Hope
These past January days have been grey, rainy and dreary. In spite of it, the view over Boise on my walk today still looked beautiful through my blurry dampness.
There were bunnies playing tag in the bushes, and birds singing a sweet song in the trees. All of the magnolia trees all have fuzzy buds on the tips of their branches. They lay in wait to announce a new season’s arrival.
Is it too early to be feeling a shift in the cold earth? Is it my imagination grasping at hopes of brighter, sunny days?
I find comfort in the fact that seasons change. Spring will come with promises of new life and green summer days to follow. It will not fail me.
While I restlessly wait, high places call my name.
Images from my birthday backpacking trip this past summer:
Jughandle’s false summit over Louie Lake.
Climbing straight up. McCall far down below.
She calls me Melba.
Mountains and good company = me a happy girl.
See Greg Run For Fun
This is Greg. One day in December Greg decided to run. He decided to run, just for fun.
He ran and ran while we enjoyed hot chocolate and beautiful, sunny December morning. It was a fun morning for all of us. :)
For those of you that don’t know, Greg has spent the past several months battling crazy flu-like symptoms. Sick from both ends.(From the tail end in particular.) It’s been mis.er.a.ble. for him. Right around Christmas time things got bad. There were good days, (his fun run was a good day) but mostly he just felt like poop all the time. Poop is probably the optimal descriptive word, because things were just down right poopy all the time…literally.
As we looked back on life, a pattern of Greg being similarly ill without passing it to anyone else began to emerge. It had never been so bad though, and it was getting worse. Concerns that something bigger was at play lead us to make a doctor’s appointment with a friend of ours. Blood was drawn, stool samples were collected, and cameras were run down his throat to his stomach and small intestine and up his…uhmm….well, he had a colonoscopy too. One could say he was examined from all angles.
The results: Greg has Celiac Disease. The treatment: Go completely gluten free.
How do we feel about this? It’s a nice combo of YAY!!!! and Uhgggg….
We are thrilled to have found the culprit, and a way to kick its butt. I am so excited for Greg to just. plain. FEEL. GOOD. He is already feeling so much better. We found out last Wednesday, and started making diet adjustments right away. Yesterday he went back to working out, and said it was the first time in a long, long time that he wasn’t dealing with cramping whilst sweating. That is HUGE and so awesome. Worth all the inconvenience. That being said, it is DARN inconvenient. (Here comes the “uhgggg….”) I spent the end of last week reliving some of the feelings that came when Miles was diagnosed with diabetes. Ie: Mourning the ease of a familiar lifestyle, and wondering what the “H” I was going to make for dinner. It’s been okay though. We’re lucky that we already eat a lot of meals made from scratch, and I’ve been able to find some of our old favorites that are already gluten free. I thought I was pretty good with nutrition labels, but have realized I’m going to have to be a super freak about reading them now. Greg has had a really good attitude about it all though, which has been helpful for me. I started a new recipe binder, and have been adding everything we try and like to it with the hope that meal planning will get easier. I also plan on saving all my actual weekly menus in it as well. With Miles I remember when we finally put a whole year behind us, things seemed so much easier. All the major food events had been experienced, and that perspective gave us confidence. I think this new binder will help give us that too. A year of good recipes and menus already planned will be awesome. I’m excited. In the meantime, if you have any gluten free recipes/blogs/cook books that you love, I would love to hear about them! My food world is feeling pretty complicated.
Today a friend sent us really yummy peanut butter cookies that had chocolate swirls on top. Sooo flippin’ good, and she sent the recipe too. Yay for nice people! It’s definitely a binder worthy recipe. :)
just (me)linda 