Family

Family

Friday, September 3, 2010

Of Remodeling, Reactions and Reasons to Celebrate

It has been a while since I have taken the time to blog.  I am trying to maintain a full school load with the children while in the midst of major home remodeling.  We are FINALLY getting the boys' bathroom rebuilt after gutting it due to water leaks almost 3 years ago.  Yes, we are slow about some things.  Thankfully we have 3 bathrooms so we have not been too terribly inconvenienced all this time.
"Worker men" have been here for several days each week for the last three weeks and Jeff took off three days.  It is extremely hard to get a 6 year old boy to sit down and work on letter sounds and counting with mom when there are nice men with jackhammers in your bathroom cutting through the concrete.  He has learned a lot these last few weeks about plumbing and shower building.  


We have lived in this house for 12 years and Jeff has decided this is the time to get all of the remodeling done and the broken things fixed.  He is a man on a mission!  The older boys are now old enough to be a tremendous help to him.  The boys' shower has built built and tiled.  It now has a nice glass door.  The walls are painted.  The floor is tiled, but still needs grout.  Then we do the baseboards, the door,  molding, toilet, vanity, mirror and cabinet.  Half of those items are in my dining room.  Boxes of all kinds have been shoved in the boys' bedroom and it was too cluttered for them to clean it up.  Yesterday we removed all remodeling paraphernalia, thus eliminating their excuse for cleaning their room.  Tomorrow, it WILL be cleaned from top to bottom.  There is so much dust from drywall that everything is gritty.  I have slowly been cleaning the living areas as we finish up the messy work in the bathroom.

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In other news, we have been hit again with some strange illnesses.  I have suffered from dishydrosis for several years.  This is a severe form of eczema that occurs on your hands and feet.  Incredibly itchy blisters of which there is NO cure.  After a recent flair up I went to another dermatologist and had a steroid shot and was prescribed two different steroid creams.  After another visit I am now on oral steroids.   Women are more prone to this form of eczema and those who have eczema and asthma are more likely to get it.  It is not painful, but extremely itchy and frustrating.  Stress also causes flair ups.  Seven children, homeschooling, dealing with multiple food allergies, major remodeling and a type-A personality=stress.    In addition, my IBS has also been flaring.  I have had IBS for years, but after the removal of my gall bladder last year, it has worsened.  Some days I cannot leave home.  One perk, however, is that I continue to lose weight!  Got to find something good about it!

Aaron, Jackson and Caedmon continue with their usual eczema problems that need daily attention.  Caedmon has had two food allergy reactions that really scared us in the last two/three weeks.  I will no longer live the house without his Benadryl, Epipen and nebulizer.    Jordan is my only child who does not have asthma and/or eczema, but a couple of weeks ago he broke out in a very strange rash ALL over his body.  It looks like very small patches of eczema, but there are hundreds of them.  Jeff finally took him to the doctor Wednesday.  She just looked at him and was speechless.  Had no idea what the rash is!  Gave him a long-acting steroid shot and Benadryl ointment.  Repeat visit this morning added a staff infection to his diagnosis.  Now he will also be on an antibiotic for a couple of weeks.  Please pray for the rest of our eczema kids who have some spots that could be easily infected.  Staff is contagious!

I have been going back to visit my chiropractor the last couple of weeks as my back and neck have been bothering me (stress?).  He has told me for YEARS that we need to get off of gluten.  He is big on the blood type diet and we are all B and apparently gluten will cause skin and digestive issues for those with B type blood.  In light of all that I wrote above I think I need to investigate more and try a gluten free diet.  My problem with gluten-free is that two of my children are also allergic (deathly) to eggs and most gluten free recipes contain eggs.  Any body with any experience with gluten free and/or diets for blood types?  Would love to talk with you!!

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And,  today is Jeff's birthday!  Both of us are sliding ever so closer to 50.  We are planning a nice birthday dinner for him tonight.  I asked him last night what he would like and he requested a Roman roast.  We got this recipe from The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines when we were studying ancient Rome.  You take a nice roast and cook it on the cooktop in a Dutch oven.   I inserted sliced cloves of garlic in the roast, covered 1/3 with white grape juice and let cook slowly all day.  Half way through the cooking process, I added mushrooms cut in half.  We will serve this with spinach rice, roasted broccoli and carrots and a green salad.   We were trying to make his favorite apricot nectar cake for him, but two of our local Walmart stores are no longer carrying apricot nectar!  I bought mango nectar instead which I think will taste great.  I hope to get the dining room at least dusted and swept well for the evening meal.  Kaelan will be in charge of setting a celebratory table in honor of her father.  The kids pooled their money together to buy the BBC's Return to Cranford today, so it seems we will have an evening in Cranford  tonight.  A pleasant end to what I hope will be a nice celebration for my hard-working husband who is such a wonderful example of a Godly man for our children.

Sunday is Aaron's 14th birthday!  So hard to believe my fourth born child is so old.  Aaron is growing into an extremely hard worker.  He loves to read (ALL of my kids love to read), is becoming more serious about his Bible study, loves to eat and is a clown.  We will be spending the day with Jeff's parents on Sunday.  Aaron requested bratwurst and saurkraut with all the trimmings for his birthday meal, so the grands are getting the grill ready for his special day now.

I hope to have pictures of the bathroom as soon as it is completed and birthday pictures as well.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

6 comments:

Tami said...

Hope you all are having a wonderful birthday celebration. I am an apricot nut - would love to have your recipe for that cake if you get a chance.

Kelly said...

Awww Hang in there.. Have you read the Makers Diet?
That book gave me insight and helped me with some stomach issues.. Probotics!! it builds your immunity.
Its good stuff! MY kids take it as well.. We have been it for over 4 years.

Celee said...

Sorry to hear about your health struggles. My youngest daughter may have something like that. All my kids have had eczema at different times, usually they outgrow it, or it's seasonal, but my youngest has it worse than the others and the protopic and aquaphor do not seem to be having much effect.

Glad to hear you guys are making progress on remodeling. I feel for you. We've been in this house 7+ years and are finally almost finished! The laundry room will be finished in another couple of weeks and that about does it. We could have bought a much smaller newer house, but when we bought this place we decided that we wanted big so what we got was a big mess. It's such a blessing that it's now turning into a big, nice house, but it has taken 7 years to get here! It feels so good to cross off another project, doesn't it? I can't wait to see the pictures!

Celee

Anonymous said...

aww. poor things. I hope all of y'all get to feelin' better soon. And say happy birthday to the birthday people for me!

Jessica said...

I just discovered your blog through BlogFrog. I am new to homeschooling and new to a gluten free diet. My daughter has been gluten free for two months and the changes I am seeing in her are remarkable. The rest of us are gluten-reduced! It is not as hard as you think it will be. You might be so impressed with the benefits, that you will not mind giving up things like pizza and donuts. My daughter loves them and I told her she can have very small amounts of it, but she declines saying she feels so good now, she never wants to feel the old way again.

Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Stumbled across your blog, though I don't have my own blog, and thought I'd leave a helpful tip. I had my gall bladder removed a few years ago, and afterwards I was suddenly having trouble with cramping/digesting and what not especially after eating breakfast in the morning. No amount of fiber seemed to be helping my symptoms. After visiting my Gastro. doctor, he said it was the removal of my gall bladder causing my symptoms. The gladder filters bile through our body, and without it the bile can sit low in our intestines acting as a laxative he said. He prescribed Cholestyramine which is a powder that you mix with juice or water to drink. They give this to people who have high cholesterol since it acts like a "sponge." It does the same for those who suffer with trouble after gall bladder surgery, acting as a sponge to soak up that bile. I only shared all that to say that the stuff really works! It is by prescription only. I have no more symptoms and can eat as I used to w/ no problems! :)

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