Ramble On

Tonight we went to see the Christmas lights drive through display a couple of towns over from where we live. The kids loved it. I loved it. It was so nice to get out and do something that wasn't too spendy (10 dollars for the car load) to spend time together.

Finally finished the stockings for my friend's family. They are even stuffed with goodies and packed up into a box and ready to go. Amazing. Hoping to ship them out very soon, however, I don't like to make firm plans like that (like giving an actual date I'll ship them) because well, I have three kids, the stomach flu is going around, it's winter, and I have a chronic illness. So...we do things day by day around here.

I've actually never made these before I must have gotten the wrong type of applesauce cause these took a heck of a lot more cinnamon that I thought it would. I'm very happy with them though. I painted them with white paint so they would look like they were frosted cookies. I had the idea to make food ornaments to decorate a tree in the kitchen.


When we happened to get a Rosemary tree I was super excited since it went with my theme. So I dried out some thinly sliced orange slices in the oven over night and hung those along with the apple sauce ornaments on the rosemary tree. I still had a little bit of the brown ribbon left over (that I also used on the popcorn wreath) and tied that on the top. I'm sorta in love with it, and it smells really good!

These are actually random boxes we had around the kitchen. Some cereal boxes, granola bar box etc.
I cut off the "flaps" wrapped them leaving about 2 inches overlap at the opening, tucked that in, punched some holes and threaded a ribbon through. Much cheaper than buying gift bags, and much more sturdy!

The kids were thrilled, candy canes for breakfast!!!

I am so tired. I think I really messed myself up by staying up until 3:30AM to buy yarn on Cyber Monday. I was doing so well before that I was in bed every night by 11:30!

I felt nauseous most of the day, which happens to me when I don't get enough sleep. I was up until 2, got up at 6:30 got the kids off to school in a very bad down pour. I got home around 8:30 and took a nap with the baby until 10. When we got up the rain had turned into snow!

I had to pick the kids up at 1 (half day today) and I didn't even flip out about having to drive in the snow. This is a huge step for me. The roads were...not good but not too bad either, very slushy. I was grateful that the day was short and that I didn't have to go down the mountain any later than I had to. Got the kids home and we watched Rudolph together, and baked our first batch of Christmas cookies. I guess I did pretty good on a few hours of random sleep. I've found with my condition I need to have at least nine hours of straight sleep, which is hard to come by with small children and a very over active mind (mine) it takes me a while to get to sleep. So I guess I'll miss Top Chef All Stars but, thanks to my DVR I can watch it in the morning.

We made gingerbread houses, from a kit, of course. I'm not brave enough yet to try to bake them myself. Someday I'd like to try but this year it worked out fine. I found a kit that had five little houses instead of one big one, pretty perfect since there are five of us. Hubby is going to decorate his later on, he's down visiting some family. The kids stayed home because they were all in various stages of a cold.

I'm so glad that God granted me the ability to knit. I don't know how I would have gotten through the last couple of months with out it. It's a great distraction that actually accomplishes something.

I've finished knitting my mom's xmas sweater. It's been washed and blocked and the ends are woven in. Now I have to decide on the buttons.

Option one



Option two


Now I have to tell you that I'm emotionally attached to option two cause I made them, but I think I might like how option one looks better. The true color of the yarn is shown in the photos with the buttons laid out on it. Honestly I'm just glad that the knitting is done and I can cross this project off my list and move on to other ones that I'm not going to stress over the buttons! They'll get sewn on at some point between now and xmas eve.

As of this writing I have been awake since 7AM Tuesday morning. It is now nearly 5PM on  Wednesday.

My two year old has had a cold for the past couple of days, runny nose, normal stuff. Yesterday she started with a dry cough and by 7PM Tuesday night she was in full blown respiratory distress. We were doing nebulizer treatments every four hours through out the night and called the doctor in the morning. We took her in as she was officially diagnosed with asthma. We knew it was coming but it still felt like someone was stabbing me with a knife while I watched the doctor type the word into her chart.

She's on a round of steroids, breathing treatments every three hours, and we follow up in a week. Right now she's sleeping on the couch.

Here she is just two hours before she could not breathe play with my ipod. It's so scary how fast things can go from fine to very very bad. Hug your babies mamas.

November is going by too fast! I'm trying to get through my Christmas knitting which is going slowly compared to how fast (i feel) the month is going. Which doesn't make any sense but it is what it is.

Mom's sweater, one sleeve done and obviously unblocked.

A scarf for the bebe, the pink one is not pictured, which was for middle girlie. I was able to finish these in an hour respectively. I wish all my knitting was that quick!



A cupcake hat for my friend's little one. She's due Dec 7. I'm mailing it out tomorrow.



Yesterday I scanned a bunch of pictures of my mother, my aunts, and my grandmother as children. They are currently on a PDF file on my SD card and if I can figure out how to convert them to .jpg I'll post them here.

Every Wednesday my kids get out of school at one o'clock. I try to have a craft ready for them and later on in the afternoon we watch a movie. Yesterday was no exception.  My 5-year-old and I made these turkeys yesterday loosely based on the terrible instructions in the Family Fun magazine. Since I altered them a bunch I'm going to post my tutorial here.

We live out in the woods so there are always a lot of turkeys around. I think they are sort of dumb because they will not get off the road when you are trying to drive by. I have never hit one (nor tried to) but they just sort of look at your car  like "Oh! What is that?! That is shiny!" and continue to just strut right beside it. I find it hilarious.





Supplies:
light weight cardboard (we used a cereal box)
other paper for contrast (we used a couple of old greeting cards)
glue
google eyes
sissors
hole punches (optional, but easier to cut the circles!)
pin back (optional, but gives you something to do wth the little paper turkies)




First cut out all the bits that you'll need for the turkey:
2 Large circles of the same size: 1 cut from the cardboard and 1 cut from the decorate paper.
2 smaller cirlces of the same size: 1 cute from the cardboard and 1 cute from the decorate paper.
1 small red oval
1 little yellow trangle for the beak. 





Glue these two circles together and fringe a little to make it look like feathers with the sissors if you want to.

Cut one of the smaller circles in half, this makes the wings, glue them on with the cut side facing down.

Glue the other smaller circle on top of the wings this makes the head of the turkey.

Glue on the red portion for the beard

Add the yellow triangle on top of that.

Glue on some google eyes.


Let him dry, and then add a pin back if you want. It will end up being pretty sturdy due to the carboard but be careful not to get him wet!

I'm currently still working on my mom's sweater, a blanket for my MIL, and a blanket for my son, who would also like a knit squirrel. Not sure about that one yet.

On Saturday I drove the 80 miles to see my pregnant friend. When I got there I told her I had a bad "Crohn's morning" two episodes before I left the house and I had to stop at a rest stop on the way down to her house. Other than that it was okay! I drank a ton of water and made it home okay, except that during the course of driving my hands started feeling tingling. My carpel tunnel has been bothering me a lot the past couple of weeks. I'm sure typing right now is not helping but I am wearing my wrist braces. I'm sort of shocked because I was doing so well with it, right before my major Crohn's flare back in July they were really bothering me and then they just stopped until now. So of course my mind is going there, that I'm going into a flare.
I've read a lot about the "three month set back" and I'm sort of confused by it. Three months since my last flare, three months since starting the meds, or three months since starting the diet? I have three different dates, of course they are all within a week of each other and that week would be now. My flare that landed me in hospital was July 19, Date of Diagnosis was Aug 4, I started Apriso Aug 9, and I started on the diet Aug 14, so there go you. I'm also thinking that me freaking about this time line is probably not helping either.

I think the most frustrating thing is that I just have to sit here and wait to see what happens. I have no control over it, I'm doing everything in my power to stay healthy but I have to realize that it may just not be enough and that's really hard for me to admit to myself.

I am glad though, that I did go ahead with my plans on Saturday despite how I was feeling in the morning. I could have easily just given up and went back to bed and felt sorry for myself the rest of the day. I did take some precautions, I packed extra clothes, baby wipes, and made sure I drove down on the highway in case I needed a rest stop/gas station/any manor of toilet. I had to make provisions for my condition. Luckily, with three kids, I'm used to hauling around extra clothes, food, and making sure there are rest stops available.

I did feel a deep sense of shame packing up my extra clothes though, what if I had an accident? I'm a grown woman for crying out loud. It's always in the back of my mind, a constant reminder that I have this condition and this condition needs my attention. It makes me angry, sad, and annoyed all at the same time.

I got so excited I ate four right as they were coming off the stove with a little heated honey. I ate them so fast that now I have a stomach ache, but it was so totally worth it.

Almond Flour Pancakes (SCD legal)

• 1 cup almond flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup seltzer water
• 2 T olive oil
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 T honey

Mix ingredients together and cook as you would other pancakes. Use a non stick pan as these suckers will try to stick to everything. Flip them when the top begins to bubble.

These cook really fast so make sure you keep an eye on them or you're going to have some very dark ones (ask me how I know). I ate them anyway & I have a whole pile of leftovers now!

Visit #1: Primary care doctor. Showed up about five minutes early, they took me back right away and got my weight: 118lbs. Went back into the room where I read every poster on the wall and starred at things while I listened to my doctor chatting up the nurse about Christmas shopping and his son's new job. I waited  forty minutes past my appointment time in that tiny little room. At one point I actually thought they forgot about me and debating wandering out into the hall to find someone.

The actual appointment only took ten minutes. He said, "so you were diganosed with an inflamority bowel diease, which one is it?" *cough* I hate when they don't read the charts. The upside was that he renewed my birth control for me since I mentioned that now my insurance doesn't pay for a pap test every year now (just every 3, since I'm old, in a relationship, and have never had a bad pap). So I was happy about that. I don't have to go back for another year. Yay!

Visit #2: GI doctor. Got there approx twenty minutes early because this appointment was about a forty minute drive from my house. I thought I made pretty good time considering I had to drive through the Penn State campus to get there. Those students don't like to follow the "look both ways before you cross the street" rule. They just walk, it's dangerous, and is super stressful to drive through. Apparently there is another way to get to the office, which was explained to me before, but I tried that way once and got terribly lost so I just go the way I know how now. It makes my life a little easier.

Anyway...got checked in and weighed (again) this time it read 116lbs. The actual appointemnt was very quick and positive. She gave me a month's worth of sample medication and told me not to worry about asking for more. She wants to see me again in 6 months, as long as everything goes okay. She did warn me that with Crohn's things go from good to bad very quickly, which scared me, but I need to stay postive about this. Whatever I'm doing is working so I need to keep at it.

My weight, of course, is an issue but not an urgent one as of yet. They obviously do not want me to lose anymore weight but I'm not yet unhealthy for my height (5'4"). I am trying to eat more, I just get full so quickly right now. On the other hand I can say that I haven't lost all that much weight (only 20lbs since July 19th when I was admitted to the hospital). I wasn't heavy to begin with so 20lbs is more noticeable on me. 

I have to say I was dreading these appointments. My blood work came back great, my symptoms are well controlled, I was nervous that they (the doctors) were going to try to start taking me off my meds and I'm just not emotionally/mentally ready for that yet. I need to take things slow here. I'm still trying to digest (har har) my diagnosis. I don't want to go and start changing things around now. Besides we're going into the holiday season, I'd like not to be sick or adjusting to new meds.

Two doctor's appointments this coming week: one today, one tomorrow. Today is my primary care doctor, tomorrow is the GI where I will make it a point to tell her that I can not afford 118 dollars a month for my medication, ask for samples, and any sort of assistance card she can point out to me.

I just filled out the forms to get medical assistance via the state. I never want to do that and I felt sick the entire time. Despite having okay health insurance via a major employer in our state, it just isn't enough. I find it humorous, that I've been pretty healthy my entire life, I never had to worry about this stuff because my father worked for a major medical care provider and we had great insurance while I was growing up. Then I got married and we were in the Air Force, now a lot of people complain about TriCare but we never had any issues with it and never had to pay anything out of pocket. Now we're in the "real world" paying a good percentage of my husbands salary every month for health insurance that as of Jan 1 will be covering LESS than what they did previously. The cost of course, is going up. I'm seriously tearing up right now. It's just like a giant hole, ya know? Try to get ahead, save some money, try to do right and then it all just goes away. One thing after another.

First the toilet overflowed in the kids bathroom. Then Middle Girlie spiked a 102.5 degree temp around 2PM. Eldest complained that his throat hurt and decided not to speak most of the day. Ugh.

We had no idea what we were going to do, Middle Girlie was really looking forward to Trick or Treat so we gave her some Motrin and fluids and by 5:30 her temp was normal (and she was doing laps around the yard) and we decided to take her out for a little while so we got the girls dressed and headed to my Aunt's house two towns over (we live in the middle of nowhere). By this time Eldest had been picked up by a friend's mother to go Trick or Treat in their neighborhood. Eldest is in 4th grade, it's not cool anymore to be walking around with your two little sisters.

After a few houses and the Light the Night event at the local chruch Middle Girlie was done and wanted to go home. On the way back into town we got a phone call that Eldest was ready to be picked up. Uh oh. We get there within two minutes and he's not looking so good. His throat again. We get home and check everyone's temps, all normal. Middle Girlie looks over her candy, asks for a glass of water and crashes out on the couch still in her costume. Eldest does the same, Baby Girl eats a bunch of candy and proceeds to run in circles for the next two hours before finally falling asleep around 11PM.

I'm glad everyone was able to go Trick or Treating. I still don't know if it was a good idea since it seems like everyone was feeling bad and truth be told, we weren't going to go at all but my husband made the decision to go and I had five minutes to get ready. I threw on jeans, a sweater, jacket, gloves and a hat (hey we live in the north east!) and I got in the truck. I realized later that I had forgotten my diaper bag (oops) but it turned out we didn't need it (Thank God!).

I didn't even think about it until we were on the way back home that my Crohn's didn't even cross my mind. I wasn't in pain, I was just there in the moment with my kids going off to do something fun. It was amazing to do that and I was so excited when it dawned on me that it had happened. Honestly, it wasn't even hard to avoid sampling the kids candy. Why would I want to eat something that is going to make me sick? I made myself a cup of peppermint tea and watched them enjoy it.

On Sunday we all sort of laid around until mid afternoon, watched a couple of Harry Potter movies. Then I decided to take advantage of Hubby being home and went to run my errands just in case I have a houseful of sick children Monday morning. We have plenty of diapers, food, and toilet paper, you know, important stuff.

Happy Halloween!

The thrid batch of cupcakes are in the oven to take to school tomorrow I'm sitting in the kitchen and I am hungry. Not a good thing in my condition. There is nothing I can just snack on that doesn't have to be prepared. Thank goodness Baby Girl and I made applesauce the other day.

How do you make applesauce? I had never made it before until I started this diet and at first, I boiled apples in honey and water then mashed them with my stick blender. After doing that a few times I started just making it in the oven, it requries less attention that way and since it's been really cold here, heats the house up a bit. So here's how I do it now.



First, I force my 2-year-old to peel all the apples. Not really but she does help. Hubby bought me this apple peeler/slicer/corer after hearing my whine about how much of a pain it was to peel/slice/core by hand. I end up having to do this about once a week so it was total worth the 16 bucks it cost. So after they are peeled I pile them into a pan and bake them at 350 for an hour. No liquid, no honey.


After I pull them out of the oven I hit them with my stick blender. Done. I usually just eat it plain, chilled, or heated. Sometimes I add honey and cinnamon, sometimes I don't.

After these cupcakes are finally done I'm going to bake a butternut squash and make a custard hopefully before Project Runway comes on, however it's already 8:20, the squash bakes for an hour, then another hour for the custard if I'm super fast about putting it together. I'll just stop when I'm tired.

For some reason at 7PM I decided it would be a good idea to bake some sugar cookies, something I intend to do every holiday but we just never get around to. I hate making cut-out cookies in general, it's messy, it takes a long time, and after all the baking is done there is the massive sprinkle clean up at the end. Not. Fun.

The project started with just Middle Girlie and I, but Baby Girl can't stand to be left out of anything so she came out to the kitchen as well and promptly made herself in charge of the sprinkles. Middle Girlie wanted to roll out the dough and started to do so but it was hot in the kitchen and the dough was starting to get sticky so I told her I had to do it. Then she wanted to use the cookie cutters to cut out the shapes but then they were sticking so I did that as well. Then she wanted to put the sprinkles on, but her baby sister threw a fit whenever she touched the sprinkle container. I made her (Baby Girl) share with her big sister, but she was not happy. The cookie making went fast, I cheated and bought a store mix and it only made a couple of cookies since these things were so darn huge. They liked the cookies, they ate the cookies (yes right before bed...)

I'm sitting here now thinking back on it crying. I should have just let her roll out the dough, who cares it if stuck to everything. These are the things that she's going to remember when she grows up and I don't want her to have bad memories of spending time with me. Maybe that's selfish ? I have no idea. Holidays, for me, are very stressful they just always have been. I do not want to pass that on to my children so in a way I have to be selfish because I have to stop the behavior in myself. I have no idea how to do that, and it scares the crap out of me.

Another thing that really struck me today was when we had stopped at the grocery store tonight after her ballet class she said she had to go to the bathroom. I asked if she really needed to go (the store's bathroom is not very nice...) she said yes and I said okay let's go! This is what my daughter said to me: "Oh..I thought you were going to be mad at me." She thought I was going to be mad at her for telling me she had to go to the bathroom! What sort of image am I presenting to her? I thought I was pretty even tempered it comes to dealing with my children but maybe I'm not. I'm the first to admit that I get upset about things pretty easily and tend to overreact to things but I thought I wasn't like that with the kids. Maybe I am? How do I find out? How do I fix it? It's not something I have prayed about before, but now I'm going to start.

Just now, as I was writing this all out, I felt a cold sweat come over me as I realized that maybe she thinks that I don't like her. I know that feeling. I know how it feels to not feel good enough and to feel judged all the time. I know how it feels to be craving attention and love and to just not get it. I know how it feels to be crying alone in the dark at 2:30 AM thinking back over the day and everything that could have been different. I don't want her to feel like this. I have to do something about it.

Now please explain to me why at 12:30AM I am still awake? I need to go to bed.  

I don't think I posted about this before but about a month ago I requested some lab work and lazied around until last Thrusday to actually go get it done. The doctor, it turns out, had ordered 6 tests when I had only requested two. It was a lot of vials!

Anyway I got my results today thanks to digital medical records and everything looks fine except that my clotting rate is slightly too slow. Seriously missed "normal" by .02 which is an indication that my vitamin K is low, which I expected due to the fact that my legs were covered in very large scary looking bruises. So there's that. I go to my primary doctor next week, I'm not sure if he's going to do anything about that right now or just recheck me in a couple of months. I also get to visit the GI next week as well, I'm going to swallow my pride and ask for more samples of my medication if she intends me to stay on it. $118 a month is a lot for meds I may have to be on for the rest of my life!

...a knitting machine. I promised my friend last Christmas that I'd knit her and her three kids stocking this year. Well of course I just started them today with NanoWrimo looming in just one week I needed to get started on these. I cast on for this yesterday afternoon, after getting upset cause I couldn't remember how to do it for a good twenty minutes. I finally figured it out (again) I've only knitted this pattern a total of 7 times now. I really wanted to have them done by the end of Nov so she could get them the first week of Dec but I really do not think that's going to happen while I'm trying to pump out 50,000 words in November. It's important to me that I finish Nano, this will be the third year that I'm participating and the two years I've completed it as well, it makes me feel like I'm doing something worthwhile with my time (and degree!) I love having outside imposed deadlines, it makes me more organized. That doesn't make any sense at all but it's true, while I was in college taking 21 credits a semester and raising a baby I felt really organized and on top of things. I really enjoyed it, although looking back on it now I have no idea when I slept, but at the time, it didn't matter.

I got  a whole lot of stuff left to knit and I just need to realize that it's probably not all going done and I'm not going to stress about it. I know I can get the stockings done before xmas, and my MIL's gift, and my son's blanket, other than that I'm not worried about it, at least not right now.

I blogged about this new knitting book I had to have and ordered for one pattern?

Yeah, that one.

Well I knitted that hat and I've actually worn it a few times, which is sort of sad since the hat is wool is it is still October after all. I'm not ready for it to be cold yet.

Anyway here it is on me, and on my 2-year-old. She loves hats.


Love it!

I'm still awake. I started getting tired around 11 and ignored it. Then I started googling things about bed bugs. I will probably be up the rest of the night now. Ugh. Hopefully I can catch a nap during the day, even if I do manage to fall alseep in the next couple of hours I have to get up at 7 to take all my meds. At least it would be a little sleep which is better than nothing.

I try to not spend a  lot of time feeling sorry for myself. I can not dwell on the fact that I have incurable disease. Incurable, that's a terrible word. When I think of it I always think of death but this disease itself will not kill me. It's just going to make my life terribly inconvenient, and that is an understatement.

I don't even know how I'm supposed to be feeling, I have no idea what "normal" is. It's so hard to figure out a way to eat that's safe for me and will feed my family. I'm tired of making two meals for dinner every night since my diet is so limited right now. I feel like all I'm doing is cooking. It's ridiculous, and I don't even know if it's working, it's only been a few months (feels like longer) and I'm still on (my very expensive) medication. I'm so frustrated, angry, and annoyed with the whole thing.

The only solution is that I have to deal with it. I've spent most of my life avoiding this very situation, which is probably why it took so long to find out what was actually wrong with me, but I can't do that anymore. So I've come to this point, this dead end, I'm doing everything I can in my power to feel okay, to feel better. I realize that it took me a long time to get sick and it's going to take a long time to get better.

I have these feelings of peace though, deep in my chest. I know that the Lord will guide carry me through this and that I'm going to be okay. I hate when people do that, what I just did, sort of lay out all the bad stuff and then sew it up neatly at the end with a "but I know the Lord will save me!" and I do believe that, but I also believe that I can't just sit around and wait for it to happen. I have to be proactive, and I have to trust in my instincts (God given) and do what I feel is right because that's how I feel that the Lord is working and presenting himself in my life.

Sometimes, when I'm feeling really sorry for myself I cry, or I write in my paper journal that I keep beside my bed until my hands hurt. I don't think that feeling sad makes me less faithful when I'm in that place I pray more. I have to believe that this is the journey I'm supposed to be on and I'm grateful for a lot of things in my life. I no longer have the freedoms I once did, I'm going to be restricted for the rest of my life due to this disease, but I can not let it control me entirely. It's something I have to deal with, not something I have to succumb to.

I haven't had internet in TWO WEEKS which totally kills my hopes at being accepted into blogHer. Strike 1 for Verizon DSL service. Seriously two weeks. We are so isolated out here I'm thankful this didn't happen during the winter when I would not have been able to leave the house let alone being completely cut off from the outside world.

I'm recovering from the "outage" by completely a list of online tasks that I complied for myself in the past couple of days. I. am. pathetic.

I've been trying a bunch of new recipes, mostly because I too like to have some sweets once in a while.










I used this recpie. I was really super excited that the dough held up enough for me to use my new crust cutters from W&S. Love.

 And here is a butternut squash pie, which I perfer to the apple. My son loved this pie, and thought it was pumpkin. When I told him it was squash (after he was done eating it of course) he was sort of stunned. Recpie is here.



I'm not really into pie but my husband is.

Next up: some sort of cake.

I have a lot of knitting books. I'm trying not to buy any more for the time being, because I have so much gift-knitting to do. I don't want to distract myself.

Of course I saw this hat pattern and I had to have it.

Besides I haven't knitted myself a hat since...well since last year. So I had to make this, and I just happen to have the wool for it.


So I had to order this book.

I finished it this morning while my girls were sleeping. It's currently blocking. I can't wait to wear it.