Every time we come back to our old hometown of Show Low, Arizona to visit my daughter Tiffany and her family, poor Terry suffers from terrible allergies. When we lived here it wasn’t as much of a problem, but having been gone for almost eleven years, she has lost whatever immunity she had to the local pollen. So her eyes are red and itchy, she is sneezing and coughing, and she’d surely shoot me if I tried to take her picture right now.
We’re at 6500 feet here, and a few miles up the road, Pinetop-Lakeside is over 7000 feet, so we both feel the effects of the altitude quite a bit. I keep telling Tiffany that she’d be much happier living somewhere else like, oh, say Aransas Pass or Rockport, Texas, and that we’d visit her much more often there.
Yesterday was another windy day, and since Miss Terry was feeling under the weather, we stayed home and I spent the day working on the new issue of the Gypsy Journal. This will be our Eleventh Anniversary Issue, how time flies! The brainchild I conceived sitting at our kitchen table when we were trying to decide if we could earn a living on the road has grown every year, thanks to the support of so many of our loyal readers. We feel very blessed to be able to make our living in such a fun way.
Except for a potty break or two, and stepping outside to show the propane delivery guy where our LP tank is, I was at my desk all day, until it was time for dinner.
In the evening, my cousin Rocky Frees sent me a link to a newspaper obituary for my uncle Charles Saxton, who was killed in action during World War II. Rocky had found the link on a Google News Archive search, and if he wasn’t almost 1800 miles away in Muskegon, Michigan, I’d kiss Rocky right on his face! My genealogical research on my dad’s side of the family has been nearly impossible, but within just a few minutes of searching on the website, I found my grandfather’s death notice, as well as those for two of my dad’s sisters and one of my brothers, and a ton of other information. I knew I should have been working on the paper, but I couldn’t resist logging onto Ancestry.com and inputting all of this new information, which in turn led me to even more data! I could have stayed at it for hours, but I had a blog to write.
After I wrote in yesterday’s blog that I would be sponsoring people to join the Elkhart, Indiana Moose lodge during our Eastern Gypsy Gathering rally, I had a couple of e-mails from ladies asking if the Elks and Moose will accept women as members. Yes, I have sponsored several women to both organizations.
Today I’ll be back at it, but if Terry feels any better we may sneak away for an hour or two to go into town and visit Tiffany. I have grandkids to snuggle with, and I haven’t been near a Dairy Queen in weeks.
Thought For The Day – Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Kathleen at time gets allergies when we get into a new orr different area and what we try to do is to get some local Honey.
This seems to work very well for us.
But some honey this time around and save it for the next time there, and than start taking it a week or two before you get in the area.
Enjoy the grand’s
My favorite preparation is Zicam — it’s over the counter at any drug store, works wonders for my allergies, and Suzy uses it for on-coming colds. There are several varieties — for colds, for allergies, for congestion, and several different formats from nasal spray to oral spray to nasal swabs. It’s not habit forming, doesn’t interact with other medications. Just helps you breathe and feel more comfortable.
You’ll get lots of different suggestions, and Terry may have already tried them all, but maybe someone out here in Gypsyland will find one that works for Terry.
I have been dealing with allergies all my life, take the allergy shots, etc. At the moment I am taking various meds to deal with a sinus infection which really increases my allergy reactions. One of the treatments my allergist had me start was a sinus rinse by NeilMed. (http://www.neilmed.com/usa/index.php) That really seems to be helping me, and I recommend that Terry give it a try. Basically it washes the allergens from your nasal passages. You do it twice a day. Also my ophthalmologist recommended an over the counter eye drop called Naphcon A for the red and itching eyes. I bought the generic version at CVS called ‘Eye Allergy Relief’ . It works well. Finally I have good luck with the generic versions of Claratin as an antihistamine. It is now an over the counter drug.
Hope Terry is better soon.
Sorry to hear that Terry is suffering from those pesty allergies. I feel lucky that I have not been bothered with them since we left Arizona. Many of the OTC work wonders and I have used they eye drops mentioned by some of the folks. One important reminder any one who suffers allergies should contact their doctor or the very least a pharmacist before taking any OTC. Some may interact with your blood pressure medications or heart drugs. When in doubt always check. To save money on a saline nasal spray you can take a tablespoon of salt and dissolve it in a quart of warm water, it works just as well as the OTC medication and it is cheaper
Nick;
It appears that you are storing your family genealogy information on Ancestry.com. This is a nice site because of all the information that it has but there are a couple of things to watch out for. First, if you post your family data on their web site then Ancestry owns a copy and can sell it to others and tweak it any way they want. Second, the family information that they offer to you as part of your family comes with no verification or source information. We have seen many instances of this family information getting the generations mixed up, eg: Robert is a grandfather not a father. Also children are incomplete, turn out to be children of siblings rather than your direct line, etc. Don’t take this information as the Gospel. I guess the message is that there is no such thing as a free lunch.
I have used the paid Ancestry subscription for years and find it very useful. Yes, there can be a lot of misinformation in some public family trees if people dont document their sources, but I only use documented information from other family trees. I have never had Ancestry “tweak” my family tree in any way so I have no idea what Doug means about that. After reading todays blog I went to the Google News Archive and found a lot of information I had been looking for or was not aware of for my own family. Thanks for the tip Nick!