early. Or maybe sitting outside in the sunshine at lunchtime clears them up somehow.

I went back to the store's fitting rooms yesterday, and I did find my earcuff. Yay.

I got done the things I needed to get done, but didn't get to bed till late. Well, not all the things that needed doing, but the pressing ones.

Today I've been either having a bad case of allergies, or coming down with a cold. I wonder if I was already getting sick this weekend (I did have a slight headache), and if that contributed to my moodiness. Or if whether being stressed and not getting enough sleep over the weekend lowered my immune system function and caused me to get sick today.

I was looking at the allergy medicines at the drug store, and noticed that all the Claritin/Loratadine tablets contain lactose. I would have thought that they would at least have one kind without, for people who are allergic to milk products. Other tablets are made without lactose, so surely they could do the same for loratadine.

I was dreaming last night that I was alone in my bedroom at the old house, and criminals and cops were outside my door and around the house having a shoot-out. I hid in my closet and tried to duck behind furniture in order to avoid being shot by stray bullets.

Today I...

Did neti since I've been having bad allergies lately.

Fixed the bi-fold sliding doors in the hallway. I drilled some holes so that I could screw the top end pieces in, which keep the doors in the right place.

Checked the instructions for the bathroom faucet I had bought, to see if I would need any other supplies for installing it. Added plumber's putty and plumber's tape to my shopping list. Tried turning the shut-off valves under the sink, and found out that I can't budge them - they seem to be stuck.

Fixed the blinds in the middle bay window. Replaced the turn-mechanism, and re-sewed a thread which had frayed, to keep a slat in the right place.

Went to the hardware store. Got metal tape to patch the crack I had noticed previously in the HVAC duct in the basement. Also got 2 towel racks, since both bathrooms are quite lacking in places to hang towels, and a drawer slide mechanism so I can fix one of the drawers. Also got assorted other items.

After getting home, realized that I had forgotten to give my 10%-off coupon to the check-out clerk at the hardware store. Ranted and raved at my misfortune and incapability of remembering to use such coupons during check-out (this has happened several times lately).

Went under the house and patched the duct. Checked if there are any cut-off valves down there for the water, or if there's only the one by the street. Tried to see how the bathroom outlets are grounded... couldn't figure it out since they seem to have the same wires as the other outlets which aren't grounded... unless it is just a case of the wires needing to be connected in those other outlets, which would be a GOOD thing. It is a veritable maze of pipes and ducts and wires under the house, and challenging to determine where each one comes from and goes to. There seem to be many old cables down there too, which seem to be disconnected or no longer used. But the crawlspace is relatively spacious, which makes it not too difficult to crouch and get around down there. I noticed that the water heater is gas, not electric. Perhaps I had noted that before, but forgotten.

Found a slat of wood in the basement which I may be able to use to fix the gap in the floor near the wall in one of the bedrooms. I'll need to cut it to size though.

Called the hardware store and asked if I could return and still get the 10% discount. They said yes, so I returned and got the discount. This involved the customer service clerk entering an ungodly amount of numbers in the register. But the whole trip was under 25 minutes.

Picked up some trash from the street.

Ate dinner. Made lunches for next week at work. Blended up a batch of cashew milk.

Wrote about my day on LJ.

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Darkoshi

Darkoshi's Enchantment

May 2025

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Page generated Thursday, May 22nd, 2025 09:45 am

Entries tagged with allergies

dish washing liquid ingredients

novembahh

fireflies, fireworks, miscellaneous

New Year

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the downfall

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on the Allergies front

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May 2025

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