It's Tuesday. It's 10:18 am. I'm still in my pajamas. I may stay in them all day. It's one of those days. It's grey outside and we are supposed to get some rain today. I have been up and gotten some things done. Both children have been fed. Coffee has been made (and drunk). I've finished another granny square and that may be the extent of my day. Thankfully, our home is pretty much picked up and the kids are content to play on the computer. Connor did have me put his time in for reading on the Scholastic site. He's been devouring a new book that I got him last week. I hope he slows down so I'm not buying a book a week like I was with the Wimpy series. Aidan has been ruling supreme on Bejeweled Blitz. Although I just beat his score and he has vowed to take over the top spot again.
It's been an interesting week. Two weeks ago I went for some blood work (a lot of it). Thursday night around 5 pm, the doc's office calls and the nurse tells me that the Celiac test came back positive. I had antibodies in my blood and the doc said that I should adhere to a gluten free diet. That was pretty much all she said. No follow up appointments? No words to the wise? I was kind of shocked, but not really. I had a feeling that I had at least an intolerance because I couldn't seem to shake my crappy feeling. I started reading immediately and 9 out of 10 of the symptoms fit me to a T...all except the weight loss. Go figure. I had a quick little cry...really just a couple of tears at the loss of my fave foods and beer. I was happy to finally have a conclusive reason for my feeling the way I have.
Friday morning I geared up to go hit the book store to get a couple of cookbooks and a book about the disease. Right before I leave the house the phone rings. It's the doctor's office. I pick it up thinking that maybe they were going to schedule a follow up appointment. Nope. The nurse tells me this time that the doctor consulted a GI doctor and that I don't have Celiac. Huh? How can you misread a test like that? Apparently it's a common test that is misread all the time. So, now what? Do I sigh a sigh of relief that I can continue to live without any restrictions or do I pursue the gluten free diet? Right now I've decided to eliminate gluten. Not only for me, but for the whole family. I figure it will be better for Connor's diabetes. Also, I can't get the symptom list out of my head. I had every one of the symptoms. It made perfect sense. I went out and got some books and spent the weekend reading them.
Saturday was also my birthday. I'm inching closer and closer to 40. I'm ok with that though because I still feel like I'm in my 20's (minus the digestion issues). Tim was super sweet and printed off a list of gluten free products from Burt's Bees and hooked me up with a bunch of lotions and shampoos and stuff and he got me one of my favorite movies, Amelie. The biggest thing that I got though was my Ipod Touch. I was surprised. I'm such a gadget geek and Tim is the total opposite. He hates them. He is the best. I love it. The kids and I have been playing with it non stop. So, a nice weekend kind of took my mind off the gluten free nonsense.
Oh, and Sunday I was just finishing up cutting the grass and our neighbor Jeff brings over a bag of three trout that he just caught in Toby creek. He offered to them us. I know Tim had been wanting some fresh fish and I asked if they were ok to eat. Jeff said they were, so we took them.
The smallest of three...before gutting.
Connor loved identifying the guts as they came out.
Tim cleaned them up, with the kids watching his every move. They have been wanting to go fishing for a while and we might have to break down and actually do it soon. I remember going fishing once when I was Connor's age and I have one word for my experience. Boring. I was bored to tears...and hot. I didn't have fun. Now, I don't think I would mind it as much. Sitting still next to water in the quiet. I think I could handle that. I see a fishing license in our future. Tim grilled up the fish Sunday afternoon. I wasn't planning on having any because it kind of grossed me out but I caved and had a bite. It was good. It was really good. Both boys ate it too. I was surprised that Aidan ate it. Mr. Picky. I will say though that he is starting to slowly branch out and try new things. We just had to stop bugging him all the time.
The garden is doing great. We've been picking zukes and summer squash like crazy. Both of which are tasty grilled. The tomato plants are officially taller than I am. The tomatoes are huge but don't seem to be turning color yet. Tim and I starting to lay down bets as to how big they will get. I've seen a couple of cucumbers starting to get bigger. Peppers, oh man, we are going to be drowning in peppers. I let Jeff pick a bunch as a trade for the fish. They are getting big and I'm going to be making some salsa soon.
I dragged the kids away from their water gun battle to stand in front of the tomato plants so you could see the difference in size. I'm 5'10" and a couple of them are over my head.
Perfection!
Patience will pay off.
What else? Oh, I got an email today saying that Connor's textbooks will be here tomorrow. I'm just now starting to unwind from last year and now we are looking at next years work. Do I start early? Do I let it go until Sept and enjoy the summer? I know that I'm going to take off the rest of July. I might start him up in August so that we can get some lessons done and work ahead a little bit so that we have some "give" time next year. We'll have a week off in August for our trip to Florida, but we could still get three weeks of assorted lessons done. I guess I'll have to wait and see what shows up tomorrow.
27 days until we leave for Florida. We are all getting excited. I'm looking forward to a week of laying in the pool and going to the beach and seeing my family. We usually drive straight through but this time we are stopping mid-way to take a break. I already have reservations so it will be nice to have a destination to shoot for. I had to make sure that the motels we are staying in will let us have Patchy. We are taking Patchy with us. I don't think my dad knows that we are bringing him yet. My mom is keeping it a secret. Patchy is the worlds' best dog though. 100 percent house trained. Quiet. Cute and fluffy. What more could you ask for...plus Patchy loves and I mean LOVES riding in the car. It will make packing the trunk a challenge though. His crate takes up 80 percent of the trunk space. We'll pack the crate full and then wedge everything else around that. The only thing I'm kind of freaking out about is the food issue. No more running through a fast food on the fly. It should prove interesting in making sure I have breakfasts, lunches and dinners packed for us to eat. I've already started my list making and research.
I think that is the extent of my news for now. It's inching close to 11 o'clock now and I should get up and do one more productive thing before I call it a day and play with some more crochet...or read a book....or play scrabble on my itouch. I hope everyone is having a great week!
