Just spent a week or so trying to get rid of a pesky virus (I think it was a virus - no fever or signs ot bacterial infection) - and picked up the L.A. Times to see that a supposedly healthy young woman had died of Dengue Fever after a trip to Mexico - It's transmitted by mousquito bites, and you know THERE IS NOTHING THEY CAN DO BUT TREAT THE SYMPTOMS AND BEEF UP THE IMMUNE SYSTEM.

Another killer disease out there that's viral and so the MDs are helpless.  It's up to US to take our adaptogens like ginseng, and wellness vitamins and goldenseal and EVERYTHING - like putting cayenne pepper in your soup or cinnamon and honey in your tea!

Not to mention taking your regular vitamins daily and doing all the regular good health things and having a healthy diet!

It took me almost a week to get over this virus - but I could take the time - so I TOOK it.  The poor girl who died was a waitress and the management encouraged her to go home - but she worked until the day before she DIED.

So don't let anyone tell you that tacking care of yourself is slacking!  Staying home and curing yourself is better for everyone.

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Luckily for me, my mother was trained as a nurse in the days before penicillin and all the antibiotics, when you had to work on the patient's own resistance over time.  So basic health was always stressed, and I grew up with a sense of eating real food and having a balanced diet, and so on.

Now it seems in the days of the virus we are back to pre-antibiotic strategies, because we haven't figured out how to really kill viruses yet. So taking antibiotics for that cold just won't work, and probably do harm to your immune system. and even contribute to the drug resistant strains of bacteria we increasingly find out there.

In reading old English novels, I remarked on how those who could afford it went to the sea for fresh air and sunshine - or to the South where the weather was warmer...They knew that it takes TIME for the body to heal itself.  That seems to have been forgotten nowadays.  We think we can take a pill and voila! But it doesn't work that way.  It's a slow process of healing.

Strangely enough with the virus respiratory bug that's going around (we have mini-plagues) and which I have, too, I hear people saying, you just have to rest and get well.  I know that I pushed it over the holidays and that's why I had a relapse. So I am stoking my immune system and gargling with hot salt water and trying to take care of myself.  (That's with my regular vitamins and some extra ones...)

It was all much worse a few weeks ago, but it's hanging on - ugh. People may not like it, but I have declared a small moratorium, am staying home and sleeping a lot and healing. Sometimes it takes TIME.

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Had some time today, as I am in recovering from a sore throat and found myself surfing the internet.  I get some fashion feeds I looked at and some of their links and I also surfed a bit using stumbleupon.com - which takes you interesting places you wouldn't otherwise find.

It amazes me that so-called "frugal" bargain queens show shoes to buy that are $200+...and generally all sorts of clothing pieces in the hundreds.  That isn't frugal to me at all.  To me frugal is the Ann Klein wool/nylon sequined sweater I wore for New Year's Eve which I got at a thrift shop in Ventura, CA for about $7!

When we were down in San Diego for New Year's we wandered around in La Jolla and window shopped. On the way there we stopped at a resale shop that was having a "sale", too.  And the things I get for $10 or so they had for $50 - on sale!  Not my idea of a bargain.

But back to La Jolla - in a pharmacy/boutique I saw the sister of a bag I had gotten in Ventura for $7 - listed at $50! And it's vinyl.  I thought they were good knock-offs, tho.  But I think mine was a sample of the importers or something -- a place I go has them regularly.....So I am on the lookout for them...

I do surf around the fashionable net and look for trends and shapes and styles and names of designers.  That's how I know my $10 designer shoes retail for $250 - or the necklace I got at the craft faire for $50 costs over 4 times that much in a boutique. It's fun to come home and look it up and calculate the savings.

There was a brief time after I inherited a bit of money that I tried to go retail a bit - and you know, I had a very similar experience to my usual bargain shopping and spent a lot more for the same sort of things!

So I am back to my old tricks, which I conjured up in my many years as a starving actress who had to look good anyway.  I am grateful for what I have learned of the art of the wardrobe - and what suits ME.  And altho I still look at those fashion sites, they are mostly fantasy land, not where I live...where DO they wear those fancy clothes, anyway?  It would be hard even here in Hollywood!

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I always pay attention when I get my hair done, as I learn things from watching hair dressers or having my hair styled.  The last time, the stylist used a flattening iron on my hair, which is quite long at the moment - and voila! It really groomed my hair stylishly straight with a little bend at the end - Not only that, but it lasted for several days just with brushing. 

Now, this requires another hair instrument - but my husband found one for me - a newish Conair at a thrift shop for $8.95 (retail $30) - so I was able to do my own hair for New Year's and another shoot I had - Not as well as the stylist, I admit, but it looked pretty good.

The developments in hair stuff is rapid nowadays - so keep your eyes open - this is SO much easier than blow drying.

P.S. Keep an eye on thrift shops even when traveling.  We got the hair iron at a thrift shop in San Diego - where we were on a flying visit for New Year's Eve! And I picked up some paperback mysteries, and some sashes and little gifts for the 2008 gift box, too.

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