Ramblings

God(dess) bless the neti pot. It certainly is not the most attractive thing I've ever done, but boy is it making a difference in this sinus infection.  Yes, the antibiotics have stopped the major infection pain, but it's the neti pot that is getting everything out of my head and, I feel like, healing the underlying problem.  I'm totally talking out my ash, but that's what it feels like I'm doing.

The weird part is how sometimes in the middle of a cleanse, it sort of stops.  I imagining a dam of snot it's working around (and now you are too!) that it finally destroys with its salty ways.  Loves it.  Weird as hell looking, but if you have allergies or sinus problems, you should get one and clean our your head.

Yes and the one I received from my ENT at the last visit really points out the differences between eastern and western approaches to medicine.  A neti pot is a nice gentle cleanse of one's sinuses.  My ENT was all excited about the bottle he gave me so I could shoot the saline solution up my nose.  "It uses a lot of pressure" is excitedly assured me.  

Yeah.  Thousands of years of gently rinsing one's nose vs. powerfully shooting water up my sinuses.  Nothing like using a bomb to solve a problem that a gentle stream of water was doing just fine with. 

Fine.  I'm just ready for it to all clear up.  I think we're getting close.  

In other news that occupies my mind. are those of your outside of NC hearing what those of us inside NC are hearing about our former governor?  His wife and son have used campaign vehicles for their own personal use.  Some dude was letting him use his plane as a campaign contribution without reporting it.  And the ex-gov's wife had an $800,000, five year,  adjunct teaching/admin job at NCSU for which a national search was cancelled so she could be hired.  I've mistakenly thought our state government was ethical.  Now I think, we've been Blagojeviched.   Just throwing that out there on the blog.  It's bizarre to open up the local paper and learn of yet another bizarre unethical allegation against our former gov.  

Finally, our remodel should be starting today.  The carpenters are supposed to be stopping by to frame up the attic and they are supposed to be digging the foundation for the small addition.  So far, I see no activity.  But our financing is FINALLY completely in place and they are ready to go.  I'm ready for them to get going. 

New pictures of my enornmous belly and what Dave's done so far on the house coming soon.  I need to recharge the camera so I can download the pics.  

Off to work on finishing up an NSF grant.  I'm pretty psyched.  Over the last two months, I will have submitted and/or completed two book chapters, an NSF grant, a few journal reviews, my first PhD  student's qualifying exams, and published an undergraduate journal.  Not so bad for working in bed, eh?