I mentioned before how hard it was when I lost my sweet little dog in January of 2015. It was soon after that my illness began to take hold. I told myself that I must let go or be very ill. Well, I did try to let it go, but sometimes it creeps back up on me. Every once in a while he comes into my thoughts, and all the pain comes back and I just burst into tears.

Months after I lost him, I wrote this poem. I'm not a poet, so don't expect some great piece of poetry here. Actually, I didn't write this. One night while staying up and crying for my little dog, these words popped into my head. I wrote them down and tucked them away, never showing them to anyone. Now I'm sharing it to help in the healing process. I'll share it, and let it go.

When I think about it I can't help but cry,
the day you and I had to say goodbye.
I held you in my arms and watched you die.
But it isn't forever that you will be apart from me.
No, this will not be for eternity.
We will meet again someday, at the Rainbow Bridge.
I will pick you up in my arms and we will all cross together.
Rest, dear friend, you will be forever in my heart.
For some reason, man's best friend too early must depart.
My companion, my friend, my pal, you were so many things to me.
Thank you, thank you, for the time you spent with me.
I am forever grateful.

He saved my life, and I saved his. I hope he understands the difficult decision I had to make, I hope he was ready to go, I hope he forgives me. To all you who have been through this, you know how painful it is. We must tell ourselves we made the best decision we could, we did what we thought was right, we must move past the grief. I'm getting there, but sometimes, I feel like it was just yesterday.

Saying Goodbye to Toxic People

We all have someone in our lives that irks us now and again. Maybe someone who doesn't understand us, or seems driven to constantly disagree with us. I think that is a natural part of being human. We seem to always hurt those we love the most. But when does that relationship cross a line? When is it time to say goodbye to a toxic relationship that has gone on too long?

I had to ask myself these hard questions about some of my friends and family. Some autoimmune diseases and other illnesses are triggered by chronic stress. I know before I became ill I was very stressed. I won't go into the details in this post, but I had been stressed for years. I felt bad about myself, couldn't let go of things, didn't like the person I had become, didn't feel well, and on top of it all, had some family member who were constantly trying to tear me down.

I'm not perfect, no one is. But we have to accept that. Some members of my extended family on my mother's side have very different views than I do about religion, acceptance of others, and just what it means to be human. I never really liked the idea of Facebook, but I joined after my son was born so share pictures with friends and family who lived out of town. That was a huge mistake. It was the avenue by which my family began to slowly torture me. They always pointed out how I wasn't good enough, how I didn't believe what they did so I'd most certainly burn in Hell, how everyone I knew or liked would burn in Hell, and they were more than happy to point out all of my past mistakes.

I was ill after my son was born. I had a difficult pregnancy and birth, lost a lot of blood and needed transfusions, and then just never did feel like myself again afterwards and suffered from dizzy spells, among other things. I never saw my family or heard from them. Never a peep during my difficult times. They were only there to punish me for...for not being exactly like they are.

I began to realize that after I spoke with them on Facebook, I would be severely ill days afterwards. I was taking what they said to heart, even though I tried not to. I am the kind of person who wants love and approval from my family, and it was hurting me deep inside to be treated that way by the people I loved while growing up. I was so desperate to have their approval that I almost let them ruin my life. They did not approve of who I wanted to marry, I got nasty letters telling my why they didn't like him. Thankfully, after many break-ups and issues because of my family, I finally did what I wanted and married him. He is the love of my life and I would have regretted it forever if I had let them ruin my life.

When I had my thyroid go crazy on me, once again I heard nothing from my family. My mother came over every day and helped me and my son. My husband and son helped around the house, made meals, and tried their best to keep my comfortable. I cried on my father's shoulder, and I thank God every day that I have my parents, my husband, and my son. My father's side of the family live far away, but even they called him a lot and checked in on me. I was so grateful that they were thinking about me.

The only time my mother talked to her brother, all he could say is that she was being silly for worrying about me. That was pretty much it. I saw then that they have no love or affection for me, and I am tired of trying to earn theirs. For my own health, I cut them off. I do not consider them part of my family anymore. I have blocked all their emails, and will not be friends with them on Facebook or any other social media. I will not take their calls. I wish them the best, but they were adding to my illness. It was not an easy decision, but I had to do it. I do not know if I could ever really trust them again. It has been years of this kind of thing, and they do it to my mother as well.

In the end, I know this was the right thing to do. I have to take care of myself and my health so I can be here for my family. That means making tough decisions. I eat clean, I try to get plenty of rest, I try to exercise gently every day, and I cut toxins out of my life, and if that means cutting myself off from toxic people so I can be healthy, so be it.

Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread

We are getting close to St.Patrick's Day, so I thought it might be time to share my Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread recipe. I've been working on this for a while now, and here's what I have finally come up with.

My quest for gluten free bread has been a long one. Some gluten free breads are just not good, others you can buy in the store taste good, but they have many ingredients, including eggs and usually canola oil and corn products, things I am avoiding. Also, the more processed the food, the less good for you it usually is. This is a pretty simple recipe. Feel free to play with it as you like.

Gluten Free Irish Soda Bread:

Ingredients:

1 Cup rice flour

1/2 cup tapioca starch

1/2 cup coconut flour

1 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking soda

1 TBSP baking powder

3 TBSP coconut oil (melted)

1 1/2 cups water

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl, the wet ingredients in another. Once they are mixed separately, add the wet to the dry and stir. The dough should be wet feeling, but you should be able to shape it. I usually put it on a greased round pan and shape into a circle, about and inch or so thick. Bake for 5 minutes at 450, then reduce heat to 350 and cook for another 25 minutes. Let cook for 10 minutes, cut, enjoy. I usually cut it with a pizza cutter into 8 triangular pieces. So far this is our favorite bread. I hope you enjoy it too.

I've been following the AIP (Autoimmune Protocol) diet to try to overcome my possible autoimmune disorder(s). It is a very strict diet, and when you are ready to add foods back in, you do it very slowly and look for reactions. I have added some foods back in without problems, I believe, which is nice, because the AIP is hard to do long-term. The other day, I made a mistake. I totally lost it and bought a product with potato in it. Potato is in the Nightshade family, along with tomato and eggplant. I ate it, it was SO good, and then that night I noticed my ears got very painful and hot and red. Then, I woke up that night with heart palpitations. It wasn't bad, but it was noticeable. Now again, tonight, my ears are red, hot, and painful. I looked into this, and here are the most likely causes in my situation: A)food allergy B)hormone issue related to thyroid. Either way, I think I should stay away from Nightshades. I really didn't think it would cause problems for me, and I should have added it back slowly, but I didn't and now I'm paying for it. I also have a slight rash. I am hoping it will be gone from my system soon, and I didn't cause any lasting issues. It is hard to see in this picture, but my ear is not normally that color. I think it looks more pink in real life. This is an ear selfie, lol, I'll have to try to get a better one when someone is around to take the picture for me.

Today was one of those days.

Have you ever had one of those day, when you feel like you are a walking disaster area? That was my day today. It started out pretty normal, but as it went on I realized I was having one of those days. I burned myself trying to steam a skirt, then I tried to curl my hair and just couldn't get it right. Then, I wanted to make a nice roast chicken for lunch for my family. That was going good. My old stove was making a horrid gas smell, so I recently got a new one. My new one cooks so much faster and I'm still not used to it. I realized that my chicken was done much sooner than I had expected, but the rest of my lunch was not ready yet, so I put a lid on it to try to keep the heat in while I finished everything else. I wanted to keep it warm, I didn't expect it would stay scolding hot. I was trying to move the chicken so I could cut it up and it dripped on my foot. Oh my goodness, boiling hot chicken grease on my foot, the sock was holding it in, and I was jumping through the house trying to pull it off. The chicken tasted good, at least. But that wasn't the worst of it. I decided to go hear my mom and her band play music. My son came with me. We were having a pretty good time. It was stuffy in the building, so we went outside for a while, then on our way back in I saw that a lady in a wheelchair was coming toward the door. My son, who is six, didn't see her and just ran on it. I followed him so I could see him, then bent back around to hold the door for her from the inside. It was a bit awkward, and I had to kind of lean and put my left hand on the wall for balance. Well I hadn't put my hand on the wall, I apparently put it in the door of the men's room, and someone shut my fingers in it. I screamed, I was given ice, it throbbed and hurt for the rest of the day. Hoping for some Bird Therapy time tomorrow. After a day like today, I think I need it.

I haven't been feeling well for the past couple of days. I decided to take my camera out for some bird therapy and I had a visit from a special bird friend. My mother named her Miss One-Legger. She usually goes to my mom's feeders pretty regularly, but I have never seen her at mine, even though my mother and I live right next to each other. She has been around my mom's house for three years so far. She is easy to spot because of the way she has to balance herself, having only one full leg. She sometimes sits in the feeder or at the feeder table in order to rest her one leg while she eats. I know it must get tired, and perching must be very difficult for her, but she does great for herself. We looked it up, and the average Cardinal life is three years in the wild, and she has been around for three years, so she certainly knows how to handle life with only one leg. She must be strong, but she must also be smart. She is an inspiration. I spotted her in the bushes behind my house. I pointed my camera at her, and noticed the strange wobbly way she was sitting. At that point I suspected it was Miss One-Legger. Then she flew to the feeder, and I saw her stump pop out from underneath her while she balanced at the feeder. I got my first ever picture of her, and I thanked her for showing up today. I needed some inspiration today, something to make me feel like I can get through the rough times, something to show me I must be strong and keep fighting. This little bird was just what I needed to see. She keeps going and doesn't give up. She is probably getting ready to nest now. It makes me so happy to think that her new babies will visit our sunflowers in the summer. I'm looking forward to that. Life can be hard sometimes, but we have to pick ourselves up and carry on.

Part Two of my illness Journey. First, let me say that I am not telling my story to give any medical advice. Please see a doctor before stopping or starting any treatment. Ok, that's out fo the way, so here we go. A dear friend of my helped me get in with two of his alternative doctors, one a Naturopath, one a Chinese Medicine doctor. Both saw me for much longer than any regular doctor. I was given several different herbs. I stopped taking my medicine and started taking my herbs. The herbs worked well for me, and they don't have the side effects that my medication had. In talking with the Natrupathic/Herbalist, he told me about leaky gut. Many questions were about my digestion, which was not good. I told him about my food intolerances, and the food I had cut out since I had gotten ill. He said I should continue on that path, as he believed that autoimmune disease are caused by leaky gut, so I need to fix that, which was the root of the problem. Some of the herbs were for my thyroid, some for my gut health. As time went on, I had times when I'd start to feel off, but those would soon subside and I would feel better again. The times I felt bad got farther and farther apart. My bloodwork all came back normal. My doctor, and Endocrynologist, said he wasn't even sure I had Graves Disease. He believed I just had Hashimotos and had a flare-up which caused me to go hyperthyroid. If you don't know what Graves or Hashimotos is, I'll try to give you a brief description. Graves attacks a person's thyroid, causing it to make too much thyroid hormone. This causes a person to loose weight (no, it isn't a good thing, you loose to much, no matter how much you eat, and you feel weak and frail, and you can have muscle wasting), their heart beats too fast (and can lead to other cardiac issues), they feel constantly perturbed and unable to sleep or rest, sometimes it attacks the eyes as well, cause pain and buldging. These are just a few things that can happen, it basically puts a body into overdrive. Hashimotos can do the opposite. It attacks the thyroid and prevents it from making enough thryroid hormone. This causes weight gain, heart palpitation (can eventually lead to other cardiac issues, hair loss, tiredness, just to name a few. For Graves they have to stop the thyroid from producing so much hormone, for Hashimotos, they have to add thyroid hormone. It is generally said that it is easier to add than to take away. I am still taking my herbs, my Endocrynologist dismissed me and told me to call if I feel bad again, he marked me clear of Graves but he marked that I do have Hashimotos. Hashimotos can go into remission, a person just has to wait and see. Now, I don't feel normal. I feel much better than I did, but I still don't feel right yet. I have been told to rest when I don't feel well, I shouldn't push myself. I have to be very careful with what I do, even what I watch. I find that emotional stress, whether it is intense movies or arguments, make the symptoms come back on. I feel this is very stress related for me. My stomach has always been sensitive to stress as well. I would get in a stressful situation and suddenly need a bathroom quite urgently. My worry is that, in this modern world, stress is all around us and very difficult to avoid. I can't be in a bubble at all times. I'm now trying to make sure I make time for myself, to try and de-stress, to meditate, to just try and enjoy life. I'm also trying to learn to let go. I have struggled with mistakes in my past, and now I have to look at myself as I would look at my child; I have to love myself, learn from my mistakes, and let them go. Dwelling on past mistakes is the path to illness. I still worry though, I'm still on my herbs, still wondering what will happen when I quit taking them, worried that this will always be on my mind, something haunting me. Now, as with letting go of the past, I know I have to move past that worry as well. On days when I wake up and feel good, I tell myself that I musn't look too far ahead, just enjoy the day, enjoy the time I do have. If I am lucky, I can have several years, maybe the rest of my life, with no further thyroid issues. It has happened for some people. I must be positive, and tell myself that my health will last. I also think a lot about what is happening to us. Why is it just accepted that all these twenty and thrity something women are becoming so ill? I've read a lot of possible causes: GMOs, fluoride in the water, iodine added to the food, toxins sprayed on the food, chemicals from plastic, chemicals in make-up, etc. Now I believe the human body has a wonderful capacity for healing. It wants to heal, to feel good, to flourish and thrive. But we are now exposed to so many more chemicals than any other humans have been at any other point in history. I wonder if we were only exposed to one or two if most of us could clear them, but are our bodies now being overwhelmed? How much can a body take before it goes "crazy" for a lack of better word, and begins to mess up? Or maybe that isn't it at all. What do you think? If you are reading this looking for some answers, I hope you find some somewhere, and I wish you health and happiness.

Autoimmune disorders. I don't remember ever hearing about them when I was younger. I remember my mother and her friends when they were in their thirties. They seems strong, healthy, they ran around and had fun, worked, went to parties. I never heard anything about them having anything other than a stomach bug or cold. Now they are on the rise, especially in women. Why? Have you wondered what is happening and why everyone seems to be sick? Out of all the women I know, I'd say a good 85% of them have at least one autoimmune disease. Food allergies. I don't remember those either. We had one child in my Kindergarten class who was allergic to peanuts, and we all though it was really weird. When it was my mother's turn to make snack for my class, she read the list of how many children we had, then saw a note about one of them having a peanut allergy. She had never heard of such a thing. Now it is so common, and not just with peanuts. Wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, animals protein, tomatoes...you name it, someone is allergic to it. And usually a person is allergic/intolerant to more than one food. Why? To give you some of my background, I was a vegan for about 10 years. Before that, I had horrible IBS, so bad my family doctor thought I had Crohn's Disease. They put me on a horrible medication that almost gave me a heat stroke. I took myself off the medication, and then my mother wondered what would happen if I cut all dairy prodects from my diet. I figured it would be worth a try. It was then that I realized that dairy, in some form, is in everything! I was able to finally cut it all out, and I felt better than I had felt in years. So I cut more, and eventually became a vegan. My stomach issues were better, but not totally gone. As I continued to struggle with occasional IBS flare-ups and acne (my acne actually worsened in my 20s), I researched and decided to give up soy. That seemed to help a great deal, and my skin started looking better too, but I was beginning to feel very restricted in my diet. During this time, my mother was also having stomach issues. She worked an office job, and she said if she hadn't been able to go the the bathroom several times a day, she would have had to quit her job. She later found out that she can't eat wheat or gluten. Once to found that out, I began experimenting with gluten free diets, but it was difficult to be gluten free and vegan and soy free. What happened while I was experimenting with gluten free was that I realized that I actually did feel better off it. It didn't seem to bother my stomach, but I noticed a reduction in headaches and other body pains. At times when I ate gluten, those pains would flare back up. My husband and I eventually decided to have a baby. I had been working out really hard with a program called p90x, and my body felt very taxed. I began eating fish, then meat again. I was mostly gluten free at this point, but I did have it occasionally. I also added eggs back in, but continued to avoid dairy and soy. I went on this way for five years. About a year and a half ago I fell down some steps and broke my ankle. It was not a bad break, but I was told to eat calcium rich foods. I had been experimenting some with goat dairy, and the small amounts I had had didn't seem to bother me, so I full into it, eating tons of goat cheese and eating cow yogurt, thinking I'd be ok. I had gotten my own chickens, so we were eating tons of eggs as well, and I was eating oatmeal. I had a total stomach blow-out, worse than I had had in year. I had cramps, I woke up with bad stomach aches, I had diarrhea throughout the day. Then I got a new job, a very stressful one, and my little dog died. I was stressed, having stomach issues, very sad and depressed, and I felt guilty because I chose to have my dog put down, and that was a decision I didn't want to have to make. It was keeping me up at night. I was crying, feeling so tired I couldn't move, just pulling myself through each day. I noticed at my new job that I just wasn't feeling good, not my normal not good, but different. I felt shakey, strangly hyper, like I could stand to sit at the desk, but exhausted at the same time. I was also hoping that people didn't notice how often I had to use the restroom. Then Spring came, and it was unusually hot. The building had a big glass front to it (where my desk was located), and no air conditioning. I felt like I was dying. Everyone else was hot, I was sick. I had to go open the door and just stand there trying to breathe. It was a temporary job, and I was glad when it was finally over. Soon after I was done there, I continued to notice the strange hyper/nervous feeling. It was very persistant. Then, I became unable to sleep. I couldn't lay still or rest. I eventually became aware of my heart palpitation. My heart felt like it was dancing and jumping in my chest, and pounding in my ears, even at rest. It hurt it was pounding so hard. I tried to ignore it, thinking I'm too young for heart problems, maybe it was just anxiety. But it just kept going on, never letting up. On a day when I was supposed to go out of town to play music at a festival, I woke up and felt awful. I took my pulse, and it was not good. I ended up in the ER. They did bloodwork (not the right bloodwork), chest xrays, and EKGs. Everything was pretty normal, except my pulse was way too high and my heart was skipping beats. They gave me a beta blocker and some anti-anxiety medication and told me I was having a panic attack. I didn't believe it. I eventually ended up seeing a cardiologist who decided to do a thyroid test. He found out I was hyperthyroid and had Graves Disease antibodies, as well as Hashimotos antibodies. I was shocked. I was always the kind of person who tried to eat plenty of vegetables, I hardly ever ate out, I cooked most of my own food, and I didn't eat much sugar. I had done several rounds of P90X when I was younger. I wondered why, why was this happening? Wasn't I too young? This all happened over my 36th birthday. The weird thing about my case was that, when I first found out, my numbers were very high. I cut out every food that I thought could be bothering me: Gluten, dairy, and eggs. I tried the medicine the doctor gave me, and I didn't like how it made me feel, so I quit and waited to see a specialist. I waited about a month to see the specialist, and by that time, my thyroid number had dropped by half. They were still high, but much better, and I wasn't taking any medicine. The specialist saw nothing good about it, and told me I must take the medication. So I did, for about two weeks, then I began have dizzy spells and feeling very faint. My doctor reluctantly did my bloodwork again (the medicine usually takes longer to work),and my number were then too low. She wanted to see me again, and said now that my numbers were low, I could wither radiate my thyroid and kill it, or have surgery to remove it. I asked about remission, staying with the medication if I needed to and just watch and wait. She reluctantly agreed to that path, but from researching, many doctos try that first. At this point, a very dear friend of mine told me he knew of a Naturopathic doctor, and he would help me get down to where he lived to see this doctor. But this had become a long post, so that will be my part two, for tomorrow night.

Winters in Kentucky can be so strange. My husband has been bugging me to clean up the coat rack, but I simply can't do it. One day we have 60 degree weather, the next we have 15 degree weather, then we have snow, then we get rain, etc. We needs sweaters, jackets, raincoats, and heavy coats, and I can't put any of them away since the weather changes on a weekly basis. Today we are back to frigid and snowy. We are supposed to get between 2 to 4 inches by tomorrow morning. It started snowing around 2:30 today and has been coming down steadily. It is 6:00 and getting dark, but I still have customers at my feeders. I had to refill my feeders half way through the day. The birds are cold and hungry. We've had tons of birds, more than usual, and they are hanging around the feeders. They are all puffed up to try to keep warm and eating lots of calories to stay warm through the night. I begin feeding the birds around October, when the weather begins to feel cooler. I put out sunflower seeds and suet. I noticed that the suet isn't real popular until the temperatures really drop. Now they are going through it like crazy. When the weather gets warm, around mid April, I stop feeding the suet and start my hummingbird feeders. I usually put seed out until May. Then I plant sunflowers and get to watch the beautiful finches hang off them eating seeds. How do you feed the birds? Do you do it all year, or just part of the year? I think I might try to add some more kinds of feed next year to draw in a bigger variety of birds. What kinds of feeders do you have? Here's a picture. I took this through a window. It is so cold and getting dark, so I'm in for the night.

The crafting bug has hit me. In keeping with my birding obsession, I decided to make some patterns for felt birds. This ended up taking more time than I thought it would, but it is a nice thing to do on a cold night. I purchased my felt at Michael's and was very happy to see it was made out of recycled plastic bottles. I bought all the different colors I thought I would need and took them home. After getting my son to bed, I sat up trying different shapes and styles, then ended up printing out my own bird photos and making patterns off of those. That actually worked out pretty good! The ones I just sketched out didn't turn out as good, so I trashed those in favor of the photo based birds. These aren't finished yet. The cardinal needs some more wing work, and I'm planning on sewing them up and adding a little stuffing. Finished pictures to follow soon. I'm going to trace my pieces onto paper and laminate them so I can make more. My son has claimed the first set. He loves birds and I will hang these around his room for him.

Walking is such a stress reliever for me. Sometimes I can actually feel the tension just melt away after I'm about 10 minutes into a good walk. I do like walking in the woods the best, but when I can't do it, I do find that even walking on the sidewalk by my busy road still helps. In my quest to live a healthier life, I find that I have to remember to walk. It has been snowy here, and I don't get to walk as much as I'd like right now, but as soon as the sidewalks look better I'm going to get back to it. I'm trying to walk about 2 to 2 1/2 miles a day. As I read about different illnesses, I keep finding the same piece of information: stress is making us all sick. Whatever is wrong with a person, stress only makes it worse, and from some recent articles I've read, walking is the best stress reducer out there. I think sometimes parents don't make any time for themselves. I know I didn't. But now I realize I have to do it. I have to make time to walk, to breathe, so just be. It doesn't really even add up to that much time out of the day, but it is my time, and it is crucial to staying healthy. It will keep us happier and healthier, and in turn our children will be happier and healthier. I wasn't feeling well a couple of nights ago. My son was trying to bring things to me to comfort me. Then he didn't want to be alone at bedtime and was acting very insecure. I think my illness traumatized him. My mom and my husband tried to take him out and do fun things with him, and I did what I could, but as much as we tried to make his life somewhat normal, he saw more than I thought he did, and as all kids do, he sucked it inside himself, it is a part of him now. We just need to hug each other a lot, reassure each other, and I need to take the best care of myself I can, for him and for me. My picture from today's Bird Therapy is a White-Breasted Nuthatch. I sometimes see these birds in my suet, but more often I see them in my sunflower seeds.

It is a cold, snowy day here. We haven't had much snow this year, so I made sure I made some time to freeze my butt off and get some bird pictures. Cold weather Bird Therapy is a wonderful thing, but I can only tolerate about 20 minutes of it, depending on how cold it is. Since this winter has been full of 40 to 60 degree days, I didn't tolerate 20 degrees very well. Any other winter this day would be downright warm. At least I was able to accomplish some bird therapy today. And it is so fitting. A Snowbird (Dark-Eyed Junco) in the snow.