My Dairy Allergy Story

I thought I'd take some time to share my allergy story, to let you know a little bit about where I'm coming from. It's a long story but one you may find interesting, you may see a little of yourself in my journey. So grab a cuppa and pull up a chair.

I grew up eating dairy. The more dairy the better was my motto, covered in cream, smothered in cheese, dripping with butter? Oh yeah. I lived off cheese and crackers, cream of wheat and cereal. In fact, I'd have cereal for breakfast nearly every morning and another bowl before bed most nights. And it wasn't a good bowl of cereal unless it had lots and lots of ice cold milk.

Around eighth grade I started noticing that I would get nauseous often, and when sitting in my morning classes my stomach would burn. Nothing too terrible, but it wasn't comfortable. I chalked it up to my vitamins, I assumed they were too strong to take first thing in the morning.

In the spring of my senior year of high school I had my first son, Biggest. While I was pregnant I had none of the old problems, no burning stomach, no nausea. But when Biggest was only a few months old the symptoms returned. I switched vitamins several times with no luck. I figured maybe it was just me, the sleepless nights and stress of being a new mommy.

When Biggest was about 10 months old I started to occasionally wake in the middle of the night, terribly nauseous or vomiting. It didn't happen often but when it did it wasn't fun. Since it happened so sporadically I always assumed it was a 24 hr virus or something I ate. I had never heard of the "more subtle" symptoms of dairy allergies. And as far as I knew at the time, no one in my family had any allergies.

Life continued this way for a while, pretty normal except for a burning tummy and the occasional puke fest. I should mention that several times over the subsequent years I went to the doctor for my symptoms, he also chalked it up to a virus. Allergies were never mentioned, I was never encouraged to keep a food journal or go on an elimination diet. I saw several doctors actually as we moved a few times and had to switch providers. None of them caught on. This is why I say that though they mean well, doctors don't make good allergists.

I was given what I call maintenance meds, like Zantac. I can honestly say I didn't give them a fair shot. I used them a couple times but that was it. I felt like they weren't truly helping me, they were just masking my symptoms and I wanted a real answer.

When Biggest was about 2-3 years old things took a drastic turn for the worse. I remember my first "episode" as I like to call them. I woke up in the middle of the night (it's always the middle of the night) feeling nauseous and like I needed to use the restroom. *If you get queasy easily you may want to stop reading now, TMI ahead*

It started with diarrhea and lots of bowel cramping. Then nausea, which steadily worsened and I was soon vomiting with terrible stomach pains. The diarrhea became...eh...forceful and the vomiting, projectile. I vomited with such force it would splash 4 feet back out of the commode-I had such a mess to clean up the next day, but I didn't have strength to clean it then. There were even times when things were shooting out both ends, I couldn't control it, I'd have to sit on the commode with the trash can between my knees.

This would go on for hours. And when I say I had bowel cramping and stomach pain I mean PAIN, I could hardly stand it. These pains were as bad as if not worse than transitional labor pains and I know, I've had two natural, drug-free births. I think I would have rather had a baby! Along with or because of the pain I would have chills and sweats (which is one thing that lead me to believe it was viral), I would shake and tremble and all color would drain from my face and lips. I thought I was going to die.

That is pretty much how my episodes went, I would only have several episodes a year so it took me a while to realize it wasn't viral or food poisoning. When I finally realized it wasn't it didn't help, I still didn't know what to do. I went to the emergency room several times during episodes. I was given great meds to stop the vomiting, diarrhea and pain, blood tests were run and I was sent home with no answers.

The meds were wonderful in managing my episodes but didn't solve anything. Around this time I finally had a doctor encourage me to keep a food journal. This was another great idea that didn't solve anything because we were looking for a red flag before an episode. We weren't looking for the cause of the constant nausea or burning stomach (which I now beleive were the dialy warning signs of an impending episode) so the fact that I ate dairy everyday wasn't a concern. Looking back I should have gone to an allergist or at the very least gone on an elimination diet. I was woefully uneducated on allergies.

Life went on this way for a while, an extremely slow progression of worsening symptoms. I eventually got to a point wherethe nausea and burning stomach was at its peak, I had to sleep sitting up or I'd throw up, the episodes were much more frequent and I had a constant, terrible urge to go to the bathroom (#2). I would map out our travels, even just a half hour drive, by spots I could use the bathroom-rest stops, gas stations or thick bushes, it was bad.

I don't know how I let it get so bad. By now Biggest was 10 years old, it was just such a S-L-O-W progression that it was hard to see until I stepped back and really looked with open eyes. I remember complaining about my predicament to my sister-in-law, God bless her, and she suggested that I at least try to cut out diary. She used to not be able to smell or taste and had to deal with a chronic stuffy nose...until she cut out diary.

I told Hubby I was going to cut out dairy for two weeks and if that didn't help I was going to the doctor (again) because I had stomach cancer or something else really serious. So I cut out diary and within 3 DAYS my stomach stopped burning. Within a week the bathroom urge greatly lessened. It was amazing. Over a period of only a few months I felt like a new person, better than I had in more years than I could remember.

I did have a few setbacks. I went back to dairy thinking I was, perhaps, only lactose intolerant so I relied on Lactaid, which did help but not completely. I also showed marked improvement when I went went from Lactaid to raw milk products, but I still wasn't 100%. I didn't get 100% until after I went on an elimination diet due to Littlest showing symptoms (I'll share his allergy story next time).

I'm proud to say I've been dairy and episode free for over a year, almost two. I avoid dairy like the plague. Life is so much simpler and less scary. I can't tell you how awful it was to lay my head down every night and wonder if I would wake up sick, oh the anxiety! I still have a sensitive digestive tract, I think it's due to years of abuse, I was effectively poisoning myself with diary but I feel like a new woman. I feel healthy and it is such a blessing.

Travel From Your Mailbox

Want to travel to far away destinations without having to go farther than your mailbox? You might want to consider Postcrossing. This is a great site I discovered a couple months ago, it's like pen pals only less personal. I started using this site (it was so much fun!) to supplement Biggest's geography program and became hooked myself. Postcrossing would also be good for foreign language reading practice. I haven't used it recently as I ran out of postcards, but this weekend I plan to restock and get going again. In a nutshell, here's how it works.

You simply go to Postcrossing and create a profile and specify your preferred language(s). You then request addresses so you can send postcards (they are chosen randomly and you can only have 5 postcards out at a time). Next, you mail a postcard to the given address-being sure to include the tracking number you were given with the address-then you wait for the recipient to receive the postcard. The recipient then registers the tracking number on postcrossing. Once you've successfully sent a postcard your address (or PO Box, whatever address you provide) is then given to another random user and you begin receiving postcards. It's really simple, inexpensive and fun. So far we've received 5 postcards from Hungary, The Netherlands, US and (2) from Germany. Check it out!

Weekly Wrap Up - Hectic but Fun

Weekly Wrap-Up is a weekly meme hosted by Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. Click HERE to join the fun and tell us what you did this week!This week was hectic and busy, but we had lots of fun! Everyday, from 1-3PM Biggest had cooking classes in Frederick, MD (that will be another post). Right now, Biggest says he wants to be a chef so we are trying to give him some culinary exposure. The classes are about an hour from our home, so Littlest and I had to find fun things to keep us occupied. We had some great one on one time together. Here's what we did.

Monday - Hubby had off today so we spent the morning at home, I was fielding phone calls about the house we were considering making an offer on. I set up a second showing because the first time we only quickly ran through the house. Our realtor had been told it was vacant, it wasn't and we weren't sure we were even supposed to be there so we didn't dally. I set up the second viewing and we left around noon to take Biggest to his cooking classes. After dropping Biggest off, Hubby, Littlest and I went to my brother's house-he lives nearby-to hang out. While there Hubby helped my brother set up his new TV. Then we picked up Biggest and ran to VA to see the house. More drama. The "owners" were there, and said that their realtor had not let them know we were coming...hmmm. There were 3 boys, ages 9-12 running around, running around with toy guns, cursing like sailors...living the thug life. There was a teenage girl watching TV in her room (the only clean room in the house) who pretended we weren't there, and a woman in bed who appeared to be sick or in pain but who was miraculously up and about in the kitchen when my realtor went in to say goodbye. Again, hmmm. My brother went with us to see the house, so we all went out to dinner, dropped him off at home, then went home ourselves.

Tuesday - The morning was spent on breakfast, laundry, emails and more phone calls. We wanted to make an offer on the house, but there was confusion over whether or not we really could due to the fact that it was somehow simultaneously listed with two agents. And a third time, hmmm. We left at noon to take Biggest to his class, then Littlest and I went to my brother's house and he took us to his community pool. We spent the afternoon lounging by the water. Ahhhh. Then it was time to pick up Biggest, go home, fix dinner and get ready for bed. Below is Littlest and my brother (he's single :))

Wednesday - More phone calls about the house, and the upcoming semester of homeschool co-op, I'm on the planning committee--what was I thinking?? :) I set up a time to meet the realtor to make an offer on the house, we had a green light. I dropped Biggest off at his class then went to my Aunt's house. She had dug up some old pictures from my wedding, and some shots she had taken of me when I was 14 or 15 and wanted to enter a modeling contest...oy. We visited for a little while then I took Littlest to the mall to let him run around like a maniac since we'd been spending so much time in the van. I then picked up Biggest and met Hubby and the realtor in VA to pull together our offer. We submitted it. Now we wait but it's not looking good. We'll see what happens.

Thursday - I spent the morning doing as much laundry as humanly possible with an almost-2-year-old under foot. Then I took Biggest to his class. Hubby surprised me by meeting us there and went with me to a park with Littlest. We had a little picnic and played on the playground but didn't stay as long as we would have liked because there were two unsupervised children there, one was seven, the other was nine. They were nice, but irritating. They were sad really. The younger one was chatty, telling me about the holes in his heart, his older sister who goes to parties and does bad things, his 18 month old brother who died of bronchitis or pneumonia, and his upcoming vacation to go to Louisiana so his mom's boyfriend can get a divorce from his wife then his mom can marry him and they will get a new dad. And the older boy showed me how he "likes to cut himself with sticks and watch himself bleed". It was disturbing, I didn't quite know what to do or say.

Friday - I could tell all the running was really catching up to Littlest. He was quite grumpy so we had a slow, calm morning with lots of cuddling. I dropped Biggest off at his class and took Littlest over to Baker Park, in Frederick, MD, where I used to go as a kid. We took two loaves of bread and fed the ducks. It was CHAOS! Littlest loved it. He can be a mean little cuss though. He would throw bread on the ground, wait for the ducks to swarm it, then run into the group of ducks trying to kick and pull feathers! He got in a bit of trouble. Once he calmed down we had a good time, then a lovely picnic lunch and a walk around the lake. We then packed up and went to an outdoor mall where we walked around some more, splashed our feet in the fountain and went to Maggie Moo's for some dairy free sorbet (mmm, mango!). Now we're relaxing at home. We don't have anything scheduled for this weekend. So Hubby will probably work on the garage and I'll fiddle in the garden. And we'll wait to hear something about the house.

Little Things, Updates and Wha??

WARNING LONG, RAMBLING POST AHEAD!

LITTLE THINGS: Yesterday evening, my family and I were eating out. Hubby and I were doing the usual "tag team dining". You know the drill, while one parent gets to eat for 10 minutes the other takes Littlest outside to do laps around the restaurant, Littlest is then brought back inside for about 5 peaceful minutes of family dinner time before the parents swap and the one who did the laps first gets 10 minutes to eat :) As we finished up our meal and stood to leave we received a very unexpected compliment from the elderly couple seated across from us. "You have such a wonderful family!" they told us. Oh people, that made my week! Little things like that help me get through the challenging moments.

UPDATES: Yesterday evening before eating out we put in an offer on the house in VA. I felt really good about it. I hope that calm is God telling me we're doing the right thing. Of course it could be God saying "Go ahead, it doesn't matter what you do because you're not getting the house." LOL

Wha??: It's not looking good for the house. Right now we're playing a waiting game. The house is a short sale which, to the best of my understanding, means it's like a pre-foreclosure. According to my realtor, only about 30% of short sales go through to settlement. But in order to save on foreclosure costs and evictions, the bank and owners agree to list the house and try find a happy middle ground with the sale. The owners and listing agent set the sale price, review, then reject or accept all offers. THEN, the offer goes to the bank and the bank can accept or reject the offer...all the while the "owners" get to live there for free. Yeah, free.

The house has quite an interesting story. I had originally enquired about it and was told that it was under contract. A week later it was back on the market with a different agent. My realtor investigated and found that, under the original agent, the house was listed and marked as "under contract" for a year. So that means that for a year there were no showings, no offers, nothing. Just free rent for the owners who, for whatever reason, had reneged on their mortgage. Hmmm.

The house is now listed with a new agent (who bears a resemblance to the owner) at the same price as before. We offered full price plus closing costs. Even so, it may not be enough. You have to remember that the sellers and agent set the asking price, then if an offer is approved the offer goes to the bank for approval. It just so happens that the owners bought this home in 2007 for $250,000 more than the list price/what we offered. So, the bank is probably still carrying close to 100% of their principal...I don't know if they will be willing to take that much of a loss.

I'm no real estate agent but it appears to me that the owners can set an extremely low list price, accept low offers-only to have the offers rejected by the bank again and again, and continue to live in their home for free. What a racket.

It also doesn't look good for us because, according to the listing agent, there are 2 offers other than ours and they are "less complicated". Less complicated means the other offers have no contingencies on inspections as our offer does. Our offer states that if an inspection does not meet our expectations we can abandon the contract. The listing agent wants to waive these contingencies before she even takes the offer to the sellers--that seems fishy to me, but again, I'm no real estate agent. The property is being sold "as is", We know and understand that. We're willing to sign a document stating that we will go through with the contract unless something structurally unsound is found like a crumbling foundation or catastrophic termite infestation; but I refuse to waive my right to get out of the contract if the house is unsafe.

We're standing our ground on the contingencies. I'm not sure I trust the listing agent. But, we figure if the other offers are better we won't get the home anyway. The other offers could have come from contractors/investors who have lots more money than us. It has me a little upset because the home is in a great area, closer to my mother, Hubby's work and grandparents and would be a great investment. But I've put it in God's hands and trust that His will will be done.

What's For Dinner GF - Rita's Ice

It's time for What's for Dinner Wednesday Gluten-Free Style. This is a weekly GF-recipe swapping meme hosted by Linda at The Gluten Free Homemaker. Click the link and play along! This week's theme is dessert. Oy, do I have a sweet tooth. Unfortunately, not many of my desserts are gluten free. I love cakes, brownies, cookies, you name it. And I haven't often tried my hand at making them GF. But it just so happens that one of my favorite treats are both dairy and gluten free! Rita's Ice!! It is laden with sugar, but hey, it's dessert right?

Rita's Ice is my guilty pleasure. Seriously I'm addicted. We currently have 4 half eaten quarts in the freezer (I like to mix the flavors). Right now we have pineapple, strawberry, raspberry and mango--yum, yum, yum. My all time favorite is Island Fusion, it has a tropical fruit flavor...sometimes I'll add a little rum. And Alex's Lemonade? Don't get me started! Mmmmm. I love it.

For those with allergies, Rita's is a must. The ice flavors (not custard, toppings etc) are free of the top 8 allergens. I also love the fact that they allot each flavor it's own scoop so there is none of the dreaded cross-contamination. I also love the fact that Rita's offers an online allergy information chart. Click HERE to view the chart.

As a quick note, I have not seen them lately, but in the past I have seen Rita's occasionally offer a flavor that contains dairy. However, my experience has been that these flavors are labeled in fine print as "Cream Ice".

My Dilemma

Am I crazy? My brother says I'm crazy. Here's what I'm looking at.

We live in a log home in Pennsylvania with 3 beds and 1 bath. We are in the middle of converting our 1 car garage (that's so small you can't even open the car doors once it's in the garage) into an office and 2nd bathroom/laundry room. We still need to stain the deck, fix the hot tub, do something with our sorry excuse for a kitchen (even if it's just painting the cabinets), stain the exterior logs and refinish all our hardwood floors. If we do all that we might be able to make a small profit off this house. In this market however I'd be happy if we broke even.

We're going to make an offer on a 3 bedroom, 2 bath rancher in our old town in Virgina. Though it's technically livable, it needs work. The carpets need to be cleaned with a bio hazard steam cleaner (I'm exaggerating, but not by much), there are holes in some of the drywall and a leaking hot water heater. Also, the current owners already began to finish the basement, it has an additional 2 bedrooms down there BUT it looks like they put sheet rock/drywall (??) right up against the concrete walls...isn't that supposed to be framed out with insulation then the drywall on top? If so, we'll need to gut that mess. But it has a nice yard, a smidge bigger than our current yard and the rear is fenced-great for Littlest and our 2 Irish setters.

If they don't accept our extremely generous offer the we will make an offer on another house here in Pennsylvania.

The one in PA is a 2bedroom, 1 bath fixer upper. It is half the price of the one in VA but will need complete renovation so the mortgage will end up about the same. We would be gutting it down to the studs. It's so grossly filthy not one wall, ceiling or floor would stay. We would then be ripping off the roof and adding a second story addition with 3 beds and 2 baths and relaying the original floor plan into something functional; taking the existing "2 bedrooms" and making an office and bigger kitchen. This house has over double our current yard.

The scary part for me is this. We've kept our monthly mortgage payment at 1/4 of our monthly income. Once we purchase one of these homes we will be floating 2 mortgages until we finish the work on our log home and sell it. With both mortgage payments we will be at almost 50% of our monthly income. We can handle it, but for how long? We'll really have to watch our expenses. It will be beans and rice or PB&J for us, LOL. No extras, no luxuries.

I'm nervous, but I feel an underlying calm, like we're making the right decision. I hope that calm is from God, telling me we're doing the right thing. I don't want to make a stupid decision just because I'm excited about moving. Right now this is a very unforgiving economy.

Music Monday #7

You know what this one is going to be about. Michael Jackson. Who else, right? I have to admit, I lost a lot, maybe all, respect for him when the whole child molestation scandals came about. I don't know if they were true or not. I hope not, for the children's sakes. Although, even if he was innocent his behavior, at the very least, was wildly inappropriate. I think he was a very confused, tragic man. But before all that, back in the day, I was all about Michael Jackson. It was sad really.

Picture it. It was 1987, I was 8 years old. I had the Michael Jackson doll, the fake rhinestone glove, a bright yellow tee-shirt with the Thriller album cover on it, and down in our recroom I was dancing my heart out, trying to do the Moonwalk and grabbing my crotch, to the latest hit - Bad. Michael was my man, we were going to be BFFs when I grew up. Oh yeah.

The YouTube embedding is disabled for most of MJ's (yes, he let's me call him MJ) videos. And I can't just post the song-a lot of the fascination with MJ is over his unique brand of dance.

So click HERE to watch the Bad video. Oh man, check out that choreography! "Ohhhhh!"

And I can't have a Michael Jackson Music Monday without sharing what is probably my all time favorite Michael Jackson song, Smooth Criminal (followed closely by Billie Jean). Click HERE to watch/hear it. "Annie are you okay? Annie are you okay? Are you okay Annie?"

And of course I must share my own Michael Jackson story. As I said before, I thought Michael Jackson and I would one day be best friends. But alas, our paths were never destined to cross.

As a little girl I had the privilege of going to a Michael Jackson concert with my mom. We were only about 12 to 15 rows back, center stage and the last 4 seats in our row were vacant so we had plenty of room to move around and dance. As I was standing to the outside, along the aisle, I noticed a big, burly usher-lady stomping up and down the aisle, trailing a child or two now and again. At one point she stopped, pointed at me and said in a rather unfriendly tone "I'm coming for you next." My mother missed this exchange. I, not knowing what was going on, thought "Oh no you're not" and I promptly changed places with my mother. I hid behind her as the scary usher-lady continued her laps, gathering up less cautious children, who were clearly less educated than I about stranger danger. :)

Not much later, after Michael Jackson had pointed out that Linda Carter (Wonder Woman) was in the audience and everyone gave her a round of applause, I realized what was really going on with the big-bad-usher. MJ started up a new song and low and behold, here came the children onto the stage. The usher had been rounding up kids so they could get up on stage and dance with Michael for a minute or two!! There were about 20 of them up there, dancing their hearts out as Michael sang his heart out. AYE CARUMBA! If only I had known. :( I'm over it now, but it was more than a little disappointing that night, LOL. Over the years I have consoled myself with the fact that he didn't interact with them... :)

That's it for this Music Monday. If you'd like to play along you can read the guidelines HERE.

Jon and Kate Plus 8

As I stated in my previous Jon and Kate Plus 8 post, I don't watch the show regularly anymore. I just tune in for the big events and season premieres to get an idea of what's been going on and see how the kids have grown. I was intrigued by this season's premiere with all the speculation going on so I tuned in for that, then was suckered in again for the 2nd week with the "big announcement". I wasn't surprised when they announced they were separating (and most likely divorcing) but it was quite sad to hear.

I won't get into a whole lot of opinions and judgements here. I stated most of those on my last post. I'll just say that I still think it was too much stress on an already weak relationship. Also-flame me if you want-but I think marriage, NOT CHILDREN, should come first in a relationship (after a personal relationship with God). I hear both of them say "I'm here for the children, it's about the children". Perhaps if that emphasis had been placed on each other, they would have communicated with one another better and respected each other more.

Now it appears they will be trading off with the kids and house depending on whose visitation time it is. I don't see that situation lasting very long. So whoever's turn it is not will have to vacate the premises. Sad, sad sad. That will last as long as it takes for one or both of them to find a significant other. But on a lighter note *insert evil grin* Hubby asked if they will be changing the show title from Jon and Kate Plus 8 to Jon or Kate Plus 8.

Weekly Wrap-Up

My weekly wrap-up is late. I was hoping to get to it yesterday, but no luck. It's been such a busy week but at the same time not a lot has happened. Funny how that works. I think I opened a can of worms this week, I don't know. You see, I love houses. I'm one of those people who goes to open houses and home models for fun. Last week I was poking around online and found a few houses at a good price. It got me to thinking of how I'd LOVE to lower our mortgage. So I thought why not sell this house, buy a "new" one at a lesser price and save a couple hundred dollars a month? It would get us our French vacation home that much sooner! I know, I know, crazy with this housing market. There's no guarantee our house would even sell...not to mention we still have some work to do on it. But I'm a dreamer...*sigh* So I called around, got us pre-qualified for the bank says we can handle in addition to our current home (it's not much, but it's enough to work with) and have been combing the websites for short sales from here to our old Virginia stomping grounds. Now that you have the background info, here's what we've been up to this week.

Monday- Hubby had to work. The kids and I had a busy day around the house. There was laundry, weeding the garden, general clean-up and bill-paying. When Hubby came home we all went for a brisk walk. After dinner Biggest went fishing with his friends.

Tuesday- I can't remember much of what I did today, isn't that awful? Everything is a blur before our trip to the ER due Littlest falling down the stairs. He's okay thank the Lord and that's all that matters today :)

Wednesday- Wednesday, we ran up to my dad's house to take care of some stuff for him, drove by a few listed homes, I liked one of them and called to set up an appointment for that evening, a quick stop by the store for odds and ends then back home where Littlest decided to take a nap today! Yay! After Hubby got home we all went to see the house. I liked it but it needs A LOT of work, we'd probably put on a second story addition and that would take time and money. I think Hubby is leaning toward this one though.

Thursday- I had a bunch of plans for Thursday since we didn't really do anything fun this week but I ended up throwing the plans out the window. My brother is going through a tough break-up with his girlfriend of four years. He was having a rough day so he came up and we spent the day together. My dad, brother and step-brother are all going through divorces/break-ups/separations. This has, on several occasions, almost prompted an angry post about the problems with women nowadays. I'm not saying the men in my family didn't contribute to their relationship problems, they did, but by and large they were in relationships with weak-minded, shallow, thieving, lying women. Where have all the strong women gone??

Friday- Hubby had off today. We went up to my dad's house again. My dad is doing some work on his house, painting, new trim etc. We went up so Hubby could help with some electrical wiring and I somehow ended up cooking breakfast for the crew of family and friends there helping...hmmm how did that happen? :) We spent the afternoon relaxing at home then packed up to go look at a house in Virginia and visit my mom in Maryland. I really liked this house, although it is almost double in price as the one Hubby likes (go figure). It too needs a lot of work but it is mostly cosmetic. It's stuff we could do slowly, on our own, while we lived there, but it will still take money. After that we went to my mom's house for a cook-out. We had a great time. I got to visit with a man who was a youth leader in my church when I was growing up. It was so nice to see him again, he was definitely a positive influence on my life, as well as my husband's. This youth leader was disabled in his 20's and would go around to local schools sharing his story and encouraging kids to stay away from the "fast lane". He's now started his own ministry of visiting local paraplegics and taking them out and about, showing them that they can have a full life even though they've lost mobility. He's such a great guy!

That was pretty much it for the week. A lot going on, yet not much at all. Today we're having some family over for a cookout. But before that I want to take Hubby and drive by a property in Maryland...he's gonna kill me :) So how was your week? Tell us at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Hemp Milk - Cow's Milk Alternative

As I may have mentioned before, Littlest and I are allergic to dairy, and I think Biggest is, at the very least, lactose intolerant. I bring very little dairy--if any at all--into the house. Ice Cream, cheese, sour cream etc. are rare treats for Hubby and Biggest and strictly off limits for Littlest and me.

Because of this I'm extra diligent about monitoring our calcium intake. Contrary to popular belief, you don't have to have dairy in order to get enough calcium. If you eat a balanced diet which includes lots of leafy greens, chances are you'll meet calcium requirements. Thankfully, everyone in this household enjoys cooked greens...especially spinach and kale and fresh salads too.

But just to be on the safe side Littlest drinks hemp milk almost every day. Like rice milk and soy milk, it's a cow's milk alternative. It's made from the seeds of the hemp plant and comes in several flavors-original, plain and chocolate. I've only tried the original, but I like it, it has a rich nutty flavor. It's thicker than milk though, so if you're used to drinking something thin (like skim milk) it may take some getting used to.

While I don't care for it as a stand-alone beverage, it's delicious with chocolate, coffee or blended into smoothies. And it's easy to cook with--you can't taste the difference. If you've tried cooking with soy or rice milk you know how important this is. But what I really love about hemp milk is that it offers more vitamins and minerals than milk. I use Living Harvest hemp milk. It has Omega 3 & 6 EFAs, 15 vitamins and minerals and 40% of the DV of calcium in one serving. It really is a fabulous product.