Primarily written by Adrienne, a homeschooling mother of seven, ages 10 and under. She chronicles life, laughs, struggles, and lessons learned as she raises a larger-than-most sized family and tries to figure out what she's doing day by day.

With occasional posts, Alexandra, Adrienne's older sister, writes of her ranch life in Nevada and raising four sons, ages 5 and under. Life is never dull and her boys have given her some pretty awesome stories to tell.

Stick around awhile, and you're sure to laugh, nod, smile, be encouraged, and see what life is like with a big (little) family.

11.15.2012

Hello, frailty.

For a long time, I’d been immune to poison ivy. I could pull it with my bare hands without issue – and I did. Then last summer, I got it into my head to pull all of the poison ivy around our lilacs. I pulled a lot of poison ivy that day.

Immunity over. Apparently, overdosing such things leads to irritation, one way or the other. Since then, I’ve refrained from touching the stuff. Those two weeks of misery, compounded by a nearly-due Pierce and summer heat making a pregnancy insufferable as it was cured me of any temptation.

Time makes you dumb. You forget.

So last weekend, when the brush that once was likely beautiful but now was an overgrown mess, complete with now-dead but not-dormant poison ivy beckoned me to do something about it, I put on a pair of gloves and dug in.

Memory jogged.

It’s a strange realization to find out that a plant can do such damage that I’m itching and scarred and feeling like a padded room is my best option. How weak and frail am I? I just got knocked on my tush by a three leafed plant that isn’t even visible for it’s winter dormancy.

2 comments:

Laura's Ramblings in Color said...

Bummer. Still coming??? :)

Sharilyn said...

Get yourself some rhus tox 30x homeopathic. It works immediately, in 48 hours you'll be good as new. No more itching. Love the stuff. It is the one thing in my medicine chest I try to always have on hand. Very important. Also, I use burt's bees poison ivy soap on any skin that I think may have been exposed. This works great for me. Do not use any hot water. I mean any. Take a cold shower. It will help. It stops the spread of the toxic oil.