Sledding

Playing in the snow.

Getting ready to go down the hill.

Isn't that a beautiful sky!

Stuck in the Snow

Yep, that is my car, stuck in a snowbank at the end of my road. 😒

We got about five inches of snow but the drifts were quite a bit higher, as you can see.  There is one spot at the end of our road where there is no windbreak and the snow blows across the road.  I drove right into it and the snow sucked me into the ditch.

I worked on getting myself out for about 15 minutes before my dear husband showed up in his truck with our six-year-old daughter all bundled up in her car seat.  We took turns digging and moving the car a couple feet while the other sat in the warm truck (it was about 12 degrees not including wind chill).  Eventually, we had it out enough that he was able to use the front bumper of his truck to push me the rest of the way out of the snow bank.  

I had been on my way to visit my home-bound lady before that but I called her up and asked if it was okay if I came the next day.  She said it was a sign that I should stay home, since I had developed a shingles rash overnight as well (click here for that blog post).  After working on my car for 45 minutes, I was finally able to turn it around and drive home.  I went inside, got back into my pajama pants, had lunch and then took a two hour nap!

Shingles and Medical History

This is my first shingles breakout since I was pregnant with my daughter over six years ago.  I have the stinging pain of the shingles down my left arm from this pinkie to my elbow and also a patch on the left side of my back.

A little background - Almost two years ago I was diagnosed with celiac disease and not too long after that I was diagnosed with lupus.  My life has been turned upside down since then.

Gluten-free has become a staple in our home and a constant question on my mind.  Eating out, which used to be one of my favorite things to do, is now perilous.  I hate having to ask the waitstaff or employee behind the counter whether they know if something contains gluten.  Most of the time they don't have a clue!  I also feel guilty that family and friends feel the need to adjust recipes and their eating habits because of me.

The lupus diagnosis didn't come too long after the celiac diagnosis.  Following some blood tests my doctor sent me to a specialist that determined that I had 10 of the 11 lupus symptoms. Although the doctor did say he couldn't be 100% sure of the diagnosis because the test for celiac and lupus are the same and so either disease would cause it to come back positive.

Being properly diagnosed did help me to know that most of the symptoms that I have had all of my life were not imaginary like many people made me feel.  The terrible, stabbing cramps in my intestines that had been diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome when I was in high school were actually likely from the celiac disease.  Every time I ate gluten my immune system was attacking my small intestine and destroying the lining making it difficult for my body to absorb the nutrients it needed.  Due to malnutrition I often had low vitamin D, vitamin B and iron deficiency anemia.  My nails are usually brittle and my hair is very thin.

The rest of my symptoms were explained by the lupus.  Muscle and joint pain, reoccurring mouth ulcers, a scaly rash on my hands, allergy to Sulfa, fatigue, flaring of my face with heat and redness across my cheeks and many other symptoms.

Both of these diseases are caused by the immune system attacking itself.  In celiac, the immune system attacks the lining of the small intestine.  In lupus, the immune system attacks the tissue, including the skin, joints and internal organs.  There are no cures for either of these diseases.  I can treat the symptoms to lessen the pain, using over-the-counter pain and anti-inflammatory medications, cold packs and hot showers.  Lowering my stress and anxiety can also help control symptoms and minimize flare-ups.

That gets me to today.  I believe this shingles outbreak (probably my seventh or eighth) is due to the excitement and anxiety of the holidays.  Even though it was a happy anxiety, it was still anxiety.  Stress and anxiety can do terrible things to the body.  During this break between Christmas and New Years, while my husband is home, I am trying to take it easy and rest so that this shingles outbreak will heal quickly rather than spread.  There was so much that I planned to do over the holiday but taking care of my physical health is most important.  My husband is wonderful and supportive and hopefully, I'll be feeling much better soon!

Christmas Eve Tradition

In my family the tradition for Christmas Eve is an Italian-American tradition called the Feast of Seven Fishes.  For as long as I can remember my family on my Mom's side has had an amazing seafood meal on the night before Christmas.  I never knew why, I only knew it was my most favorite meal of the entire year.  My first year of being married, my husband and I were in North Carolina and we weren't heading to Michigan to visit family until after Christmas.  I told my husband that I was going to miss the Christmas Eve Seafood meal that we called Notte di Natale (Night of Christmas in Italian).  My sweet husband called my Mom and asked her all about the tradition and the recipes and then fixed the entire seafood feast for me on Christmas Eve.

Since then, he has been making the feast of the seven fishes (usually more than seven) for twelve years.  We now have my family over to our house and my husband does all of the cooking.  He always starts with shrimp scampi, along with a crab dip with cream cheese and cocktail sauce, smoked oysters and shrimp cocktail.  There are always two types of fish, one breaded (for my Dad) and one baked. This year we had Tilapia and Cod. 

We also had spaghetti with clam sauce, sauteed scallops, green beans with mushrooms and tomatoes and cheddar biscuits. They were just like the ones at Red Lobster only gluten free. Aldi has the best gluten free mixes for these biscuits as well as pancakes, brownies, cornbread and many others.  

The most impressive and popular dish is the cioppino (seafood stew).  My husband makes it with muscles, clams, shrimp, ahi tuna and swordfish.  He likes to spice it up a little.  He uses Giada De Laurentiis' recipe from Food Network.

  The greatest feast of the year!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE!

Strengthening Faith

I teach 9 year old Sunday School at my Church.  We call it Primary.  This is one of the lessons I taught recently on how to nourish and strengthen faith.  Jesus often compared faith to a seed.  Using that metaphor I compared Prayer to the sun, reading Scriptures to watering and going to Church to fertilizer.  When we do these three basic things our faith will grow stronger.

Keeping Christ in Christmas

With the hustle and bustle of the holiday, sometimes it is easy to get swept up in the commercialism of Christmas. Christian families are often wondering how to keep Christ the focus of the season.  I love the lights, the music, the way people seem to be a little more generous and the traditions that surround Christmas.  I would never suggest that those things need to be eliminated, but they do need to take a backseat to the true meaning of Christmas, the celebration of Christ's birth.

Here are some ideas for keeping Christ in Christmas:

1) Make the nativity the focus of your decorations. We have the tree in the living room like most people. I have hung a few nativity and angel ornaments on the tree.  I also have numerous nativities in the dining room and in the kitchen. The nativities are placed in several locations at eye-level so that they are constantly a reminder of the reason for the celebration. (Click here to see my Nativity's post for pictures of many of my nativities.)

2) The advent calendar that counts down our days to Christmas is also a nativity.  There are several available.  I bought a Fisher Price Little People's Nativity Advent calendar for my daughter when she was four years old.  She loves to take one of the nativity characters out of the pouch each day and place it around the stable.

3) Our Church promotes a program called Light the World. Each day from December 1st to the 25th there is a teaching of Jesus Christ and a suggestion for a way to serve someone based on that teaching.  My daughter and I have completed all sorts of service activities including ringing the bell for Salvation Army, donating warm clothes to a shelter and taking food and treats to friends.

4) If you love Christmas movies as much as I do, watch the ones with a good message about there being more to Christmas than Santa and presents and then have family discussion about them afterward.  Here are some of my favorites:

• How the Grinch Stole Christmas (cartoon and Jim Carrey versions)
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Any of the versions of "A Christmas Carol" with my favorite being Mickey's Christmas Carol or the one with George C. Scott.  Believe it or not, my least favorite one is the Disney version with Jim Carrey.  

5) One of the best ways to keep Christ in Christmas is to read the story of the birth of Christ.  We read a part of the story almost every day in the month of December.  With small children it is much easier if you break it up into parts.  Below is an example of a reading schedule with links to the Scriptures:

• The prophecy of the birth of Christ in Isaiah 7:14-16; 9:6-7.
• The angel Gabriel comes to Mary in Luke 1:26-38.
• Mary goes to stay with her cousin Elisabeth (Mother of John the Baptist) in Luke 1:39-56.
• An Angel comes to Joseph to explain about Mary's pregnancy in Matthew 1:18-25.
• Joseph and Mary travel to Bethlehem and Jesus is born in Luke 2:1-7.
• Angels tell the Shepherds the Good News in Luke 2:8-20.
• The Wise Men visit the Christ Child in Matthew 2:1-14.

Nativity Collection

I have a decent Nativity collection.  These are most of them, but since we moved this Fall some of the boxes with my Nativities have not yet been unpacked, including the two my Mother brought back from Italy for me. This was one of my first Nativities and is one of those inexpensive ones where all of the characters are glued down in the stable.

This one was recovered from a hoarder's house. I thought it was beautiful and it has a music box.

My daughter picked this one out at a resale shop. It is metal and plastic so I often let her play with it.

We bought this one at Bronner's Christmas Store in Northern Michigan last year.

This is one of my daughter's favorites. Nativity window clings from the Dollar Tree!

This is our Little People Advent Calendar.  My daughter loves taking the characters out of their pouches every day and placing them in the scene around the stable.

This is another one from the hoarder's house.

My husband bought this one for me to replace the one our dog ate. My friend had bought me the small wooden nativity from Belize while on a mission trip. 😢

These figures were given to my daughter from a member of our Church.

Gingerbread Barn

We had a great time putting this gingerbread barn together.  My husband built the barn and decorated the tractor and silo.  My six-year-old daughter decorated all of the animals and helped decorate the roof of the barn.  I did the rest of the decorating of the barn.  It was a great family activity!

(We bought the gingerbread barn at Tractor Supply)

Homemade Potpourri

This is a really simple recipe for potpourri that you keep simmering on the stove.

I had some cutie oranges that had dried out and I didn't want to throw them away.  I cut them in half and threw them in a saucepan with just enough water to cover them.

I found some whole cloves, allspice and cinnamon sticks in the back of the spice cabinet and threw those in with the oranges.  About a half teaspoon of the allspice and cloves and a single cinnamon stick.  I brought the whole concoction to a boil and then put the burner on low to simmer.  Now my whole kitchen smells like spiced oranges!

Patchwork Decorations

This is a fun project to do with children of all ages. I have been cutting fleece blankets to tie so I had those corners left over that are cut out but you can use any scraps of fabric available.

I use thin cardboard. You can use cardstock or cereal boxes or any other type of cardboard you have on hand.

Since my daughter is 6 I applied the glue and then let her apply most of the strips of fabric. I use Elmer's Glue but any kind of glue that dries clear or white would work. You want to coat the entire piece of cardboard with glue a little at a time while applying the strips of fabric.

Place fabric on top of glue as closely together as you can so as not to make too many holes in your design.

Keep adding glue to the area as you go and adding more fabric strips.

Your finished product will look something like this. You can fill in the small holes with a little bit of glue and tiny bits of fabric if you like. Let the project dry overnight.

Use cookie-cutters or other shapes to trace around to get the shape that you want for your design. I used a star ornament off of our Christmas tree.

Trace around as many shapes as you can on the cardboard getting them closely together. Then cut the shapes out. You can make a little hole and hang them on the tree as ornaments or you can put some tape on the back and stick them to the wall like we did. Enjoy!

Kinka - Our First Farm Animal

Kinka is our new kitten.  She is about 6 months old.  She was the very last of two kittens born to my Aunt's 18 year old barn cat before she disappeared.  She has six toes on all four feet and a kinked tail that looks like a paperclip.  We love her!

There are many more animals to come.  We plan to get baby goats and chickens in the Spring.  We'll also start looking for horses in the Summer.  Then, who knows? There is talk of a calf and/or rabbit the following year.

Christmas Orange

We had our church Christmas party this morning. It was a Polar Express breakfast and we got to go in our pajamas. I was asked to tell the story of the Christmas Orange about an orphan boy and his special present.  I thought it was a good one to share, especially with young children.

"Jake was nine years old and for as long as he could remember he lived within the walls of an orphanage. He was one of ten children supported by what meager contributions the orphan home could obtain in donations from local townspeople. 

Throughout the year there was very little to eat, but at Christmas there always seemed to be a little bit more than usual. The orphanage seemed a bit warmer and there was time for holiday enjoyment. But most importantly there was the Christmas orange! 

Christmas was the only time of year that such a rare treat was provided and it was treasured by each child. They each enjoyed their very own orange and prized it as they slowly savored each juicy section. It was truly the light of their Christmas and the best gift of the season. Jake had been looking forward to his Christmas orange all year long! 

On Christmas Eve, Jake somehow managed to track a small amount of mud from his shoes onto the new carpet in the orphanage. He didn’t even notice it had happened. But it was too late and there was nothing he could do to avoid punishment. The punishment was swift and grim. Jake would not be allowed his Christmas orange! It was the only gift he would have received from the harsh world he lived in. Now, after a year of waiting, it would be denied him. 

Tearfully Jake pleaded that he be forgiven, but to no avail. He felt hopeless and totally rejected. Jake cried into his pillow all that night and spent Christmas Day feeling empty and alone. He felt that the other children didn’t want to be with a boy who had received such a cruel punishment. Perhaps they feared he would ruin their only day of happiness. Maybe, he reasoned, the gulf between him and his friends existed because they feared he would ask for a little of their oranges. Jake spent the day upstairs, alone, in the unheated dormitory. Huddled under his only blanket, he read about a family marooned on an island. Jake wouldn’t mind spending the rest of his life on an isolated island, if he could only have a real family that cared about him. 

Bedtime came but Jake couldn’t sleep. How could he say his prayers? How could there be a God in Heaven that would allow a little soul such as he, to suffer so much all by himself? Silently he sobbed as he prayed for the future of mankind, that God might end the suffering in the world, both for himself and all others like him. 

As Jake climbed back into bed from the cold, hard floor, a soft hand touched his shoulder, startling him momentarily. He was surprised when an object was silently placed in his hands. The giver disappeared into the darkness, leaving Jake with what, he did not immediately know! 

Looking closely at the object in his hand in the dim light, he saw what looked like an orange! Not a regular orange, smooth and shiny, but a very special orange. Inside a patched together peel were segments of nine other oranges. Together they made one whole orange for Jake! The nine other children in the orphanage had each donated one segment of their own precious orange to make a whole orange for Jake." - unknown author

This story is a wonderful example of sacrifice and love.  Merry Christmas and God Bless!

First Blog Post

We recently moved from the city to an 1880's farmhouse on 8 acres off of a two-lane dirt road.  My daughter turned 6 at the end of November and I have been homeschooling her since she was 4 years old.  With all of the craziness of homeschooling and country life I thought recording all of the antics in a blog would be a fun way to catalog our days.

With all of that said, here is blog #1 and a picture of our beloved farmhouse.