One week ago, I came down with a serious head cold. Wow. While it may take me another week to fully regain my strength, the head cold is more or less gone.

I don't get colds often but when I do, they mess with my head by which I mean I think that I've always been ill and always will be ill. I have to remind myself of the best healing protocol and then insist that I follow it. Usually take me a day or two to get myself in line but the sooner I do, the better I feel and the faster I heal.

The thing about colds is that they seem pretty harmless. Mild illnesses. Until you're in the midst of one. Then you remember how miserable they make you feel. The "common" cold is any one of a range of viruses that can linger and prolong your misery and develop into far serious situations like sinus infections, bronchitis, pneumonia, and more.

I'm not a doctor but I'll tell you this much. Most people I know—including yours truly—will power through the first stages of a cold when it's probably the most important time to power down. I powered through last week. I taught a full day then went to a meeting the next morning then had a couple of friends over the following night. I can only hope that I did not infect anyone. 

Still, around all those absolute minimal activities, I followed some basic rules.

• Accept that you have a virus.
• Look at the cold as your body's way of saying, hey, let's have a rest, a little clean out and reset. 
• Rest. As much as possible.
• That being said, get some fresh air. Take an easy walk every day.
• Keep a stack of clean handkerchiefs. Don't bother ironing. Why irritate your skin with paper?
• If you must go out, put a hat on your head and bundle up your neck and chest.
• If you must be around people, don't breathe on or touch them.
• Wash your hands often.
• No alcohol, caffeine or cigarettes. Do I have to say that? (And I don't care about the age old whiskey recommendations.)
• Vitamin C. Try small doses (250 mg) throughout the day. I know the jury's out on this but I think it helps and that it matters what type and what brand. I'm loving Garden of Life Raw C these days.
• Drink lots of purified water. It's true--keep those liquids coming.
• Don't eat anything white. That includes sugar and dairy.
• Do have lots of warm tea and broth with garlic, onions, and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
• Sure, chicken soup is good. Add a bit of that red pepper and it's golden.
• Fresh lemons with ginger, peppermint and honey in hot water. Yum. If you don't have fresh lemons or ginger (or peppermint for that matter), use drops of those essential oils.
• Add essential oils of thyme, oregano, and peppermint to your water. They all have antiviral properties and I swear that the oregano oil helped me knock out last week's cold tout de suite. Peppermint helps with sinus congestion and headaches, too.
  
• Lavender essential oil will keep you calm and help you rest. 
• Don't take that over the counter crap. Really. Have you read those labels? They may subdue the symptoms and allow you to power through to work and travel but they're not addressing the underlying virus and the resulting lack of rest alone may actually prolong the cold. IMHO.

Along with everyone else, I don't like coming down with a cold but I do have to say that if I take good care of myself through the experience, I usually feel better coming out the other end than I did when I picked up the virus. Which makes sense, come to think of it, if we're more susceptible to viruses when our immune systems are down. How great can we really feel if our immune system is down?

I hope you don't need this but when and if you do, I think these are a pretty good set basic rules. 

​

On Sunday, I made a list of Things To Do.

It was the New Moon in Pisces. An eclipse, too, with lots of strong and rare configurations in our solar system. While the new moon is traditionally a good time for new intentions, this particular set up begged us to slow down and pay attention. 

Winter has all but disappeared in my part of the world. It was a cool morning but sunny so I decided to spend a little time repotting a few plants. Then I carried out all of the plants I overwinter inside. One thing led to another and I cleaned and clipped and rooted and repotted geraniums, begonias, my sprouting fig twig and the first avocado tree I've ever managed to grow from a pit. 

When the work was complete and the plants were all watered, enjoying their outing, I looked at the time and it was late afternoon. How did that happen? Where did the day go?

Gardening was not on the morning list I made, and yet, that's what I did. So, that's what I was meant to do and when I brought all of the plants in and set them on clean windowsills, I was pleased. Still, the time I'd set aside to work was gone. Oh, well. Can't get it back.

That being said, playing in the dirt with plants was probably the best way to weather the Mars (War)/Uranus (Chaos) conjunction, just one of the heavenly configurations of the day. I surrendered to my intuition and threw myself wholeheartedly into the the earth and green life so that I did not notice time passing.

Mars and Uranus. War and Chaos. Sound familiar? If you're awake or just waking up now, I recommend that you do everything you can think of to ground yourself. If you're well-grounded, you're more likely to be able to respond to rather than resist whatever comes your way and that will do you and the rest of the planet a world of good.

• Get plenty of rest. That includes sleep.
• Go out in nature and walk.
• Garden. Indoors or out. If you don't have plants, visit a nature or garden center and wander around.
• Turn off all of your electronics and devices.
• Sit still and focus on your breath. In. Out. Slow it down.
• Stretch your body in any way you can. It will help you remember that you're a living, breathing being in a body on Earth, not an incessant, cascading array of thoughts. Also, it feels pretty good.
• Apply a good essential oil of a tree to the soles of your feet then massage what's left at the back of your neck. Inhale what's left on the palms of your hands. 

Good essential oils for grounding yourself:

White Fir
Frankincense
Melaleuca (Tea Tree)

Each of these oils has a unique grounding expression but my go-to grounding blend is dōTERRA's
Balance (with Frankincense, Spruce, Ho Wood, Blue Tansy Flower and Blue Chamomile). I use this on the bottom of my feet every morning before donning my socks and shoes to leave the house. 

Essential oils are literally the quintessence, the energetic vibration of plants. They're the aromatic compounds each plant uses to protect and heal itself. They're also nature's gift to us, to help us protect and heal ourselves.

If you're interested in learning more about how these essential oils can help you with self-care, please email me. We can set up a one-on-one call plus, I'll be hosting an online class in the next month or so if you'd like to be notified of online classes for self-care with essential oils, sign up here.

One day later... My baby avocado tree is in shock. I have to admit that I struggled to set it upright and in my zest was not thinking about the tender roots. Lesson learned. Poor thing. Well, I have a jar of sugar water to nurse it and, with luck, that will help it readjust and keep growing. The baby fig tree seems happy so that's something. 

Before I tell anyone else what to do, 

I have to put my own house in order. I've been working on it and have claimed a head start on Spring this year. 

If my space is in chaos, it's difficult for me to be clear headed and open hearted—two requirements for serving others. Also, I like the view of the world around me to adhere to some sense of aesthetic order. It's important to me.

As a freelance creative, teacher and coach, I wear a lot of different hats. Translation: I have a lot of different piles of stuff that support each project, class and client. Although I keep each collection of, mostly, papers, books and supplies in individual bins, I have to work at organizing on a daily basis. And then there's all the other stuff of life. If I ever wonder at the stuff I accumulate, I can only look to myself. I bring it into my home and work space. So I am the one who has to change my habits and actions.

Like Parkinson's Law ("work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"), stuff expands so as to fill available space. No matter how often I organize and clean, it seems I turn around to find that, whoa, there's another pile of clutter. How does this happen so fast? Does this happen in your world?

I cannot stand clutter and yet I make it. What to do, what to do?

Well, there are a few "simple" rules to follow.

Before we get to the rules, first things first.

What are my particular clutter problems? Normal things. Weird things.

What's my stuff problem?

I am a book magnet. As soon as I could write my own name, I was scrawling it into the end papers of my father's fine editions of, oh, Arthur Quiller-Couch's  Notes on Shakespeare's Workmanship or Donald Francis Tovey's Essays in Musical Analysis. So, books.

Paper. All of my artwork is on paper and so are my teaching demos. And live class handouts. And OMG, magazines that I keep for students and "reference".

Shells (lots of shells) and rocks and stones and crystals and feathers and pine cones and baby plants rooting and shooting in various stages. 

Small treasured objects that I've picked up along the route of my peripatetic life.

Jars. Why do I spend so much time cleaning and storing glass jars? 

Bubble wrap. I know I'm going to need it!

Okay, those are my main culprits. What are yours?

What are my habit problems with stuff?

I leave my shoes around. Mostly, I take my shoes off when I come in the house. But sometimes I don't.

I drop things on the table by my back door. Any table. By any back door. This is chronic.

I pile books and magazines and professional papers and my journals by my reading and writing chair.

I leave glasses and cups where I put them when I've finished drinking whatever is inside them. 

My studio... I pile sketches and class demos and reference photos in places where they don't belong by which I mean on work space that I need for...drawing and painting! Other than that, it's an ongoing creative space, a place I change out my teaching gear so, I have to allow it a certain amount of disarray.

What are your habit problems with stuff?

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Put your toys back where they belong when you are finished playing with them. That goes for clothing and shoes, too.

Complete your actions. Preparation is critical to most action. So is cleaning up. Complete your cycle of activity. 

Do you love it? If not, then why is it in your space?

The one year rule. This is tried and true. If you haven't used something in the past year, let it go.

STOP BUYING STUFF YOU DON'T NEED! Think you really need something? Give it 24 hours. Then reconsider. 

Use a timer. Think that putting things back in order will take too long? Use a timer. Set it on 15 minutes. You'll be finished before the timer goes off.

​Accept yourself. We all have chronic habits that are challenging to change. That's where accountability and coaching come in handy. If you have chronic habits related to order, don't beat yourself up about them. Be compassionate with yourself and do the best you can.

Overwhelmed? Too tired to straighten up at the end of the day or the evening or whatever project you were involved with? Keep the essential oil of Lemon on hand. I have a bottle in every room. Lemon is the oil of focus and helps you attend to one thing at a time. It's crisp citrus scent combats mental fatigue and restores your energy allowing you to complete projects. Put a drop or two in the palms of your hands, rub them together and inhale. Who doesn't perk up and smile at the zest of fresh lemon? Get in touch if you'd like to learn more about essential oils.

Feel like you're living in Crazytown? Just a little bit?

Here's what I'm going to do for you. I'm reactivating my writing practice and dedicating my blogging to Self-Care. Nothing is more important right now.

If you don't take good care of yourself, how can you possibly take care of your space, your people, your work, your civic duties?

You know the air flight rule of placing your oxygen mask on yourself before placing it on anyone else, even your child. This holds true for your activities of daily living. From the simplest act of flossing (I don't care what that recent study purports, flossing is important!) and brushing your teeth, to a daily spiritual practice—whatever connects you to the Divine.

There are so many ways into self-care. Eating well, exercising, experiencing beauty, spending time with Nature, finding ways to exit the ever-cascading stream of thought... if only for split seconds. Practice, as with most things, is key. Practice loving yourself enough to take care of your body, mind and soul.

Actually, what's key is self-acceptance. When we launch into any regime of "self-improvement", it's too easy to fail and fail again and to fall into self-flagellation for not being good enough. So, along with improving our self care, it's as important to be compassionate towards ourselves and to accept ourselves for being human. That's what we are. Flesh and bone and experience and reaction and the whole can of worms. The latter of which is, generally speaking, how we end up. Why not feel as good as we can while we're here?

Why self-care? 

If we accept ourselves the way we are at any given moment (even if we have to work through a bit of recovery from some momentary situation) and take good care of ourselves, we'll feel good. And what on earth is more important than feeling good?

When I am feeling not so good, I am a whole lot less fun to be around than when I am feeling well. Other people and the world at large seems aggravating, less filled with light and beauty and humor. When I feel well, life is good and other people are, too.

I started by asking if you feel like you're living in Crazytown. Don't know where that is? (Lucky you.) Let's just say it's the place where the monsters of stress reside. Good self-care helps us skirt that neighborhood. And, boy, if there were ever a time to center ourselves and stay out that bedlam, it's now.

From here on in, I'm focusing on an eclectic array of products, practices, inspirations, gifts of nature and well, we'll see what surprises arise.

Right now? I recommend the essential oil of Bergamot also known as the Oil of Self Acceptance. It's a bright and tangy soft citrus fragrance from a citrus fruit the size of an orange but with way deeper dimples and the color of lime and lemon. I keep Bergamot oil in my purse these days along with my go-to kit of first-responder oils. Bergamot beckons my heart into an easy smile, dispelling the darkness and encouraging me to awaken the shininess of my true self. 

Today is Valentine's Day. Whether you are with a loved one or alone, whether you think this is a fako holiday (it actually dates back to pre-Christian times), Valentine's Day symbolizes the expression of love. 

Love yourself for being a unique expression of life on earth. If that's a stretch, whatever you might think are your shortcomings, maybe just consider them as challenging puzzles to work out while you're here. The better you are able to accept yourself, the better you'll accept others.

Your light will shine that much more easily. ​

Original lyrics (sans verse)

Button up your overcoat
When the wind is free
Take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Eat an apple every day
Get to bed by three
Oh, take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Be careful crossing streets, ooh, ooh
Cut out sweets, ooh, ooh
Lay off meat, ooh, ooh
You'll get a pain and ruin your tum-tum

Wear your flannel underwear
When you climb a tree
Oh, take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Button up your overcoat
When the wind is free
Oh, take good care of yourself
You belong to me

When you sass a traffic cop
Use diplomacy
Take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Beware of frozen funds, ooh, ooh
Stocks and bonds, ooh, ooh
Dockside thugs, ooh, ooh
You'll get a pain and ruin your bankroll

Keep the spoon out of your cup
When you're drinking tea
Oh, take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Don't sit on hornet's tails, ooh, ooh
Or on nails, ooh, ooh
Or third rails, ooh, ooh
You'll get a pain and ruin your tum-tum
​
Keep away from bootleg hooch
When you're on a spree
Oh, take good care of yourself
You belong to me

Henderson, DeSylva & Brown, 1928

"This morning, I anointed my heart with two of my favorite essential oils. First  Ylang Ylang, then Geranium. 

Ylang Ylang, the Oil of the Inner Child "is a powerful remedy for the heart", reminding us that "joy can be felt and experienced more fully by allowing the heart its full range of emotions".

Geranium is the Oil of Love & Trust, restoring our confidence in the innate goodness of others and in the world".

For guidance on the use of essential oils, get in touch.

Sock Season
It's time to keep your tootsies warm.

I have to tell you about my new socks! One thing I love is finding a new article of clothing that doesn't shrink, pill, pull apart at the seams, or otherwise disappoint after one wearing or washing.

Although I've probably spent one-third of my life in flip-flops, I now like to wear good socks year round. They're easy protection from cooties and help to keep my skin and personal thermodynamics in good order.

I found awesome socks in the 6 for $12 bin outside of Twig in Chapel Hill recently. After my wear and wash test, I liked them so much that I went back for another half a dozen. There was no brand on the socks or tag (how refreshing) but I learned that they're made at a small mill in Graham, NC called Best Knit Hosiery Mill, Inc. I brought home pairs in two greys, white, and my favorite color green. (To prove that last point, see 2010 post on my first pair of Keen Newport H2Os.)

​Although this blog has been primarily devoted to drawing and watercolor for a decade, my most visited post (by quantum leaps and bounds) is How to heal your fractured foot and ankle. And so, I revisit the subject.

5 Tips for Healthy Feet
Follow these steps...

Massage your own feet!
Find a reflexology chart or let your thumbs and fingers, intuition and pleasure be your guide. Don't know where to start? Rub the soles of your feet together vigorously on waking, after napping, (or any time you need a quick pick me up). Feel the heat and tingly energy. It's good for your whole being!

Soak 'em.
Fill a dish bin with warm water and epsom salts (or sea salt and baking soda) and sit still for 15 minutes or so with a good book or magazine.

Exfoliate your skin.
The best time to exfoliate the skin on your feet is after a good soak. Pumice stones are too harsh for me. If you're the same, try a wash cloth, loofah, or nail brush.

Moisturize.
Most folks have a favorite moisturizer. Mine alternates from season to season. I love Mountain Ocean Skin Trip but am also an Udderly Smooth fan. This season, I'm trying out their Extra Care 20on both my feet and my hands. Also, moisturize your feet before bed then don some clean, lightweight socks.
Point, flex, and rotate (in both directions).
In the morning before you get out of bed and at night before you sleep. This will help keep your joints and muscles flexible, and your blood and vital energies circulating.

Come to think of it, all of the above will help to circulate your blood and vital energies.

Add your favorite essential oils to any of these steps for even greater benefit.

​Speaking of which...

Good for your feet
Mmm, mmm, mmmmm!

After standing on my feet for all day teaching stints
or local art markets, there is nothing like settling down at home
to massage my feet with Deep Blue oil.

This blend of the essential oils of Wintergreen, Camphor, Peppermint,
Blue Tansy, Blue Chamomile, Helichrysum, and Osmanthus,
penetrates deep and continues its healing magic long after the massaging
has stopped.

Want some for yourself?

Click here for my online store. Deep Blue Oil is also included as one of the top ten oils in the
​ Family Physician Kit at a super value.

​Need help? Click here to email or call to schedule a chat.