Flight Manners or Why Upgrading Your Flight Ticket is Worth Every Penny!

The oldest daughter and I went on a little trip last week to look at a school she was interested in attending. She has been working for several months now and offered to take me along as a chaperone, free of charge. (Did someone say "Free trip to England??") She bought the plane tickets and I footed the bill on everything else. Some lovely English friends from our old church offered us their home as our base camp and another friend from South Africa literally handed me the keys to her car so we were all set to go!
Fast forward to the actual day of  departure and we are at the airport...............

Now, finally, we had boarded and were waiting for the moment that we roll onto the runway and take off.

Before we even get started, the seat in front of me leans back to hover across my lap. Why did they do that? Didn't they hear the announcement about keeping their seats and tables in an upright and locked position? Oh, yes they did! They have proven that they aren't deaf since they are chatting away and answering each other in a Dutch accent.
This type of behavior is what I have labeled, "Selfish Public Obnoxiousity" or "SPO". These types of people believe that it is their right to have it their way, no matter if it is rude to others or not. There is a whole generation of them coming up. Parents, identify and fix this problem with your children so they don't become one of those rude people.
We all know people like that. They make you lose your temper and the ability to reason in the English language. I need space and this calls for me to upgrade my tickets for the next flight, at any cost. Yuck! End of subject.

Back to the trip...
Next, takeoff. It wasn't a bad takeoff at all. We came up to speed and began to admire the impressive view of the cityscape below our large flying machine. Bump. Bump, sssshake, jiggle. Calm and peace for a moment. Again, bump, bump, shake, jiggle, jiggle.Thereafter begins some vibrating and shaking of the whole plane. I began to think that the clouds, wind and sky were playing  a slow motion ping pong game with us. This continued on for a good while.
Let me give you a quote that may put into perspective how much movement we had going on. "If I knew that my boobs were going to be dancing so much, I would have worn a sports bra to this party!"
I tell my uncomfortable motion sickly partner that the shakies will calm down at 10,000 feet. We continue to ride like the cavalry at war for another 10 minutes then, "Ahaaaah", the ride suddenly becomes smooth moving skate on ice. Just like I said, 10,080 feet! (I hit the nail on the head there.)

Lots of flying hours and flight experience make me an old pro at this game.
First pass by the flight attendants netted me a ginger ale and some rice crackers .

A few hours pass while I watch a movie, Thor 2. If you don't know me well, then let me tell you that I adore Thor. He is the epitome of hunky handsomeness. He could stand around and sell moldy butter for all I care as long as I can look at him. That man is lovely! End of subject.

The next flight attendant interruption was ginger ale and a lovely pasta with veggies & chicken and a whole bunch of carbs.
Back to my captured audience movie watching. "Percy Jackson 2 and the something of something." It wasn't as bad as I though it would be. It kept me awake for a while........

An hour or two later, there are strange noises I hear coming from across the plane. The sound of an old car trying to be started, but it is choking up, is a way to describe it. Think about it for a second...There you go.
Now this strange noise continues off and on for a while and I am thinking that this person who is coughing needs medical attention. Then my mind wonders and I think," WHAT? That person is sharing that nasty cough with us! Did they even get a Doctors approval to fly? What kind of nasty disease is that?" I quickly inhale some alcohol hand sanitizer to fend off the  thought of germiness and vow to find that diseased perpetrator and talk them to justice!

Round three by the flight attendants is nearly missed by me since the overwhelming feeling of comatosia is taking over my mind. Too much sitting does that to me. I decide to cruise the aisles in search of.... some excitement! But alas! None is to be found since most of the flight consists of sleepy bodies.. Boring!

The pilot flashes the light for "seat belts on" and the vibroshake plane begins again. I take my seat by climbing between the reclining seat in front and the lap of the nice lady from India at the end of our three seat aisle. After that Yogic icebreaker with our neighbor, we begin to chat about how long we had left on our flights. She was on the second leg of 30+ hour journey home We had the best of conversations about cultures, vegetarianism, and tag teaming our trips to the toilet so we didn't have to straddle each other. She was a darling and we were blessed to meet her.
 
Back to my captured audience seating and I decide to listen to some classical music next. A half hour later, the announcement to "Prepare for Landing", come in over the intercom. We start gathering our things for arrival.

 We are almost there! Yeah!
 

Five minutes before landing, the deep, gutteral sound of snoring pierces the air....

Welcome to Britain!

The Flu ain't got me (for long)! (But it did get the hubby!)

So, this season, has been full of cheer, cold weather and the usual things that are thrown at you during the winter. We had Thanksgiving at my house, A birthday party at my house and Christmas at my house too. Now from that, you can see that my house is a busy place sometimes. Thank God for my cousin and his lovely wife, who hosted the New Year's dinner at his house.
So what does all of this have to do with the flu? Well, it all started when my oldest decided to get a family gift of a trampoline. Can you see where I am going with this? (Ha! NO, unless you keep up with me on Facebook!)
This now famous trampoline was delivered after Christmas and since the children didn't know that it was coming, there was a beehive of excitement when the UPS truck pulled up and it took BOTH men to wrestle the box out. Everyone rushed out to see what it was and they jumped up and down when they figured out what it was. My hubby and son put it together that evening and needed to do a little more when the sun came up to make it safe.
Next morning, my hubby goes out to put the finishing touches on the trampoline and the children begin the hourly barrage of jumping on it. Unfortunately, without planning ahead, there wasn't a step up or down to shorten the height of getting into and out of the safety net. The children came and went without a hitch until the oversized son of mine climbed in and the extremely undersized 6 yr old hurried to get out. She decided to speed up the process by jumping(committing jumpicide), off the side of the rails , but instead of landing on her feet, she landed on her side with her arm pinned behind her back!  I was in the house and as soon as I heard the "cry of pain", I was at the window viewing what was transpiring. The teenage son was gently carrying his wounded sister in the house for an assessment by Dr. Mom. Dad was busy concentrating on something else so he ignored the cries of pain! (I don't know HOW he does it!)
The son was laughing, but the 6 yr old was bawling about her arm hurting. We iced that tiny arm down in all of the place she said that hurt and she lay on the couch with a drink watching, "Night at the Museum" within 15 minutes. Hmmm, 4 hours later, she was still lying on the couch and could pinpoint the exact place of intense pain. Great! But maybe not so great. This is the child who bounces back from everything. She is what we have nicknamed, "The Chihuahua." Perky, spunky, vocal and 
noisy, this child doesn't sit still. But this time, she did. And I figured that we would have to hit up the local emergency room before the night was over.
We went and there was a crowd. A real crowd full of sick people. Oh, it was a miserable place except for the few smiles from here and there- people who had come along with the sick people to get them well before they contaminated the rest of us non-sick people! One man stood out in the crowd. He looked as if too many doughnuts had passed from his hands to his stomach and then he rinsed those down with too many french fries. He was near balding, but I wouldn't have looked twice at him except that he was coughing. He was sloppily coughing all over his hands, arms, seat and the air surrounding him. He barraged the room with his NASTYNESS. I wondered how did he get this far without a mask and went to ask the nurse. She gave me and my daughter a mask and said, "You might have come in with something, but we don't want you to leave here with the flu." (Insert silly, crooked smile here.)  I asked, "What about HIM? Isn't he is a cesspool of disease? Shouldn't HE be wearing one too??" She said that he was given one!  Okay! (Insert stoopid gene here.) This guy who had the power to not infect people was too I-don't-know-what to wear the mask! This is crazy!
 Now by the grace of God, my phone rang and y daughter and I left the room to go to another area and talk for 45 minutes. When we came back, the cesspool of disease was gone and so were half of the patients. Peacefulness was restored! Cleanliness was not.
Twenty four hours later, I was hit like a train wreck with the headache, fever and the wrost bodyaching pain of a lifetime.
I went from normal to delirium (at least that's what the family said!). But all I knew in my sane mind was that I wasn't going to stay down! I can't be out of commission for more than a day or two. No mommy wants to be fired. That would be an insult to the institution of motherhood! I felt so bad that I considered going to the hospital for any drug that took the aches and headache away! I knew why people committed suicide! It was from the pain! I know why people have addictions to painkillers! It's the pain!
I began my regimen with Boiron's Oscillococinnum,  Vit-d, Vit-c, Oil of oregano, sambucus, lemon, honey and whiskey in hot water, chicken broth, ginger tea and water-lots of it.
-Boiron's Ocsillo is taken every 6 hours.
-The vit-D needed is 8,000 IU's daily. I split it up as 2 or 4 times daily.
-Vitamin-c chewables 500mg. I took one of these hourly if I was awake. I knew to cut back when I hit bowel tolerance (the near diarrhea point, sorry about the gross factor!) Then that meant every other hour I would take one.
-Oil of Oregano- I prefer "Physicians Formula Oregacillin", but since that is hard to find, I went with a good brand and took one hourly too.
-The Sambucus, I took 1 teaspoons 4 times daily.
-Two tablespoons each of honey, lemon, and whiskey. Put these in a teacup and add boiling water to make a throat, cough and nerve soothing cuppa!
-Chicken broth, for keeping hydrated and your daily dose of Jewish penicillin! I might have had 2-3 cups daily.
-Ginger tea, sliced, peeled ginger simmered in water, strained out and add a bit of honey for taste. let's face it, this stuff burns! But I think it was also killing germs and bacteria on it's way down!
-Water, as much as you can drink in between all of this other stuff.
-Don't have any sugar or carbs. These things feed the virus and you want it to leave you sooner than later! ( After 12 hours, I felt great. So great, that I ate a cookie and within 20 minutes, my symptoms came back! Bad idea!)
-You HAVE to keep hydrated! Your body has to work and it needs fuel to do that.
-Rest, lie around and doze all day. This is an inside job for your body to fight without you using up all of it's energy!

I gleaned a lot of ideas from years of use on my hubby. He has had a flu shot every year and every year, he becomes ill. He came through my sickroom declaring that he wasn't getting my "dreaded disease". Three days later, he was hit with the flu and has been sick ever since........
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Here is a great web post  about natural flu treatments which adds to the list that I am personally using.
 http://wellnessmama.com/207/24-hour-flu-treatment/

Thank you Wellness Mama!