Drostra Week

We've had a string of bad days lately and I am just so over it! So many annoying things have happened--little things, but they add up.

I tried to buy Panera for my kids only to find out everything has egg in it. Even the Mac and cheese has egg white powder added as a thickener. Mac and cheese does not need eggs in it! What is this nonsense? We did the drive through and they forgot one whole sandwich I ordered and I had to drive all the way back for a refund. Which took away the ease and rest I was trying to attain by using the drive through. 

I know, you are thinking: why didn't I check the bag? Esther was crying and Becky was asking me when we would be home and she was so upset that she couldn't have anything and I felt like such a useless mom because I was sure she could at least have the mac and cheese... and it was just chaos and I didn't think to check! The manager was rude to me on the phone when I called until she found my sandwich sitting waiting to be packaged--I guess she thought I was making it up for a refund. I clearly wasn't. 

Our hot water doesn't work sometimes. This is an issue with our solar panels and I don't want to get into it because there is nothing I can do about it. I do not like the solar panels most of the time. But I need hot water especially with sick kids that need herb baths, not to mention laundry and dishes...I'm sure my husband will fix it...eventually.

The next day we went to our chiropractor appointment only to find that we didn't have a chiro appointment. It is unclear if it was my mistake or hers. Scheduling issues happen I totally understand but on top of everything it just added to my overwhelm. 

Esther has finally caught the illness the kids passed around and she is very sick! I love her, and I have been trying to take care of her but clingy babies make for zero productivity which makes me depressed. This is not her fault. It is clearly a personal problem with myself. 

We have had one day of school in the last week and a half. The big kids are all coughing like crazy and I am running on very interrupted sleep due to sick Esther. Brian is also sick and I don't know why, but this is beyond my limit of problem juggling. All my balls are going to be dropped and I can't figure out why my brain is screaming at me and I feel like a failure.

Adulthood sure is fun sometimes. 

I know that not everything rests on me and I shouldn't try to hold up the world. It's okay to go slower when things are hard and this is a very hard season! So things are going to be rocky for awhile until we find our new medium. 

But sometimes it is difficult to see where to start.

I think I'll start with a chai latte and more Pepa Pig for the sick Esther...and heading to the homeopathy store to get some more remedies for coughs, colds, and stressed-out moms. 

I bought Drostra 30 and 200 and Rumex crispus.

Tuesday

Once again I'm sitting here listening to my children play, but instead of joy today I feel sad. Not for my children, nor for the weather--it's a gorgeous 60f outdoors right now--but for myself. I'm so tired of being chronically ill and fighting my body through the long homeschool days. We did a bit of homeschooling today and then I sat down and tried to see what I could do about some of my persistent symptoms. I always feel better with a plan.

For my chronic IBS-C I have decided to go down to two meals a day, and make sure one is blended. I'll eat a big lunch--I plan to have a salad daily with a carb side. Today it was potato salad. I love potato salad, and I also had a chickpea and chicken salad with delicious Greek dressing on it. Then for dinner I'll have something blended. Today it was a smoothie. Maybe this will get things moving and help me be less constipated. 

I also decided to take some aloe daily. I have George's Always Active Aloe and it didn't help me before but that doesn't mean I can't try it again. I'm going to take it around 3pm so it has a good long time to help my gut before my liquid dinner, and I'm going to start with 1/4 a cup daily. For dinners I could do a smoothie but I am thinking of doing blended bone broth soups. I could make sweet potato soup. I love soup, so this will be good, and good for my body hopefully. But also hard, because I will be making 2 separate meals some times. This way I can freeze the soup for me, and I can batch cook it on the weekends, but I'll have to make something for everyone else. Today I made Becky a bean and rice bowl and Reuben, Daddy (well, he isn't home yet but his food is done) and Esther had leftovers that included chicken (so Becky couldn't eat it). Our allergies are strange but here we are...

But, I know I've got to do something because living like this isn't sustainable. I just feel so downtrodden today. Will anything ever get better? What is wrong with me? Why can't I heal? What am I missing? Will these changes even help me or just torture me with food discipline... I wonder, and I pray. 

God healed me for one month in April and it was wonderful. Why could I heal then and now now? What am I doing wrong? I want to be well and have energy to enjoy a full life with my children. They are so fun and amazing and I wish I could take the hours I spend working on my health or lying in bed recuperating/resting and instead spend it with them. God is so good and I do what I can but one can always dream of more, right? I don't want it to be just dreams or wishful thinking. I want it to be reality, but I can't make it happen any more than I can make the moon rise.

But God can, and he is a God of beautiful miracles and if he wants me to live like this, I guess I will continue cobbling along and dreaming of the stars.  

I read Psalm 146 today. I'm almost through my read-through of psalms. Even though I've skipped some and also the entirety of that huge long psalm (I think it's 119)...I'll save those for another day. What book should I read next?

I love how when Esther gets "hurt" Becky makes a ambulance noise (neee-naaaah nee-nahhh) and pretends to doctor her all up. She just got knocked over on the trampoline (she's fine or she'd come get me) but she needed a big sister to patch her up for 20 seconds and now she's jumping in glee again. 

It's wonderful to watch her be 3.

Anyway, after all the sick yesterday Reuben noticed he'd lost his shoes. The ones I gave him. I was venting about it to three ladies at my church in a group chat because...those are my shoes. Yes, I gave them to him but also I wanted them back when he outgrew them and they were $200 leather barefoot shoes and now they are lost. One of the ladies said she thought they were at church and she would bring them to me after ladies bible study if so....isn't God's providence good? I was just mad but maybe his shoes are only at church. It's funny how things work out...

Do most 11 year old boys lose their shoes or is it just mine? 

Do most 11 year old boys wear their mothers shoe size? 

Reuben is going to be very tall, I think.

He started reading Black Beauty today, and though I know I read that book somewhere in elementary school I cannot remember a single thing about it. He says he knows it will be good because Charlotte told him it would be. 

Here is the only picture I've taken today--Esther this morning with her cowlick walking her pet yo-yo around the counter. 

I feel a little bit better. I think after I switch the laundry and remind Reuben to clean up his cookie-cooking mess, I'll play Stawdew Valley and hope my husband comes home soon...

Monday

There is nothing more beautiful than the happy noises of children playing outside, and no one can convince me otherwise. 

We have all been sick to varying degrees--Reuben the worst--and here we are on a Monday with the sun shining and everyone almost better. I'm not sure what we had--some type of sore throat/sinus problems but it also rained all weekend and with everyone sick it was a very cozy sort of hiatus.

God has been so good recently and I see him everywhere. Which also makes me feel like I'm going to die soon because how can I be this chronically ill but also full of so much peace? I'm not ready to go home to heaven yet, I want transformative healing to wash away all my inner complications... I want to see myself get better. I don't want this to be the end of my story.

Instead I keep getting worse and worse and wondering what I am doing wrong. It's been 14 years and I still have brain fog, chronic constipation, fatigue, bloating issues, stomach pain and gas, type two diabetes, blood clotting issues, 8 miscarriages, eye and teeth problems (and thats just a list of issues I had last week) and not only am I sicker than ever we are also broker than ever (thanks inflation) and busier than ever... home schooling with a toddler while I have anaphylactic alpha gal is not for the faint of heart. 

Yet I've let go of my anger, and of my expectations through the last 14 years. I can't go out at night, I can't have many friends, I can't do many things, at least not as many as I want too. Sometimes I put myself to bed at 11am and sometimes I have energy to wash the dinner dishes but not usually. I pray for healing and I try to do all I can: organic food, gluten free, holistic natural medicine. I exercise regularly. Right now I'm taking some probiotics to see if it will help...so far it has made everything worse! Ugh! 

I feel like I'm missing something but I can't see inside myself to see what I need. I don't know what to do! I have another doctor's appointment at the end of the month and I hope it can help. 

I don't know how I get through the day and I mostly try not to think about it and just do what I can and prioritize my family.

Anyway, today we had a reset day. Reuben had an orthodontist appointment and got his second set of Invisalign. He's halfway done! No one is more thrilled than he is. We did devotions and I made toast for breakfast. We read Magical Melons--which is the Caddie Woodlawn sequel--it isn't as good as the first one but we are enjoying it. I did a few chores and Reuben and Becky both had an herb bath, Becky upstairs in the girls bathroom and Reuben downstairs. I put lots of respiratory herbs in and I think it worked wonders (thank you Lord!) because they both are looking and acting much more normally except for the coughs...

We had a delicious lunch. I had salad with chicken and chickpeas and the kids had Mac and cheese, leftover pot roast, and peas. Esther in true toddler fashion ate only her cheesy noodles. 

After lunch we had rest time and everyone played Stardew Valley. I'm in fall of year 1 and Becky is in summer of year 1 and Reuben is in winter of year 1.

Becky doesn't plant anything and mostly mines to get money. Her commercial ideas certainly are interesting. 

It's dinner time now and I made fish and roasted veggies which is delicious. I'm going to eat and finish this blog post and then there is another round of cleaning and hopefully some knitting and crochet in my future. Also I finally got a picture of Esther in her new hat! I need to get a group photo. I wonder if I ever will?

We plan to homeschool tomorrow and finish out the week strong. That's always the plan and sometimes God has different ideas...and I just have to go with the flow. Like, for example when everyone was sick and I had an awful alpha gal attack and I don't even know what I ate! I told my husband we need to live in separate houses for my health. He laughed, but I wasn't joking. I wish I could figure out how to keep myself safe from the deadly alpha gal and also feed my family nutritious meals...instead one of us seems to suffer.