Sovereignty

For many years I have had this little poem tucked in my Bible. It's not the most brilliantly composed piece of poetry, but I believe it is well-loved. Having studied textiles a little bit while in college for my Home Economics degree (which I'm pretty sure is obsolete now), these words have extra strength and meaning for me. It encouraged me this morning, I hope it will you:

The Weaver

My life is but a weaving

between my Lord and me,

I cannot choose the colors

He worketh steadily.

Ofttimes He weaveth sorrow,

And I in foolish pride

Forget He sees the upper

And I, the underside.

Not till the loom is silent

And the shuttles cease to fly

Shall God unroll the canvas

And explain the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful

In the Weaver's skillful hand

As the threads of gold and silver

In the pattern He has planned.

The Honeymoon is OVER!!!!

I really don't know what is going on other than we must be adjusting to life POST "honeymoon". I just can't get a "good" blood sugar reading from Ashlyn, no matter WHAT I try.

For those of you who aren't familiar with diabetic terms, the "honeymoon" is known as that period of time after initial diagnosis when your pancreas kicks back in a little and erratically produces a little more of its own insulin. Then you have these really low blood sugar readings and have to back off of the synthetic insulin. This could last for weeks or months or even a year or more. It just depends. Nobody knows.

For us, Ashlyn's honeymoon period kicked in several weeks after diagnosis in March. After every meal her blood sugar would drop to 40 and take HOURS to edge back up even with eating or drinking 15 g. of carbs every 15 minutes. It was EXCRUCIATING.

So we backed WAY off on the injected insulin.

Last week our endocrinologist informed us that she is formally OUT of the honeymoon period.

Her looked at her numbers while we were there, and said she was "obviously underdosed" even though her A1C was 7.5%, so he tweaked her ratios from 1:16 at dinner to 1:13 and upped her Lantus at bedtime to 9 units.

Nearly two weeks later, there is not much difference. She is still waking up to numbers over 200, and jumping up by dinnertime to over 300.....consistently. I changed her breakfast and lunch ratios today, and she had a better lunchtime reading but dinner was still over 300. We changed her Lantus a couple days ago to 10 units, but I'm thinking that we're going to have to go up to 11 units here pretty soon.

How far up will she go?? I have no idea. I guess that other children take tons more and in comparison we're still on relatively low amounts of insulin. We met a family with a boy Ashlyn's age who is on 21 units of Lantus, and the endo told us he has teenage boys (as patients) who are on 80 units of Lantus (obviously big, busy guys!!).

Our goal is a blood sugar reading of 80-150, so I guess we'll just keep plugging along here in search of the elusive "good" numbers.

On another note, I'm interested in talking with my Aunt on my mother's side who was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes as a young girl in the early 50's. I'd like to hear how things have changed through the years for her, how she started out reading her blood sugar since they didn't have meters back then, and how she was instructed to manage her blood sugar. I wonder how much insulin she is on now and how this disease has affected her quality of life. That little interview would make for a good blog entry in the near future. Stay TUNED!!!

Friday's Fabulous Family Recipe

Peanut Butter Popcorn

I know, I know.....you're thinking......"Huh?", or "Gross", or "On POPCORN?".

But let me just reassure you......this is De-LISH!!!

I've been making this since AT LEAST the summer of 1987, and it

has always been an old family favorite......well, my side of the family!

Super easy to make and worth every minute of it.

(Oh, just TRY it!!)

1/2 cup corn syrup (I know, I know....haven't tried it with honey yet)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp. vanilla

About 9 cups of popped popcorn (I used two bags of microwave popcorn)

In a saucepan mix the sugar and corn syrup together. Heat until boiling.

When it begins to boil around the edges, remove from the heat and stir in the peanut butter and vanilla. The sauce will be nice and thick, but pourable. Move quickly though because

it sets up and gets stiffer pretty quick.

Pour sauce over popcorn and fold around until popcorn is evenly coated.

Enjoy the yumminess...but be careful.....it's addictive!

First Days of School

I don't know if you can read the jolly little apples on their pictures,

but it says,

"Welcome back to school!"

Back to school!!!

We actually started back to school on September 8th. That was a couple weeks later than I usually start, but let me tell ya.......I was really nervous about this year. I was just overwhelmed with figuring out how to best meet all the needs of my children, and I wasn't sure how it was all going to work. So I gave my self extra time to get my brain wrapped around our new curriculum, and to do some major modifications to our home and schedule. I'm really excited to tell you about that in a later post because I've seen TREMENDOUS improvement with both my ADHD-ers.

But I thought I'd share something fun we did this year to get everyone excited about our first day. We added another student to our "school" this year, and she was just thrilled and delighted to be starting Kindergarten!! So on the night before we began, we had a "BACK-TO-SCHOOL PARTY."

Now, lest you think I put hours and hours of planning into this, let me just put your mind at ease. This was just a tiny soiree in our schoolroom/dining area that involved only our family. But the children got so into it, and we just had fun together. Here are the little details:

BACK-TO-SCHOOL PARTY

Menu: Tuna and cheese sandwiches (because Tuna travel in "schools")

Alphabet Soup

Watermelon

Games: Be the first to spell your name from the letters in your soup, and

scavenger hunt for markers that mommy hid through-out the house.

Decorations: I didn't really go all out with this because of a lack of time, but I did

use our tins of markers, and pencils, and pens as centerpieces.

Dessert: "Schoolhouse" Cake

I did actually have a pattern to make this and it went together so quickly. The children

were so excited about this cake.

It wasn't a big 'ol stressful deal to put this together, but it did a lot to help me have fun

with it and get into a great frame of mind for starting another schoolyear. The children enjoyed

it too......

Friday's Fabulous Family Recipe

Crock-Pot Chicken De-Lish

Okay, so just to warn you ahead of time, the pictures for this dish are not the greatest.

They look kinda gross if you ask me, but for some reason, I didn't get great shots of this.

But let me just say that it is so AMAZING!!! YUM!!!

Oh yes, and this is the recipe as it is written, but I doubled it and it fits in my 5-quart crock pot just perfectly!

1 - 6 ounce package chicken flavor stuffing mix

2 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken

2 cups zucchini, cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 cups sliced fresh mushrooms (I left these out)

1 medium red or green sweet pepper,

cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/2 chopped onion

1 - 10 3/4 oz. can condensed cream of chicken soup

1. Prepare stuffing mix according to package instructions, EXCEPT

REDUCE WATER TO 1/2 CUP. (Stuffing will not be completely moistened.)

Set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine chicken, zucchini, pepper and onion.

Stir in soup.

3. In a 3 1/2, 4 or 5 quart crock pot, place half the chicken-veggie mixture;

top with half of the stuffing. Repeat layers.

4. Cover. Cook on low setting for 5-6 hours or on high setting fo 2 1/2 -3 hours.

Makes 6 HEAVENLY servings.

I cannot tell you how much I LOVE this recipe. It's like Thanksgiving in a crock-pot!!

Terrific, hearty comfort food for fall!!! I love to chop everything up on Saturday night,

throw it together on Sunday morning, and come home after church to the delicious aroma of this

dish warming in the kitchen!!!!

Some more updates.....

Back in August, I posted about my war with allergies.

I thought someone who might be following this little problem might be

interested to know how my strategy is working.

Well, let me just say......EUREKA!!

It seems to me that this little theory about getting a jump on allergy season

by getting your medications into your system BEFORE the season starts is the KEY!!

I started my medications (Rhinocort Aqua Nasal Spray and Generic Zyrtec) on August 1st.

I have been faithfully watching the ragweed pollen counts in our area go from

8 grains psi in August

to over 400 grains psi in September

with only minor discomfort.

Now I must admit that two weekends ago, I did start feeling that prickly, burning itching on my face and in my eyes, and had people mention that I sounded a little congested to them.

That has become my personal red flag that there is an infection beginning that is blocking

the ability of my antihistamines from being able to fully work properly for me.

Fortunately, I had two days worth of antibiotic left over from my last sinus/eye infection/allergy

problem back in February, and I tried taking it to see if it made a difference.

The itching, prickly, burning went away, and I've had no other major

issues since then, even though the pollen counts are still sky high!!!

I did also add an OTC eye allergy drop and it has helped me tremendously.

I hadn't ever seen this particular product before (Wal-Mart brand of Claritin 12-hour eye drops) and so far it works great

and is much cheaper than my prescription eye drops (Pataday).

One last tip: Last year my husband decided to try the "Filtrete" air conditioning filters

that are supposed to be really great at trapping airborne allergens in the air in your house.

I was a little skeptical, but I have actually noticed that that has helped me too. We've tried to be better about changing that out about once a month, and compared to other filters we have tried, this seems to be much better.

How are you faring this allergy season? How have you found that you can best manage your allergies?