Dear Friend,Close to 4 years ago our friendship started with a desperate message from you for some help, some guidance, some information, something that would tell you all would be OK with your little girl. You know now that I get those messages a lot. But something in yours was different. You reminded me so much of, well, me. I picked up the phone and we began our friendship.Through the years I have given you lots of advice for helping your little girl. And in return, you have become a source of information for me as I began uncharted waters with certain treatments. Some days I am sure I offered too much information and you thought, clearly, I must be crazy but most things I have been pretty on target with.So I hope you will trust my advice now.I know you are scared and I know how you feel. And I know that there are very few people who can truly say that they understand your world. I do. I lived it and continue to. You are SO much like me when I was in your stage.So now I have some advice for YOU. Not for your daughter. This is just for you. So listen up because I wish someone had told me this years ago.In the 3 years of your daughters life you have gained ...
Dougco Voucher Disaster
I'm mad. Hopefully, you will be mad too when you are done with this. Because it is about 500 kids getting caught in a political machine.Over the past 6 months I've been watching the controversy going on over school vouchers in the Douglas County School District here in Colorado. To give you a quick and dirty back story-Dougco, as it is locally referred to, was the first school district in Colorado to approve a voucher system that allows families to take some of the dollars earmarked for their child's public school education and divert it to a school of their choice. The amount boiled down to $4,500 of the roughly $6,000 alotted to each child in Dougco. The parent could take that 'scholarship' and use it to pay for tuition at many area private schools that were approved by the district. The remaining 25% would go towards running the program and potentially offset any school classrooms that had a mass exodus due to the program.500 families were funded for this program. Roughly 575 applied. Out of 60,000 students in Dougco! That tells me a heck of a lot of parents are happy with their kids in Dougco schools. Awesome to see that they are doing such a great job that 59,475 ...
Life’s Little Blessings
To be honest I don't know what I want to write about. I just feel like writing.My world is shifting. In a good way. But I don't really have my footing yet so I am not sure what it will look like when my feet reach the ground.I have found that eating gluten-free is really good for me. It's been about 3 weeks now and I can feel the difference. This past week I went with some friends to meet Robyn O'Brien for lunch. We talked about the rise in food allergies and the link to the unhealthy changes in our food supply. It was eye opening. I find I can't put her book, The Unhealthy Truth, down. I don't want to look but it is a train wreck I can't look away from. As Robyn says, once you learn this stuff, you can't unlearn it.Wednesday Bob and I saw the doctor. It was nice to get a path of treatment and a name for this yucky-ness happening in my body. For many, lupus conjurers up lots of scary things. I think of it as a gift. One that is going to force me to pay better attention to my body, mind and spirit. All things I am not so good at doing. I guess the universe found a way to make me listen up. It does that.Oh what else to say?I had a lovely night at the Brown Palace ...
The F Word
Right now I would love to hear a doctor say that word.F. Fibromyalgia.As strange as that sounds, I am at a point where Fibro would be such a blessing to hear.I was fairly certain going into all this that I would hear the doctor say the F word and I found myself struggling with it. Mostly because fibro is what they say when your body constantly feels like a truck ran you over or someone randomly lights your limbs on fire. But they cant REALLY find anything to explain it. It feels sort of fake. Like its a word used to pat you on the head and send you out the door. Cause there isn't really a definitive test for fibro like there would be for so many other conditions. And I know that is part of the problem with diagnosing conditions like this.Don't get me wrong, I do understand that fibro is a very real thing and those living with it for years have faced such unfair stigmatizisms. And I do understand that I have all the tell tale signs and symptoms. Google diagnosed me long before the doctor did. I do understand that how I feel is summed up by the word fibromyalgia. And so I went in ready to hear the F world.But it didn't happen like that.The doctor saw something ...
My Children Don’t Deserve Forks
Last week I was having lunch with Emily, Susan and Karin. The subject got around to the new IKEA opening in Centennial soon. If you live in the Denver area, you know this is quite the talked about event. I casually mentioned I was so excited because now my family will finally be able to have new forks.I got 3 very strange looks. I had to explain that my children don't deserve forks and so I was waiting for IKEA to open to buy a cheap, new set. I have been waiting about 6 months.I guess that sounds a bit odd when you hear it out loud.Forks around here are that straw that broke mamas back.We never have forks when it is time to set the table! Why is this? They can't all be in the dishwasher right? Well, yes, when you only have 4 forks apparently they can all be in the dishwasher at the same time.We didn't start out with 4 forks. I swear at one point we had 3 full sets.So where in the H E Double Hockey Sticks did 20 forks go? I honestly have no idea! Do you? Apparently the boys don't either. If I had to guess I would say they have been thrown away during clearing the table laziness.In a missing-fork-induced mom rage while yielding one of the 4 fork ...