Friday, October 20, 2017

September Recap

Happy Friday. Fall has definitely found it's way here. We had our first snow of the season a few weeks ago The next day everything looked like Fall, Last year we didn't have our first snow until the middle of November. The colors are really pretty but now all my beautiful plants are dead. At least I have the photos to look at until next year though.
September was a not a good month. It started when my mother in law came for a visit and my dad ended up in the ER the same day. Talk about bad timing Turns out my dad had a bad reaction to an antibiotic that caused his already bad kidneys to get even worse. He ended up in the hospital for almost a week. They finally got his kidneys back to normal and the catheter out then decided to release him but by they time my mom got there to bring him home they put it back in so she had to take him home with a catheter in. What a mess. They finally got it removed about a week later after going to multiple doctors. Now they say his kidneys are really bad again but he decided to wait to see his kidney doctor in November. He seems to be doing okay in the meantime so who knows how bad they are really are. I guess they will find out then. In the meantime he has fallen twice and is back to eating horribly so it is just a matter of time until things go bad again. It is really hard to deal with parents like this because they won't do anything to change things and and they won't let you help them either.
Things in our Etsy shop were really bad in September too. The worst they have ever been. The only thing I could think of that caused it was all the weather disasters. I ended up hiring someone to help us get our sales back but but she turned out to be a scam. Thankfully I didn't take her advice and was able to get my money back. It is just sad that there are people like that. On a happier note I did have a return buyer who requested a pink and gold pumpkin prop set for her daughter. I really like how it came out. She loved it too.

One of our buyers also sent us this appreciation photo of her daughter Violet wearing our Rainbow Unicorn tutu outfit. Isn't she cute?

I met with the Health Coach from the functional medicine doctors office the end of September. She seemed to be very nice and kind. I thought we were just suppose to talk about my diet but that was not the case. She wanted to know more about me and what else was going on in my life. I told her how overwhelmed I was by the appointment with the Dr and how she made me feel bad by accusing me of arguing with her when I was only trying to tell her that I needed to start  out slowly and work my way up on the supplements. She seemed to understand that and was going to have the nurse practitioner call me to try and explain it better. I also told her about the extra testing being too expensive for me to do at that his time and how hard it was for me to get information about that. I also told her I was very stressed out by what was happening with my dad and lack of business. Most of all we talked about my symptoms and my concern with not being able to find a diagnosis. She kept telling me that I have to trust my body which I really liked.
We talked about my diet some too I told her I was really afraid of eliminating/taking any more out and that I was already eating well. When I filled out the paperwork in the beginning they asked me to list of what I eat each day and I thought she would have seen that and have that in front of her but she didn’t. I have been trying to think of anything I am eating now that could be contributing to my symptoms and was wondering if it could be the soy. I drink soy milk in my tea 3 times a week and use Tamari and a soy based margarine sometimes too so I mentioned it to her. She thought it would be a good idea to try and take that out for a few weeks and see if it would make a difference. She also seemed a bit concerned that I was eating too many almonds and suggested I cut back some and replace them with walnuts or macadamia nuts instead because almonds are good but too much of them is not so I agreed to try that too. She also suggested I add in collagen protein and try a specific kind of almond and coconut combination milk which I also agreed to try.
We also talked about exercise. I told her I walk on my treadmill and do the recumbent bike a couple times of week. She suggested I go outside and walk instead. I told her I don’t do that very often because of my balance issues and I am more comfortable on the treadmill. She kept trying to push it though saying that it can be calming to be outside with all the sounds and things to look at but for someone like me light, sounds, and just struggling to keep my balance can be very hard and does not make it easy for me to enjoy those things. I also think she was pushing this because getting out in the sunlight can help with the vitamin D which I already know so I told her I would think about it.
She also mentioned something about detoxing but didn’t really get specific about that. Detoxing is something I am not really interested in anyways especially if it has anything to do with cleaning out your colon. We are suppose to meet again next week. 

I am still working on my modern calligraphy and made this piece. It was done on my Ipad Pro again with the I pencil and Procreate.  I used more of the digital flowers from Ipad lettering's Show Me Your Floral's Bundle. It is still really hard for me to get the thick and thin strokes so I am still working on that. I can see a little improvement though.


Rich, Emilia and I visited the Denver Botanic Gardens at Chatfield. It is a place I have wanted to visit for awhile now.
It is not as nice as the Botanic Gardens here in the city but it was still fun to visit. They also had a corn maze there. None of us had ever done one of those before but decided to try it. Thankfully we had a map to help get us out because I would not have wanted to be in there any longer than I was. At least I can say I have done a corn maze now but don't think I will be doing one again any time soon though.

Finally I wanted to share these fig bars I made using this recipe. They are easy to make and really yummy too.
Thanks all for now. Hope you are enjoying fall where you are. I will be back next month with more to share then.

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