What a MESS!

Okay, my darlings.  Here’s the thing.  I iz BUSTED!  It’s harvest season and they’re doing beans.  Beans (soybeans) is a nasty crop full of dust and bugs and other hazmat.  Started on Friday – I was at lunch with a client and he suddenly looked really concerned and said ‘are you okay?  You look like hell!”  My sinuses had slammed shut, my face was swelling and my itchy eyes were mere slits, with tears running down my pumpkin-sized face…..his mom was with us and she (a farmer’s wife) said ‘omgosh – I remember when J was a kid – he used to have the exact same allergies to bean harvest – except he also couldn’t catch his breath!   So the one consolation is that I didn’t look any more ridiculous – they ‘got’ it.  I got a couple of Benadryl and took to mah faintin’ couch – slept for 12 hours.

stolen: webMD

stolen: webMD

And woke up to a massive sinus infection with additional chestals, just to make it more interesting.  Yay, me.   El O just dismantled one of the walls, so that didn’t help.  I was driven out of my dusty home so I wouldn’t end up in the ER – I stayed away until the entire house was vacuumed, mopped re-vacc’ed and every window was open to the air, with fans a-flappin’.  Saline flushes have helped a lot but this little beast has its claws in my sinuses with a vengeance.

So no perfume review today.  Which is a shame because I am itching (ha!) to review Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s new fall lineup.  But while I can breathe I can’t really smell anything.  So that will have to wait – it’ll be worth the wait, though, because I will be doing a giveaway!  Squeee!

In the meantime, I’m researching facial steamers.  My sinuses are an Escher Staircase disaster and, barring surgery, steam (and saline flushes) are the only real solution.  In my Real Life I used to go to my facialist and revel in the steam.  As far as I was concerned I would’ve been happy to just lay there for an hour with the steam opening up my sinuses like a brand new interstate.  Back then professional steamers were nearly $1,000.  Now you can get one for under $200!  I used Teh Google for Best Facial Steamers and I think I’mo go with their ‘top pick’ which is a cute little tabletop model by Secura.  It’ll do the trick without me overdoing it, I hope.  Oh, hell – y’all know already – I’ll be under that thing for hours!

my sinuses.  OW!

my sinuses. OW!

And I KNOW!  I owe several of you leetle packages – I promise to get them out asap.  I’m mostly just trying to stay alive over here  – it’s been a brutal couple of weeks and we have several more to go before all the harvest is in.

What’s going on with you guys?  How is your weather?  We are experiencing 30o temp/18-hr time swings.  45F-75F.  It’s just ridiculous.  Fleece hoodie at 7a, sleeveless tank at noon.  But the light is gorgeous and a block away the Gorgeous Trio (Smoky Ash, Maple, Oak) are doing their Annual Fall Shift into Fabulousness.  Ash trees are amazing this time of year, with that smoky phosphorescence that shifts from red to plum to burgundy.  So lovely!

  • Amateur Dilettante says:

    Oh I’m so sorry, that sounds so miserable! Those beans help pay my paycheck, so I have to be appreciative of them, but, yeah, DUST. I don’t bother washing the car during harvest because I work at a grain elevator and there’s no point. Take care!

  • Suzy Q says:

    As a fellow sinus sufferer I can sympathize. I’m sorry the neti pot doesn’t work for you. It’s changed my life! The weather is changeable, making perfume choices more complicated but that’s OK. Except when it takes me so long to decide that I walk out the door scentless! Today I wore Memo Italian Leather from a sample vial in my purse. Love it. Feel better soon!

  • Musette says:

    lol! I won’t be ‘fixed’ until March-April, when I can once again open the windows. I’m hoping the steam will do the sinus version of what the ‘Happy Light’ does – keep me going in relative comfort. I have a couple of spa GCs I’ve not used – looking forward to steam and omg – that moment during a massage session where the therapist hits those trigger points in the lats where everything from the jaw up just……..opens. omg. I’m drooling just thinking about it!

    xoxoxoxoA

  • rosarita313 says:

    I hope you are better soon!! It’s unseasonably warm enough here for me to complain – I have a couple new sweaters that I’m wanting to wear and all my summer t-shirts are on their last legs. But I know that February will be here soon enough!

  • maggiecat says:

    Sniffly sympathies to you! I seem to be allergic to, well, fall, and I hate that since I really like fall. Cooler temps (eventually, we here in North Texas hope), pretty trees, upcoming holidays. Hope you feel better soon!

    • Musette says:

      it’s a rough time of year for a lot of people, it seems. Lots of reasons to itch and sneeze and drip….I’m just happy to be able to have to windows open, still, even if it probably doesn’t help with all the harvest, etc. If it’s not one thing, it’s another!!! xoxooxA

  • Ann says:

    Oh, no, sweetie — so sorry to hear this! Sinus woes are no fun. Here’s hoping the steamer does the trick; feel better soon! Sending you virtual hugs …

  • HeidiC says:

    Blerg! I remember when we lived in North Dakota, those harvesters kicking up all that dust would leave me miserable. Hope you get relief quickly! Lingering fall in Minneapolis, staying warmer than usual, but the tree colors are gorgeous — I get to run outside in a beautiful landscape without freezing — yay!

    • Musette says:

      Minneapolis is GORGEOUS this time of year – I used to stay at the Nicolette Island Inn and just loved walking along the river there, enjoying the gorgeous colors!!! Of course..it’s Minneapolis..so it could bucket down with snow in a nanosecond! xoxoxoxoA

  • Tara C says:

    My sympathies to you! We are enjoying the fall colors up here in Montreal. The temps are a bit crazy here too, it’s swinging from 2C to 25C instead of the seasonal average of 12. Last year on Oct. 17 it snowed, this year it is tropical. Go figure!

  • Catherine says:

    Get well soon, dear Musette!!

  • Claudia says:

    Are you using a Neti Pot for your saline flushes? I love mine!

    • Musette says:

      no, alas. They don’t really do the trick for me. I’m doing the Saline Snort, as the infection crud is lodged waaaay up in the upper sinus cavity. OMG! the crud that comes out. But it works, so I continue to do it.

      xoxoxoA

  • GrandmaGaga says:

    I am sending sympathy sneezes…