Sick-o-meter
You know those days when you think you might be about to come down with something, but you can't quite tell? You feel sort of tired, but maybe that was just because you stayed up too late the night before. Or maybe had a little too much cheese – that could be why your head feels a little stuffy. Should you stay home from work and try to nip it in the bud? Or is there really anything the matter at all?
If you're diabetic, there's an easy way to answer this question. Test. I've found that if I'm starting to get sick, my blood glucose first thing in the morning (FBG, or fasting blood glucose – typically the lowest number of the day for me) will be as much as 30 points higher than usual. That's how I knew on Monday that I really was starting a cold, and was able to call in sick with a clear conscience.
When I was growing up we did not stay home from school unless we were practically on death's door, and I've always retained the fear of being seen as a faker if I claim to be too sick to go to work. It's weirdly gratifying to be able to "prove" that I really am fighting an infection. And taking the day off to sleep and drink tea and sleep some more made all the difference. Yesterday and today I forced myself to stay in bed all morning as well, since I don't have to work until the afternoon, and that has helped a lot too. A cold of the type that usually takes about a week to work its way out of my system is already about finished, and today I feel well enough to ride my bike to work (the sun is out, it's only three miles, and I may call Mr. A for a ride home depending on how I feel by the end of the day).
In other news, we finally replaced the faulty big front burner on the stove, and I keep burning things on it. I had gotten used to the old one, which took forever to heat up and never really did get as hot as it was supposed to. Someday I would love to replace the whole stove with one that runs on propane – which is the next best thing to gas, if you live someplace where gas is not available, like we do. I hate, hate cooking on an electric stove. This one is not original to the house but it's from the same era, and the main thing I do like about it is its color – dark avocado green. I don't think they make them that color anymore, unfortunately.
The first house I lived in out here was way out in the mountains and it didn't have a furnace or gas lines – the heat was a big wood stove, and we cooked on propane. I loved it. This house does have baseboard heaters, which smell and are inefficient ... so I've been loving the wood stove we installed at the end of the summer. Chopping and hauling wood is not as romantic as some people might try to describe it, but it is kind of a satisfying routine and wood heat is just the best. I don't know why 70 degrees of electric heat should feel different from 70 degrees of wood heat, but it does – maybe it's the humidity? With wood, the heat seems to penetrate my body more. It radiates off everything – the fireplace bricks, the furniture, the walls, everything.
The one thing I had forgotten about is the dust. Heating solely with wood produces a lot of ash that invisibly filters into the air every time you open the stove. Dusting is one of my least favorite household chores, and I'm finding I have to do it a lot more often now than I did before – twice a day right around the stove, and at least once a day in the rest of the room. I'm wondering if there might be some kind of air filter that could help keep the air a little cleaner; must look into that.
If you're diabetic, there's an easy way to answer this question. Test. I've found that if I'm starting to get sick, my blood glucose first thing in the morning (FBG, or fasting blood glucose – typically the lowest number of the day for me) will be as much as 30 points higher than usual. That's how I knew on Monday that I really was starting a cold, and was able to call in sick with a clear conscience.
When I was growing up we did not stay home from school unless we were practically on death's door, and I've always retained the fear of being seen as a faker if I claim to be too sick to go to work. It's weirdly gratifying to be able to "prove" that I really am fighting an infection. And taking the day off to sleep and drink tea and sleep some more made all the difference. Yesterday and today I forced myself to stay in bed all morning as well, since I don't have to work until the afternoon, and that has helped a lot too. A cold of the type that usually takes about a week to work its way out of my system is already about finished, and today I feel well enough to ride my bike to work (the sun is out, it's only three miles, and I may call Mr. A for a ride home depending on how I feel by the end of the day).
In other news, we finally replaced the faulty big front burner on the stove, and I keep burning things on it. I had gotten used to the old one, which took forever to heat up and never really did get as hot as it was supposed to. Someday I would love to replace the whole stove with one that runs on propane – which is the next best thing to gas, if you live someplace where gas is not available, like we do. I hate, hate cooking on an electric stove. This one is not original to the house but it's from the same era, and the main thing I do like about it is its color – dark avocado green. I don't think they make them that color anymore, unfortunately.
The first house I lived in out here was way out in the mountains and it didn't have a furnace or gas lines – the heat was a big wood stove, and we cooked on propane. I loved it. This house does have baseboard heaters, which smell and are inefficient ... so I've been loving the wood stove we installed at the end of the summer. Chopping and hauling wood is not as romantic as some people might try to describe it, but it is kind of a satisfying routine and wood heat is just the best. I don't know why 70 degrees of electric heat should feel different from 70 degrees of wood heat, but it does – maybe it's the humidity? With wood, the heat seems to penetrate my body more. It radiates off everything – the fireplace bricks, the furniture, the walls, everything.
The one thing I had forgotten about is the dust. Heating solely with wood produces a lot of ash that invisibly filters into the air every time you open the stove. Dusting is one of my least favorite household chores, and I'm finding I have to do it a lot more often now than I did before – twice a day right around the stove, and at least once a day in the rest of the room. I'm wondering if there might be some kind of air filter that could help keep the air a little cleaner; must look into that.
