Gluten Free Cough Medicine

If you have celiac disease, you probably know that gluten is in a ton of medicine.  When I had the flu last month, I went into the pharmacy at one of my local drugstores and asked the pharmacist if any of the cough medicine was gluten free.  She said no and I left feeling sick and disappointed.  Because while I hate taking cough medicine, I hate being sick for two weeks straight because I can't take cough medicine even worse.  After a week of misery, my boss emailed me about a new gluten-free cough medicine she discovered and told me I should try it.  So I found a store near me that carried it and bought some.  It did the trick and knocked my flu out most of the way the day before I was leaving to visit my parents.

Now one month later, I have a cold and I'm taking this medicine again.  And let me tell you, it tastes disgusting.  It's got that nasty menthol flavor mixed with honey, but does not taste like honey.  I visited the Dayquil site again and discovered that now they make cold and flu relief caplets that are gluten free, so when I run out of cough syrup, I will definitely be picking those up.  The way that I take the cough syrup is plug my nose, toss it back, and then eat an entire packet of fruit snacks that I have open and ready to eat and then I unplug my nose.  It tastes that bad, but it does its job.

It's probably obvious that I wasn't paid to write this, but just in case here's that sentence:  I bought this product with my own money and my opinion is my own.  I was not compensated in any way for this post.  I just think more people should know that there is gluten free cold and flu medicine available now, and you don't have to just suffer through it.

Aside from the medicine I have been drinking massive amounts of tea to soothe my sore throat and getting a ton of sleep (14 hours last night).

Adventurer's Checklist

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Adventures can be great fun and are a wonderful way to pass one's time, but you don't want to embark an adventure if you're not prepared.  Here's my checklist of what you need to have for an adventure:

a cool hat - your hat should declare that you are a serious adventurer; popular hat types include a fedora (with or without a big feather in the band), a wide brimmed hat, or a bowler hat, but are certainly not limited to those

good walking shoes - adventures are never as fun when your feet hurt because you wore the wrong shoes

comfortable clothing - your outfit should not get in the way of your adventure; for example, you might not want to wear a fancy dress if you're going on an adventure in a blackberry bush (although a blackberry bush is a strange place to go on an adventure in the first place)

a camera - you might see a lot of amazing things on your adventure and a camera will help you capture all of those sights and look at them again later

a big bag - like a backpack or messenger bag; this should be large enough to carry anything you might bring back from your adventure, as well as anything you're bringing along on your adventure

a first aid kit - hopefully you won't need this, but if you do you'll be glad you packed it; you could get stung by a bee or scratched by a stick or fall and skin your knee while adventuring

snacks - sometimes adventures take a while and you might get hungry

water - being dehydrated is never a good idea, but it is a doubly bad idea while adventuring

your imagination and curiosity - without these, an adventure is impossible; you should maintain a childlike sense of wonder at all times and thoroughly enjoy every sight, sound, and smell

What else would you bring on an adventure?  Have you been on any fun adventures lately?

Webcomics I'm Loving Lately

I discovered a pretty cool site about a month ago that is a feed reader for webcomics.  It's called comic-rocket and it's awesome because it allows you to know exactly where you are in all of the webcomics you're reading and also discover new webcomics you might like based on the ones you read currently.  (They aren't paying me to write about them.  I just really think they're cool and wanted to share.)

Here are my favorite four webcomics I'm reading right now, not including the ones I shared before.  And the links go to the first strip in each webcomic.

Pizza for Guys:

It's a webcomic about the webcomic it's about.  This is a webcomic with a stick man and a talking slice of pizza.  They argue a lot.  It's funnier than I'm making it sound.

Romantically Apocalyptic:

My favorite rockstar recommended this one to me and it did not disappoint.  It's super silly but there's incredible artwork.  And I'm a sucker for a post-apocalypic setting.

Seriously, check out this art!

The GaMERCaT:

An awesome nerdy webcomic about a cat who is a gamer.  Lots of video game humor and adorableness.

Invisible Bread:

A hilarious webcomic full of stick figures and snarky quips about life.  Plus there's a secret hidden panel in each comic!  I didn't even know about that until I was about 30 strips in, so I had to go back and read all of the previous bonus panels.

What are your favorite webcomics?  I would love some recommendations.

What I Did this Weekend

This weekend I went to G's and cooked a lot of yummy food.  Since being diagnosed with celiac disease, I have gotten a lot more confident in my cooking skills, since I have to cook a lot more or become a bunny rabbit and just eat fresh fruits and veggies.  I successfully (and by successfully, I mean G loved it too and said it was restaurant-worthy) cooked corn pasta and hot dogs with veggies, chicken wraps on corn tortillas (gluten-free but not as expensive as fancy gluten-free tortillas), and omelets with the leftover chicken, green peppers, onion, and mushrooms.

I watched two football games and three movies.  The University of Washington Huskies won and didn't get scored on once!  And the Seattle Seahawks won too.  I got a new Seahawks shirt from the men's section at the mall.  They had women's ones but none of them had the player's names or numbers on them.  I got a Russell Wilson shirt.  I wanted Marshawn Lynch, but they were all sold out except for size XL.  We watched the Seahawks game at Roosevelt Ale House, which is a truly amazing bar because it serves delicious gluten-free food.  So far I've had a delicious breakfast sandwich there, a good burger, and amazing and ginormous nachos.  All of the food I've tried there has been really good, but I don't think I would order the burger again.  For burgers, my go-to restaurant is Blue Moon Burgers.  They are good burgers period, not just good for being gluten-free.

We got some movies from Redbox: World War Z, Now You See Me, and Olympus Has Fallen.  Have you noticed how many movies have Morgan Freeman in them lately?!  I've seen three recently that had him: World War Z, Oblivion, and Olympus Has Fallen.  World War Z was pretty great, and not just because I love zombie movies.  I really enjoyed it and I especially liked the look of the zombies.  They didn't look like their flesh was rotting right after being bit.  They were also fast zombies, which I'm not a huge fan of.  I give it a 4 out of 5.  Now You See Me was really good.  It kept me guessing the whole time.  It had a really original story (as far as I know) and a good cast.  Plus Jesse Eisenberg was in it, but not as the goof-off guy who never grows up, which was refreshing from him.  I give it a 4 out of 5 as well.  Olympus Has Fallen was better than G or I thought it would be.  It was the one I thought I might not like, but it was actually okay.  It was very action-y with lots of shooting and politics, but the story was pretty good anyway.  I give it a 3 out of 5.

We also watched The Office and The League on Netflix, which are always favorites of mine.  All in all it was a good weekend.

And in other news, my boss told me today that she's looking for another person to help out at work, which is fantastic and will hopefully relieve a lot of my stress.