Me & Dr. Robitussin

This doctor doesn't wear a white coat, though he has a white cap. This doctor comes in a plastic bottle and I've had a lot of meetings with him this week, thanks to what my husband unaffectionately calls "the Newville crud".  I understand that it's not limited to my town, however.  Apparently people all over the U.S. have it.  Fever, chills, some nausea and a bad cough.  Thus, Dr. Robitussin. (or Dr. R).

No matter that the bottle expired 10 years ago, I was desperate and decided to use what I already had in my cupboard.  It tastes as bad as it ever did so it must be legit.  By the way, how is it that you can't taste anything else when you're sick, but you can still taste that old Robitussin?

I smile when I take it (well, sort of) because it wasn't too long ago that my husband and I had a joke between us about my mother who would offer us medicine from "Columbus".  That simply meant that it was medicine she had from back before I was born when my family lived in Columbus, OH - like, the early 1960's!  Now here I am, using medicine that is 10 years old.  I guess I'm gonna be like her.

I knew things were bad when my cat, Missy (who is very nervous anyway) came over to me on my bed, took one look at the white kleenex in my hand, heard my abnormal very deep bass voice call her name and with big wide eyes, turned around and ran off the bed in a hurry. This was NOT the owner she was used to.  Some alien was lying in her bed.  I sighed.

I discovered this week that it's much more effective to be consistent with taking your medicine when they say you should.  Every 4 hours.  Yuck! But at one point I thought I was feeling better so I stopped taking the medicine.  That's when things got worse and I realized that I wasn't really getting better, I had simply been consistent with meeting with Dr. Robitussin and therefore, I thought I was getting better.  When I quit, it revealed my need to continue on my path of consistency.

There's a few things in life that I've discovered I need to be consistent with in order for them to really work.

Exercise

Yep - and it goes down just about as easy as Dr. R. sometimes.  But I always feel great afterwards and the more I do it, the better I feel.

Prayer and scripture meditation

The more consistent I am with it, the better the results for me.  I can tell when I haven't been as faithful.  My soul and my mind need it.

Healthy Eating

It doesn't do much good to exercise if you aren't going to eat healthy at the same time.  The two go hand in hand.  I'm certainly not a health expert and I'm not promoting any diet or exercise program - just promoting eating well as a life style.

Adequate Sleep

Everyone is different, but we all need sleep.  I try hard to go to bed at the same time every day and make sure I get adequate rest.

So there you have it, my prescription for life.  And oh yes, sometimes we are thrown off that routine and a little bit of Dr. R becomes necessary.  But I'm glad that's not the norm!

"The Elephant Diet" Day # 78 Post-Tracking Day Blues

This morning I got up with the blues.  The 'post-tracking day' blues.

The very first time I recorded in a studio, it was near Valley Forge, PA.  I had been recruited for a radio broadcast program to accompany a singer from Nashville on a recording project.  It was the most amazing experience I had ever had musically.  I was so high for days afterward that my husband finally looked at me one day and said "are you EVER going to come down???...I need you HERE!!!".

It took me weeks (at least that's what it seemed like) to recover.  I determined from that day on that whatever it took, I would somehow get back into that studio and do more of whatever 'that' was that I had just experienced, even if I had to offer to clean the toilets to get in.

You can hear more of that story on my Inside Things podcast.  Episode # 12 "A harp, willow, van and bird!"

Needless to say, that began a journey of managing the cycles of having such adrenaline rushes from recording to getting back into real life shortly afterward.  I think I've learned how to ride the ride, but I still have twinges of it and this morning was one of those times.  I love being a part of recording so much that it takes me a while to re-enter life afterward.  I still cry sometimes when I leave Nashville.

A good dose of catch-up work in the studio in between doctor visits with 2 special people in my life snapped me back into reality pretty quick.

By the way, I should report that today I went with Tom to the doctor and he got some of his stitches out from his operation...but not all.  More come out on Tuesday.  It's still a struggle, but over time he is able to do a little bit more each day on his own.  It's been hard to see him go through this, but I am absolutely sure that I did the right thing by staying home this week.  We need each other.

This afternoon I took my mother to the doctor and again, realized that it would have been terribly uncomfortable for anyone else to have to take her other than me.  It just wouldn't have been fair to her.  It's good I stayed home from TN on so many levels.

I have 13 events coming up in April that I need to be preparing for and more booking details coming in.  I have to keep up with my system of making sure all the information shows up in all the places it should to keep me organized and I've been behind on that this week.  As of tonight, I think I have everything on my calendars and sites as it needs to be.

I also got a request this week to write and record a special song for two different little girls.  One of them is the sister of a girl I wrote one for years ago for Songs of Love.  The mother decided after all these years that the sister who hasn't had a disability deserves to have a song about her too.

The other request came from Songs of Love saying someone specifically requested me to write a song for their daughter.  I must have written one for someone else in their family years ago.  Can't remember.....too many children...too many songs later.  I will try to squeeze it in between everything else going on in my life.  These songs really touch the hearts of those who receive them and it's an important part of what I do.

So here at the end of the day, my post-tracking day blues are slowly changing color.

Blue isn't always such a bad color.

My studio is blue and I love it!