Can We Bring You Food?….Well, we have food allergies.

I’m nervous to write anything right now. I’m an emotional person, going through a very emotional thing. And I don’t want to write anything too strongly, so that I hurt anyone’s feelings. So please read this with that in mind.

But I really feel lead to write this today. Not really for other people. But for myself. I need to see that I am help-able, despite a very large obstacle in our life.

I’m not writing to say, “Hey you, do this for me!” I’m writing to say, “Hey Lydia, it’s not hopeless."

My family has been fighting off sickness for probably a month on end now. One person after another picked up this cold-flu-whatever thing. It was like a new person a week took the “I’m sick” seat. I was the last to sit there. I just went to the doctor yesterday, after not getting better after more than a week. I have essentially a double ear infection and sinus infection. I thought I ruptured an ear drum while blowing my nose, but thankfully I actually did not. I’m now on medicine, and starting to feel a smidgen better.

But all of this sickness was setting in at the same time I was getting news of my brother.

I cannot tell you how completely horrible it is to have a head full of so much pressure, while crying the deepest weeping, animalistic groaning, mourning cry….while being a mom of small people. I really wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if my ear drum had blown -- I don’t know why it didn’t actually. (Thank you God.)

But the thing is, the pressure isn’t just inside that. Everyone’s sweetness brings me pain as they kindly ask, “Can we bring you food?”

It’s actually so emotional I’m not sure it’s a good time to describe how that makes me feel. It’s no one’s fault. But the question just rips open all my heart wounds, and makes me feel alone, and completely non-understandable.

I cannot possibly teach what foods to bring us. I cannot possibly be sure if anything homemade that is brought to us won’t have a tiny bit of something that will harm my children (it only takes a tiny bit.) Not because people don’t care, but because I don’t know if each person knows ALL the things my kids can’t eat, and ALL the ways those hide inside ingredients commonly used. I don’t expect people to know this stuff. And I don’t have it in me to teach it well enough to feel safe, while sick/sad/just had a baby/whatever-life-situtions-cause-food-bringing.  

It’s hard to say all these words, it’s hard to say them in the right way. So every time someone asks me “Can I bring you food?” I freeze, I want to cry, I want to run away, I want to mourn how I feel alone, I want to make my kids safe, I want to make my kids feel loved, I want to be kind to the person being kind, but my momma-bear fears start roaring, I feel my claws growing “must keep babies safe!!". I know my brain is now no longer stable. So I try to do the only thing I can possibly remotely think of in that moment to try and make everyone ok. All I can think of is, “No that’s ok, we don’t need anything. Thank you though.”

This of course goes over like a lead brick. People want to help. The whole emotional whirlwind revives, as the question gets rephrased in numerous revisions.

I am left feeling un-help-able. Alone. Scared. All the opposite things anyone was going for.

Let me be very clear again -- none of this is your fault. It’s a hard life circumstance, mixed with my own personal issues.

So instead of crawling into the depths of despair, I think God started whispering a list to me -- things people can bring, and ways to help. Maybe this list is just for me -- to know I’m not as isolated as I like to tell myself I am. Maybe it’s for the people right now, who really just keep wishing they knew how to help. And maybe it’s for other people around the world who either have food allergies in their family, or have friends that do. I don’t know. I’m just going to write it and hope for the best. 

One more clarification -- this is in no way a critique of anyone, or any of the ways anyone has or has not helped us at any point. I know you love us. And anything you’ve done to show me that is taken to heart as love. And I really do appreciate from the bottom of my heart, the ways in which you have shown me I am not alone right now.

So anyway, I’m just gonna dive in. 

Here is a list of things you can think about bringing to food-allergy-families when the situation normally calls for bringing meals. 

(Internet disclaimer: Every food-allergy family has different allergies,  I can’t tell you that the few random foods I’m about to post, are safe for others, these are foods our family uses, it’s best to confirm any food with them.  See if there are any food staples they would appreciate. (Don’t worry, not everything I’m listing will be foods.) And my family is in small kid/baby stage, so my suggestions reflect that. Obviously not everyone is in that stage. I just hope this is a helpful jumping off point for other families besides my own. )

• Sometimes just bringing us any nice meal does help, because then at least me and Blake have some food to eat. But after a couple of those meals are brought, they will go to waste, as only two of us can eat them. So generally speaking, I’d actually you rather bring us random food staples that are easy for us to use. And having them around helps us need to make grocery runs less. Don’t question the weirdness of bringing someone, super weird un-cooked foods. Just know it’s actually extremely helpful for me to not run out of these things right now.
• Ketchup -- the kids can drain us of ketchup within hours. We can never have enough.
• Apple Juice -- same deal. Any brand. Frozen or in a jug. It’s all good.
• Canned potatoes. (Regular or sweet) -- The kids love them -- and it’s fast and easy.
• Aldi’s “Live G Free” “Coco Loco Bars” -- my kids ALL TIME favorite snack.
  
• Anything made by the brand "Enjoy Life” is safe for us. The kids like all their stuff. But our most treasured product is their chocolate chips (any version: they make tiny chips, regular sized, and mega chunks. All are great.) 

 

• If you are REALLY excited to make us something, you could buy one of their box mixes and bake it up according to their instructions. (But please don’t be offended if I ask you a couple times to clarify which exact ingredients you added while mixing it. Just because it’s my job to confirm they are in fact 100% safe.)
  
  
  
  
  
• Daiya Cheese -- it’s a vegan cheese we are not allergic to. Not all grocery stores carry it. We find it at Schnucks in the cheese case.
  
• Daiya Cheese Frozen Pizza -- it’s a vegan, gluten free cheese pizza we are not allergic to. Not all grocery stores carry it. We find it at Schnucks near the other frozen pizzas, but we had to ask a worker to help us find it the first time, cause it’s kinda off alone.
  
• SunButter  -- it’s like peanut butter, made from sunflower seeds (actually very delicious.) If a grocery store carries it, it will be by the peanut butter. 
• 
• “Rice Dream” (Brand) Rice Milk, Original or Vanilla makes us happy. These are “shelf staples” so they aren’t refrigerated, they are stored in a box carton (like the photos) on a shelf. They often are by the cereal isle or sometimes a gluten free isle. They are almost always by soy/almond/coconut other alternative milks. We only do the rice milk.
• 
• Olive Oil, or Coconut Oil. Just nice to have around. Great to not run out of.
• Coffee or Tea. (My favorite coffee is Starbuck’s Kenya. Blake likes different flavored black teas.)

 

Ok that’s the end of specific food ideas for us. (Which don’t work for all families.)

Here’s some other ideas.

• Just any old Grocery Store Gift Cards -- that way we can buy what we know is safe, but still be blessed by your kindness.
• You can bring produce in pretty containers. (Please skip Peas and  Kiwi for us--  they are allergens at our house. Please confirm specific produce safety with each family.) The great part here is, even if we don’t get around to eating it -- it’s essentially like bringing us flowers. Produce can be really pretty.

  

  Photo Via

  
  

  

  Photo Via

Photo Via

Photo Via

• Of course you can also bring flowers. But (and this may be hard to discern) aim for less pollen-y varieties. Really strong flowers like lilies, bring on our allergies. (So far, in our case, that’s the only cut flower we’ve had a problem with having inside.)
• If you are nervous to try flowers, greenery is great. It’s just nice to have anything fresh and alive around.

  

  Photo via

  Random non-food basics:
• Kleenex (with lotion, if you know they are crying)
• Toilet Paper -- who wants to run out of that?
• Diapers & Wipes -- don’t want to run out of those either! (Currently we are buying size 4 and size 5 diapers. Don’t really care about brands.)
• Paper napkins
• Paper towels
• Paper plates -- might not be green, but sometime dishes are too much work
• Trash Bags
• Wanna go more random? Plastic wrap, aluminum foil, wax paper, ziplock bags. ---Eventually it will get used. It is a kindness.
• Postal Stamps -- I find it so hard to get time to buy these. It’s just good to have on hand.
• Printer Paper  -- we go through the stuff like water because we let the kids use it to color on -- and my kids color prolifically. 

Some things that are just “I’m thinking of you” gift ideas:

• Enjoyable Books (Audio books are nice for busy moms. Curious? Sometimes I turn it on in one ear bud, and leave my other ear free so I can watch and still hear the kids, while I “read.")
• Heart warming music
• Great movie
• Candles -- maybe not super smelly ones, just pretty ones
• Adult coloring books, and color pencils
• Sweet home goods/products gifts that are encouragers 
• Example:My aunt gave me this beautiful towel.
  
  
  

Things to keep the kids busy

 (Please only give these to the adults, while the kids are out of sight, and let the adults decide if/how/when they will use them. Not every family finds each type of thing helpful. Some moms feel like play doh keeps her kids safely occupied for hours, some moms feel like play doh is the worst thing that happened to her life.)

For us we like:

• coloring books and crayons or colored pencils (skip markers -- those are a little more scary)
• cute kid bandaids
• construction paper
• water color paints (every other paint variety is too much work/too messy at this age, for our house)
• play doh

So, there are some ideas. But really the point is, show up. Let us allergy families feel love, even if you can’t love us with food. Be willing to get it totally wrong. 

Sometimes, when we ask you not to bring food (we are scared for the food to go wrong because for us it’s a HUGE deal if it goes wrong) that makes us seem like we are asking everyone to be perfect for us or to go away. It’s not that. We don’t mind if you get anything else wrong. Its just food we can’t risk. We want you around. We want your love. We don’t want to be on the outside looking in.

Maybe you bring someone an adult coloring book, and they can’t stand coloring. But you showed them you love them, and they don’t feel worried their kids will get sick from your gift. It’s still a peace-filled love gift, even if they don’t color it. (And I bet their kids will get a kick out of scribbling all over it.) Maybe you show up with a huge thing of toilet paper and everyone feels awkward -- but you know what -- every time they are in the bathroom they are gonna remember not feeling excluded from love.

Photo Via

Thanks guys, for hearing an emotional lady, on an emotional day, about an emotional thing.

Love you lots!

Lydia

Heart Broken

My brother, Jeremy, died this week. He was 30. I love him.

I'm not ready to type anything.

I'll be away from the blog, likely the whole internet, for a while.

Love to you all. Thank you for being a sweetness in my life.

Winter in the living room

 I'm feeling slow to blog lately.

It's just that everything feels uphill right now, so I just don't even want to stop any momentum on any subject to sit down and blog. 

I'm just now am finally getting to the point where I am able to start making "life recoveries" --- recovering the mess that pregnancy left me with.

Being that sick took away most of my normal skill set, it added tons to my normal inabilities, changed a lot of our habits as a family, and really confused my thoughts on a lot of things. It's not a fast fix when everything gets messed up. It took me about 5 months to even feel remotely like I could think about fixing things. And with the holidays right then, I just stayed on the bench till those were done.

So right now I've been kind of wanting to shut out the world and just focus and buckle down. I feel frazzled and very sensitive.

The good thing is, things are coming together. I'm proud of the progress we are each making. It's just that spurt where the exertion is so hard you can't talk.

But for now I'll show you my living room and a couple winter decorations.

 

Since Blake made his lapsteel guitar, we've had no place to put it. You can't hang that kind of thing on the wall. And we've been kinda piling up a few other things in the back corner of the living room making it messy. I started thinking we'd need to build a piece to house the stuff. The room and fireplace are so narrow most furniture look silly there.

But the mess was too annoying to wait for building time. 

My mom was in town the other day and I went to every single thrift store to see what I could find. Every thing was coming up short. I went back to look again at a "meh maybe it be ok for a bit" piece I had  seen. I prayed first. And then instead of the other piece, this shelf that I had totally ignored jumped out at me.

It was 50% off so it cost me $4. I figured if it didn't  work, oh well, at that price. At the store I was not confident in the design concept at all. I felt silly buying it. 

But once I got it all said and done it's shockingly awesome.

(Moral of the story: don't be afraid to try and fail. And don't be afraid to pray about the little things.)

Something else new over here are my "winter lights." I read this article about winter in Norway and it made me want to keep the winter coziness of Christmas around the rest of winter. (http://m.fastcompany.com/3052970/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/the-norwegian-secret-to-enjoying-a-long-winter)

So I brainstormed (Pinterest searched) for ideas. And here's what I have right now.

 They help keep the cozy comfortable glow around when the sun goes down too early still. I LOVE IT. If I had more strings of lights I'd do more, but they seem like they are all going out at once on me.

I want to try to find time to make some valtines decorations soon to. 

I really like that our house is to the point where decorations are an option. 

My New Cleaning System

I think I finally landed on a system to help me keep up with the house.
Remember me talking about how I just never can stick with any of the set cleaning schedules or tidiness systems?
Well I still can’t.
My new system isn’t a schedule.

My new system is so simple it’s almost silly to talk about it. And it’s actually embarrassing that it took me 8 years to figure out. (That’s how long I’ve been married, and had my own place to take care of.) But it did. So there’s that.

But I thought this simple little thing was worth a blog post because it’s honestly made a major improvement in my day-to-day since I started doing this a month ago.

Now, because this is the internet, and we may not know each other let me say:

• This isn’t meant for everyone.
• If you have a system that’s working for you -- stick with it. We are each unique. If it’s good for you, it’s good.
• I’m the kind of mom who wished no moms recommended the whole slew of things involving ignoring cleaning to love on the baby. BECAUSE, I’m disinclined to clean normally pre-motherhood, and with that advice I’ve had a lot of mom-guilt show up when I do clean. (And seriously, some cleaning does have to happen some times, even with a baby around.)
• I’ve always been the kind of person who makes messes while I try to clean. When I was a teenager, half way through cleaning my room, all my clothes ended up on the floor or bed because I got distracted and started trying them on.
• I’ve tried to do cleaning schedules, and can stick with them (doing them full force and perfectly) all of two weeks before burning out and not cleaning (or doing much of anything) again for a month.
• My brain has a hard time hearing itself these days -- three kids, and the postpartum hormones still working themselves out.

So all that said, what have I come up with here?

All it is, is a notebook where I write down the stuff I accomplish each day.

(This notebook is from Target -- I bought it about a year ago with other plans in mind, that I never got around to.)

Sometimes I write out things I need to get done during a certain day, the night before.

But more often I just write out the date, and under it I write down the tasks I get done that day.

It might sound silly, but it’s rocking my world.


This whole thing started out with me writing out bigger goals (Big stuff that might lead me to be more of who I hope to be) and projects that I hope to work on (stuff to get our house and decor done.) And I was also just generally hoping to stay more on top of things. I was going to look for some kind of app to help me out -- and after an evening of searching, just decided to use good old pen and paper. And I’m actually really glad for that -- sometimes pen and paper are just entirely superior.

Initially I tried to make goals for each day ahead of time. (In this case, goals meaning tasks like laundry, or what have you.) But pretty quickly I realized my day wasn’t heading down that path. So in order to not feel defeated I wrote down what I was able to accomplish.
I decided to keep doing this. I don’t have a strict rule about when I write out goals ahead of time, or what things I do write down each day. It’s all terribly flexible.

But this has been perfect for me because:

• It helps me feel accomplished. Before I started doing this, I honestly had no idea if I had a productive day or not. Life was just blurring together -- in that stay at home mom (with a baby + sleep loss) haze. I could get to feeling down pretty easily thinking I wasn’t ever doing anything at all, even when I was. This helps me “hear myself think” and “see myself accomplish."
• It’s a major motivator for me. My pride just can’t let me go a whole day without writing something down. I’ve had days where I just feel exhausted and really would have done nothing normally (without this notebook my pride didn’t notice me doing nothing), and then (some days not till 4:00pm) I start thinking about how I will have a blank spot under that date and so I go do something small, like clear the table. Once I clear the table I feel good and think it’d be nice to do those dishes. Once I do those dishes I feel like a champion and I clean a bathroom. (Just general examples of ways this plays out.) Writing down each thing is like fuel for my fire. It really does get me doing more and more.
• It’s perfectly flexible. I don’t need to do more than I feel physically, emotionally up to, or have child-time-allowed-ablity (nice word right? no, it’s terrible. Just let me have it. Blame the mom brain.) I can do the stuff that is calling out to be done, and I can add on as I see fit.
• I write down even the little things, like brushing the girls hair. Because honestly, for me, brushing the girls hair isn’t easy for me to remember or get done. So doing it is an real accomplishment, so it gets to be written down. If getting the baby to nap that day was hard, then it counts too. I write down meaningful conversations I make time for. I write down important emails I write. Things that normally “don’t count” really do -- so I write them down, so I can see I AM doing things.
• I will note things that made the day hard (“This kid is sick today”), so I can see that I still persevered and did my best. 
• I have a record of when the last time I got around to (fill in the blank) was. It can potentially prevent me from going insanely long between cleaning bouts.

During this month of writing things down, I’ve lived through two weeks of really rough flus for the kids, and I STILL got stuff done. Normally I would have let the house fall to pieces. (And we would have all lived and been fine on the whole.) But with this notebook around, I was able to keep my wits about me and take little moments, when I had them, to keep up with house stuff.

I also made it through the Holidays while hosting family 3 times (not perfectly mind you. And not as fantastically as I had hoped. But I did do it.) While still getting some pretty major projects done outside the home duties. And still accomplishing enough home duties that I was able to host! -- Normally getting the house ready for guests is outrageously hard for me in this house so far -- granted we’ve been renovating, sickly-pregnant, both, or taking care of a baby….but anyway -- my point is, this notebook helped me out a lot in the month I’ve been using it.

Pretty quickly after I started this thing, Blake started commenting on how much I had gotten done. And soon after how impressed he is. Things like that. (He’s never worried about how much I get done, he’s extremely understanding of the SAHM plight. These were sweet compliments.) So this notebook was kind of an overnight “wow factor."

I didn’t write down things EVERY SINGLE day this month. There were days where my mom was in town and she baby sat while Christmas Shopped. Those days I just kinda let blur together due to being SO busy I had no time to write. But generally I just leave this notebook open in the kitchen with a pen there, and every time I get anything done I am excited to go write it down. It makes me happy.

I’ve also written down a big idea I have for something -- right in the middle of my days -- because it’s a goal and this notebook is just kind of my goals journal.  (My “Lady’s Home Journal” if you will. Sorry, I couldn’t keep that one in.)
I like that this is my own free flowing whatever I want to do, whatever helps me out, kinda of notebook that’s just evolved from what was working and who I am.

I don’t know if I will do this forever. But I do see myself doing this for a good chunk of time.


I just thought I would share incase anyone else might be wired in a way this would help them out.


What do you think? Are you a cleaning schedule person? Does this notebook idea appeal to you? What’s your chosen method of keeping up?

After The Holidays Check In

Hi There,

Just a short check in after the Holidays.

I think we had all the standard typical pre-holiday stressors. But we had a really nice Christmas.

On Christmas Eve Blake and I led worship at our Church’s candle light service. It was really sweet. And it was really nice that my parents were able to be there with us.

Around our parts we had a REALLY rainy Christmas and after-Christmas. Flash Flood Warnings galore.
It definitely would have flooded our Family Room again like it had before, but Blake took evasive action and put sandbags by our wall and stuck a pump outside and drained it from behind our house to the street.

Having our deck gone is actually really helpful in being able to tell what’s going on and when to do what. There used to be a pump placed there when they built the deck -- it’s since broke. But there’s a hole there where we placed our pump (which can’t just stay outside all the time.) Anyway. Crisis averted. And that’s great. I’m so glad we didn’t have a wet Family Room all over again!

Now we just have to plan out our back yard well enough to deal with this functionally and esthetically pleasing.

Anyway,

Then for New Years Eve I was so excited. Our Children’s Museum puts on a Kids Countdown at Noon.

 I saw pictures and was so excited to go -- they do a big ballon drop. It looked really cool. I’ve always been a sucker for “When Harry Met Sally” and it’s ruined me for New Years Eve because I’ve never gotten to go to any official looking New Years Party. So I was so pumped about this. It was going to be my dreams come true AND with my kids…So fun!

In reality:

Crazy over crowded insanity. And WAY too loud and wild for most kids.

But we took it in stride as best we could

And it turned out to be one of those so-bad-it’s-good kind of family adventures you’ll always look back on with a chuckle and sweet nostalgia for the painful joy.

And apparently that’s the face I make when it’s wild and crazy and I’m trying capture it all. ha! Your Welcome.

Anyway…. Around the house. I had been working my butt off trying to get my chairs done for Christmas -- I had all these grand visions of trying to have the house glorious and be a good hostess. In reality: I just wore myself out and didn’t get them done. And I wasn’t really on top of hosting. (Maybe next year.)
I have one chair done….well done-ish, I want to adjust the cover I made, I’m not totally happy with it yet.

But I’m really pleased with the overall look I’ve ended up with.

So far Four chairs painted. (Counting the done one.)

Four more in the works. Hopefully I can knock out the painting in the next couple days.


Part of why I couldn’t finish the chairs was... I last minute threw "making doll houses" into our Christmas plans. I think it was before or during my pregnancy…a long time ago now….where I decided we needed to do this and never got around to it. So I all at once was like “GO. GO. GO. Make doll houses. NOW.”
So that took up a lot of my evening hours and kept me from sleep (since I generally love  avoid sleep like the plague in order to get things done, anyway.)

But they turned out really cute.

I used fabric and starch to wall paper them. (Just like my china cabinet recently.)

My mom made some chandeliers out of ornaments.

They are over in the corner of the girl’s room where the old too-tall dresser used to be. It works out very nicely. (Please forgive my exhaustion in not making the room pretty for the picture, or thinking to take the picture when the room actually was pretty. Whomp. Whomp.)

And one more random thing…because it really is the little, almost pointless, things that bring me joy. The girls have been piling TONS of books on the dresser I painted. So I grabbed this super cute green basket at Target to corral them and life feels more functional and more beautiful. And that’s the sweet spot for me.