First Thanksgiving in Quincy

Happy Thanksgiving to all our loved ones - friends and family, near and far!  We wish you a blessed day of love and gratitude, for those are some of the most important "things" in life.

As we began preparing for our first Thanksgiving celebration in our new {old} house, we were reminded of the many things for which we are thankful.  Yesterday, together with the kids, I worked to clean the house a little.  They picked up the loose odds and ends that had been left or forgotten throughout the last week.  I vacuumed the ginormous amount of dust/ash that falls to the surfaces of a home heated with a burning wood stove.  Mia worked to clear the island counter, which has a tendency to be a carry-all for many things - books, papers, bills, Lego creations Gabriel feels deserve the honor of center stage, among other things.  Riley cleared the desk which is the second place to be a carry-all - sewing notions, math books, books on CD, notes-to-self from yours truly, and various other items.

We didn't spend a lot of time on cleaning.  It's not about perfection.  Just clearing the work space so that we can have a clear view of what we are actually working with.  From that task, we moved on to food prep.  The girls cubed 2 loaves of rice bread to be made into croutons for our homemade-from-scratch stuffing.  While they did that, I washed and cut the many vegetables I will use in my stuffing, homemade broth, and in the turkey.  Meanwhile Andrew chopped more firewood and kept the stove burning hot to keep us warm as we worked, and Nolan and Gabriel helped him bring the wood in and stack it neatly to dry, as it is too cold for the wood to dry outside now.  Later I whipped up a coconut cream topping, while the girls worked on the cranberry sauce.

As we worked side by side, we laughed, talked about past Thanksgivings, and expressed our excitement and anticipation of the one to come.  Mia asked if I enjoyed all the work involved in Thanksgiving, "It is a lot of work," she noted.  Yes, it is.  And my reply was yes, I absolutely enjoy it.  I love all the work that goes into making a feast for my family.  We don't eat like this every day.  And I also enjoy taking the time to research good recipes that are tasty, allergy-friendly, and also healthy.  That combination is not easy to come by.  But as a mom who's been cooking without many conventional and often-used foods for many years, I find the challenge fun and very rewarding.

As we gather round our table this afternoon to celebrate our gratitude together, it will be a time of love and joy and openness that will be cherished as a memory for all of us for many, many years to come.

So what will be on our table this afternoon?  Here's our menu, keeping in mind everything is without dairy, eggs, nuts, wheat/gluten/oats, soy, beans/legumes.  Drum-roll, please.....

• Roasted Turkey
• Turkey Gravy
• Muzzie's Fabulous {Allergy-Free} Stuffing
• Mashed Potatoes
• Maple Sweet Potato Puree
• Roasted Brussels Sprouts
• Steamed Sweet Corn
• Sugar-free Cranberry Orange Sauce
• Biscuits
• Apple Cobbler
• Pumpkin Pie
• Homemade Coconut Cream Topping

I'm sure eyes will be rolling back in heads by 5 pm today.  :)  Now, I need to go finish my stuffing and get that bird ready to go into the oven!  Happy Thanksgiving to everyone - may your day be filled with love, joy and gratitude.

Quiet lately

Next week will mark 4 months since July 15th, 2013 when I watched our Nolan turn blue and pass out, after many other symptoms which were signs of severe anaphylaxis.  I’ll never forget the sight of him -- lips blue, head tipping down, eyes closing.  The paramedic shouting, “He’s going!” as she scooped him up and into the ambulance.  We rushed off to the hospital following behind the ambulance.  It was an awful gut-wrenching 40-minute drive, not knowing if he’d be alive when we got there.

Even just typing it makes me breathless.  It makes my heart start beating erratically, a lump forms in my throat, tears well in my eyes.

If you’re a parent, you may be able to imagine what it was like, but maybe not really.  I am the mom of a kid whose life is threatened every day by something as simple and non-threatening as food.  You may be able to imagine the unimaginable - the idea of your kid coming as close to death as mine did.  Or, you might not.  Before this amazing kid was part of our lives, I couldn’t imagine.  Not really.  I am a pretty empathetic person, but still it is always difficult to put ourselves in the perspective of a person in that kind of unimaginable position.

Anyway, as the 15th nears this month, I pause to think about the last 4 months.  Everyday I try to remind myself that life is precious, that I have this one kid among the six of them who is a tangible reminder that every day is a gift to treasure.  I try to remember that.  I try to be present with my kids and in my life, to soak up the gifts we have every day.  But as a person who only recently came to know who she really is, and only recently learned to cope without numbing feelings, or covering them up or using crutches to deal with them, the reality of almost losing my son hit me pretty hard.  I look back now and see that I haven’t really written much of anything since then.  At least not in public - I haven’t updated our blog, even though we have so many who follow it.  People - friends, family, acquaintances - who care about what we’ve been through, what we’re doing with our family and our house and how things are going.  

Ozark Mountains

Honestly, we have been busy.  Real busy.  Living in this house is like living in a literal to-do list.  At all times, there are too many things to do and not enough time, people or resources to do them.  And, we’re far away from everything, albeit by design.  But that means going to do anything, like grocery shopping, takes more planning, more time and more work.  (And more gas!)  We’ve had colds and fevers.  We’ve had allergies and asthma issues.  We’ve had injuries from minor to more serious, including a puncture wound in Annie’s foot.  We also took a vacation - a much-needed vacation which was supremely enjoyed by all and which took a lot of planning, time and work before, during and after.  Totally worth it, though!  We’ve had kittens.  9 cats in all - our mother cat Fanta had 4 more kittens while we were gone on vacation (stinker!).  

Turkey Run State Park

So, yes, we've been very busy.  And I had my heart broken, just a little bit, by almost losing Nolan.  And so it has taken some time to heal.  I’ve needed to re-prioritize our life a little bit.  I needed to create an anaphylaxis action plan, now that we are an hour away from the nearest {good} hospital.  Before, it was just 5 minutes away.  This is a big change.  We have taken some time this summer to just enjoy living in the country and just be together after the long period of separation the first half of this year.  We have still completed a LOT of work on the house, but we’ve spent a lot of time hiking at local state parks (they are “local” now!), playing on the property, enjoying the kittens and just being together.  We have taken some time to slow down. We've learned new things like Spanish and making homemade herbal products.  We’ve also taken time for others who've been in need during these last couple months.

So all that to say - don’t give up on us, and don’t forget about us.  I plan to post some updates on the house, I know a lot of you are still interested in what’s going on with that.  We’ve made some really great improvements!  Please continue to pray for us as we head into our first winter here.  We are currently without propane (our main heating source).  We learned we get a significant discount if we wait until December to fill our tank, so we are toughing it out with the wood-burning stove that is located on the porch (not exactly an efficient place - haha - long story) and space heaters. Andrew is quite the pro at chopping wood now!  Also please pray for my extended family as my uncle Dave fights terminal brain cancer.

Lindsay