September Recommendations

+Flonase.  I have/had a nasty sinus infection that started with blocked up ears for a week, transitioned to sore throat for one day, landed at sinus congestion for 2-3 days, and then went to drainage and blocked up ears. The ears thing lasted for almost a month total. (To be honest, I still might go to the doctor for this because the constantly changing temperatures is making it better, worse, and then back again.) It was incredibly annoying and I spent a lot of time trying to pop my ears and Mucinex became my drug of choice. My friend suggested Flonase and I tried it (generic brand) along with my regular (generic) Zyrtec that I take each day. I used to take Flonase in college pretty often, back when it was only a prescription.

After two days of Flonase, I felt immediately better. It still lingered longer than I'd like, but I felt capable of doing my job and being productive each day. It definitely lightened up the symptoms. I'll mostly likely continue with it until snow flies. Some people get spring allergies and I get fall ones.

The bottle was $9 and should last 1-2 months.

+The documentary What the Health? on Netflix. Ugh. I'm strongly considering going vegan after this. Or at least mostly vegan. Vegetarian would be really easy for me to do, and if I cut out cheese and eggs the majority of the time, I'd be there. I've been doing way too much regular milk lately and I need to switch back to almond/coconut. I know this and this was the kick in the pants I needed. The hardest part of no dairy milk, I've learned, is that lattes are out and something about almond milk lattes just aren't the same.

What I really liked about this particular documentary was that they didn't vilify carbs or sugar. The focused on the fact that we're eating too much meat and drinking/eating too much dairy. I don't love cheese and really only prefer it to be melted on pizza or pasta or something. I don't intentionally drink dairy milk, but I've been putting it in coffee over the last few months.

I REALLY appreciate that they didn't encourage the paleo style of eating because I've heard that from everyone from my friends to bloggers to Gretchen Rubin; that it's the place to be because that's how we were made. This pointed out that we were actually made to eat plants and that was both refreshing and depressing....Whole30 is the thing and has been the thing for years now.

This does make me feel not so weird for not really liking meat. I will eat it (usually only at restaurants) but it's always a battle because I don't like it very much. If I put this together with my empathy for animals, which is relatively new over the last few years (#dogparentfurever), it all fits: I don't need to eat meat. I just need to seek out the plant-based protein intentionally.

Anyway. Watch What the Health? and then watch Forks Over Knives.

And send me your favorite vegan recipes!


+The Bold Type This is on Freeform but I found it on Hulu. If you liked Younger, you might like this. The first few episodes were really good and then it went downhill a bit, but I would watch a second season. 

A few links:

+This video about how teachers are treated was posted on Facebook as not being too far off from the truth. I agree.

+Usually these lists can be annoying but I was like "Wow. Spot-on." when I read this one: Ways you know you're married to a teacher.
Specifically numbers 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, and 13.
And this is yet another website of collections (like a Buzzfeed for teachers, almost) that does not understand what Netflix and chill actually means.

+And this piece on getting your dog from a breeder. I don't know how I feel about it. Our dogs came from breeders because they are purebred hunting dogs. Period. End of story. There was no shopping for fur color or male vs. female or anything like that. We didn't even have a specific breed in mind. Scott wanted a hunting dog. We did a search. We cross-checked what was available in the timeframe (i.e. between deployments and PCS moves) with the roundabout version of what we wanted. These were the dogs that were available.

If you remember (because, clearly, why wouldn't you?), we were told we were getting another dog and then that dog had a heart problem so we got puppy Jett instead (well played, breeder).

I would LOVE to get a rescue dog. In fact, that would be my next move in a perfect world. I have more of a heart for animals than I do for people at this point. I won't even let myself look into the possibility because I really just want to hug and help all the dogs these days. I think I wrote about the one time I went to the store to buy dog food just to give to the homeless person and his dog.

Anyway...thought-provoking, right?

+Pumpkin Swap sign-ups started yesterday. I recommend that you sign up and and join in on the swapping fun! You don't have to have a blog to get in on it :)

Linking up: