Daily Review - Cold season strikes

Please excuse my absence for the past few days.  I've been sick and the majority of my time has been spent creating an ass-groove in the couch.  Go figure that husband got a "cold" sometime last week, which consisted of mild sniffling and a complete rebound 36 hours later.  So, when I started feeling it myself, he was happy to tell me that it was minor and would be gone shortly.  Wrong.  Somehow, for me it turned into a full blown cold involving double-digit cups of green tea and strong cravings for soup - despite not really being able to taste any of it. 

After the umpteenth hour of dozing on the couch, I did take a minute to google some at-home remedies and was bored enough to try a couple.  

Thyme tea - this involved steeping 2 teaspoons of thyme in boiling water for about 5 minutes with a little bit of lemon juice.  It's supposed to help with respiratory problems and removing mucus (yummy!)  In terms of taste, I rate this as pretty foul.  Then again, it might have helped if I'd strained the thyme leaves before drinking it so it didn't feel like I was drinking a mouthful of dry dirt with each sip.  At the same time, that was an extra step that this sickly being didn't have the energy to take.  In terms of feeling better?  Nothing noticeable, although perhaps doing it more than the once would help...but that would involve drinking that repulsive mixture again, which I wasn't willing to do.  I find that to be kind of amusing seeing as I'm only just starting to get my sense of taste and smell back!

Tumeric in milk - I found this one to be interesting as apparently tumeric has all kinds of fun healing properties, in particular anti-inflammatory (useful for arthritis) and has been proven to have promise for cancer treatment.  I always just figured it was tasty in Indian food, as if I need more excuse to eat/cook Indian!  Anyway, this involved making a mixture of tumeric with hot milk and a little honey.  It didn't taste too bad either - a little odd at first but I quickly got used to it.  I found the flavor of this mixture to be a lot more tolerable and once I drank it, I did in fact feel quite soothed.  

I think I'll probably keep sticking to green tea with honey for the main part, but the tumeric mixture wasn't bad and is one I'd do again.  In the meantime, husband is currently cooking me pasta sauce with a ton of cayenne pepper, onion and garlic in it; all of which have great healing properties and will hopefully get me up and going like a normal person soon!

So, as cold season is upon us, what are your favorite remedies?