Archive for January, 2009

Welcome back friends! I have finally got some of the widgits up that I had been wanting. First the one I am the most excited about the Prayer wall. No wailing here. LOL I hope that we can share our prayers. “When two or more come together in my name” The Lord clearly calls us to worship. pray and share together.

I also put up a donation widgit. Please don’t get offended. I have to pay for this site to run. I also have a lot on my plate and I am trying to steward it all according to the Lord’s will. If you are so moved to donate I appreciate it. It is not necessary. I really just hope to share and grow with you.

I am going to start a page off this one. It will be about gardening with a chronic illness. Gardening is something I love to do. But with lupus I have some serious hurtles to overcome. The sun makes my lupus worse. So I will be talking about ways to overcome our limitations from illness and still enjoy the great outdoors!

Take care ladies and God bless!

The lupie lady is an ADVOCATE! I am trying to get together the money to go to Lupus advocate day in Washington DC. I am working with the Lupus Foundation of America. There has not been a new medication passed to treat lupus in 50 years. At this rate those of us with lupus WILL die from lupus or complications of it.

NO way am I going to throw up my hands and say “Oh well”. No pity party here!

If a new medicine protects your kidneys for one more year what would you do? If in that year you talked to ONE person about God and they accepted the Lord. You have helped this person for all eternity! Then imagine that that person talked to one person per year the rest of their life that accepts the Lord. How many more people would join you and thank you in heaven?

One more year means one more year of doing the Lord’s work. One more year with our families. Understand that I am being very conservative in estimating a medicine helping us by one year. Think of the vast changes in cancer care. When I was a child and the whispers began Mrs. Smith had cancer. All the ladies would nod sadly and begin wondering when her hair would fall out and finally when she would die. Now if you get cancer you have some really great options. Thank you Lord for the improvements in cancer care!

We need to push the subject with the government and NIH. Lupus needs to be taken seriously. I do! I have to use a cane at the age of 33. What will I need ten years from now?

As you can tell I am excited about this. I hope I can pull together the money to go. It will cost about 250$ just for the registration and hotel room. Lord I lift this need up to you!

God bless dear friends. May the Lord bless you with a pain free day!

Finally home! Yeah! It was rather hair raising especially at first. When I hit the freeway things got a lot easier. I took several pictures while up there and hope to have them on the blog tomorrow. Tonight I am still exhausted. Much to much stress.

The lupie lady future is….
I would like to have a Medical Monday. We discuss various aspects of chronic illness.

Is there anything else you would like to see? Perhaps a day of frugal tips? I would love some ideas!

Lots of love ladies! God bless!

The snow hit. Sometime in the night it turned to ice. About an inch of ice later and thick heavy snow. It turned back to snow. Whiteout conditions for three hours. We got about six more inches. So we are totally snowed in. The gluten free stash of foods I pulled together is running thin. I tried the local stores the day before storm they are allergy clueless!

No alternative flours at all. The only thing we found was rice milk. I am hoping to go home tomorrow. That is based on the hope that ODOT is out there plowing their hearts out. AND the ice storm down home has melted enough for me to get into my house.

There is just something about your own home. I love visiting my mom but I spend the whole time chasing the kids keeping them off her decor. My oldest watched the kids this morning and I soaked my aching ankle in really warm water. AHHH! I have had an almost constant Reynaud’s going on since I got here. I am so cold. The cold then ticks off my ankle more. Also I am trying to do everything for my mom so she can relax some. Maybe I should chill.

Okay off to watch the snow storm and pray it eases up. Take care and God bless!

Still in Ohio and now I am being snowed in! The big storm moving across the country is dumping about 12″ of snow on us. We have had a wonderful time talking with all our family and friends. This is where I am from. I am yearning to return and build my own little piece of heaven.

I have found a few things about myself.

One I am FLARING! grrr I need a steriod pack, so says the rhuemy. But…… I have to have the CAT scan to verify the infection of lack of infection in my salivary glands.

Two Big storm equals big arthritis pain. My ankle is killing me! Also I have to take my shoes off at my mom’s and the lack of ankle support hurts as well.

Three I have to have an emergency plan to stay on diet while out. We are doing pretty good but still needing to add some things here and there. My goal is to go totally gluten free for my health and my children so I need a plan.

If I can I’ll update on the storm of the year! I don’t really mind. We are safe at grandma’s and the kids want to sledding on her hill. Take care friends. Stay safe and stay warm!
God bless Heather

We are going on a field trip back to northern Ohio. I was born and raised there. So the looney lady is taking on Amish country!

On the serious, sad side this trip is for my grandmother’s funeral. She had been sick for years and silently passed away in her sleep. Lord I pray she was one of your children and is now being held in your Loving Arms awaiting us.

I am going to take my camera and try to work on the road. If I can I’ll take some pics and add them. If not I fear the looney part may take over if I have an internet blackout!

Well I have to go pack for 5 swirming children and figure out how we are going to stay on diet for the whole trip. Hmm? This is getting more complicated.

Take care friends and God bless!

I have Celiac disease. I also have two daughter’s with it and two other children that show sensitivity. So we are a gluten free house and have been for four years.  The children also show sensitivities to a large amount of other foods.  So in total we are gluten free, casein free, soy free, and dye free. Now the littlest one is being tested for other food allergies such as apple, banana and citrus. Yeap it is hard to feed this crew.

I wrote on my other blog reasons to stay on the GFCF diet which is gluten free just add on the casein. GFCF mom of many I think it is very important to add for those of use with other autoimmune issues like lupus, not staying on diet will cause you to flare more often and worse! That is a vitally important reason to stay on diet.

I fully plan on living a long as healthy life as I can. I have 5 little ones to watch and guide as they grow. I have taken a much more proactive and grateful turn with my health. I am grateful that I have the health I do. My kidneys are not affected, thank you Lord. I am being proactive. I am eating on diet and beginning to lose weight healthfully. I am also trying to stretch and use my sore joints as much as possible. I don’t want therapy or loss of movement.

For those who need a gluten free diet as well I have found a couple of blogs that are really good! The gluten free girl has lots of ideas and recipes. She also has a book coming out very soon and one on the market already.

Gluten free Gobsmacked had the first Christmas cookie recipe that truelly reminded me of my childhood cookies!

The only down side to most of the gluten free recipes and blogs I have seen is they are for couples or small families. Most of the recipes are for about 4 people max. So if you have a large family like mine you need to double or more. The more you swap out ingredients the chancier the outcome of these recipes becomes.

I wish you all good cooking! If you need to watch you foods please do. The more you care for your gut the healthier your entire system will be! God bless!

Ouch! My littlest one got sick last night. She woke me up at 3am. I tried all my tricks to get her back to sleep. Believe me at 5 kids I have quite a few.  To no avail. We had to get up. We napped briefly before the rest of the crew woke up. Any way my brain hurts!

After homeschooling and I have to work on my eBay. I am going to post a bit about gluten free eating.

As for the blog updates I got caught up in deciding exactly what I wanted and ran out of time to actually change anything.  I’ll work on that tonight too.  God bless friends and take care of yourselves!

Okay you can mess with my balance. You can mess with my weight. But DON’T think you can mess with my coffee. It is my wake up and love myself first thing in the morning.

I am going to make my coffee in the evening. Okay really I am going to try before the lupus fog befuddles me. I find that I can’t really get to sleep and yet I am not productive. I am just too tired to sleep.

That was an odd comment but if you have been there you understand. I remember being the stage manager for the production of Brigadoon at my high school. My dad came and picked me up during dress rehearsal week. I was so exhausted I slumped against the car window and just bawled. I am not a crier.  I now think that was bout of fatigue I pushed myself into.

Funny how I always get told. God doesn’t give you more than you can handle. Well I think that is wrong. Look at lupus or any other chronic fatigue, or illness. God allows more than you can handle so you lean on Him. Allow the Lord to carry the yoke. Submit to Him in all things and this evil, this illness will be made to show God’s glory!

Take care friends. I am going to try to pound out some of the details around the blog. So please don’t get upset if things change slightly. If you see something you love or hate just let me know! God bless!

I want my coffee! Grr silly hands.  Sometimes when I wake up and get going my hands forget to wake up to. The knuckles are slightly swollen, really more stuffy feeling, and weak. That brings us back to my coffee. I need to open a new bag and I can’t get my hands to cooperate! Oh! And where are the kitchen scissors? Okay I am going to gnaw through the side in about one minute.

School scissors! Okay they are small and my hands are still not quite right. Ahh! the jagged hole is just large enough to get my coffee out. Later today when my hands warm up. I’ll fix this mess.

Anyway on to the morning routine and starting the day.  May the Lord bless you with healing today. I am going to start a bulletin board for the side bar I would like to use it to chat and to share prayer requests.  Take care ladies.