Thursday, June 27, 2013

An iPad

Davin purchased my anniversary gift early since I was quitting Target and he wanted to use my employee discount.  My iPad mini was a big surprise!  I am loving it and it has been helpful for taking notes at the homeschool conference, tracking my calories and exercise, a camera on the go, and keeping up with friends.  Technology is so fun!  I'm starting to feel like I can't go anywhere without it though so I might be getting a little too attached.  I can blog from it, too, so maybe I'll keep up with that a bit better.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Melissa's Naturopath Visit

I recently decided to go to the naturopath as well.  I've been super tired for... well, about as long as I can remember... at least since Kaylynn was born.  I'm tired of being tired and I feel like I keep having excuses - having a baby, working nights, etc.  Still I've wondered if there was something else going on since when I do get extra sleep I'm still usually exhausted.  The naturopath concluded that I have hypothyroid leading to adrenal fatigue.  I'm taking a natural thyroid supplement and so far I don't notice a huge difference, but it can take awhile.  I'm hopeful that some day I'll wake up in the morning totally refreshed.

In addition to the thyroid we also discovered that I have an intolerance to corn, fruit, and the combination of grains and sugar.  Ugh!  I've been working hard to keep all soy, egg, and fruit/sugar combo out of Kaylynn's diet, and it's hard!  Soy is in almost everything in a package.  Now I'm also trying to avoid my intolerances so we often eat a few different things at each meal because it's hard to find a balanced meal with no soy, egg, fruit, grain/sugar, or corn.  I've been a label reading fanatic and even asked for all the packages at the church lunch yesterday to verify what Kaylynn and I could eat.  She could have certain chips and the hot dogs were okay as long as she didn't eat any fruit.  I however was left with a hamburger patty on lettuce and water.  Everything else had some form of corn in it (corn starch or corn syrup mostly).  At least this should help me lose weight!

I want to give it a good try for a solid month avoiding my intolerances.  Then I want to eat a bunch of fruit one day (my goal is July 4th) and go clean again after that to see how that one day of fruit affects me.  The naturopath encouraged me to challenge the intolerance so I would know.  My hope is I won't feel that bad, and I can decide to just keep eating it.  We'll see.  It's a grand experiment!

Last week I lost two pounds with daily exercise (got to get in at 6:30 in the morning, though) and counting calories.  I also recently quit Target so that should help my energy, too, though we'll miss the income. I'm excited to have the evenings free, and we think that with extra income we wouldn't qualify for the kid's state medical insurance which is a huge money saver for us.

Camtown Youth Festival




 I like to take advantage of our free Saturdays, especially when the weather is nice.  I looked up some local calendars for ideas and came across the Camtown Youth Festival.  It was close, free, and geared toward kids.  We decided to check it out and I'm so glad we did!  It was a lot of fun and didn't cost us a thing.  They had bounce houses, inflatable obstacle courses, vendors with free giveaways, crafts, face painting, petting zoo, a flea market, and of course the regular park playgrounds.  The kids loved it and it was a great family day!  I'll be putting this on the calendar again for next year.