Poison Ivy day 16

Among the many things my house came with, was a front hedge full of poison ivy...yay, normally I'd just pay someone to get rid of it for me, but I'm not in the position to do that any time soon and as a new home owner I kind of enjoy that I have some new and interesting responsibilities and I actually want to be involved with them personally.

Prior to taking it on, I looked it up some online. I'd never really dealt with poison ivy, but I'd seen enough friends with a case of it and knew about it in my front yard from speaking to the next door neighbor...who got a nasty case of it last year.

Having never had an allergic reaction or known exposure, there was a chance I might be fine, but given my family and personal history with allergies I was unlikely to get that lucky.

I took some suggested precautions of:

- Clothing (long sleeves, long pants and gloves) even though it was a considerably warm day

- bagged everything and tied it off, putting all the bags together in a big black trash bag to let the sun finish cooking it until the trashmen picked it up

- came back in after about 2 hours of yard work, and immediately showered and bagged my clothes

And I thought I might be ok...I'd gotten touched by a little spot on my right wrist between where the gloves ended and the sleeves started. After a few hours everything seemed ok, the next morning a few spots finally appeared on my right wrist...seemed like no big deal.

After a few days the spot on my right wrist was getting large, and nasty...I'm actually kind of amazed at just how bad a tiny amount of this stuff can be...people are afraid of what artificial chemicals can do when there are plenty of equally scary things already in nature.

At 3-4 days down it seemed the poison ivy was still spreading, I now had it scattered up and down my left arm, all across my waist and random spots on legs. According to what I'd read, the blisters aren't contagious, but the oil is persistent so clearly I hadn't washed it all off in a few days of showering, or it was getting transferred back and forth with my clothes or sheets. Even though the work clothes are still in a bag yet to be washed or even touched. 

Frustrated I enlisted the support of my friends that has had considerably more experience with the stuff. He suggested I get this stuff called Tecnu...I'd never heard of it, but it was developed to clean off radiation poisoning and that it's use with poison ivy was discovered by accident. He also suggested I get Calagel, like calamine lotion, but no telltale runny pink residue gunk. It contains Diphenhydramine (generic Benadryl), an antihistamine which locally helps calm the itch a lot, I also took Loratadine (generic Claritin) and Cetirizine HCL (generic Zyrtec) since the package specifically warns against taking any other product with Diphenhydramine, orally or topically. I also swabbed the affected areas frequently with rubbing alcohol. It helped dry up the oozing parts, keeps everything nice and clean and the sting on the open areas feels much better than the itch, in my opinion.

I still have more poison ivy to get rid of, but next time I'll be smarter.

- longer gloves so there is no gab in the long sleeves

- swab skin with rubbing alcohol after I'm done/wash definitely touched areas with Tecnu

- take a cold shower when done (my hot shower opened my pores and made it worse)

- start the Calagel and allergy meds (Loratadine or Cetirizine) at the first sign of reaction instead of days later

- do not re-wear pj's or any other clothes until level of reaction has been determined

I've also sprayed the remaining areas with Round-Up for poison ivy...I'm really not fond of pesticides, but the only other non chemical method I found was plan salt, which will just kill everything and takes longer to get out of the soil making it more harmful to the environment than the pesticides.

I've neither washed nor touched the clothes I wore while removing the poison ivy, and frankly am not excited about dealing with them at all, but I don't want to throw them out either. I think next time I might put some  cheap painting coveralls on so I have an outer layer that I can throw out.

Dinner and food storage

In an effort to save money I've been cooking more at home...for the first time in many years. Also trying to eat more healthy foods that includes a lot of fresh vegetables (that don't keep anywhere near as well as frozen box meals btw). Although this fact is obvious, it's taking some time to get used to. 

I like a well stocked fridge and I hate throwing food out.

The two don't always exist in perfect harmony, and require a bit of planning and follow through. If I plan to make something and buy produce for it, I have to make it in a reasonable amount of time or the produce goes bad. Again this is obvious, but when you factor in daily life and planning to cook for company, plans change.  What was planned for one week, gets put off until the next, and a meal for company can become a meal for one etc.

I'm sitting here, very much enjoying my red Thai curried stir fry, but wishing the vegetables would have kept longer so I could have made it for a friend coming tomorrow. Since I'd made something else last week for company, I still had everything left over. The bok choy which I'd neglected to do anything with other than stash in the fridge was looking tired and a bit wilted but smelled fine so I used it anyway. The portobellos were starting to smell, but I couldn't remember what they were supposed to smell like fresh, and considering mushrooms are already fungus I figured I'd see how they tasted after being sautéed. Being cautious, I sautéed them separately since I really wasn't sure...they turned out to taste fine.  On top of that, I was using a pre-made sauce from Trader Joe's that had a suggested use by date of Nov 08...but it also smelled and tasted fine, so into the mix it went. 

The results were scrumptious!

But being a bit more adventerious with my stomach than most people are willing to be is probably best done alone...I've been told more than once not to eat something or a combination of something for fear of getting sick, but I usually don't listen and have yet to suffer consequences.

Lessons learned:

Red peppers can keep for an insanely long time in those seen on TV Debbie Meyer Green Bags - I used the last one up tonight (had to cut out a few bad spots) but it was in the fridge since late March/early April, so was at least a month an a half old! 

Meanwhile the broccoli was starting to look a bit tired after 2 weeks in the crisper in a normal produce bag. The remainder that still looked good went into the now empty Green Bag. (Need to get more bags)

The portobellos were also at 2 weeks and this is definitely too long for comfort, need to limit them to a week, or go back to using canned.

Trader Joe's Red Thai curry sauce is both tasty and keeps longer than suggested, but I'd not want to make a habit of seeing just how long that is, since I may have just gotten lucky.

Stir fry is a good way to use up left over rice from last week's Mexican

Recipe:

Red Thai Curry Veggie Heavy Stir Fry

1 sweet white onion

1 red pepper

3 stalks of celery

1-2 broccoli crowns (about a 1/2-3/4 lb) I used both florets and stems

1 8oz can water chestnuts 

8 oz fresh baby portobellos 

3 small bunches of bok choy

2-3 cloves of garlic

3 pre-cooked chicken asiago & spinach sausages (or 10oz -1lb tofu/chicken/other meat) 

11 oz Trader Joe's Red Thai Curry sauce

olive oil or other stir fry oil

salt

white wine

2-4oz water 

long grain brown rice (judge amount by number of people serving)

My rice was left over, but it can be done while everything else is cooking since it takes a while.

Cut up veggies, start out sautéing onions, peppers, broccoli, celery and 1 clove of garlic with some olive oil in a wok or large sauté pan. When they are nearly done, or the peppers and onions have some nice caramelized char marks add more garlic (if desired) along with mushrooms and water chestnuts (including the juice from the can). Turn heat to medium/low. In a separate pan start sautéing the sliced sausages until lightly browned. 

Note: if not using pre-cooked meat or tofu, meat should be started earlier to avoid over cooking other veggies.

Add the Thai red curry sauce.

Slice bok choy keeping leafy sections separate from the stalk sections. In a separate pan sauté bok choy stalks on high heat with a little olive oil,  salt and white wine. Shake 2-4oz water into the Thai red curry sauce bottle to get the last bit out. Add leafy portions after stalks have had a minute or so to get started. Pour this into the bok choy and cover for a few minutes. When leaves have fully hot but stalks are still crisp transfer all into wok/main pan. 

Re-heat left over brown rice, or plate fresh cooked rice and serve stir fry on top.

Serves 4-6

Hey Grad, Play hard with an iPod?

Just got the Apple email:

	Goodbye, finals. Hello, fun.Give your grad something fun to do now that school's out. iPod touch has all the entertainment one person can handle. Games, apps, music, movies, TV shows, theweb—with so many exciting features, it's like tons of graduation gifts in one.Shop iPod touch

 ... and my first thought is wow, after finally graduating college I wonder how some grads would feel "just" getting an iPod. Even though that engraving is totally shiny.

Now I'd definitely be grateful for any gift or acknowledgment, knowing someone took the time to think about me and care...but traditionally I've known peers to get things like iPods for birthdays or Chrismukkah/Festivus etc. 

Graduation seems to be something more significant being that it's an achievement, something earned. Some parents go to great lengths to throw a party in order to showcase their new grad in front of friends, family, co-workers etc. Graduation is something to be proud of and to be marked in some way that will be remembered. My dad got money towards his first car after graduating college...that's pretty significant. Now obviously not everyone should get a car and no one should be in the habit of expecting gifts in general... especially if they may already have the gift of their education being paid for by family. On the other hand, a car is a practical tool instrumental in the pursuit of employment, so while an extremely generous gift, it also seems more valid. Then again after working hard in school for years, it might be nice to sit back and "play" with an iPod, and a $200-300 computer that kicks my first computer in the teeth is nothing to scoff at. 

It does however, make me wonder...is Apple using graduation as another excuse to push iPods? Or in its infinite marketing wisdom, is Apple pushing iPods over cars (or other more expensive practical items) due to current market?  

Car manufactures are failing left and right offering to pay your loan if you lose your job just so you'll buy from them, except struggling families can't afford the cars they have, let alone to help their grad get a car. Or maybe the grad already has one from when times were good, as a high school graduation present perhaps?

I'm trying to remember the graduation day ads from the golden years past...I'm pretty sure they included cars and some car ads this year probably include grads.

But I wonder what has more influence on ads this May, the market or that it's graduation time which is yet another commercialized gift giving holiday.

new paths

having thought life was all planned out, it of course had other plans...

Went back to school part time a few years ago since I couldn't imagine not working and just going to school. I don't consider myself materialistic but I do like "stuff" and the ability to buy it with plastic without going into debt. In the spirit of enjoying stuff moderately, I bought a house since the market was ideal for that...then became unemployed before I even moved in! I'm still kinda bitter about that one, but I'm hoping it works out for the best seeing as there is no way I could continue school and work as strangely after several semesters of it working just fine, classes will be all kinds of in the middle of the day and I'd have had to quit working or school anyway...strange luck or fate?

I guess we'll see.