Monday Afternoon

Greetings and Salutations, Blog readers and fellow fans of Blogmas!

Today is day three of Blogmas, and I woke up sick as fuck frankly, feeling worse than yesterday, so despite needing the hours and needing to go into work, I had to call out. I can’t handle how shitty I felt and I knew I wouldn’t be able to fake it until later in the day, if at all.

I have been coughing up so much phlegm, and still my lungs are fill of phlegm, and my poor throat is hurting. I may smoke a bowl, or a bong, with ice in it, to make it easier on my throat, but also still smoke. The smoking helps with the lungs a bit, believe it or not, because cannabis is a bronchodilator, and also a mild expectorant, so I cough stuff up, while also taking a medicine that helps my stomach issues and body aches. I wish I could be sponsored by cannabis, because damn, I do talk about how great that plant is, all the time.

Now I am watching some vlog footage, because vlogmas and blogmas offer me some major content options, which is great, because now I can watch content but also stream the old stuff I love. After I finish this one, I will put on Zomboat again, because I love it, and hope all my streams of it contribute to them getting a second season.

I made some tea and loaded a bowl, and now I am sipping and smoking those while I figure out what to work on writing wise, because as you know, I am not good at resting all day.

I am also not feeling well, however, so I have to plan my writing around when my head is clear enough to allow me to write.

Today for Blogmas I want to share a recipe that may help other people who find themselves unwell after Thanksgiving.

This recipe is also great for the leftovers you will likely still have.

So, as a cold front hits much of the country, people are likely to get sick, and, with Thanksgiving coming so late in the month this year, people will have leftovers to make good use out of.

So, whip out a small (or large, your call depending on how much broth you need) pan and lets make a broth for your sick time.

Grab out your turkey remains and any herbs you didn’t use on your turkey. Break up some pieces of turkey, dark meet has more flavor, but if you made a good turkey, like I did, it all has good flavor. Feel free to toss in any extra veggies too- I have carrot and celery left over and I think I may be making a large batch here in a minute, that I will be tossing some veggies in to make use of them and also make a really good broth to help me get over this illness.

Anyways, take your meet, veggies if you want or have, and any herbs, like the sage. thyme, and rosemary. Feel free to toss in some garlic and onion too, although the powder is also good. I added some salt and pepper, and brought this all to a boil, before stirring and returning to lower heat for a few hours, until the broth tasted “done”.

I suggest two hours, which seems to be enough time for all the stuff to be cooked out of the broth. My second batch last night had more meat and herb than the first batch, and I found the meat still had more “life” to it, so I saved it in Tupperware as a base for the next batch, which is the one I am making now to finalize the recipe and also make myself some lunch and dinner.

With the stomach stuff, and the throat stuff, anything harder than a nice clear broth with some plain noodles is too much.

Yesterday, for the noodles, I used ramen, but today I think I may use something else. Either way just cook the noodles up, drain (and rinse if it’s ramen) and then toss the noodles into some hot broth. I like to cook the noodles to a “still needs a few more minutes” cooked, and then let it finish off in the broth, as I think it tastes a little better and kind of incorporates the noodles into the broth, versus just sitting in the broth.

Once you have your noodles finished, toss that in a bowl or a mug, add some crackers, maybe some cheese, on the side, and dig in. Feel better soon. Pair with juice, I suggest apple or orange.

This soup, if made properly, distills the delicious flavors of thanksgiving into a soup that will make you feel better. This can also be done with any proteins and herbs, etc, but I personally think turkey is a delicious, while still a bit bland, to keep your stomach from evicting its contents. You need fluids and food when sick. This recipe can help, and, avoids a trip to the overly crowded stores,

And this concludes the “mas” part of this Blogmas Entry.

Now onto a blog part.

So, it has been brought to my attention by some of the blogs and vlogs I am following, that people follow different methods for this holiday we creators do. Some people will post ahead of time, some will preplan entries, some people will do it in the moment, and post it the next day. For example, some people will create their Day One on the 30th of November for posting on the first, and some people will create the Day One on the first of December.

Currently, I am writing the day ahead to post the next morning, because I tend to get better read results by posting in the morning on WordPress and the early afternoon on Medium.

But I have also had some nice luck with evening reading, and I wonder if maybe people prefer reading blogs in the evening when the weather gets cooler? Or if maybe the seasons mean that people read more often in the evening…or if I should just keep posting in the morning so it’s up, regardless of when someone will read.

Because, as I tell everyone, the point of this isn’t to trick people into reading my blog and such, it is to present my blog and writing consistently, so that the people who would naturally like my writing and blog, can find it.

I don’t use the algorithm to trick people into being my audience, I use it to provide my true audience a chance to find me, and me to find them.

Because it think anyone who knows me knows that once I have a fan base and audience, I will probably be treating them to all sorts of freebies, so…its a two way street of usefulness, which is key when you build a community, which is what I think I would rather do, versus building some creative “empire” I would rather build a community of people, who all kind of support each other and understand and like the creative content I am making. I would rather have a small community of people who like this stuff, than a rather large one who is always on the edge of not caring or understanding what you are pouring your heart and soul into.

I want people who love my merchandise, too, obviously, because lets be real here, that will likely be a giant chunk of how I will make money, because I do not want to put my writing behind a pay wall, if I can avoid it, because everyone deserves to read. More so if they are willing to read my stuff.🙂

So now, it is a little later in the afternoon, I and I am enjoying some of the soup I made using last nights broth and some Fideo noodles we had on hand. Seriously, delicious, and, is helping me feel a bit better, so I can work on this, and also some Flake City stuff.

I am hoping if I keep writing on Flake City, I will maybe eventually, figure out a strategy for releasing it…more so if I want to make some money, but I don’t want people who can’t afford to buy the stuff to not get any reading….

I’ve been tossing around this idea of acts of activism giving people access to the story. Like, maybe if you donate the money to Flint, you get access to the story, or, maybe if you submit X numbers of community service hours, I send you a code for the reading?

Something like that seems complicated, but also very cool, because it keeps people from not getting access to the writing, but also keeps the value of the work I did in the world at large.

Sure, I may not get some money, but if someone plant a hundred trees, I am game for them reading my stuff. If someone donates several cases of water to Flint, then I want them to read Flake City…because if they understand how unfair the situation is in Flint, they will likely be pretty interested in the poor people of Flake City, locked into the zombie outbreak by the government and it’s sub section, known simply as F Class.

Iuno. Things I am tossing around, I guess, as I think about how to publish my writing.

Anyways, I think now I should take a break from this. I don’t know if this will be a break or the end of the blog, so keep reading to find out.

Later- late night

This portion of the blog is written in a nice hot bath using many of the rest of my bath supplies to take a really good, really restorative bath. I’m dumped mint, rosemary, and eucalyptus oils in with my two varieties of bath salts, one was pink Himalayan salt mix from Sam and one was a epsom lavender mix from Robin. I also tossed in what was left of my two kinds of bath bubbles and my very last lush bath bomb from my last trip to lush. Obviously, I’ll need to resupply.

A bath was a great idea, I think, because it lets me get my head on straight, helps me soak my aching muscles, and the essential oils I put in the water are helping to ease some of the congestion issues I’m having. I’m the kind of sick where the medicine doesn’t last long enough, so in the day time you are forced to double down on dosages and be groggy and likely doing damage to your kidneys, or you are miserable for a few hours between dosages. This is doubly a problem at night because you can’t really double down on the night time formula nor should you double down on either of them.

So basically you spend a few hours miserable between dosages. This bath, however, comes at the end of a dosage- so I can take my night time stuff before bed, and also not be miserable before bed. So, here I am, in the deliciously hot and well treated with girly accoutrements meant to make me feel better. I also have a pipe, so I can smoke, albeit lightly, because of my phlegm congested lungs.

So here I am, in the bath, finishing up this blog while I soak and try and sweet out as much of this sick as possible before I turn in for the evening. I will still need to edit, add photos, and schedule this blog, but I can do that while I sit with a face mask on my face- I’m sick and will very likely go to work looking a wreck- but I can at least have my skin get a little bit of treatment.

Bret got sick before me, so I kind of get to look into my future, plus or minus any immunity system modifiers like Bret having a better immune system then me. I still managed to catch it after him so really, I already feel like I’m doing pretty good, just by not having got sick first.

Anyways- I should probably rest in this hot bath before I get out, and this is as good a time as any to draw this blog to a close. So far, I am loving Blogmas, and I am so glad to be doing it, even when sick.

Tomorrow is Tuesday and it looks to be a long rough day after the holiday and my time off today- so everyone wish me luck and let’s hope my system is in better shape.

❤

Abbi

P.S.- I am really enjoying changing my cover photos, so if you want a chance to vote on the ones I use, follow me on social media, today I posted four to Instagram and Twitter and the cover photo you see was voted the most liked cover photo. You could be one of those votes, if you are into that sort of thing, which you should be, it’s great practice for voting in real elections on stuff that actually matters.

P.P.S- Holy shit, 100 Daily Blogs. Thank you to everyone who loves these, I love you.