Down with the flu

Sorry for the lack of updates and lack of videos - I've been down and out with a nasty cold. And I thought I was doing so well too, trying to stay healthy. The best way I've found to help stave off the common cold is frequent hand washing especially before eating or touching your mouth or nose, getting enough sleep, and eating foods rich in Vitamin C. But somehow I still managed to come down with a cold, but I'm glad it's not swine flu!

My goodness, some people are in such a panic / hysteria about this darn swine flu, rushing to their doctor at the first sign of a cold. Not to downplay the seriousness of the pandemic but the chance of contracting swine flu is probably less than getting in a car accident. I always find it strange how the media manages to drum up a near hysteria as soon as some new pandemic is making its rounds. By all means if your symptoms are serious and correlate to the symptoms of swine flu, a doctors visit is recommended - but some family members were urging me to go to the doctor as soon as I had a sore throat and fever. Several days later my nose is still stuffed up but I'm on the mends.

What are your tips for battling a cold? I'm a big baby and fall back on medicine - NeoCitran, sore throat lozenges, disinfecting gargle wash, cough syrup, echinacea, and Vics Vaporub inhalations are my weapons of choice - the full works. Takes care of it in a jiffy! The sore throat and fever is always the worst for me, and the body aches and chills - hate it! Nothing to do but lie in bed all day drinking plenty of green tea, take meds, and watch TV or sleep. Thank god for my wall mounted flatscreen TV in the bedroom, that definitely staved off the boredom.

Picture source: Wikipedia (not mine!)

But today I feel much better and I was able to have an actual dinner of homemade sushi. We made rolls with tuna, scallop, makerel, avocado, cress, chives, cucumber, tamago egg, and tempura with shrimp and shitake mushrooms. It was divine! Only the makerel was odd - I think the fish wasn't very fresh. I love making sushi because here in Switzerland, sushi is very expensive and the portions are usually very skimpy with barely any fish inside. So we make our own now with a very thin layer of rice, and tons of filling. So much cheaper and tastier! A lot of people on Twitter requested a how-to video on making sushi, so I will try to film one next time and post it on my TheThirdShift channel. It's actually pretty easy once you learn some tricks and get the hang of it.

I can't wait to be back to healthy again and get to making some more videos. I need to film the celeb look that was voted on a while ago, some Christmas looks, and also some videos to upload in December while I'm gone on holiday in Canada, as my video-making time will be rather limited there and I won't have my regular setup.

Anyway that's all for now! Hope you're keeping healthy during this time of year. :)

xo,

Julia