Oh What a Night!

Me on the gurney

It has been a little crazy around here. We had a great visit down south for the most part, a little drama but all is well. Here is the down low on last Sat night.
Jenny, Amber, Donna and I went to Nick's restaurant in Laguna Beach for a mom's night out. Everything was great until we got our dinner. I told them about my gluten allergy and they accommodated me nicely. I had a couple bites of veggies and then took a bite of chicken and it started. What I thought was the beginning of an allergic reaction. I excused myself from the table and went outside because the restroom was full. I have had these reactions before and I am usually home, and it goes away in about 15-20 minutes max. What happens is my throat closes up a little and I have a hard time swallowing, talking etc. I seem to accumulate a lot of mucus and have to throw it up and it eventually goes away. However this time it did not go away. I came back to the table and the girls were of course wondering were I went and what was going on. It continued for about a half hour. The girls were done with dinner by this time and I just went back outside because I needed to keep calm and have space.

Amber got her car but as she was going to get it I knew I needed immediate assistance. Jenny called 911 and the Fire truck came within a minute and started me on benadryl and oxygen. They then transported me to South Coast Medical to the E.R for further observation. I felt better but it was not going away completely. The doctor gave me an adrenalin shot, prednisone and something else. Needless to say I was looped. But it was not getting better. I explained what was going on with the mucus and such. She came back and said that she did not think it was an allergic reaction because it would have gone away by now with all the medicine.

She then told me she thought it was an esophageal spasm. What happens is if you eat something too hot, too cold, too acidic, too fast, not chewed enough a reaction occurs. Your esophagus starts to contract and it feels like your throat is closing up. It can take up to thirty minutes for it to relax but past that you need to see a doctor. So if I think back to all of my "Allergic Reactions" this is what has happened. Because there was nothing in the chicken that I was allergic too, to my knowledge. This has happened since 1994. So for the past fifteen years what I thought were reactions were actually spasms, but this was by far the worse one.

The doctor finally gave me a sedative to relax my esophagus and it finally went away. Needless to say I am a little gun shy with eating, I mean too hot, too cold... really?!? I just have to think about the foods that have triggered it in the past and I am trying to stay away from them. I am eating slower and smaller bites, thoroughly chewing each bite and taking my time eating. It is amazing how fast I am getting full, haha. I have to find a doctor up here and then get an referral to a gastrointologist and see how I keep this under control. So I am okay, had a little craziness and I am thankful that I now know what is going on :)

Train Ride

So yesterday Kira, Enzo and I got up at the crack o dawn and got on the Amtrak in SLO. We rode it all the way down to San Juan Capistrano. I packed snacks for a year; smoothies, toast, coffee, granola bars, sandwiches etc. Books, movies, coloring books and toys all in tow. I braved the train with two kids and we had a ball!

The best was when the conducter called out
"Next stop Grover Beach, Grover Beach next stop folks."
Enzo looks at me and says
"Grover Beach? Not Grover Beach! Elmo Beach!"

I did not get it at first, but as soon as I related that he meant Grover from Sesame Street, I was almost on the floor laughing. The best part is that he was chuckling to himself over it too. What a quick wit.

I survived almost seven hours on the train with only one meltdown. We are here to visit and go to Enzo's Orthopedic appointment on Monday. My mom will drive us up on Tuesday and get to see the house finally. Good thing I cleaned it before I left :)

Nice to be out of 105-110 degree weather but not loving the humidity down here so there you go, never quite perfect.

By the way Eric loved the granola bars and I think they are better when kept in the freezer.

Settling, Baking and Traveling

Here is the view from my kitchen!

Well I finally feel 95% put together in our house. I have four boxes that I really can not unpack until we get our desk moved in and get another shelf. Three of them are the pottery that my dad made and a Russian Tea set. I got the kids room situated with all of their toys in it. Let me tell you I love having them play in their room and not having all of their toys all over my living room. I have organized all of my craft/sewing stuff pretty good. I am excited to get the kids quilts started. I did my first official cleaning of the house with everything in it on Monday and it was not too bad. I think our square footage is about 850 maybe 900. I do not think I would want any bigger of a house, too much to clean. The nice thing about when we did move in I was able to throughly clean everything before I even unpacked one box. It was nice knowing that things were clean when I put things away.

Eric is loving his job and God is definitely providing wonderfully for us up here. I am doing my best to keep our bills down. I have been shopping at the Farmer's Market and loving it. As I had mentioned I started reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and I have been very compelled to buy local even more than before. I have really been away of where my food is coming from and it is causing me to make more of our breads and things. The Health store in SLO has a large bulk food area with good deals. I bought about $20 worth of flours and I made a tasty fresh peach crisp, two loaves of GF bread and granola bars. I know that I am saving money, supporting the local community and eating better too.

The best was that Eric really liked the bread and said that he would love his sandwiches on that bread! He will now be GF at home. Bread was really the only thing that I was buying for him that was not GF. He eats everything else that I make for dinner which is GF. So he will be GF with everything he eats at home, which I know will be better for him in the long run. I am also trying to go dairy free with the kids and I. Corn and eggs seem not to be a problem with them but dairy definitely seems to cause problems. The bumps on Kira's arm are back so I think it might a calcium deposit or something.

I made the best granola bars that taste the closest to Nature Valley Honey and Oats crispy bars.

Super easy and yummy. Kira called the Oatmeal cookies.

Here is the recipe

GF Granola Bars

4 cups GF Oats

2 cups GF Flour mix

1/4 cup Packed Brown Sugar

1 cup chopped Raw Almonds

1 tsp Xanthan Gum

2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

3/4 cup Canola Oil/Vegetable Oil

3/4 cup Honey

Mix all the dry ingredients. Add oil and honey mix well until totally coated. Spread out on a baking pan/sheet to the thickness desire. Press to compact. Bake at 375 for 15 minutes for chewy or 20-25 for crunchy. Cut immediately while soft and let cool and will crisp up.

Depending upon the thickness 30-40 bars.

Kids loved these and Eric liked them too for his lunch!

Well we are taking the train down to OC to visit and go to Enzo's Ortho appt. We leave tomorrow morning and it will be a long trip but at least the kids will be able to walk around and not have to be in car seats. I plan on packing a boat load of food, videos and stuff to do.

Have a great week!

Connected Finally!

Okay after waiting over a week for a silly phone connection and then they did not even connect it to the house, luckily Eric does that all day long and connected us back up, we are now back in connection with the world. Although I must say that I have throughly enjoyed not having tv, phone or internet for two weeks. Oh course it was hard with checking emails and doing online banking at the library with two kids. But on the whole I have been more productive than ever. We got dial up and it does take a while to do stuff but I think it will hinder me from just surfing the web while I am supposed to be doing other things. I had over 140 emails to check this morning from not been online since last week. With that I am going to try to post weekly for sure and maybe one other post a week.

Our house is amazing. It is a single wide manufactured house with two bedrooms and two baths about 850 sq ft. It is situated on about 50 acres. It is pretty hilly, at the base of the property the landlords live in one house. Drive up a little hill and our pad is situated among a couple of trees with a old jacuzzi, horseshoe pit and shed for storage. There is enough room for Eric to put a carport and use it a workshop for him and his cars and projects. We are going to start a garden in a little spot out on the hillside and we have a great front porch that is buzzing with hummingbirds that are not shy. I am surrounded by God's beauty and peacefulness. I have really enjoyed sitting on my porch in the mornings and having my quiet time...it is like I am on a retreat every morning. It does not get any better than this, I think. Yes it is a little hot, try 105 degrees the last few days, however we have a swamp cooler and it feels so much better than air conditioning because you are not all dried out. I love the temp because I can line dry my clothes! Talk about being energy efficient. Now you are probably thinking that I have gone totally white trash or hick on you. I think of it as being aware of my resources and using them. We shop at the local farmers market for the majority of our food and the taste is amazing. I started reading "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" and I am amazed at what our food culture has turned into, that is a whole different post all together.

Anyways we are blessed beyond belief and so very content where we are for now!

Moved!

Hey real quick we moved to a house and we do not have internet so i am posting this from the library. When we get hooked up I will tell all about the great house we have. It is Pink inside, just what Kira was praying for!