Ramble On

Next week is finals week. My husband works at a university, he's also a grad student. This week he's finishing up all his projects for his masters' classes and next week he has to go into work early every  morning to make sure everything is going to work for the finals (he's in IT, the university does a lot of electronic testing in various labs around campus). It's going to be a stressful week!

I promise 100x over that I will have the cranberry sauce recipe uploaded as soon as I can get the card reader away from my husband (will probably be tomorrow or Sunday) he's taking the kids down to a Christmas party and I'm going to start wrapping gifts, I'm going to have to take breaks so I'm planning on typing and formating during my "down time".

I also wanted to mention that my pattern for the Lil' Hoot bag is now available on ravelry for download (it's free)!

I keep meaning to write but then I sit down here and I find I really have nothing to say. Things are going well, as well as can be expected for my little family. My kids have colds, but they are okay. I'm still in remission, thank God though I'm having some issues with my throat, I feel like it's been swollen for months now I go to the Doctor next week so I'm going to have him look at that. Hopefully it won't involve antibiotics but with my luck I'll have to have my tonsils removed and eat ice for a couple of days. I heard it's awful to get down while you're older but honestly compared to Crohn's, depression, and giving birth, I think I'll be okay. As I've mentioned before my health is a priority, because if I'm not well I won't be able to properly care for my children.

I suppose though, that I'm getting what I wanted most: a normal, "boring" life. I love it, but there's not much to write about, at least not in a way I've figured out yet.

My Viao finally bit it, so I've only had the mac (can't get my photos on to it) and my iPod. I finally realized tonight that there was an app to blog (and really what isn't there an app for?).

A lot has been going on the past couple of weeks and I felt like I was being pulled in several directions at once but things are finally slowing down and I feel like i'm finding time to catch my breath.

My littlest turned 3 last week, this is the first of my children's third birthdays that I have not been pregnant with another one. It's finally starting to sink in that I'm not going to have any more children and it's been hard on me. I'm not sure how to feel or what to do with myself. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do when my littlest starts school. It's scary! I have been so in the moment with the children for the past ten years just focusing on caring for them not considering the fact that eventually there won't be an infant to care for, that these children on day will all be out of the house at the same time and I may not have to vacuum twice a day (at least not on week days). Crazy for me to consider what to do all day, and I'm pretty freaked out!

Tomorrow I take my son to the dermatologist to see if he's got Vitaligo, as we all suspect. One of my cousins (ironically, my son's God mother) let me know yesterday that she has it as well so now I'm almost 75% sure that's what it is.

I'm so tired of everyone being sick/ill/waiting to be diagnoised with someting. My mom's appointment at John Hopkins is next week as well, I think once everything is said and done I'm going to need to go somewhere warm and stare at the ocean. I just need a break. I feel like I can't breathe right now everything seems to be coming at me so quickly.

I'm trying my best to stay calm and too keep my own diease in check, but when I come here, it just all pours out through my fingertips. I hope you understand. I need somewhere to let it out.

xoxo

For the past couple of days I have not been able to log into blogger, of course this happens when I actually have something I want to talk about!

My children have gone back to school, another summer is behind us. They are at two different schools this year and there was a fair bit of nerves this morning. Readjusting to having just one kid at home is sort of weird too. It's so quiet here and little one is not letting me out of her sight. We went shopping today but those trips won't be very frequent especially when it starts snowing (October, yes I'm sad about it). I'm sure we'll find something to do, but I have to say that I got a lot of house work done today!

We made our way to Micheal's where my darling 2-year-old daughter chose her craft kits that she wanted to do (okay she's nearly three), she loves those foam kits that have the sticker backs. She got one to make book marks, one to make Halloween pumpkins, and a turkey craft. Each kit has enough to make between 4-20 items, it should keep her busy for a couple weeks.

This morning, I wasn't sure we were going to be going anywhere. My stomach hurt, and it was making noises. I was nervous until I realized that my period was supposed to start today, so I convinced myself that the pain I was feeling was related to that, and went about my day. The strange thing was one I decided it was related to my period I sort of stopped thinking about it. I took my meds and followed my route and we were able to leave the house get all our errands ran and (most) of the house hold chores done. I felt really accomplished today, and it's sort of silly, before I would have been beating myself up for the stuff I didn't get done because nothing was good enough and if I wasn't completely exhausted by the end of the day obviously I had not done enough. No I'm grateful for ever semi-normal day I have! What a difference, and I'm so glad for it.

I.am.so.tired I had to go get a tooth drilled this morning, then I went grocery shopping. That pretty much wiped me out for the day. After my face stopped throbbing I made dinner, played with the kids (my middle girlie can now ride her bike with out her training wheels!). It was so cold here today that I actually wore my wool jacket out this afternoon to watch them play. Oy. I am not ready for winter yet.

Tomorrow I'm taking my mom shopping and we are taking the kids out to lunch before they start back to school next week.

I'm not ready for that yet either, but it will come. I've adopted that as my new policy. Before I would get all stressed out about events that were going to take place, now (and I'm sure my meds have something to do with it) I'm a heck of a lot calming and am trying to take things as they come, even if I'm not looking forward to them. They are going to happen away, and I'm going to move through it. Like getting my tooth drilled (ugh) I showed up, I survived, I moved through it, no reason to work myself up, make myself feel sick, and have to put things off.

On the knitting front, I am about half way done with my newest design sample and will hopefully be able to spend a lot of time with it over the weekend. I'm also still working on Christmas gifts and attempting to plan a birthday party for my youngest who will be 3 next month.

I'm sort of busy.

I feel like I lost an entire week, I don't mean that I wasn't busy, I really was, but I had planned on doing a lot of things and not much got done!

Middle girlie was at day camp all week, which means all the kiddos and I had to be up and out the door by 8:30 every morning. Big Deal, you say. I am not and never have been a morning person. It's been a pain for me, but good practice for the upcoming school year I suppose. Ugh. Not looking forward to that!

I am looking forward to the weather turning colder so I can get back to baking and creating new recipes. I'm looking forward to Halloween, and Christmas shopping, and knitting up things with soft wool and using it as a blanket while I'm working on it.



Speaking of knitting with soft wools, my pattern was accepted by Knit Picks and is now for sale on the site! I am beyond excited, it's something I never thought would happen for me. I'm so grateful for the people at Knit Picks for taking a chance on me and sending me the yarn to knit up this sample. It was a great experience!

Today my mom was very off, she hadn't been out of bed in two days. I was trying to convince her to let me take her to the ER but she refused. She did make an appointment for later in the day (I wanted to take her to the ER around 10:30 AM, she got an appointment for 3PM), which is good, at least she was admitting that she needed some help. She's very stubborn and it doesn't help that she's a nurse too, I think those in the medical field are some of the very worst patients when it comes down to it.

While I was arguing with her to go to the ER my stomach was making these very loud groaning noises. I told her she was making my Crohn's angry, she laughed, that was good. I got her a cup of crushed ice and she ate three spoonfuls, then she slept for a bit.

Around 2PM I went back to check on her and she was in the bathroom sitting on a chair attempting to blow dry her hair. I have no idea how she managed to get her hair washed but after two days in bed I'm not sure if I could have hung over the sink and washed my hair, but she's very concerned about her hair so I sort of knew she would make an effort to do something with it.

While I was standing there watching her blow drying I noticed how thin her hair has become it's especially noticeable when it's wet when the hair sticks to itself in clumps. As I stood there looking at her and thinking about all of this I felt nauseous. I don't think it was the thought of her being bald but because if she was she'd be obviously sick, right now she can sort of hide it. She hasn't driven in two years, but she's got a disabled parking permit and sometimes we get dirty looks when we use it because the only thing people can actually see is a slight limp.

I'm feeling really disconnected from my mom lately. She's so sick, and I hate seeing her like this. I think it's hard for her too, having to rely on other people when in the past she took care of everyone else, as a wife, a mother, and a nurse. It must be so hard for her attempting to adjust to this new life. It makes me so sad for her. It makes me sad for me too because I've lost that person that I use to know and I feel like I'm finally mourning for her and trying to get to know this new person who is inhabiting my mother's body.



It's sounds crazy but knitting this was like a prayer, I'm not really sure how to explain it, but it was meditative. It helped that the pattern was created for a woman who had lost a child and I think that sentiment stayed with me throughout the knitting process. It was a comfort to feel the yarn moving through my fingers creating this cloth out of string, it's amazing to watch and to be a part of. I felt like my mourning for my old relationship with my mother began with knitting this shawl I touched on some emotions that I had been denying myself for a while and it was very cleansing for me. I have plans to knit two more, one for my mom and one for my Aunt, who I've grown close to over the past month.

I feel like healthy to try to be productive through all of this. Maybe I could just curl up and cry like I would have in the past but I can't now. I have to move through this I know that I've been given these challenges for a reason and I have to be here and present to feel these things that I've been avoiding for so long.

So if I have to cope with knitting needles in hand, so be it, there are far worse things I could be doing.


pattern is Far Away so Close by Sweet Mama, Small Sugar.

Right now it's after 10:30 PM and I'm making myself some dinner. Pan seared Tilapa with salt, pepper, and lemon juice, and two eggs over easy. It was hot today so I didn't feel like eating actual food, I ate fruit all day and when I got hungry (well watching food network) about an hour ago it dawned on me that I didn't really have anything substantial today so I'm making it now.  *shrug* It's been that kind of weekend.

My kids had off from school on Friday so I was very busy. I got a shower and went bounding down the steps in a hurry to make lunch and I fell, badly. Despite the 16+ years of ballet training I had, I am not very graceful. I bruised my tail bone and broke a toe, I've been in an incredible amount of pain. The heating pad helps and when I'm standing up I'm okay, actually sitting down has been a challenge. Strangely enough if I'm on a hard surface it hurts less, probably because I can lean forward and take the pressure off my tail bone but in a cushioned surface (the couch, my bed) I can not get comfortable. It makes for a very long night! 

On Saturday, was the rapture, 'cept it wasn't.  The weather was super nice. My 6-year-old had a soccer game, she scored 3 goals, I made burgers and complained about my poor hind end. I knitted a lot. Watched Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake on SNL  and enjoyed it. I stayed until until 1 AM, which is unheard of for me! I felt like I was getting away with something!

Sunday the weather was also good, the kids played outside a lot, I pushed my girls on the swings. My son showed me how he could climb up the play structure (on the outside of it, not the legal ways) and I held my breath the entire time. I kept things, how the heck am I supposed to get him to the hospital when he falls off that and breaks his leg when I'm all broken myself?  But, much like the rapture, nothing happened. He was fine. Show off.

My car is also not working. I drove it on Wednesday and parked it. It's the mass air flow sensor or something, which apparently is sort of $$ to replace, hubby is going to try to clean it, but we'll see what happens.

This week I have a new recipe to post and I'm working against a pretty pressing knitting deadline. Once I'm done with that project I plan on devoting a lot more time to baking and coming up with some new ideas for SCD recipes.

I didn't set out to be a success story for any diet or lifestyle or anything like that. I started on this journey to get better and to reclaim my life. I'm so happy that SCD is working for me thus far, I'm happy with how far I've come comparing my life now to my life before the diet, it's so much better. So much better in fact that I now refer to my life before diagnosis as my "previous life".

I've mentioned before that I've suffered from depression for many years as well as carpal tunnel syndrome. Now that I've been on the diet for a considerable amount of time those symptoms too have lessened, which is amazing to me. My wrist pain kept me from doing things that I wanted to do, it kept me from knitting, it kept me from cooking, writing, and picking up my children. That pain is gone now, just gone! It took months for this to happen but as I continued to follow SCD it has gradually diminished. I now can knit for several hours a day, I'm cooking a lot (obviously!), and I'm picking up my kids, well at least the ones that I can lift (the 5-year-old is teetering on the edge of that right now, 9 year old is nearly as tall as me so..).

As far as my depression. I can say that it's less sever than it has been in years. It's still there, lingering, I know it's something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life but now that I'm reclaiming my digestive health I feel like my mental health is also improving. I go outside and play with my kids now, something I never did much of simply because I was too tired. It was a vicious cycle. I was tired, so I didn't go out and play with the kids, then I felt bad about it, so I'd cry, and that would make me more tired. No good.

I went on this diet and started this journey to lessen my Crohn's symptoms. I had no idea taking care of my gut would improve the rest of my health. I'm so grateful that I took the chance and tried the diet. It is hard but it's doable.  I'm so grateful for the people who've gone through this before me that showed me that it could be done and now hopefully, I'm showing others that they can do it as well.

Here's what I want to say: It's easy to get upset, to beat yourself up, to stop taking care of yourself, of your family, your finances. It's easy to give up. Facing a diagnosis, whatever it is, is hard. But please, please try to find the positive in your situation. Don't let your diagnosis take you, you're more than just this disease.

Tomorrow, I will be posting a guide to French Toast including a SCD legal batter recipe. I will post links for breads that will work with it (I also think my banana bread would be really good as French Toast as well but it's not something I've personally tried yet, adding it to my list!) 

My 2-year-old is taking a nap, we switched her to a toddler bed this weekend so I'm going to have to get her up with the older kids now that she's not safely in her crib while we're running around the house getting ready for school. I'm excited because this might mean an official return of "nap time" for her. I'm sitting now but when she first fell asleep I was straight on to the laundry, I even folded it and put it away while it was still warm, that is unheard of for me. It was rainy and gross out this morning. I was honestly shocked that it was not snowing it was so cold, waiting for the bus was hilarious we were all huddled into a circle around the umbrella (it was a large golf umbrella but still) tripping our way down the driveway. We had to just laugh, it was ridiculous.

Over the weekend, it was gorgeous. We made up a new game, well sort of. We made "Epic Hopsctoch" (so named by my 9-year-old son) it started out as a normal hopscotch game and then we started adding squares, curving the path around the cars, going diagonal, we ended up going from -3 all the way up to 100. It went nearly the entire way up the driveway. We played and worked on it for hours, the 2-year-old running up in down the path, the older two using their scooters, and jumping. We timed each other to see who jump the course the fastest, then the slowest. My hands were blue with chalk. The next morning, my legs hurt and I was confused for a minute until I remembered I had spent the better part of the afternoon jumping. 

Today I have a stomach ache and I feel funny. I don't know if it's because I've been eating a lot lately or the fact that I did not get enough sleep last night. The weather here is cold, and snowy. My little one is taking a nap on the couch, she woke up at 6AM screaming because she could not find her blankie. I took her downstairs and we looked around everywhere, of course the blanket was tucked into the corner of her crib and since she had been down stairs with lights on she was not ready to go back to bed. I put her in bed with us hoping that I could sleep for the 40 minutes before I had to get the kids up for school. She did not. She spent the time wrapping my hair around her fist and saying "Hi Mommy". She's a doll, but I'm tired.

I guess I could try to take a nap but doing that always throws me off so I'll just hope to get to bed earlier tonight. For now I'm going to watch my DVR'd episode of Parenthood from last night.

Baby girl was in bed by 8:30, which is unheard of for her. I'd go to bed too but I'm afraid that she's going to wake up soonish. We were at the lake for a total of six hours today. I am so tired. I don't think I've been outside for that long since I was a teenager at the public pool all day every day in the summer. My poor mother, I never realized how bored she must have been. She doesn't swim, never has, so she just took us to the pool and sat there while we swam.

I do know how to swim, however, with three kids who can not swim so well yet it was pretty stressful for me. The older two kept wanting to go out deeper and deeper and the baby just wanted to play in the shallows with her watering can. I sort of stood in the middle but closer to the baby, obviously, in case I had to grab her. At 10 AM there weren't many people there so it was easier to keep an eye on them but by 4PM it was very crowded and I was having a hard time.

So I'm tired. I should knit or at least take my contacts out.

Recently there’s been some drama. I hate drama. I guess talking about it on my blog feeds into it and I take responsibility for that but people don’t get it: I don’t get a break. Someday (hopefully soon) I will have normal responsibilities with my little family. Until then there is always something I’m supposed to be doing. I’m not saying that I don’t get lazy (because cause Lord knows that I do) but there’s always something pressing to attend to. I used to be a good mom, I really thought so. I used to be able to keep up with my housework and my meal planning/shopping/chores but now…now there is just so much. I have three children and a mother who needs my attention and even on weekends when my husband takes the kids to visit his family I usually have to stay home to do something pressing around the house like paint or clean or do seventy five loads of laundry.

I hope that things turn around soon. I have this deep feeling of calm I really believe that things are going to change and I believe that the change is going to happen very quickly.

** And yes, my title is the Beck lyric from the song "Loser".

Today I missed a party that I had been planning on going to for months. Ironically enough it was a friend's baby shower (I'll get to the ironic part in a minute). The trip would have taken me 5 hours to make and I was more than willing to make it.

Then my baby got sick. She was fitful, coughing, through out the night and I got little to no sleep. My husband had to get up and go into work (odd for him but he had to none-the-less) at 4:30 in the morning so I was on the night shift. I was in no shape to drive and when hubs got home from work I went back to bed...until noon.

I pitted myself. This always happens. I'm the mama so I have to deal with this stuff and I have to miss out on things. Blah blah blah.

Later on the older kids went to bed and I gave my daughter a bath and she did not cough the entire time she was in the tub. As I dried her off she talked to herself in the mirror "Hi! Hi!" and waved at her reflection. Then we sat on the couch together and I watched Paul Blart Mall Cop and she enjoyed the soundtrack. She was smiling the whole time even as her eyes began to get heavy and she held on to her blanket leaning her head against my neck. I may have missed that party but if the only thing that I'm destined to do in this world is to be their mom then I'm okay with that.

Not many of my close friends from high school have kids. In fact out of our little "group" (which consists of four people) I am the only one with kids (so far, the baby shower lady is one of the four and she's due in May). I don't know if it's true for everyone but I'm going to assume that it is, after you have a baby something so strange happens, a primal bonding of spirits and when they are sick or hurting a piece of you breaks. I don't think even if given the opportunity I would have slept last night. It was like I was right back to when she was three days old and I was monitoring her breathing.

How do you even explain this stuff to people who don't have children? I can say whatever I want but until someone has a child they just don't get how emotionally intense this whole experience is compounded further with each child that comes. So I had to tell my friend that I couldn't come, that I was too tired to drive. I just left it at that because my real message should have been this: my daughter was sick and I was heartbroken so I had to stay up all night to make sure she was breathing properly therefore I can't come to your baby party. I don't want people to think I'm insane, but that's the truth of it. I rarely, very very rarely, go out anywhere with out my children. Hubby and I have a "date night" about every six months. Is it hard to not really have a social life(aside from face book and occasionally email), yes. Sometimes it makes me cranky but all in all I chose this life and I love being a mama to my children. Sometimes people ask me what I would be doing if I didn't have kids and I can not answer them I can't even fathom my life with out these people in it. I remember before them, and I was floundering. I don't wan to say that they've given me a purpose in life because I don't believe that I should be putting that sort of pressure on them but at least they've shown me something that I can be good at and that's super important to me. My kids are nice, they are usually polite, they love to dance, do art projects, and they're nice to animals. As much as I think I've failed as a person I look at them and realize that maybe I'm not all bad.