Join BlogrollFeb. 19, 2010
Gluten Free Friday! Contamination
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Hello all! I have had a rough week. No, a better way to put it is the little ones have had a rough week I was just along for the ride. Last Monday we had a meal that had cheese and soy in it. I wasn't be cautious enough. That night the soy kicked in and we had a daughter that was angry and sensory defensive. Everything bothered her and everyone was annoying. She is normally the sweetest little thing, thus the nickname Smiley. Over the next couple of days the big A showed it's ugly head. Normally Smiley only shows her autism in OCD issues or when in a medium to large group she has problems. Now thanks to the allergens in her system she was lacking eye contact, stemming, chewing on clothes when she would wear them. Another nasty side effect is I thought we were almost out of the diaper phase this shoved us right back in. This morning 5 days after the slip she is playing with her sibs again. I hope that we are over it. I love her so much and I feel guilty that I let this happen. sigh.... Some of our children are just so delicate about their foods. This does give me a stronger will to keep out the off limits foods and straight true to the allergy diet! How does your child react to diet slips? What do you do to avoid them? Don't forget to sign up for the Gluten Free Friday blog hop!!  |
Feb. 15, 2010
Homeschooling Angst
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I read all sorts of blogs, articles, books, FB status updates... you name it I read it. I noticed recently the more I read the more down and unhappy I was getting. WHY??? afterall many of these parents are friends and mentors. It is ENVY. I read what so and so's child is doing... my kids can't do that yet! ECK This Co-op is going to the museum... I won't try a museum without hubby as back up so that's a no That family is touring on a bus with all umpteen billion kids and they all love each other, NO fighting...well I bombed that one too. And so it goes. I have to stop and breathe. The Lord has given me these lovely children to raise and teach. That means He has also given me exactly what they need to succeed. I worry that my illness will be robbing the kids of precious experiences out side the home. I worry that their illness will rob them of a future. I worry that daddy working far away from home will impact their relationship with him. I worry. Again I turn to the Lord, 'Do not be anxious about anything" Philippians 4:6 Okay I hear you God. The lesson I need to pray on is focus on the blessings the Lord has showered us with! I will caste my worries and anxieties aside trusting in the Lord. Seems like a faith building lesson. Thank you Lord. To care so much about me you point out these problems. You make me stronger and I pray better able to shine your light! Am I alone in this? Or is this a phase homeschooling mommies go through? |
Feb. 5, 2010
Gluten Free Friday! Rushing!!
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Hello all. This is a tad late. We are about to get a major snow and ice storm. Yumm! Sort of. I love storms. But I needed to run out and stock up on food. That is one good thing about being one of the only people in the area that drinks Rice Milk. haha So on to the gluten free topic of the day PASTA When you're hubby is Italian you have to find a good replacement for pasta. So we started with corn pasta. CORN PASTA: We found it to be crumbly and gooey. I was not thrilled with it. I could see using it when making a pasta casserole that will already have a thicker texture. One the bright side it is cheap! RICE PASTA: This is the pasta I use when we are eating pasta plain. The elbows and thin noodles are fine. READ the directions! Rice pasts needs you to cool it with cold water to stop the cooking. Make sure it is cooked when you cool it. I made the mistake of listening only to the timer. Timer went off I cooled it then tasted it. The pasta wasn't done. So I refilled and tried to cook it a bit more. It turned to goo. sad unpleasant tasting goo... So what are your favs? Have you found a better product for pasta or perhaps a certain brand?? Let us know!! Gluten free and allergy foods are expensive no need for us to waste money! Okay my friends. For those in the path of this storm please be careful!! |
Jan. 29, 2010
Gluten Free Friday! What I MUST have in the kitchen!
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When I was changing my kitchen over I was a mess. It was the holiday season and I love to cook. I will set aside a Saturday in the holiday season just to have friends over and bake, bake, decorate! I very quickly found that the items I relied on just didn't work the same way with a gluten free casein free cooking. FLOURS First lets talk about rice flour. It and several other flowers are a MUST have. You have to have rice flour I tend to get several pounds of white and a pound of brown. That's not all there are other flours out there. Potato flour is a great thickener when you are cooking. Really good if you child can't handle rice. Remember it is from potatoes so it gets thick and clumpy in bakery good. Almond flour this is an expensive but pleasant flour to work with when baking. Tapioca Flour I use this to make my all purpose flour mix. It smooths out the mixture and I think it helps it hold together better. Alton Brown does a WONDERFUL job explaining Xanthum gum and gluten free cooking. In his Substitutions episode. (sorry can't seem to find it on Food Network?) Xanthum Gum this is a replacement for the gluten in your baked goods. Consider that gluten creates a structure that holds up and lightens your baked goods. Without it all you baked good would be flat and thick. Using Xanthum gum to replace works just fine the rough estimate I use is 1tsp to 1cup of flour if working with a high rise material like rolls, breads, and cake. 1/2 tsp if you are working with pancakes, quick breads etc. Milk Substitute This is one that strictly gluten free people won't have to deal with. Those of us having to go around milk as well need a quality replacement. We tried soy for about a year. It was cloying and sweet. Two of my children became sensitive to it and we had to change. Then we moved over to Rice milk. It has worked well. It is light in the mouth, slightly sweet. Over the years we have used potato milk. Bland but good in making food such as bread. Right now I changing us over to Almond milk for awhile. So far it is great. The kids really like the flavor and it works well in cooking. Why do we move around so much? Part of why two of my kids are allergic to soy now is because we stayed on it so long. When you are senstive and allergic to many things your system can get confused and begin attacking other foods, Such as soy (which is a high allergen). If we rotate our foods and drinks there is a much less chance the body will get overly sensitive to it. Always be alert to signs of an allergy. Just because you didn't have two years ago doesn't mean you don't know. My mother was stung by a bee early one spring. She had been stung many times before in her life and never had a problem. This year something changed drastically. She began swelling and needed medicines to stop her allergic reaction. From then on she is allergic to bees and ants. Stay alert! I am going to see if I can get MrLinky up and running for us. If I can I will add it to the post today. Well take care my friends and God bless! Wow it was super easy so here is our blog hop! |
Jan. 21, 2010
Gluten Free Friday!
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Yipee we are going to do Gluten Free Friday! I am asked all the time WHY? are you on a GFCF diet? Well my several of my children are on a GFCF (Gluten free Casein free) diet but I am not. I am however Gluten free. When we first looked into the possiblity of diet being part of the answer why I had 4 children on the spectrum I assumed it was their food problem, not mine. After two of my children were diagnosised with Celiac disease the dr's looked to my hubby and me and told us one of us had it too. One blood test later with a huge positive result my dr was comfortable diagnosising me with Celiac disease as well. How do you keep on diet? I have purged the entire home of forbidden foods. If daddy wants to have a snack off the list he has it at work. This helps remove temptation and helps our systems get used to our food restrictions. I find that any time there is an accident and someone gets wheat or cheese that child then craves it for up to a week. When we go out it is very tough to stay on diet. I try hard to eat right before we go out and time it so that we come home again before the next meal. Though there are shining points of lights, where resturants are trying to met a growing number of gluten free customers. Eat n' Park is one of them. Do you see improvement? YES! I didn't see the huge improvements at first it was just a steady trend upward. Behaviour got better, Attention time got better. Then my daughter stopped having seizures with the removal of milk!!! WOW!!! I do see a large regression when the kids have had gluten or casien. I know that when I eat gluten my gut hurts. Now here is the one that floored me. When I went gluten free a lagging 20 pounds that I never seemed to get rid of and a puffy uncomfortable feeling went away! Yes I did lose twenty pounds just by not eating gluten. Now when I started sneaking and not being so careful when we went on vacation and the holidays it came right back. Are you supposed to be gluten free or soy free? Maybe you can have that same wonderful response. Well time to go my friends. I hope to talk to you again soon! God bless!! Don't forget to stop over and see my other blog at www.specialneedshomeschooling.com |
Jan. 13, 2010
Long time no post
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It was never my intention to leave this poor little blog all by itself. I have been running around since late Nov. Right after Thanksgiving we went to Ohio. Then we came home and I had to pack up everything to go to Florida for my daughter Smily's Make a Wish trip. That last the middle of Dec. we came home and one week later was Chrstmas. Sounds like a lot but that was not all! WHile all this was going on my Special Needs Homeschooling ministry has been taking off. I am putting together a show for The Homeschool Channel to talk about special needs homeschooling. I am surprised at how much time it takes to put together. Also I have to get official with the ministry. Once I am official I have to start fundraising. Lots of work and not much time to do it. Oh and my stinky health has gotten worse. The first week of Nov was the beginning of my down turn. That week I lost the ablitiy to use my right side. It slowly started coming back but it has never been the same. Also my legs are bad enough now that I use the wheelchair almost everyday. sigh So far the drs have said everything from lupus and MS to lupus and mitochondrial disorder or I just have mitochondrial disorder and it is causing ALL my problems. I pray that the drs have the wisdom to decide what is going on and help me through. Last but not least since the first of the year I am trying to make some eating changes. I will get Gluten Free Friday up and running again. IS there any interest in me making a McLinkey loop and several of us having a Gluten Free Friday together? Leave some comments and let me know your thoughts! God bless my friends. Rereading this sounds pretty harsh. But I have never been so happy (outside my marriage and having my babies) to be working towards the Lord's work of my ministry. It is apparent to me, my husband and the loving band of friends that have been praying about this for over a year that God is calling us to this. So with that I will leave you with a wonderful scripture Proverbs 11:28b the righteous will thrive like a green leaf. |
Nov. 20, 2009
The keystone cops chase
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Around here things are always happening. Is it 5 kids? Is it curious homeschooled minds? No matter what it is I have children that must try everything for themselves. That has meant gravity experiments off the front porch. 2kids+1gallon blue paint+not telling mom=blue foot prints through the house, streaks on the FRONT of my house and regretful but nonetheless excited giggling. Recently I have had to spend most of the day in my wheelchair. Because my right leg and hip will go paralyzed at anytime, so I fall. It is safer in the chair. My house is two story and not handicap accessable at all. Yesterday afternoon it stopped raining for a bit. The kids put on boots, jackets the works and all 5 went out back to stretch their legs. I had to walk out to check on them. I thought it would be a quick peek and done. When I went out the baby was in the garden playing in the dirt and holding the neighbors cat to her chest. The cat was not very happy about this. So I holler for the rest of the kids to help. Then the chase began. The baby (okay she is going to be 2 soon so not really a baby) and the cat took off around the house. Then went the laughing 4 and 6 year old girls. I think they were actually egging Peanut on. Then went my 2 oldest trying to get to the baby. Last was me thumping along behind the mix trying not to fall over. The keystone cops would have been proud. Secretly I thought it was a hoot and loved the happy laughing children. When we caught the baby she handed over the cat. I am suspisous about that cat he stayed and rubbed all around Peanut's ankles. |
Oct. 28, 2009
Scrambled eggs for dinner days
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Do you ever have one of those days that all you can work yourself up to making is scrambled eggs? I really enjoy cooking and creating interesting meals. On the flip side if I haven't planned anything or if I have no good ideas I can punk out. Yesterday started our projects week. This week is dedicated to doing the larger grander projects that don't fit easily into our standard routine. After a day of keeping up with the kids and I am still pretty sick. I was exhausted. So I lamed out on dinner, scrambled eggs it was. New day, but more big projects and now sick children. Again dinner loomed.... I threw into the oven a bunch of potatoes and trolled through the freezer. I found an interesting package. I thought had browned beef. As it thawed there was not browned beef but rather some sad, creepy frost bitten thing. I laid it to rest. We went vegetarian. Now tomorrow is already on my mind. BUT I have a plan. I have a thawed roast ready to go. I'll add pototoes, corn and some rice dumplins. If I can pull it together possibly some fresh bread PB+Js for lunch. I think that will make up for the dinner disasters. Strange post... sorry I'll blame it on the steriods. Please feel free to follow me on FB I'd be happy to return the favor. The link is on the side bar. Also I post more often on my www.specialneedshomeschooling.com blog. God bless my friends!! |