Boo yeah!

Written Friday night late, so pardon the date when published.

Today is a beautiful day TWELVE of meditation. I told Rob that it was day eleven yesterday and he said to tell him when it's day twenty. I think he will fall off his chair if I make it to forty because his biggest frustration is that I don't do anything that he would like me to do consistently. There's usually a 24-72 hour time limit.

Okay, brief update on the food situation. I did okay until yesterday when I had two cookies and today when I had pizza (crust = white flour which converts to sugar ASAP + yeast) and some sweets from our awesome 'gingerbread' houses (made with graham crackers). It was super fun. The girls had a BLAST! By 9 or 10pm I was having LOTS of pain. It comes and goes, but man alive it is so annoying. I am not a pill popper... unless it comes to this. I did take only 2 motrin and that seemed to help. So what this tells me is that I caved waay too soon and it feels sad to not have sugar when it's around. Silly perhaps, but that is how I feel! This is going to be a LONG journey.

I have thought that if this doesn't go away in the next couple/few weeks, maybe I should wean Megan. The only problems with that are that breastmilk is WAAAAAAAY better than formula and I'll feel like I failed. If I do everything in my power to be comfortable then we can probably nurse quite happily (instead of me bracing myself for latch-on and hoping she doesn't wiggle all over like a normal health six-month old does). It's been a lot better this week until tonight so that tells me that the medicine, a homeopathic, and my strides at less yeast-loving food is helping. That's the good news. If I do everything I can and it still doesn't work then I won't feel like I gave up too early. So, let's see what happens.

Windows Opening

I've had some neat experiences with meditating lately. I'm too tired to write all of the details. This is the 2nd night in a row where Mommy's dozing and dying to climb into bed, but I still have the two wee ones awake. I do feel like my health issue here is 'compelling me to be humble.' That's not as great as choosing to be humble on my own, but it's better than not at all! That just so happened to get awful enough to do something different, while I'm learning mediation. This kind of meditation is very different and totally strange to someone who's not looking at what the meaning or purpose behind it is. Some of it involved music. Oh, how that makes me happy! I think it's all meant to be.

Oh, and I just have to note something that I also think is NOT a coinscidence. Felice was talking about a 'stony heart' and what that means. The Savior can take that away for us. I also think of having a broken heart (and a contrite spirit). Kinda the same idea. Well, when I was raiding my parents' books I found a book called "The Peacegiver" thinking it would talk about the Savior right off. Well the first part of the book said the exact same thing about a stony heart. Ding ding ding! I need to read this book. And to my surprise it talks about a couple who've been married for 12 years (we're going on 10) and their marriage is in BAD shape. I've only read a few pages, but I'm intrigued and want to learn from whatever happens. I need to see if it's a true story too. Prevention is key and this girl needs a warm, squishy heart. It will bless everyone around me, especially my beautiful family. On a side note this makes me think of what a wise man once told me (my dad... recently and with conviction), "Don't underestimate the power of your influence on your family." Woah. It's totally true. If I turn my weaknesses into strengths, watch out world! PS I'm going to try and not complain so much and also write random happy thoughts even if I'm grumpy about something because the more I say it, think it, write it, the more true it will feel. See, this is me trying to 'reframe.' I really don't like wondering if people are annoyed with my whining inadvertantly. I want to be sushine like my friend Anne! Okay, focus!

I have been a lot better about avoiding treats and bread for the most part and I'm trying to be a more calm and attentive Mama and then guess what windows OPEN? I checked my e-mail with some great news. Guess who's (ironically) taking a class on Raw Chocolate Desserts?! --> Me <-- a="a" absolutely="absolutely" actually="actually" ago="ago" aren="aren" because="because" by="by" class="class" dessert="dessert" desserts="desserts" divine="divine" for="for" future.="future." how="how" href="http://www.jjvitalityfood.com/" i="i" invited="invited" is="is" it="it" learn="learn" long="long" make="make" nbsp="nbsp" needs...="needs..." not="not" perfect="perfect" processed="processed" s="s" shannon="shannon" sugar.="sugar." t="t" target="_blank" taught="taught" that="that" the="the" think="think" to="to" too="too" want="want" was="was" what="what" with="with">Jaylene Johnson
, but it was one of those evenings where Mom just needed to be here at home :-) Someday I hope to take her classes as well.
And the other message? To call my friend's boss because she does have an opening to do data entry from home. YESSS! I've waited a couple of months for when she had a need. I was so giddy it was an awesome day. So super cheesy, but I could feel a skip in my step and a ray of hope and joy again. I've been so GRUMPY lately it's unreal. Rob sounded happy. I feel like I have freedom to throw myself back into the art of homemaking. Before Rob asked me to work a little while ago, I was getting ready to jump in feet first to create delicious nutrious meals daily and keep our home picked up. It's all in my head, I know, but now I feel at peace.

I did speak with Sara, my friend's boss. She started out working for someone else a couple years ago and long story short, she is her own boss and then needed help and now has 10 people working for her. I think everyone is an independant contractor. I need to look over the documents she sent, but from what I know I would be compiling data for broker opinions? And I did see an MLS listing in the docs so we shall see. On Monday we'll go over everything and then I'll get my first thing to do and go from there. She gives you one a day for a while and then hopes for 3-5 to be done each day. When I'm proficient, by about 60 days (I'm hoping way sooner) she'll train me on how to do computations and other things. When I can do everything from start to finish 'there's money to be made' she said. And I feel totally fine about this because my friend works for her already so I know this is legit! You never know what is real and what isn't when looking online for work at home. I feel so extremely blessed and I pray that this will work out long term and easy some of our financial burdens.

Oh, and then the very next day I got a message from a friend's sister asking if I'd be interested in cooking a few meals during the week for their family, as her son has dairy/wheat/gluten sensativities. She works full time and is very busy. We'll meet up after the new year and talk about it. I desperately need to get organized and more consistent on my responsibilities first.

So life is looking up. I just need to make our home look like life is great, not NUTS :-P. Now for some rest. No school. Yea! Christmas tree hunting. Yea! Sweetest dreams. (I remember mine more now and they're more real since I started meditating and that's normal. Cool.)

Meditation for Reals and Candida overgrowth?!

I had the right idea when I posted last, about striving for something for a long period of time and I worried it was too vague. Yep, it was. And what's funny is that since I've written last I took a great class about "Change" and attempted a 30 day challenge to help change my thought process.

What you do is, throughout the day write down 10 negative thoughts you have and then 2 positive thoughts for each negative one. The first positive is the opposite like "I'm lazy" and "I am NOT lazy" which I think is kind of silly because I am lazy... often. BUT my best self isn't! See, I did learn how to reframe some thoughts :-P Then you add another happy thought just for kicks and giggles. I had a hard time coming up with the negative thoughts and it bothered me to have to brainstorm negative things!

THEN I discovered a "40 day Meditation" that a group was doing. The class is once a week for six weeks via Ustream. It's taught by Felice Austin, the author of The Gift of Giving Life. She is also a Mother, hypnotherapist, and Kundilini Yoga and Meditation teacher. It started on November 13th 2012 and it is FASINATING. Rob thinks it's completley wierd so I don't talk too much about it. He did say, "Tell me when you get to day 10." You're on.

I did begin a meditation journal to write down my thoughts and experiences with it, as well as some notes from the classes. I thought to write blog posts about it, but I think writing physically is good for me and it's an easy reference to grab instead of getting online.

I am owning the fact that I have started this 40 Day Meditation 4 times already! I'm on Day 4, completed :-) Farthest I've gotten. I usually do a simple 7 minute mediation. I may only do that much time because what's important to me at this point is just DOING it each day.

CANDIDA OVERGROWTH?!

I need a place to vent and WHINE and most importantly, I hope to PROGRESS. With my last 3 out of 5 babies I have had yeast in my breasts. People usually call it 'thrush' but there are no issues in my little one's mouth thank goodness! I had NO idea what the heck the stabbing shooting pain was with baby #3 and I learned a bit here and there, was partially in denial, tried a few natural things, refused to go to my midwife for an RX because I was going through a phase, FAILED at a yeast free diet and weaned her early :-( That makes no sense to me now, but at least she was ten and a half months old, so I did do lots of good. Got to remember that.

With baby #4 I finally said forget this and took diflucan, which worked just fine.

Now, with baby #5 I have taken a 150mg of flucanazole two days apart and a week later I took 200mg of flucanazole for five days in a row. I was not very good at applying nystatin cream as it's a pain to wipe off before hand, but I did do it some. Not ideal. Guess what?! It's still RAGING. I am enjoying a moment of no pain. I've been taking Motrin nearly daily for probably a week, mostly just once, but somtimes twice and it's usually 3-4 that will actually help with the pain.

I ate three large celery sticks with peanut butter for breakfast and I'm hungry. I'm not even supposed to eat peanut butter, but it's better than toast or jam :-P If you didn't check out the link, I basically need to stick to veggies, meat/beans/legumes, and perhaps small amounts of grains. NO sugar, NO foods with yeast/mold (pb, mushrooms, soy)... I don't honestly believe that I will do this 100% because I lack SOOOOOOO much in self-discipline. Last night I felt like an alcoholic as I did have one chocolate with my girls and then left for an errand and thoroughly enjoyed two more all by myself. MMMMM.

Why do we sometimes do things that are (literally) painful for us? I think I am addicted to sugar. I don't necessarily want it every day, though I'm not opposed to that usually (I've been waaay better lately because of this whole thing), but when I do have it I don't stop at ONE thing... EVER. If you're like my husband and don't understand whatsoever, Kris Carr paints a great picture of this on her site. She also talks in either Hungry For Change or Food Matters about sugar addiction. She'd eat several brownies or what have you, and then have to throw them away so she wouldn't eat more. (Done that!) Then she'd get them OUT of the trash to eat more. Then she discovered spraying them with windex would do the trick. I haven't done that one, but I can relate :-P More later...