July Recap

Happy Friday. Hope your August is going well. The first part of the month was cool and rainy here. Not typical. It felt more like May. The only good thing about it was that everything is green again. We finally got out backyard cleaned up and re barked. This is what it looked like before.

This is what it looked like after.

Big difference. Now we can enjoy being out there again. When it's not raining. :) I also snapped this beautiful rainbow after one of storms.

I went to see the functional medicine doctor that I talked about in my last post. The nurse practitioner she works with was there too.  They were both very nice and kind and spent over 90 mins with us. We talked about a lot of things.  I brought her all the records from this year for her to look at which she wanted to see.  She agreed that fibromyalgia is a blanket diagnosis and most people that get that diagnosis don’t really have it and are later diagnosed with something else. She wanted me to do more blood work, stool and urine testing only one of which is covered by insurance and all of which are expensive but I went ahead and did them anyways because traditional medicine is coming up with nothing. She seems pretty confident we will get some answers from this. She also agreed that there is a lot going on and it is going to take time to get it figured out and said is like peeling back the layers of an onion, I  already knew that going in so that was not a surprise to me. I am just grateful that she is willing to take the time to try and figure it out. I am just worried about spending all this money and still not getting answers.  At least I didn’t leave there crying though and left with a little hope so that is a positive. Thankfully the bottom pain has gotten a lot better and I can sit comfortably again. The migraines have returned with a vengeance though. I had one so bad a few weeks ago I lost part of my vision for awhile, that was really scary. At least I can sit without pain now though because that was terrible. Just hope it stays that way now. 

I have been wanting to learn the new modern calligraphy I see a lot now. I use to do pen and ink calligraphy when I was a teen but this is a lot different and a lot harder. I am doing most of mine on my IPad Pro with the IPencil and really like it. I just wish it was easier to do. This is one of the first pieces I came up with that I can live with, I know I have a lot more practicing to do to get better though. The flower wreath is from Ipadlettering. She has a lot of great stuff on her website so check it out.

We went to the Jackalope Art Fair the end of the month. There were a lot of great local artists there. This was one of my favorite booths, Sweet Treats By Melissa.You can paint the cookie before you eat it. What a great idea for a kids birthday party.

Things in our Etsy shop started to pick up again in July. We did not make any new items but did get this adorable photo of a buyers dog wearing my small dog crown and tutu set. Isn't she adorable?

Finally I wanted to leave you another savory gluten free/dairy free food that we like to eat. It is called bibimbap. It is actually Rich's favorite. We use to go to this place here in Denver called Soulfood which was a Koren restaurant and eat it all the time. They are out of business now though so I had to come up with something similar on my own. The main component is gochujang sauce. You just put it on the tofu before you bake it.  It is to spicy for Emilia and I though so we just use Tamari or Coconut Aminos instead.  You could make it Paleo or Whole 30 by leaving out the rice or using cauliflower rice instead.

That's it for now. I hope the rest of your August is a good one and I will be back next month with more to share then.