Category: Self-Care

Sharing Is Not Always Caring

Sharing is not always caring. Especially when it comes to colds that make their way from schools and businesses or community locations to those at home and beyond.

Such was the unavoidable situation that roughly a month ago, my other half began coughing and took two days off from work to recover. Nowadays, he has a random cough, but otherwise is fully back to normal and doing well.

Yours truly however, never seems to contract just the run-of-the-mill cold. I am a begrudging magnet for anything starting as traditional ear/nose/throat condition. Not only do I attract these bugs just as infamously as I do mosquitos, but I somehow seem to amplify symptoms via the bronchial tubes or lungs that for everyone else were just running noses or sore throats. It’s been my lot ever since childhood and I don’t know why.

This time around, a cough that my husband had came to me and morphed into chest rattling fits that at night, sent me to sleeping in a guest room in the basement to ensure at least one of us got sleep. For the first two weeks of this, it was an effort to make it to the end of the work day, keeping things humming for my teams. Once offline, I’d throw a frozen box in the oven for dinner and we would collapse into bed. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

For the record, I always call my doctor when things reach my chest as that is my warning flag. But as far as I can tell, this is one of those bugs that is quick to hit and leave, but the cough will take a lifetime to fully exit stage left.

Slowly but surely, I’ve been on the up and up. Part of catching up was prioritizing my energy around just work and sleep, so I’ve taken a break from blogging too.

While I feel 99% normal, the final dregs of that cough are still around and I’m hoping it’s 100% gone in another week or so.

Has anyone else caught the crud floating around?

Wash those hands, hydrate, and get ample sleep, friends.

Lessons in Grace from a Terminal Spiker

Small phalaenopsis with terminal spike – October ’25

This poor little orchid gal is not going to make it. I bought her at Lowe’s a few weeks ago, knowing that being a terminal spike orchid, she wouldn’t last long unfortunately. She had the most beautiful blooms; I could not help myself.

As I watched her leaves yellow and her roots crinkle, I knew no amount of orchid fertilizer treatment or care would change this course. It was her time.

Terminal spike orchids may only have 2-3 years in them, from what I have read. I also never quite know what other bugs or rots have formed in their lives from nurseries to sellers in arid environments that shorten their lives, either. It could have been one of a many reasons why just after coming home with me, she gave out. All of her blooms spent, it was all she had.

And so, I reached for the keiki paste for the first time. I’ve had a few terminal orchids before and never had any keiki paste to try to encourage keiki growths with. This one motivated me to buy some and give it a go. (And yes, it’s true that even with a growth hormone like the paste, it’s still not a given a new baby plant will materialize).

Once it arrived, she had lost her last big leaf and her roots showed she was out of life.

But I still fertilized.

And I still made a tiny gouge in the last node left and applied the paste.

Just in case life decided to give it a go.

Yet, I was perfect accepting if it didn’t.

As I held this tiny orchid in my hands with sympathy and care, it hit deeply that I felt a little bit like this gal. I’ve had more days than I care to count where I had no more energy to thrive in my roots or leaves.

I considered how I might hold space for myself more often when I was on empty too. And how to do so without judgement as to whether I delivered or not. This thought brought me some acceptance that there was indeed extra room in coming days for me to give myself the same grace, if I remember to do it. And similarly, I could do so without judgement.

And so, I gently set her in the indirect light and left her to take her time with whatever came next, giving gratitude for sharing her beauty while she could. It was more than enough.

Marshmallow Indulgence

Marshmallow goodness

There is a joy in taking something ordinary and adding extra indulgence to it to make it extraordinary. I had already elevated my favorite coffee pod choices from my old friend, the Keurig machine, up to a French press.

I did not think things could get much better than that in the coffee world, but I was elated when one fine day I dropped in a handful of tiny, freeze-dried vanilla marshmallows.

Who knew that tiny little marshmallows could elevate one’s coffee experience to a private little feel-good party for one in your mug?

We must take care with ourselves some days. You know which days I am talking about. The days when it can be extra hard to be an adult, when you need a hug or maybe just some grace.

So friends, let little tiny vanilla marshmallows be that hug you give yourself.

You. Are. Worth. It. (And so much more!)

Marshmallow goodness (in a Wrendale Designs cup)