Saturday, August 15, 2020

Quarantine



I havent written about quarantine because, well, we're all just doing the best we can and our life situations vary greatly. Instead of addressing quarantine, i wanted to talk about what we did during our quarantine, because we used that time as all silver linings and ive been living my best homestead life.

We rested. We spent quality time as a family. We found small joys and little adventures. There is a lot about quarantine that is stressful and disheartening, but we focus on the good as much as we can.

We painted our house!




When we bought our house, it had just been painted. I hated it, but wasn't going to waste a fresh paint job. 8 years later, it is finally the sunshiny yellow I'd been dreaming of!



We hatched butterflies with a kit from Insect Lore!





We danced in the rain!







We did a lot of gardening!














We were really fortunate for several reasons. The first was that financially we were okay for the short time we needed to be, even though my unemployment took a month to kick in. The second is that we have a large property- i have never beem so grateful for that as i was when the world stood still and there was nowhere else to go. The third is that we're a family and we had each other (and fluffy members too!). The fourth is that our jobs were secure and waiting for us when the world started moving on- even if those jobs are in person. Not everyone had even one of those lucky things, and quarantine took a huge toll on the stress and mental wellbeing of all.

Chicory Root Coffee



I have a confession; weve totally ignored the curb area in front of our fence this summer, and the weeds took full advantage. I chose to silver lining this situation and pull a big pile of chicory and make chicory coffee, cuz why not. Its an anti-inflammatory digestive aid that can offset the jitters when mixed with regular coffee, but also it was just a project for a day.

I pulled the whole plant


Cut the roots and powerwashed them with the hose. Then dried them off.

 Cut thrm, roasted them, and ground them up

I had a lot of trouble with the grinding, trying 2 food processors and a hand grinder. Rhe processors got stuck and got hot a lot. Ultimately, my advice is tiny pieces and the hand grinder. The food processors got a fine grind, my hand grinder more of a coarse grind (though it is adjustable), and since i was using a french press that was totally fine. In the picture you can see big pieces in a bowl- im going to whack them with a hammer later. I still ended up with 1/2-3/4c of ground chicory coffee. So i put 2Tbs in mini french press.



My little sister recommended using the grounds twice, and it was totally fine to do so!

Its a little smoky, a little malty, a little earthy, and wpuld definitely blend beautifully mixed with legit coffee.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Symptom Management- an update on life

 When I first started blogging about food, it was with a very specific purpose- i was cataloging a brand new battle with really painful life altering symptoms. 

At 18 i battled crippling gastro-intestinal distress that wouldn't be identified as a food allergy until i was 21. Constant bouts of hives left me baffled. I underwent invasive tests and scans that involved unpalatable barium shakes with no answers. And when the pain would fade i would live my life like nothing had ever happened. I also got that wasp sting that pushed my immune system into dangerous allergy territory. I'm a clumsy individual and was constantly getting injuries that involved high dose waves of nsaids and steroids. About once every 2 years I'd contract some infection needing antibiotics. In short, i completely destroyed the balance of bacteria and protective coatings in my digestive system, i was on a roller coaster of suppressing my immune system and attacking my digestive system for years. I get hives from sitting near heaters or too close to a sunny window. I spent an entire summer with full body hives from air conditioning- cold urticaria- allergy to being cold. That was the year it became too much. I went on an allergy elimination diet. I went on a modified Gut & Psychology diet of anti-inflammatory eating. It worked. All of my symptoms went away...and then i had a baby, and that baby got pink eye, which meant i got pink eye, and antibiotics...they do their job really well and with purpose, but they aren't necessarily good for your health. After a few months of battling new symptoms, i took a rough fall down some stairs and got a concussion. My body just stopped fighting. The next few years felt like a battle for survival. In moments of desperation i took tests, i saw allergists, i had too much blood tested and fainted, and eventually I got a loose diagnosis: "Unidentified Autoimmune Disorder". 

Unidentified autoimmune is basically a short way of saying "we know you're body is attacking itself, but we can't figure out why". We can see the rashes, we have names for them like dermatographia, dyshidrotic eczema, urticaria. We see your white blood cell count showing your body fighting. It's a guessing game. We can keep testing- which is expensive- or you can symptom manage. Friends, i symptom managed really poorly for several years, and i'm fortunate that my mental health was pretty good to begin with, because having such a drastic reduction in quality of life- especially as a wife and new mom- was depressing. I tried GAPS again, but it didn't work this go round. I was on 4-5 high dose antihistamines a day. Finally, i turned to even less accurate testing- intolerance and sensitivity tests. 

Allergy tests aren't super accurate, they get false positives, false negatives, and sometimes just flag something that's a big part of your diet but not actually harmful. The most accurate tests are the skin prick tests- my autoimmune disorder attacks my skin and dermatographia means my skin reacts to pretty much any stimuli so it's not a great option for me. The next most accurate are blood tests for IgG response, but mine involved a separate vial for each allergen- a lot of blood and a lot of money- and the items they chose weren't the answer. Intolerance tests are IgE tests and even less accurate. I've tested blood, saliva, and hair. I've been poked, prodded, and scanned. I've had the gene mapping for allergies. After 2 years of a really miserable losing battle with my autoimmune disorder, i took a test that flagged yeast. Cutting yeast out of my diet was a game changer. It gave my life back. It didn't give me all good days, but it gave me frequent good days. I was able to lower my symptom management meds- but not eliminate them. Recently i went back on an autoimmune protocol diet, i did another intolerance test that flagged some things to avoid that i already knew my reactions to. 

For someone like me, at a deadend in testing, trying to avoid immunosuppressants, intolerance tests are an excellent guide. Not only am i game to try just about anything, but i'm getting pretty in tune with how my body reacts to things and having something to help me pinpoint the cause is helpful. When my most recent test flagged cobalt, it wasn't surprising because my sister is also allergic to cobalt, and the dyshidrotic eczema on my fingers can be affected by cobalt. I have multiple references to draw conjecture from. I don't recommend them to people who aren't in my shoes, but if you are, i recommending starting with clean eating and going from there. 

My blogs have a lot of gaps- gaps from when i was healthy and didn't feel the need to catalog, gaps from when i was too sick to even get out of bed. The hardest part is looking "healthy" and "normal" when you feel like crap all the time. Another hard part is being given the name "unidentified autoimmune" that makes it sounds like it's made-up. People who don't have an autoimmune disorder dont understand, often don't believe you, and often roll their eyes. My husband lives with me, he sees the rashes and the struggle and the drop in my quality of life. He's seen my body attack itself and on good days he still forgets that it never really goes away, is never truly "fixed". He knows better than most and he can forget, so how can i hold it against the people who have absolutely no idea what it's like. Having an autoimmune disorder taught me to communicate how im feeling and when i need help. It taught me how to be truthful with myself about what is worth tolerating, and what i'm willing to do for a life worth with living. It taught me to be more sympathetic to the unseen struggles of others. 

At the time of writing this, today is not a good day- there's some kind of pollen in the air, i'm on 5 antihistamines that aren't doing their job. My skin is covered in welts and bumps and itches so much. My eyes and nose are rebelling. It's also my birthday- because autoimmune disorders don't care if it's your birthday. Tackling yeast and diet have gone a long way towards treating the chronic fatigue that decimated my quality of life, so today is not a good day- but it's not a bad day either. I still have many small comforts and joys and a cheerful attitude about it, but today is a reminder that i don't get to stop fighting, and i hope if someone reads this blog because of my old blogs that they know they aren't alone- there are people out there who really do get it, and sometimes we make progress. 


Next week i'll go back to blogging my homesteady healthy happy life, but today is an update- on how far i've come and how it can also still suck sometimes. 

Thursday, July 23, 2020

An Eco-Easter

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, flowers are blooming, what better time to think about our planet and doing our part to take care of our world. Holi, Ostara, May Day, Easter, there's dozens of cultural holidays celebrating Springtime. We celebrate ours on the Spring Equinox with a colorful party and many traditions, and over the years, i've learned to make most of them environmentally conscious.

*All the hyperlinks in the text link to a site you can purchase the item from. I do purchase many things from Amazon and understand that some people do not support that site for very good reasons. I've tried to link directly to product sites where i can, and diy tutorials where applicable.




Spring Colors
The tradition of throwing natural material Rangoli powders to celebrate springtime is a Hindu one. It's been adopted into color runs, gender reveals, and more. We don't make our own, because they are popular enough to order, but if you want to cut out the shipping and packaging, there are many recipes online to make your own. Made from materials like rice or corn starch, or sometimes chalk, they wash away in the rain and are really fun to play with. We also bought spring loaded color cannons, but ours did have a small charge to them so purchase at your discretion. You can definitely buy biodegradable confetti cannons!





We reuse the containers year after year




*I haven't made panoramic sugar eggs in many years, but dying rangoli powder is done in a very similar fashion to coloring granulated sugar.

Confetti Eggs

The tradition of smashing Cascarones comes from Mexico and is traditionally part of Carnivale (Mardi Gras). We like to smash them both for Easter and for Halloween. Sometimes I order these already filled with paper confetti, but i've also made them and you can find the tutorial for that here.

Easter Baskets


Baskets filled with candy seem to be a mashup of many cultures, but have largely evolved as a commercial tradition celebrated for Christian Easter. While the baskets themselves are often used year after year, they're usually filled with plastic grass. Offerings have evolved to include paper grass and edible grass, but a few years ago, I started using real grass. This does require being on the ball enough to plant it at least a week in advance, but i'm going 3 years strong and think it's totally worth it. It's difficult to keep the candy eco-friendly without making it yourself, but we do include books on nature and kindness: For young toddlers, "If You Plant A Seed" and "Bee" are really great. For small children, we've done "Seeds & Trees", "The Story of the Easter Bunny", and "The Hugging Tree". Books on eggs are also fantastic. "The Broody Hen", "The Easter Surprise", and books about the art of Pysanky are all really fun. If religion is a part of your celebration, there are lots of great stories on The Resurrection and Passover. Gardens- both real and pretend- are favorite gifts in house as well as egg shaped sidewalk chalk!

Egg Hunts
Egg hunts are fun but the plastic eggs are not very friendly. This year i purchased both wooden eggs, and eco-eggs. Eco eggs look like regular plastic, but are made from 100% recyclable content, and (at least some of them) are marked fully compostable. These can be used year after year like regular plastic eggs, but if one gets lost in the yard or stepped, it's carbon footprint is a lot lower.


Dying Eggs
In recent years i've been using natural egg dyes. The colors are earthier and take longer, but i especially love dying brown eggs. This year, i bought wooden eggs that can be treasured as a keepsake. I've used the eco-eggs kit, natural earth, and color kitchen. Color kitchen is my favorite, but they all use similar colors, and eco-eggs comes with a grass growing kit as well.
Earthy egg tones

Check out this Wondersmith Tutorial for dying eggs with botanical prints and homemade dyes!

Games
This year, i purchased a variety of outdoor games including a wooden egg race, burlap sack race, Bubbles, and an old fashioned egg spinner.






Lavender Lemonade
There are lots of recipes for lavender lemonade and all of them should yield a pink aromatic treat. I liked to boil about 1/4cup-1/2cup of lavender flowers in 2cup of Water with 1/2cup of sugar or honey and then let it sit overnight (though 30min to an hour will do). I strain out the flowers, pour the liquid into a pitcher, add the juice of 3-4 lemons and top with ice and more water to the top. For an adult treat, I like to spike mine with Penn Square Lavender Vodka from Thistle Finch, a local distillery here in central Pennsylvania.

Free Up Your Spice Cabinet

Time for another review of eco-alternatives I LOVE: Gneiss Spice!

Gneiss Spice is organic, refillable, uses eco friendly packaging AND is super cute to boot with hexagon jars. 





It's an investment, and my collection has been built over a few years, but almost all of my spices are on my fridge instead of taking up space in the cabinets! You can buy it already in the jar with the label stamped into the lid, or you can buy jars and labels and spices separately, and purchase your refills in compostable packaging!


I use my fridge (which is not uniformly magnetic btw), but they also sell wall plates. Some people do under-cabinet mounts using knife plates!

Im thinking about switching all my loose leaf teas to this system as well 😉
There's no kickbacks for sharing my favorite "good things" with you, but when i find an eco-alternative that i just *love*, i want you to know about it too!

Full disclosure: i often buy my hexagon jars from other online retailers like this one. Honey suppliers are also a great source. Ive even found them cheap on poshmark! Ive found the little ones are 1.5oz. the large are 4oz, and the tall are 6oz. I buy my niodymium magnets on Amazon. I also sometimes use tack magnets to keep jars from sliding on my unevenly magnetic fridge. I usually end up paying ~$3/jar with magnet instead of $6. Sometimes i get them even cheaper! Because i have purchased jars from Gneiss in the past, i have labels, but you can purchase labels on their site without the jars, or if you have a label maker, that works too.

Update: i *did* switch my teas. I often buy my jars cheaper from other sellers, and these 6oz hexagon jars were taller and thinner my regular ones, but still great for tea 😁

I used some of my little ones for single serving teas from my sipsby tea subscription (one of the few subscriptions ive kept for years!) This particular set of jars came with jute cord and cardboard tags, which i love because my teas change frequently!

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Travel: The Dominican Republic


 Punta Cana





My parents own a travel agency, and I've spent my life seeing the world. When asked where my favorite place to go is, my answer is and will always be "somewhere new." Needless to say, there's a whole lot of "somewhere new" out there waiting for me to discover. One of my favorite places to go is any all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana. There is something undiscovered about the Dominican Republic, and our experiences there are always fantastic. 

Mostly, we visit the D.R. to lay on a beach with a book and a drink, do a little swimming, and just enjoy some much needed R&R. One special thing I love to do there is photo packages- they're affordable and fabulous. I LOVE playing with the beach dogs- who are showered with resort food by just about everyone.

In 2019, there was a slew of negative press regarding tourist deaths in The Dominican Republic. The funny thing is that there were actually fewer tourist deaths in 2019 than in previous years- only the media coverage was different. A vengeful lover, a drug dealer turned baseball star who visited home, tainted alcohol in Mexican (yeah, not DR) resorts, and a few drunken accidents turned this hot tourist spot into a ghost town during peak season. 
I'm not saying this happened because The Dominican Republic's all-inclusive resorts offered significant competition to Florida resorts without the springbreaker and infighting connotations of Mexico, I'm just saying that the media coverage was disproportionate to past events and it benefited U.S. resorts...