Hello there! How was your weekend? My weekend was mixed. We were fortunate to visit with great out of town friends. We had dinner in the park and wine at our place which was nice. Little Sister and Big Brother love having friends over!
The weather in Vancouver has been very warm, beautiful, and sunny. Our house gets quite hot during these times. We don’t have AC, and most of the year it works out fine. It is just those few really warm weeks a year that make our hot house a little harder to enjoy.
The kids and I were really looking forward to getting out of the house and spending time outdoors in the park. The thought of eating in our smouldering house was not appealing so we thought dinner in the park would be a nice alternative, and kid friendly.
I ordered a veggie dog, along with a soda and my favorite onion rings! It is nice to splurge sometimes. Anyway, my veggie dog was smothered in all kinds of yucky sauce. Mustard, some kind of mayo, I’m not sure. I should have looked at the menu more closely but with little kids and a big wide open park it can be harder than you would think to pay attention to those details.
Late into the night, I started to feel sick, very sick! The next day starting around 11am I could feel that I had a raging fever, terrible stomach pains, and all the usual that goes a long with a possible bad case of food poising. I couldn’t get the picture of that veggie dog out of my head. You know when your gut basically tells you what it was that didn’t agree with you.
From 11am until 10am the next day I basically slept with mini periods of waking up, pooled in sweat from my fever and the fact that our house was so hot. I had the fan pointed right at me, and my husband brought cold cloths to place on my head. Waking up was horrible because I could feel all the more how much pain I was in.
It reminded me of how important it is to be food safe, especially during these warm summer months. The food stand was 40 minutes behind on orders, and we had a large order for our group of 4 adults and 4 children. Who knows how long some of the food was sitting out in the heat?
Being careful with your food especially while having outdoor picnics is completely worth any hassle it is not to feel how sick I did. There is no way to say for sure it was food poising, but I strongly believe it was. I was the only one sick, and it came on fast. Normally in our family more than one of us gets sick when something is going around.
I’m not 100% recovered yet, although I am A LOT better than I was for those terrible 24 hours. My stomach is still very sensitive, and the heat hasn’t let up. I’m glad it was me and not my kids though. Fortunately I was the only one that ordered a veggie dog.
Not only did this experience remind me of how important food safety is, it also reminded me that fast food taste so much better at home using better quality ingredients. I think that often now if we eat out. Hopefully this time it will stick with me. If I feel like splurging now and then and having a hamburger and onion rings, they always taste 1000% better made at home. Not only that, they are probably better for you too!
Can you believe there are only 2 more weeks left in August?!
What are you going to do to make the most of what’s left of your summer?
Love your thoughts in the comments.
