The Soup Queen

Hey there everyone. Hoped you are having a good week.  I had a bunch of appointments planned for this week but had to cancel them as Nic also known at The Husband came down with of all things, chicken pox! It was one of the most surprising things ever.  Firstly, he said he already had chicken pox. When he was 5 years old it seems. He remembered wearing a pink cardigan/sweater? My memory is pretty selective. It doesn't go back THAT far. I just recall bits and pieces of my very young life but there you go. Some people have deep memories.  I had chicken pox when I was 20. I remember it well because it was my first week on campus - the actual first week of classes after orientation week - and I got the damn pox. I missed 2 weeks of classes and I recuperated at my late Grandma's house.  She took care of me - forbidding me to eat anything that was made with beans or any seafood. Pork was allowed. But I had pretty bland food. A lot of soupy rice n...

In my last post I wrote about dried Shou Wu slices which I bought from my regular herbalist. In this post I am going to let you in about a more convenient method of imbibing this herb especially if you find it tedious to boil your own brew.  I read about Shou Wu Chih or Shou Wu Essence and went to a Chinese medical hall (not my usual herbalist, mind you) and asked about Shou Wu. The owner, a man in his 60s, recommended that I try this product.  Here's what the Shou Wu Chih contains:  It is more than just Shou Wu extract. It also contains ginseng, dang gui, chuan xiong and other herbs.  The liquid is dark coloured and thick, a bit like cough syrup.  The medical hall owner told me that this Shou Wu Chih can be taken nightly, using that given "cup" (which measures about 30 ml).  Between me and the husband, we took about 7 days to finish the entire bottle of 300ml. We each took a 30 ml dose each night just before we went...

I don't know if I mentioned this but the past few months I have been experiencing some hair issues. Granted, I have never had long hair - my hair is always above the shoulders. The only time I remember having really long hair was in my campus days. I had hair past my shoulder. After that, I have always worn my hair short and fuss-free (yes, if you read this blog long enough, you know I like things to be practical and easy).  It could be stress or it could be hormonal. After all I am 40 this year. I think things change inside a woman's body when she hits the big 40. On top of that, I have been stressed with a lot of things - some fun, some not so! I was the head planner/tourist guide for my parents and sis when we went to Hong Kong for a week (and I was so majorly stressed that I started having nose bleeds in HK which scared the life out of me. I never have nose bleeds). I blamed it on the crazy hot summer weather of Hong Kong. And then when I got back, I was ...