Christmas Peace / Health Update

Christmas peace came a few days late this year.  The hub-bub of Christmas is over and now it feels like I can finally relax and find my footing again after working hard to make the day a special one for our family.  It seems like now I can appreciate the little things and just rest in His presence.  

I received the two books I was really hoping to get for Christmas.  They are all about getting myself organized.  I need it so badly.  My brain gets cluttered from so much going on in our day-to-day lives.  If I can get some of the clutter out of my head and onto some paper, I hope to be more productive and efficient...or at least feel like I am.

My little guy and I saw a nutritionist for the first time.  Food restrictions never seem like a big deal until I realize how many foods I eat have that food as an ingredient.  It was an interesting appointment.  We had some of the same foods and some very different ones that tested as problematic for us.  I tested poorly with olives (aka olive oil) and vinegars.  He tested poorly for white rice and most other grains as well as honey.  We both tested poorly for tomatoes, blueberries, cane sugar, and bananas.  I tested fine for milk proteins, but not milk sugars.  He tested poorly for all dairy.

He tested for an overgrowth of bad bacteria in his gut.  I tested super low for progesterone with weakness in my liver and adrenals. Yay me.  So we both have some new supplements to support our body's needs.

Thankfully, we can both still eat potatoes.  There is an avocado oil chip we can still enjoy, but everyone has to hide the ketchup bottle from him, and I won't be buying bananas any time soon.  A big bummer.  We both love bananas.  I was able to make a grocery list for this week of approved suppers, but I need to do some more research again to find recipes that will accommodate our new adjustments.

I'm looking forward to feeling better and healing my body, but the process will not be fun.  Thankfully I have this week to work on things before our Christmas break is over.  I'm going to do my best to make the most of it!

Finding our Rhythm

 We had a relaxing Thanksgiving break and took a full two weeks off from school, one for the holiday and one for a birthday.  Amazingly our jump back into a full school schedule has been really smooth this week.

We are learning to adjust to the chaos of living through a remodel.  We were able to refinance our home with the lower interest rates available and use some of our home equity to finish our basement too.  It is coming along nicely and I'm looking forward to finally having our home complete and able to organize and fully unpack our things.  I haven't had a true office space for my school things for two years now!

Christmas preparations are also underway.  The kids took over the decorating and although I felt a little put out by not getting to decorate my own home, I know someday they will be grown and I will have all the decorating to do myself and then I will miss their crazy ideas and decorations.  They begged for outdoor lights this year, so I bought a strand of lights that we used to decorate our tiny front yard tree.  It compliments our other simple decorations from last year and they were quite pleased.

Our shopping is nearly complete and it feel so good to have that stress done and over with.  We've been able to relax and spend our time focusing on other more important things.  All of our normal extended family gatherings have been cancelled and I'm enjoying the peacefulness of keeping the focus here at home.

We've been reading our "Shepherd on the Search" devotional each evening and I've started teaching my littles about the nativity story of Jesus' birth.  It just feels like we're beginning to find our rhythm and how to live well together in this season of life.