Hospital

Sitting in a hospital for a few hours at a time, watching doctors and nurses make all sorts of choices about someone you love is painful. Especially when these nurses in particular are blatantly over worked, and still take the time to be caring.

Thankfully, my Dad is OK. We didn't really get any answers, which makes the past few days seem surreal. How can you help someone make changes in their life for the better? Is that even possible? I don't post much private family matters on this blog, but you can email me if you'd like.

Cat

Our cat is back to his mischievous self. After a rough time of it with an upper respiratory infection, then troubled with some major tummy issues which we can assume are from the high doses of antibiotics, we are thankful he recovered. He'll be 11 in April......which also means a pretty significant birthday for me too. I'll be 30. Wow. Life has a way of flying by, and I'm reminded time and time again not to rush any of it.

Smoothies

We've started having smoothies every morning. We've been doing this for about a week and a half, and I noticed many blogs that I read have been making smoothies as well. Ours is fairly simple, but I've noticed it keeps me full well past lunch time. I used to have a bowl of steel cut oats with my coffee, or perhaps toast with avocado. Neither of which gave me the energy that I feel since drinking these.

We blend(for a family of 3):
1 cup soymilk
1 soy vanilla yogurt
3 rounded teaspoons rice protein, unflavored/unsweetened
1/2 block Pure Acai pulp, unsweetened
1 banana

This is so tasty. And, I've found that my body cannot tolerate wheat very well. It's been an ongoing battle, because frankly I don't want to have to go gluten-free. But, when I avoid wheat my body just feels and works MUCH better. I'll be writing more on this, but for the moment I'm going to enjoy my blue smoothies.

First one of the season, of the new year

This pretty much sums up the last couple days. The pollen count is almost the highest I think I have ever seen, but how can you distinguish this time of year? I'm treating us like it's a cold, but how I wish it were just really bad allergies. The teas, herbs, homeopathics and neti pots are out. Lots of rest, book reading and snuggles. Not bad, but more fun when you don't feel like your face is going to fall off.

I'd highly recommend using a neti pot. Here is more info about usage. I have had mine for over 5 years, and it was a great investment. My husband recently started using one fairly regularly and has noticed a big improvement. The Boy is a bit too young for the neti, so he uses Xlear.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep everyone in my family from getting sick. I feel pretty defeated when we do get ill. We are pretty healthy, so I'm not complaining about that. It's tough being a Mama sometimes.