Kidney Stones, Essential Oils, and Chapbooks

Kidney Stones

So. What has been going on? Where have you been? One question at a time and I’ll get y’all filled in. The biggest piece that has kept me away is that I ended up with a kidney stone. Now, I speak in explanation, not to gain sympathy. Kidney stones are not that big a deal though I will say they hurt like crazy. I think I am about at the end of the treatment course for the thing and am praying I can avoid it in the future. The worst part about the whole thing was the nausea it induced. I rarely find myself in that position, so the severe nausea seemed even worse than the pain for me. But, I’m almost done so life will be good again soon.

Essential Oils

On a related note, I discovered a few more essential oils I have a new appreciation for. The first is helichrysum. Because my kidney stone adventure has led me in and out of the hospital several times between procedures and some dehydration issues, I had several IVs placed. My poor arm is getting rather sore and bruised. So, I did a bit of research and tried helichrysum on my arm to help promote healing. I must say it seems to be doing a good job so far of addressing the minor bruising and soreness from the IVs. The other is a blend of peppermint, wintergreen, helichrysum, and clove. I ended up with sore muscles, probably as a result of the yo-yoing hydration levels, and this has done a wonderful job of easing the achiness.

Chapbooks

New tangent, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I find it interesting in the world of poetry, chapbooks still seem to be a fairly commonplace way of publishing. Yet, why is it I cannot find much about what to put in a chapbook? Sure, I can find instructions on size, layout, binding, total pages, etc., but I cannot find something as simple as how many poems to include. So, I’ve decided to just take a stab in the murky twilight at it. I’m not entirely in the dark as I do have the total page count, but I wish I had a clearer answer. So, let’s see what happens when I get this done and attempt to get it published.