In which Jean is a moron and a bathtub is not a bed.

I had another fainting spell last night. This one was entirely my own fault, and not one of my proudest moments. I was having Woman Issues, you see, and so I started the evening off by taking some Pamprin, pouring myself a glass of Franzia Red Sangria, because we are poor now and that is what we drink, and settling into bed with my heating pad and Heroes, and all was well.

Then Husband made a late dinner of spicy enchiladas. Since the sangria had a relatively low alcohol content, I thought I'd have another glass with dinner. And then when the main flavor of said dinner turned out to be PAIN, and I saw my glass was getting low, I topped it off, and drank it down. When that didn't make my mouth stop burning, I opted for a beer, too distracted by my mouth being on fire to remember that I had taken a painkiller that thinned my blood, and had already had three glasses of wine, and also that I am a lightweight. I think you can see where this is going.

Now, if I had stopped there, everything would have been fine. I was definitely tipsy, a little impaired, but still functional. Except, apparently, not functional enough to make wise decisions about mixing medication with alcohol, because I went ahead and took the drug cocktail that my doctor concocted to help me sleep properly and, to top it off, a couple of Benadryl, because when I don't take Benadryl before bedtime I always wake up with painfully swollen eyes and a sinus headache.

Even so, looking back, I'm pretty sure the Benadryl was the clincher.

By the time I went through my nighttime rituals and got into bed, things were starting to spin a little, and I kind of wanted to heave whenever I closed my eyes. But eventually that feeling settled down enough for me to go to sleep, and all was well. Or was it?

Apparently it was not, because according to my husband, some time in the middle of the night I got up to go get a drink of water, and soon after he heard a thump and a thud, and got up to find me out cold in the bathtub. It scared the bejeezus out of him, but he managed to wake me up and get me back to bed okay, and no trips to the ER were warranted like with my last fainting spell.

This morning, I have a bruised ankle and a vague recollection of lying in the tub with Husband leaning over me, along with a sense of complete and utter shame at my stupidity and at scaring my husband like that. But otherwise, I'm just dandy! I think I'll be laying off the wine before bedtime for a while, though.

Shop, lose some weight and get toasty--at a discount!

Ad alert!

If you've been paying attention, then you know I'm a big fan of couponchief.com. I check them out every time I get ready to shop for something online. This month they've got a Target coupon for 10% off any online purchase with no minimum. They're also still promoting a Weight Watchers deal for 25% off of 3 months, and they just added several great Office Max offers. What's drawing my attention is the My Wines Direct deal for 10% off and free shipping, which seems like it might be a good way to sample some of The Budget Wino's recommendations. Or it would be, if Oklahoma's liquor laws allowed them to ship here; but that's a rant best saved for another post.

The Budget Wino -- no, not me.

Though I have become something of a wino lately. Well, I wouldn't seriously go that far--I do enjoy a nice Merlot in the evenings, but due to diet considerations I've cut back to a few nights a week. I hardly think that qualifies me as a wino. I hardly qualify as a connoisseur, either, though I've slowly but surely been improving my wine education over the last couple of years to where I know that there's more to it than white, red, blush or sparkling. I'm to a point where I can walk confidently into a liquor store (you can't get wine in the grocery store in OK), pick out a Merlot or a Shiraz or a Chianti, and have a pretty good idea of what I'm getting.

Wine can be an expensive hobby, though, and my budget keeps me in the cheap end of the spectrum. The first opportunity I had to try some pricier, fine wines was on my honeymoon, where we were both in the mood to splurge and be a bit spendy, and where we could buy it by the glass. I feared that this would ruin me for all of the wines available in my price range, but you know? Maybe it's because my palate is unrefined, but I couldn't really tell the difference. Most of the cheap stuff I've tried tastes just as good to me--sometimes, even better--that the expensive wines we drank on the boat.

So it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. The Budget Wino shares both my sentiment and my frugality, and blogs his experiences with wines costing $10 and under. His reviews are practical and descriptive in a way that even a novice can understand and know what to expect. He's giving away a free wine guide to anyone willing to offer up their mailing address, and he even created a wine ratings spreadsheet to help you quickly scan his ratings a select a wine.

And he's got me wanting to stop and pick up a bottle of Pepperwood Grove on the way home.

Another link snagged from Get Rich Slowly.