The Creeping Crud

Ugh! That about sums up the past couple of weeks around my house. For those that don't know me, I have a super-charged immune system that breaks down maybe 2 times a year, usually around allergy season, long enough for me to get a summer cold and a winter cold. Because of seasonal allergies, I may get the sniffles a few times in between, but an actual cold is rare to me. Thanks to the super charged immune system, if I do get sick, I rarely stay sick for very long. A typical cold to me is about 2 days. This year, however, I have had back to back colds for about a month now. Not typical colds either, at least not for me. No, I have had the creeping crud for waaaaaaaaay to long and it has knocked me and my family on our collective ass! I am accustomed to nursing a cold for a day and feeling well enough to go about my day the next day. Not this time. This time, I find myself trying to go about my day by putting on a load of laundry and feeling like I need a nap after. This time, I get worn out and run down just by getting myself a drink of water. I have tried everything to get better, but yesterday I finally realized what is keeping me sick.

As I may have mentioned, my family recently completed building our new home. Due to the home's design and location, we have a wonderful cross breeze that blows through the house when the windows are open, so, given that I believe fresh air and sunshine are the perfect remedy for colds, I have thrown open the windows to take advantage of said fresh air. We live in South Carolina so the weather is beautiful right now and will be replaced with "OH MY GOD" hot in just a few weeks, so I'm taking advantage. In this new house, is a beautiful blue stained wood floor in the kitchen. It really is gorgeous, I'll have to share a picture:

Excuse the mess, that was shortly after we moved in, and that is my fat ass cleaning the kitchen, and my equally fat ass cat supervising.

Anyway, yesterday I realized I had to do some housework regardless of how crappy I felt, because we were going to be evicted when the health department condemned the house. The sunlight was shining in the back door and it illuminated a faint sheen of pollen all over my very pretty blue floor. I don't know how I didn't see it before, but there it was. Not only was there pollen all over the floor, but all over the table, the chairs, the light fixtures, everywhere! I could see my foot steps in the pollen. I am just enough of a neat freak to have had a panic attack and went right to work getting the stuff up. It apparently blew in with all the windows open and was trying to pollinate everything it landed on, including the people. Now, I'm not saying it's not a good idea to air the house out on occasion, but I'm feeling a lot better today than I have for about a month now. Hopefully, the rest of the house will start to feel a little better as well, but I am considering slipping everyone some Benedryl in their cereal just to be safe.