Dreams of somewhere else.

As much as I love the city I live in, living in Texas has become very problematic to me. We spend the whole summer sweltering and miserable. It's too hot to even go swimming for gosh sakes. So we gripe and complain and can't wait for cooler weather.

Then the cooler weather comes and we have a couple of months of happiness before the seasonal allergies really kick in. Then Gabriel, Joel and I start our round robin of continual runny noses, coughing, fever and generally miserable states. Even though we all need fresh air, I hesitate to go outside because I feel like the air is poisoning us. I never open the windows, even on nice days when it would be wonderful to air out the house. We diligently empty and refill the humidifiers nightly. We spend around $100+ extra per month on prescription and over-the-counter medicines. We take the boys' temperatures so much we start just leaving the thermometers on the counter after washing them off instead of putting them back in the cabinet. We buy AT LEAST the three-pack of Kleenex boxes every stinking week.

I sometimes get tired of seeing the boys like this, and take them to the doctor, only to be told that it just needs to run its course. How I hate wasting that co-pay. Or sometimes the doctor will think they've been sick too long and must have a sinus infection, and give them antibiotics. I am not one to advocate antibiotics when they're not needed, but I must confess I am a happy soul when this happens because I know we will have at least one of us that feels better for a couple of weeks. Then it starts over again.

I went to have the allergy testing done in September and found out that I'm not allergic to mountain cedar, like I thought all of these years. On a scale of 1 to 4, I had ones on a great many things, twos on a couple of grasses and a mold, a three for dog hair (which almost made me utter a great big WTF in the allergist's examining room), and a four for a very common kind of mold. I'm assuming that dead oak leaves must have this mold, because after I raked leaves for 20 minutes one day back just after the holidays, my allergies ramped up and I've been battling ever since. It also may not be helping that we decided on a long-haired dog. At first he didn't seem to shed, but now when I brush him quite a bit of hair is coming off of him. He doesn't seem to lose it in big tufts that drift around the house like Molly did, though, so I don't think I can blame much of my suffering on Tucker.

What I can blame it on is freakish weather changes, sometimes damp and sometimes dry wind, and very little freezing weather. Hmmmmm. Sounds like just plain ole Texas winters. Living somewhere with cooler temperatures in the summer and vegetation that doesn't make me want a sinus transplant sounds so refreshing. Canada isn't too far away, is it really? And it's not really THAT cold, is it?