Sun dried tomato basil spaghetti squash with olives

Our church had a Christmas party last Sunday and I had signed up to make some sort of vegetable side dish, I didn't know what but assumed I would figure something out as the days went on.  It got to Saturday morning and I realized I needed to get a move on and buy some ingredients... like always when I am under pressure to think of a dish my mind goes blank, so I called my trusty foodie friend all the way in Texas for some ideas....no answer, I was on my own :-)

I think I should trust myself more often, I have one and a half note books filled with recipes I have created over the past 6 months or so and yet this is my first recipe post.  Most of the reason is I worry that maybe it's just my family and I that think my food tastes good, well that and I don't have much free time to post them.  However, when I took this dish to the Christmas party I had a number of people ask for the recipe and tell me they just loved it, and my pastor who has a real appreciation for food was super excited about my dish !! 

So I feel very confident in sharing this recipe with everyone... I hope you enjoy !

Sun dried tomato basil spaghetti squash 
with olives

Step One Ingredients -

• 2 spaghetti squash
• Olive oil
• 1tsp thyme
• 1 1/2tsp onion powder
• 1 1/2tsp Garlic powder
• 1 1/2tsp dried basil
• 1 1/2tsp Sea salt
• 3/4tsp Black pepper

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Cut stem off from squash then cut it in half from top to bottom.  Once halved scoop out seeds and discard.  Lay the four squash halves down on a pan and pour a very generous amount of olive oil over the tops, rub in with your fingers.  Sprinkle the thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, dried basil, sea salt and black pepper over the tops of the squash.  Place uncovered in the oven until fork tender, it will take around an hour depending on the size of your squash.

The squash should look something like this once it's done and out of the oven, it could even be a bit crispier outside, I like the crispy bits.

Step Two Ingredients -

• 2 Halved and roasted spaghetti squash
• 1 can of black olives
• 1 can of green olives
• 1 pkg fresh basil
• Approx. 1/4c chopped sun dried tomatoes
• 1 purple onion
• 1 bulb of garlic
• 1/2tsp thyme
• 1 1/2 tsp dried basil
• Olive oil

Directions:
Heat a splash of olive oil in a pan, add chopped onion saute for about 3minutes add chopped sun dried tomatoes, and minced garlic (despite the wonderful amount of garlic in this dish it does not have an overly garlicky flavor, even though a whole bulb might sound a bit excessive it's perfect!).... saute until the onions are just soft, but still have a wee bit of crunch, you want to maintain some texture in the dish since the squash is so soft.  Turn off the heat and add the dried thyme and basil, chop and add the fresh basil as well.  Really you can just use more fresh basil if you have it, I only had one package but wanted more of a basil punch so I added a generous amount of dried basil.

The completed saute mixture

Spoon out the squash from the exterior into a large bowl, add both cans of drained green and black olives, add the above saute mixture and fold all the ingredients together until well combined but not too much to where it's a big mushy mess.

Serve to someone you love and enjoy....


 NOTES: In the recipe I used for these pictures I added a pound of browned ground beef to make it a complete meal instead of a side.  To do that, just add the beef in the same time the olives are added.  It's delish!

Depending on the size of your spaghetti squash you may need to adjust the seasoning amounts to taste.

Cheater Eater, Puh-kin Eater

Cheater eater, puh-kin eater... Well that's how Pepper says it anyway.

A number of weeks ago a very kind and generous farmer donated about 30 pumpkins to our church's fall party for free.

 The deal was, we could have them as long as we picked them ! 

It was fun, we got a little dirty but boy did our car get even dirtier.  

We had little bugs, spiders and lots of dirt all over the inside of the car.  A day later while riding in the car Basil let us know with a loud scream that a decent sized, very ugly, very hairy spider had taken up residence about a foot away from her... I don't blame her for screaming, I think Noah should have squished the remaining spiders on the ark.... well, not really, from what I understand that could have really thrown the balance of the ecosystem off, but they're still ugly !

Needless to say Salt totally cleaned out and vacuum the whole car the next weekend :-)
He's a good man !

I am surprised the shocks on our little Honda Accord didn't bust because only a few of the pumpkins were as small as the ones you see in the pictures, most of them were full size 15lb-ers !!

 

At the fall party there was lots food, friends and fellowship going on.

The famous "J. Tizzle Sizzle" hot sauce our pastor makes

 The older men talking to the younger...

Children playing and having fun...

complete with a pinata... 

And of course pumpkins...

Lots and lots of pumpkins... 

Each carefully decorated and personalized by it's owner.

I am so grateful for our church, the love, friendship and community within is like nothing we have experienced before.

............................................................................................................................

Later my family decorated our own pumpkins at home.

Excited and ready...

You can see Salt is overjoyed with the prospect of getting his hand all slimy

and messy..not exactly his thing, but he loves his family so he does it anyway :-)

Gettin' her Picasso on...

Not a great picture of Pepper but his pumpkin shows his severe lack of appreciation for anything artistic, he kept asking to get down... fun wrecker. 

But then Salt slathered a bunch of paint on Pepper's pumpkin and had him spread it around so there was more then a few splotches...thankfully he very willingly cleaned him up :-) 

 

 Pepper's pumpkin is on the left and Basil's is on the right, you can sort of see a face painted on there.

The menacing looking pumpkin on the left is Salt's, he named it Terrifying Terry.

My pumpkin is on the right, his name is Billy Bucktooth.

 

Spending time together with Salt and the kids is just about my favorite thing to do, the Lord has blessed me with a wonderful husband who enjoys being a father and two little kiddos who make me smile and laugh each and every day, especially when Pepper loudly accuses Basil of being a "cheater eater puh-kin eater"

From spinach and sprouts to butter and broth, the story behind it all... part 3 of 3

Attempt #2 at fixing my issues...
 
Just after the New Year in 2011 we both realized that what we were doing wasn't working to the extent we needed and started searching.  At this point my face had healed, which was major progress but my hands were still broken out with open sores.  I still have itchy hives but was taking recommended doses of Benadryl so I was surviving.  Shortly after that I also started a food journal to see if there was a connection between foods I ate and hive outbreaks, there was, I found four offending foods, I eliminated those and life was much better.  I stopped taking Benadryl and now I know what people who take Benadryl for seasonal allergies feel like when it's no longer "allergy season" I was no longer groggy all day, it was wonderful !

Around March we discovered a lady in our area who has a fairly well known technology called "zyto scan" it's a device you place your hand on and it reads the different electrical impulses in your body, like muscle testing but it eliminates potential human error.  Via a diagram the computer shows different areas of concern and imbalance and then the practitioner cross compares different supplements and the program tells you which will be the most effective for the issues at hand...cool huh?  But it's only as powerful as the practitioner behind it.  So, at $80.00 per appointment PLUS about $200.00 or more of supplements every 6 weeks I went again and again. I did experience significant improvement in certain areas which was very encouraging, but all progress stopped about 4-5 months in and the practitioner even straight up told me that she had no idea what else to do with me, she just couldn't figure me out despite over a decade of experience.  I did however very much appreciated her integrity and forthrightness with her lack of confidence.  She was the second lady who did her best and gave me everything she had... and again, I am grateful.

Attempt # 3 at fixing my issues...

As you read in the last post we made a massive 180 degree transformation from vegan to a more balanced approach to nutrition.  Not because it was the "newest, coolest diet" but because I had been voraciously reading book after book trying to figure out how to make the vegan diet work.  But, unless you are very intentional and break it down to an extreme science, get vitamin B12 shots among many other non traditional and semi-artificial methods of staying "healthy" and energetic I do not believe that long term the vegan diet is a viable option.  That is why we made such a drastic change once I finally understood a large area of nutrition that I had simply neglected to study, we were not about to get shots and other things just to pretend things were working.

• It was around this time that I began to realize the extent to which our former diet had wreaked havoc on my body... vegetables, tons of grains, and copious amounts of fruit results in a very imbalanced amount of refined simple sugars to feed all of the little candida critters that had taken over my body.

•  Here it is of extreme importance to point out that while I was suffering a whole myriad of symptoms both Basil and Pepper were doing just fine.  Salt was skinny and lacked sufficient energy but both kids were unscathed.  Had I not gone through two pregnancies and nursed for a combined total of a little over four years I probably would not have fared too bad myself either since we were only vegans for a few years.  From the reading I have done, a woman's body will rob her of everything necessary at the expense of the mother in order to grow the baby inside the womb, or to feed it through the mother's milk..and rob my body did !!!  At least one thing I was very efficient at was making milk because both kids are and were anything but scrawny and both had boundless energy. 

• I knew that diet was the cause for my health problems and realized it was also going to be the solution as well, so I started researching with great intensity and that is when I discovered "The Primal Blue Print", A book that as a Christian I have many issues with regarding it's major reliance on Darwinian evolution, of which I do not agree one bit.  However, nutritionally the book served as a catalyst that got me reading in an entirely different genre of nutrition and really opened my eyes.  Shortly after, I read a book called "Body Ecology Diet" and since this book primarily deal with candida issues I thought this could be the final answer, the temporary dietary protocol to rid me of my troubles... but a few things about it just didn't feel right, deep down I knew it wasn't what I needed and so I kept searching and then further research led me to a book called "Gut and Psychology Syndrome"  (Gaps for short)  In short, Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride describes how if the internal environment is out of balance, referring to your gut flora (good and bad bacteria) then the bad bacteria can take over, and when they take over any number of negative things can occur.  The "Gaps" book deals with primarily psychological issues but also covers a myriad of physical ones as well.  When I read this book, everything finally started to make sense and I understood why I was having so many fungal issues.

• I finally understood the nature of the beast... Candida is fungus that is naturally occurring in our systems and serves a purpose, however when it gets out of balance with the other hundreds and hundreds of bacteria in our bodies trouble starts brewing.  How candida works is it bores holes in your intestines and grows roots spreading through your intestinal wall causing a condition called leaky gut.  When you have holes in your intestines partially undigested particles of food easily pass though and get caught in your blood stream.  When foreign substances are freely roaming in the blood stream your body targets them as the enemy and takes them out and deems them toxic to your body thus my sudden and totally random allergic reactions to a number of foods that I never before had problems with.  

• After further research, discussion with Salt and prayer I went on the diet outlined in the book consisting of an intro phase which has 6 stages each slowly progressing from soups, boiled vegetables and meats to other foods as tolerated.  Salt and I decided to do each stage for 5 days for a total of 30 days.  My family progressed wonderfully and tolerated all the food really well, I however could not get past stage one, I was still on boiled meats and vegetables and very frustrated.  This went on for about a month.

• Enter AnnMarie of Cheeseslave.com a blog that I greatly enjoy. AnnMarie was running a month long challenge and the prize was a 12qt Le Creuset stock pot...I will admit it, I sinned in covetousness :-) whoever drank the most bone broth during the month of July won.  It was perfect timing since a large portion of the Gaps protocol is daily consumption of traditionally prepared bone broth due to it's healing properties. I was determined to win and I did, I won't go into all the details but I met some amazing gals through the challenge that I am blessed to still be friends with, oh and not to mention I have a sweet new 12qt Le Creuset stock pot that I use weekly :-)

• But, I digress... on the forum I also met a lady named Amy who kept answering people's questions.  I learned that Amy really, really knew her stuff so I kept emailing her question after question after question...I even had a list of questions in my email drafts box so I wouldn't forget my unasked ones, but I staggered them so I didn't barage her with too many at a time :-) but to be fair, I did tell her that she could tell me to buzz off at any time since I wasn't a paying customer yet.  Amy is such a blessing though, she is a natural health practitioner who owns the company Real Food, Whole Health and has helped many people over the years by coaching them in how to eat healthy and overcome a number of different health challenges, oh and she's very patient, I figured that out first hand :-)

• I have to say at this time we had already spent a considerable amount of money on different people and things to try to heal me, so Salt was not exactly excited about the idea of me working via the phone and internet with a lady who lives 10 states away and I knew better than to push.  But something about Amy really intrigued me, it wasn't just her gentle nature or her deep knowledge of the inter workings of the human body, I really had a solid feel about her, and so I kept asking my questions.  Eventually Amy asked if I would just like her to call so we could get more info shared in less time, I jumped at the opportunity even though I really don't like talking on the phone.  Amy called and we chatted for what felt like 25min or so, I took notes and had my never ending list of questions, but when Salt came into the other room and asked if I was going to make dinner I glanced up at the clock and realized it had been about eighty minutes since the start of the conversation!

• I could not believe the information Amy was telling me, I felt like I was reading an anatomy text book, but sooo interesting.  Amy put the final pieces of the puzzle I was really struggling with in place and I literally about cried because I had been searching, reading, praying for so long to be able to understand the why so I could figure out the how and Amy really, very plainly laid out the why, as well as the how.

• To make a ridiculously long story a bit shorter Amy had me take an online test or questionnaire of a few hundred questions and despite my skepticism of such a test she deciphered the results put the pieces together and then called me and we went over some charts she also emailed based on my results.  You see, Amy has a very similar story to mine, she used to be a raw vegan and vegetarian and has so many of the same symptoms that I had, so she had knowledge from personal experience not just books.  Finally I understood why I couldn't digest food, why my candida was still out of control even though I had stopped eating all forms of sugar a few months prior (grains, fruit, sweet vegetables...anything that is sugar or turns into sugar)  She explained that I didn't have adequate HCL and so it didn't digest the food and because the HCL levels were not high enough my body didn't trigger my pyloric sphincter to open to pass the food from the stomach to the small intestine.  I don't remember all of the details but my liver wasn't functioning properly, it was terribly clogged and toxic, and due to my lack of animal products/fats for the past 5 or so years my gall bladder almost stopped working... it didn't need to when I was only eating fats in the form of nuts, avocados and coconut oil since they are digested entirely different from animal fats.  

• I was also anemic and very low in a lot of different vitamins and minerals even though I had been eating a nourishing diet for a few months by the time I had met Amy  The reason for that is...you guessed it, candida, those little buggers love certain vitamins and minerals, they also like iron, so it was as if I was starving them from all forms of sugar but in an attempt to remineralize myself  I gave them a buffet of other foods they also loved.

• First I started on some whole food supplements to help jump start my sluggish gallbladder as well as some HCL pills to aid in digestion, and man, was it nice to be able to digest my food.... it was amazing to actually get hungry around lunch, then again at dinner time.  One time in church I turned to Salt and had a huge grin on my face and told him I was hungry... if anyone else had heard that they would have thought I was nuts for looking so happy, but Salt got it and was genuinely happy for me.

• The final step was to go through a candida cleanse, I have finished the first of four steps and I feel amazingly different.  Night and day different...I am by no means all better but I have had so much improvement that I want to shout from the roof tops.  I am far from depressed and back to my super happy self, I don't have the dark thoughts of death and suffering I used to have nightly, I am no longer constipated and do not have and more joint pain, as far as "extra curricular activities" goes, I now have a renewed interest and energy in things that felt like I never would.  One last positive is that since I started with the Gaps diet and working with Amy, neither of my hands have broken out once, it's the longest I have gone without a breakout !!

That is where I am at now... I am on part two of my candida cleanse, slowly taking my gall bladder support and still on HCL, but things are going well.  My journey is not done, I still have a number of foods that if eaten I will break out in itchy hives but that is to be expected since I have not killed off the over grown candida and it's spores so my gut has not had a chance to heal and seal off yet.  It has been a bumpy and emotional ride but I am grateful to God that we're on an upward trend with lots of hope and optimism.  I still have a number of months until I am projected to be officially "healed" but after all I have been through I feel like I can handle pretty much anything...anything except for itching that is.  :-)

I realize that all that I have gone through pales in comparison to the struggles others have endured such as a life threatening disease or debilitating accident, but I want to take a moment to let you all know the meaning of a faithful husband, one who keeps his vow of "in sickness and health".  Salt did everything possible to help me, he would run to the store at midnight to buy something I needed, he took over many of the household chores because I just couldn't keep up, he made sure I took a bath once and sometimes twice a day because he knew not only did it help but mentally it kept me sane because it was the only place I got relief from my physical pain and itching, he did his best to keep the kids occupied and happy so I could have some rest during the day when I needed it.  For three weeks when I didn't leave the house due to the the second degree burns on my face Salt did all the grocery shopping and much of the cooking on top of running his brand new business.  Not only did Salt do all of the physical things I needed him to do he also covered me in prayer sometimes for hours at a time when he couldn't sleep.
Lastly, not once did he utter a word of complaint or annoyance with his extra work load that he so willingly took on, he was my hero during my hardest time.  It showed me a depth of love and commitment that until you go through something hard together you don't realize is there, you can hope it is, and assume it is, but until you've been through it and come out hand in hand you don't really know... and I know...  Thank you Salt, I love you dearly and very much respect the strong man that you are.

Sage

From spinach and sprouts to butter and broth the story behind it all.... part 1

Welcome, and to a few, welcome again.  As some of you are aware I developed a blog about a week ago with the name "spinach and sprouts" but since, I have talked to an established blogger whom I deeply respect and received a few pointers... thus a different blog entirely.  But, it's all for the better.

As promised here is the story behind the name, I felt it appropriate to start off with an explanation, as it's a window into who I am, what I have struggled with and the successes along the way... lets get up close and personal. 

From spinach and sprouts to butter and broth.... it's a long story, a story filled with many mistakes and lessons learned.  I do not say regrets because I know the Lord allows everything to happen for a reason, so instead of regretting the past 6 years and the choices made I am taking the opportunity I have to learn, grow, share and maybe even help others along the way.

Six years ago when Salt and I got married (if you are curious about my husbands peculiar name see the side bar to the right "meet the Herbs") we ate like most anybody else, pretty regular with the exception of using rice cheese and soy milk.  You see, a year prior to that I did a research paper on "milk for human consumption" in my college anatomy class.  The reason I chose that topic from my list of options was because Salt's mom used rice cheese and did her best to limit their families dairy consumption.  I am naturally very curious, when I was young I would ride in the car for hours on end with my dad and never run out of questions... it's a good thing he's a science teacher... I think the Lord ordained that just for me :-).  So I am always trying to find how why, why, why...that lead me to researching milk.  My paper was doomed to fail from the beginning since I didn't even realize people drank raw milk, so I demonized it and did a pretty darn good job of convincing my class that milk was basically "of the devil".  Now, I do not think milk is bad, it's awesome, but that is raw milk from grass fed cows or goats, not the stuff you buy in the grocery store....more on that later.

In short I wrote the paper and became a soy milk drinker myself.  Salt and I got married, drank soy milk and used rice cheese.  My mother in law recommend a book called "The pH Miracle" by Dr. Robert Young, it blew my mind and I literally stopped eating ice cream the day I read it.... yup, that was huge, just ask my dad, I used to eat ice cream out of the container like it was going to be out-lawed.  But I am very all or nothing, if I feel something is wrong I just can't do it...for the most part anyway.  I went all out and implemented as much as I could from the book, we gradually went meat free, totally eliminated all dairy, and started eating sprouted grains.  My husband was fantastic, he read the book and was all in, we thought we were such good little eaters.


Around this same time my daughter Basil was born and as she started on solids we of course gave her the traditional starter foods but soon noticed constipation, dark circles under her eyes, itchy, bumpy rashes all over her tummy and diaper rash, none of which was present prior to starting solid food... I think it's safe to assume she was having an allergic reaction.  My mother in law suggested gluten being a possibility so we cut it out and all of her problems disappeared.  Instead of just her going gluten free our whole home did and Salt reaped some significant benefits from that change as well, his chronic acne was almost non existent and best of all the need to clear his nasal passages with snorts and sniffs vanished, the mucous was gone, he could breath again !!

Salt and Basil drinking their morning green drinks

Any way, one book lead to another and another, all in the same basic genre, never reading anything else, all the while having a haughty attitude about how much "better" we eat than others.  Not judging them so much but really dealing with a lot of pride.  You know the Bible verse.... (prov. 16:18) 
"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."  Yup, it's true.

But our "fall" didn't happen just yet....  there is more.  We were vegetarian for a while still eating fish and meat here and there but we gradually went vegan.  Vegan sounds pretty extreme doesn't it... it is !!  But wait there's more... really there is.  My readings led me to more extreme views on food and we slowly and enthusiastically became raw vegans, we legitimately thought it was the most ideal way to eat and did so with gusto.  I am pretty good in the kitchen so our food wasn't terrible but really, you can only eat raw veggies in all their possible purred, soaked, dehydrated and other adulterated forms and resulting textures for so long without disdain welling up inside, not to mention hunger !!  We were raw vegans for about 8-9 months until we just couldn't take it anymore and went back to being vegans.

Basil helping make raw zucchini bread, and yes, if you are wondering it was gross.

Along the way I started questioning whether this really was the right way to eat, my husband was chronically skinny no matter how faithfully he lifted weights or how much he ate and he ate A LOT of food, I tell you what!  I was losing weight and rapidly approaching too skinny, not to mention a whole host of other physical problems I was experiencing and slowly developing along the way.  I was 25 and literally felt about 75 years old some days.  I will explain the physical and mental consequences in the next post since it would just get too long and even I might stop reading.

Because we were having doubts with our vegan lifestyle we decided to do an experiment and I added fish two to three times a week for my husband, normally his post work out meal because he craved meat like a thoroughbred carnivore.  We also added raw goat milk cheese, about 8oz a week...now we wouldn't want to get carried away or anything!!  But just those few changes made it so Salt gained a few pounds and his numbers went up in the weight room, not much but it was undoubtedly due to the change in our diet.  After seeing these results I started to dig deeper into the possibility that maybe we really were not created to eat a vegetarian or vegan diet and sure and hell not a raw vegan diet.  I read a book called "The Primal Blueprint" by Mark Sisson - a fantastic book, I whole heatedly recommend from a nutritional standpoint, it's easy to read but gives loads of information.  However a small disclaimer, I do not agree with his evolutionary beliefs that are interwoven throughout the book. After Salt and I read that book we did a 180 degree turn and literally went from spinach and sprouts to butter and broth.... thus the title.  The second part of the tag line, "to butter and broth" we'll get to next time.

Bethany

From Spinach and Sprouts to Butter and Broth the story behind it all.....Part 2

Confession time...
I'll admit it... I was dreading having to write "part 2" of my story.  I knew it was going to be fairly long, I also knew I would have to dredge up details from one of the most difficult years of my life so lack of motivation is an understatement. I decided to break it up into three parts instead of just two, so part three will be coming shortly.... But if I pump this out then I can get to much more fun posts, like recipes and such. 

Because there is so much information and stuff to tell, way more than I first realized I will do some of it in bullet points for lengths sake....maybe I am just that long winded, yeah probably. 

The beginning: all of my lovely symptoms
It's been a little over a year since the crap hit the fan in my body so to speak, it all started in August of 2010.  I developed a very small rash consisting of a few tiny bumps on the back of my left hand, it was annoying but nothing of concern and it stayed that way for about 2-3 weeks.

• Near the end of October the small rash started to grow, and it grew, and grew, it eventually was about the size of a silver dollar and we were getting concerned, I scoured the internet and at the time both Salt and I decided it was ring worm since it had a number of the same characteristics and looked very similar.

• During this time I started running with a group of gals once a week and a few nights on my own, I felt as though I had arthritis in every joint of my body, it hurt to do anything but walk.  Going up the stairs to my apartment caused significant pain in my knees.  I could not even crawl around on my hands and knees with my kids because the pressure on my wrists was too much.  I got adjusted at the chiropractor hoping that would fix the problems but since misalignment wasn't the source it wasn't the solution wasn't either.  Also, I started needing to buy arch support shoes and on top of that needed new ones every 6 months or my feet, ankles and knees would just throb in pain, yeah, that gets a little pricey.... Salt was so gracious and loving he did anything in his power to help me even if it meant spending $90.00 on shoes twice a year, and no we're not that wealthy, it was a stretch for sure !

• I was so tired...so tired I thought I was pregnant.  Anybody who's been there knows the extreme exhaustion that goes with growing another human being.  I even bought a pregnancy test two different times, thankfully I was not pregnant, that would have been the LAST thing my body needed.  I was taking a nap every day many times two or more hours just to get through the day, which thankfully both of my kids still took naps!

•  I was very depressed and despondent, I often wanted to go hide under my sheets and just cry for no particular reason other than mentally I just felt so sad.  Along with my sad thoughts I constantly had terribly dark thoughts always revolving around me or Salt dying, or something despicable happening to either Basil or Pepper... Every night I would lay in bed and these thoughts would flood my mind, always about death and pain, I hated it.  Salt would pray over me every night asking the Lord to give me good thoughts and pleasant dreams, occasionally He would but most of the time I would wake up in the morning with vivid pictures of my most recent nightmare.  All of this combined made it so I was not the most pleasant person to be around during the day, it was a constant struggle to hold my tongue and not snap undeservingly at one of my kids or my long suffering husband.   

• Physically I had absolutely no interest in anything "extra curricular" unless it involved sleeping or soaking in the tub.... I was just trying to survive.  

• My digestion was jacked up.  I would eat something as small as one egg in the morning and it would sit in my stomach like I was trying to digest a brick for a good 8-12 hours.  I just stopped eating.  I would eat breakfast because I was hungry but then most of the time skipped lunch and sometimes dinner because my stomach just hurt...all. day. long.  I lost weight and was getting too thin, I am five feet nine inches tall and was in a size two jeans and needed a belt... even though Hollywood would probably say I was still too fat lol, I knew I was unhealthy and too thin.  Along with poor digestion the back end of that wasn't working so well either and I started to have issues with constipation.

Attempt #1 at fixing my issues:
Around November I started going to a wonderful gal who is a naturopath and also a fellow raw foodie friend that had recently started her practice.  This gal did a series of muscle tests which resulted in a very large list of things I was allergic to and prescribed some supplements to help with my many issues.  

• At this point both of my hands had broken out, my left from the base of my fingers covering the whole back and up my arm a little bit and it was slowly creeping down my fingers and around my hand.  It had also spread to my right hand but on a much smaller scale, it itched, oozed and bled, not to mention it was terribly ugly, embarrassing and I had to keep it covered at all times. 

The various pills, oils etc... I was prescribed would help some, I would be relieved and very encouraged that things looked better and then all of a sudden one day all of my symptoms would flare back up with a vengeance, we'd try something else and it would work for about 2 weeks then my hand would break out again, just when it was starting to heal.  It was the most discouraging series of events, I wanted so badly to think "yes this is it, thank you Lord we finally found the fix" but after a while I just told myself to get ready because it's only going to last a few weeks, enjoy it while it lasts and don't get too disappointed when it happens again... And it did happen again, over and over, and every time I would end up crying with Salt's arms wrapped around me, while he prayed and spoke encouraging words to me.  The gal we were seeing was absolutely amazing, she bent over backwards to help me in any way possible, she saw me after hours, nights and weekends, pretty much any time I needed her she was there.  This gal was a true friend and a blessing she did everything in her knowledge and power to help me and we did make some progress with other issues aside from my hand.

• Shortly after my hand blew up I was sitting on the counter in the bathroom talking to my husband while we were getting ready for bed and told him I had this weird itchy red spot on my neck, we both kinds said "huh, that's odd" and went to bed, assuming it was nothing.  I woke up and it was bigger, after about 5 days it covered the front and back of my neck as well as my whole face, I had an outbreak of hives.  I was SO uncomfortable, and SO itchy I could hardly stand it.  I consider myself pretty tough, my daughter was born at home and my son in our car on the side of the road (no that was not the way we planned it ;-) and while it was painful it wasn't terrible...but these hives drove me nuts, I felt like I was going insane with the constant itching.  It was all I could think of ALL DAY LONG, I was irritable and just plain miserable.  

• Nathan left for a business trip for a few days and the itching got so bad I decided to take matters into my own hands...BIG mistake.  I looked up natural hive remedies and somehow I stumbled upon clove oil and I thought "yes!! I have clove oil in the drawer"  (We have a small supply of essential oils and clove happened to be one of them).  So I dutifully went to the bathroom and applied clove oil all over my face and neck.... it felt like I put my face in a bon fire, it burned so bad I literally cried, but after a few minutes I felt nothing, no itching for the first time in days, it was glorious, I was so excited I called Nathan and he expressed some reservation about using that oil undiluted, or even at all since it warns that it's strong etc.. .etc... but I honestly didn't hear a word of it, unfortunately.  I used clove oil for a few days and was just overjoyed with how it eliminated the itching, I just reapplied about every 5 hours or so.... ya' know when you go to the dentist and he numbs your mouth, the sensation that happens when feeling starts returning, that's what my face and neck would feel like after a few hour when the effects of the clove started to wear off. 

•  After a few days of copious amounts of clove oil application my face started to ooze and get crusty, I had NO idea what it was from, it got worse and worse and I woke up one morning with my face swollen 2-3 times the size it normally was, I could barely see, my eyes were so puffy and my face was still oozing.  Salt and I were extremely frightened at this point, we called my naturopath who basically said get some Benadryl now... I did and it very, very slowly went down.  Salt had even arranged for my mother in law to watch the kids so we could head to the emergency room if need be.  From that point on I lived off Benadryl every 4 hours...I would even get up in the middle of the night to take it so I wouldn't itch as bad in the morning. 

• So essentially what happened was that I gave myself second degree burns from the clove oil and severely injured my face and neck.  I felt just about as dumb as possible since it was totally self imposed, and Salt had warned me...but honestly, I wasn't even thinking clearly I was in so much pain, I would have done anything to relieve the itching, as evidenced with the clove oil.  Lesson:  read and listen to warning labels !!!!!!  My face was so tight and painful, I couldn't move anything and could barely open my mouth without cracking the damaged and healing skin.  My saving grace and relief came every night when I was able to soak in a warm bath for an hour, I looked forward to it all day with great anticipation, everything felt good in the bath.  Salt was so caring and loving, he would do anything I needed to help and make me feel more comfortable, he was just amazing.
  

• In desperation Salt called a lady who was a distributor of the essential oils we use asking her if there was any way to flush my body of the massive amount of clove in my system. She lived in the area and she was more than willing to help!!  Salt went to her house she was a bit peculiar but she did know her oils!  The lady gave Salt some homeopathics for me to help reduce the effects of the clove internally and then she also gave him some diluting oil.  The diluting oil was the only way I was going to be able to draw out the clove since I had put so much on. To top it all off I forgot to mention I put it on before my shower which pushed it further into my skin, since water and oil repel each other the only place it had to go was in!  Gosh, I'm such a thinker...er not !  Because I pushed the oil deep into my face everything from my eye lids, ears and the inside of my mouth had the oozing blisters.  I constantly applied the plain diluting oil on my face and neck and was shiny and greasy for a good four weeks, the amount of time for the oil to finally come out.  After a while the burns healed but about once a week all around my eyes would get very red and burn with pain, then they would get crusty and heal, that was my body gradually pushing out more clove oil little by little.  It was a fun little process that reminded me to really think, especially before I ingest or put something on my body. 

That is the conclusion of part two, I promise part three won't take nearly as long as it took for this one to come out....that just might be because it's already written ;-)


Sage