Lifestyle

The Pacific Northwest is perfect for our family. Austin and I were very careful about selecting a "forever home." A big component of our lives is food, and so we wanted a place that would have access to all sorts of kinds of foods. Austin is an incredible cook, I grew up with both my parents cooking. 

My mom comes from a long line of Mormon women, and my great-grandma especially was the most amazing cook you'd ever meet. Especially because she was an amazing gardener from all her years working farms. Whenever I went over in the spring or summer to Idaho Falls, Grandma had her gorgeous garden going. It was the kids' job to pick what she needed for each meal. Come breakfast time, Grandma would put you in a 50's style apron (don't matter, boys gonna get ruffley aprons too!) and she'd give you each a plastic bucket. Then orange twine was wrapped through the bucket and around your waist so you'd have both hands for picking. And out you went for breakfast berries, lunch peas and carrots, and dinner potatoes and green beans. It was the most amazing thing to me to be able to do that. I've carried having this experience with me growing up and always wanting a garden, and satisfaction (and failures) from all the hard work. For right now, we go picking every place we can and support local farmers on their fields or at the market. 

I'm sure you've seen my posts about all our cherry and berry picking! It's such a huge highlight of everyone's week. We have ziplock bags full of these blueberries, and ate our share of red raspberries. We did end up with a plastic bag full of raspberry squish because the boys held it and the berries really needed a box flat to stay safe. Thankfully another thing my mom, aunt, and great-grandma taught me was that makes a fantastic batch of jam. Nothing goes to waste! I also put some blueberries in cause we have so many...

I love making canned jam but heck if I have time right now with two littles. But having two littles also means a butt-load of PBJ sandwiches. Freezer jam it was this time. 

Having all this great produce around us has helped me with my food allergies. I have had a visit to the ICU before I knew I had them, and that's ultimately how I found out through multiple blood draws. So having throat swelling, steeple's sign, and needing constant bouts of racemic epinephrine with a rebound reaction and having the intubation cart rushed in..... yeah that was a fun way to learn about them. 

I got prescribed a boat load of allergy medication and thought I could get away with eating things I wasn't supposed to. Yeah... two visits to the emergency room in Gillette to get steroids on top of everything I was already taking...

And then this last month I completely shredded my insides because my GI system was so, SO angry. Another ER visit and medication and now having to visit a specialist, yeah I should listen. Took a lot of beatings to finally get it through my head that this isn't a joke. 

Just say NO! to:

Wheat Protein (not gluten) 

Milk Protein (not lactose)

Egg Albumin Protein (so none of the egg, and itchy throat!)

Soy (I can have a tiny bit and get away with it...)

Peanuts (itchy throat!)

It's funny because I noticed problems with dairy when I was maybe 13 and started doing lactose free stuff. Then when I was 18 I noticed "gluten" was causing me horrible abdominal pains and other things, and did complete gluten-free for 5 years before giving into a croissant roll and abandoning it for the flaky goodness. All in all, maybe you should listen to your body. It's trying to tell you something. 

So after a load of GI probs in the ER I decided to finally seek help to take care of myself. And because I'm home now, albeit run ragged. I've decided to mostly eat allergy free, and I decided to find better treatment for my PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) because I'm already on the health train. The diet recommended for PCOS includes mostly Gluten-Free Dairy-Free anyway so I'm doing that not out of my own will, haha! 

I mean... flaky golden croissants.... just.... ugh. YUM.

Food Allergies (the real Epi-Pen kind), new PCOS diagnosis, and severe hypothyroidism induced by pregnancies...

Your ass is grass and I'm going to mow it. (Favorite Bob's Burger's quote ;D)

It is not fun to gain a ridiculous amount of weight when you do HIIT programs (can cause weight GAIN in PCOSers) It's not fun to have clumps of hair coming out because both your thyroid and ovaries hate you, and you already have hair loss from surgical scars. It is not fun to be down to eating only liquid meals and seeing the scale not budge (activating starving mechanisms can cause starvation visceral fat loading around the midsection in PCOSers). It's not fun to see not only your body shape change uncontrollably, but also your face shifting as well. It is not fun to have birth control and metformin flung at you and get shoulder shrugs when it's not working. It's not fun to be missing periods, then starting them randomly in the middle of birth control... hot dang the list can go on. 

It runs in my family, and so my cousin hooked me up with a lot of resources that have been helping tremendously. Eating the right things, and exercising in a special way has already done wonders. I even felt so excited about all the information I was just given, I got a hand-me-down-x3 push buggy to do my walks with the boys during the day. 

That sharing of information got me out of a dark place. I've had people share how they go allergy-free as well, too, which helps a lot. You do feel like you're flailing around until someone drops you a rescue float. 

I thought I might start posting cooking and dietary adventures on here and make a new little recipe tab --because maybe it'll help someone else who is struggling with something here, too. 

Xoxo, 

from Washington