New Year, New Beginnings

I am so happy to be bringing in a new year! My sense of hope and excitement for things to come seems to have bubbled up in surprising verve. A recent trip to Australia must have cleared a few cob webs from my brain!!
This photo was taken at Australia Zoo. Isn't she cute?!!

We had a very tough beginning of the school year with Matthew, which I will reiterate in another post all the details. Needless to say it left me drained, depressed and feeling like my life was forever going to be about fighting the system for Matthew's sake. I can only fight so long before I just crumple up in a pile and give up completely. I don't have endurance that way.
Thankfully my fight actually made changes and things are improving rapidly. whew!

So with this new found hope comes a long list of resolutions. Last year I opted not to write out resolutions feeling more the need to live in a state of acceptance for how things are and feeling like things change enough with out putting pressure on myself to change more.
But this year I feel like I want to make positive changes in my life and create new habits that will benefit my life and my family.

So here it goes:

1. Blog more. One blog post every 6 months does not constitute a blog!
2. Listen more, talk less. As I stated on my Facebook up date I often get myself in trouble with what I say, or how I say it, and I am often left feeling misunderstood.
3. Be less judgemental. This will be tough because I am just so curious about why people do what they do. And, lets face it, I am just too perfect!!
4. Connect - be still, aware, hear God, see God, in all things.
5. Drink less.
6. Eat less.
7. Exercise more.
8. Recycle more.
9. Clean and organize more
10. Create more.
11. Surf the net less.
12. Implement 'sanitation' plan (I will explain this later, to those who are not grossed out enough to read about it)
13. Implement '15 min' plan (see below)
14. Spend less money (my husband will love this!)
15. Have more sex ( my husband will REALLY love this!)

In all seriousness all intentions need a good solid plan in order for them to work. So here is where I explain #13, the '15 min' plan. Years ago my mother in law told me that she heard of a tip where you spend 15 min a day tidying up each room in the house to maintain it. Really she was just trying to get me to clean up!
But I have often used this tip when feeling overwhelmed by the mess. I set the timer for 15 minutes and just stay in one room cleaning, until the timer goes off. I am often amazed by what can be done in 15 min. And I am surprisingly focused when I turn the timer on for myself. When I just watch the clock, I am not as focused. There is something about having to beat the timer that gets me motivated. So I have been thinking of other ways to use the 15 min plan. It could be applied to exercise, cleaning, studying, blogging, reading, meditation or anything that requires a little focus.  And it doesn't have to be 15 min. It could be 10 min to start, or if its for exercise it could be for 30 min.
So my plan is to set the timer 4 times a day to help me stay on tasks with the house hold chores, with the exception to the laundry and dish washer which just get done regardless, that is if we want clean undies and dishes to eat with!!

I find this method so effective that I hope to teach it to my kids when they are ready. Hopefully they don't start hiding the timer!!

I wonder if I could apply it to #15???

School issues

The end of Matthew's first school year is fast approaching. Overall it has been a great school year for Matt. he is learning new things, participating in the class, using more expressive language and has found his own unique way to connect with other children...most of the time.
There are times when things go sideways. Last week was a particularly tough week for Matthew, his teacher and the aids who deal with him. He reverted back to behaviours that we thought were a thing of the past. There were many contributing factors to a tough day; sickness, sub teachers, sub aid workers, a change in school routine. Last week all of these were factors in Matthew's behaviour. As his parent I can list them all and deal with the onslaught of behaviour with an understanding that things will normalize when his routine normalizes, and provide safety, discipline and routine at home.
However, the staff in the school are not always so savvy, and fair enough. They have other children to mind, classes to teach, activities to plan etc. The school can't stop for one wayward child.
Last week I was left with the uneasy feeling that these occurrences with Matthew will become more frequent, behaviour more extreme, and the tolerance for it will become less. It leads me to ask the question ' why does the government pour millions of dollars of funding into autism early intervention treatment, yet not follow it up by providing schools with appropriate training and staffing once early intervention is finished? In Vancouver many schools will not allow private autism therapists to work with in the school. Yet their staff is totally untrained in dealing with autism behaviour issues.
Matthew's school is a wonderful school with fantastic staff. The principal is proactive, the staff are involved and committed, and the support staff is ever steady, kind and supportive. However the staff is already stretched thin with only the bare minimum of special support workers. Very few of them are trained and experienced in behaviour management, let alone autism. Their role in the school is so vitally important, yet they are not trained.
Coincidentally a friend of mine told me of an incident that happened at her child's school in the same week. The autistic child in question has become violent toward other children. The first thought that popped into my head was that this child has been allowed to get away with extreme behaviour because the school staff does not understand that autistic children fully understand that they have gotten away with it. My second thought was how long will it be before I get a call from the school telling me that Matthew has done something harmful to himself or others? At the rate things are going, my guess is next school year, unless things change.

I would love to hear about your thoughts and experiences on this topic.

Fabricoholic

So, we all know I have a problem with products, yarn and fabric. So I have decided to turn my fabric addiction into something useful. I am attempting to train myself to become a textile designer. I fuss and fuss about on the computer trying to get perfect seamless patterns in Illustrator. But I am still learning. I am sure I will figure it out some day. In the mean time I practice and submit my attempts to the weekly Spoonflower competitions. Here is my latest attempt.

It looks nice as a single image but does not translate well in a print. The frustration for me is that I know how to do this by hand, photo copies, cutting and paste. Learning the computer thing is a whole other animal!

Check out what it looks like on Spoonflower and vote for it. The Black and White contest page should be up.
http://www.spoonflower.com/

sugar free update

I have been meaning to write this update for so long now! Ohhhh my! What a can of worms I opened up with this sugar free thing!
I have fallen of the wagon so many times, and keep trying to climb on. I actually feel like I am being dragged behind the wagon, hog tied!!
It is the hardest thing to over come. I have concluded that there is no overcoming it. We live in a society where sugar is rubbed in our faces every day.
If I did not have to face making all of Matthew's baked goods, I might actually succeed at sugar free. But when I turn up to school and a mom has brought cupcakes to school for their kid's birthday, I always feel that I have to make sure that Matthew has something comparable to eat. And since you can't usually buy a GF cupcake just anywhere, that means I have to make them. Then I have to eat them. Of course no one is holding a gun to my head making me stuff cake down my throat. And no one is making me dip my hand into the kid's easter basket desperately searching for a straggling little chocolate egg. But it gets hard to resist.
There would not have been enough money in the world to hold me back from eating sugar in Paris! What a thought!

Being sugar free means having a huge diet mentality. Maybe when my kids leave home I might actually be successful at this! in the mean time I am going to practice moderation...

Oh, and if I do not say it enough, I have a great husband! xx

Sugar Free - My Spiritual Journey

Some of you may know that I have been trying out a sugar free diet. This is my second attempt at sugar free in less then 6 months. In September I made my first attempt and lasted a whole month. I dropped 8 lbs and was feeling pretty good. Then the holidays came along and I fell off the wagon. It started with Octoberfest, a month long party extravaganza of family birthdays, and ending with Matthew's birthday mid January. Needless to say I gained back about 6 of those 8 lbs. I was feeling bloated, blocked, depressed, anxious and complicated. I knew why I was feeling this way and what to do about it. So, last Monday I jumped back on the sugar free wagon. Aside from a few glasses of wine, I have done pretty good. My detox symptoms have not been as severe as the first time around. Although I did have an emotional outburst yesterday that I directly blame on the sugar detox.
I know some of you may not understand fully why this is so important for me to do. And I often question that myself. I hope that by sharing this with all of you that you will support me on this journey, and that I will have a written reminder for myself. This is not about losing weight, although I do hope that will be a happy consequence. It is about managing depression, anxiety, and not medicating my emotional discomforts with cookies and chocolate.
I have never been successful on any diet. Most diets require one to limit sugar. But I would still have sugar in my tea and coffee, and whatever lowfat diet foods I thought would help me shed the pounds. But inevitably I would find myself at the bottom of a McDonalds caramel sunday, which I only seem to eat when I am dieting. Other then this pesky problem I am a fairly healthy eater. So I could never figure out why losing weight was so hard for me. I eat breakfast, I eat whole grains, I eat regularly thru the day, I eat salad and lean proteins...why why why does this not work for me?? Sugar.
When I eat just a little sugar, I want more sugar. I will graze all day long looking for sugar. A few M&M's here, a few homemade GF cookies there. A protein shake with just a little sugar for taste, a latte with a little vanilla syrup. Doesn't sound like much, but before I knew it I would find myself at the bottom of that McDonalds sunday or eating the last cookie in a batch. And if there are left over cupcakes from a birthday, well, just picture Cookie Monster!
I can't just eat a little treat here and there and expect that that will satisfy the Cookie Monster inside of me. He will just want more and more. Going sugar free is the only way to quiet the Cookie Monster.
In addition to not being successful at a diet I suffer mild depression on and off. I notice I am more depressive, anxious and frustrated after a few months of regular sugar consumption. This might be one of the reasons many people are depressed after Christmas?!
My sugar addiction started when I was a small child. I would take money from my Dad's coin drawer, go to the store and buy as much candy as I could with the coins I had scrounged up, and sit in the park and eat till I finished the last crumb. I even remember doing this when it was in the middle of winter in Edmonton. I would forage thru the cupboards looking for anything, once biting into a chunk of cooking chocolate only to discover it was not sweetened. I would drink out of syrup containers. I even broke into neighbours houses when I knew they were not home, and eat their cookies!
This behaviour is not normal childhood behaviour. It was what I did to quiet my anxiety. I am sure my parents just thought I was precocious and looking for ways to be naughty. But to my recollection, I just wanted that sweetness and would do anything to get it.

So my friends, if you see me eating a cookie then it is a sign that I am unravelling. This is not a temporary 'fad diet'. This is forever. And I can't tell you how hard that was to write! To forever not eat cake, cookies and chocolate is a frightening prospect right now. It fills me with anxiety. So I am taking it one moment at a time.

Here is an excerpt from a web site I have found truly profound and helpful. I have read Karly's e book and it was pretty much speaking directly to me.

5 Steps to Heal Your Sugar Addiction

August 24, 2009 By Karly Randolph Pitman 5 Comments

Sugar addiction held me in its grip for years, keeping me isolated from the world. When I stopped eating sugar, I gained better health. But, more importantly, I found self respect.

The pain of negative habits isn’t solely from the habits themselves. When I was addicted to sugar, I had extreme bouts of anger and irritability, vacillating blood sugar, yo-yoing weight, and chronic depression. But even more harmful then the physical effects were the spiritual effects:  the pain sugar bingeing caused my spirit. No one wants to be addicted. No one wants to feel out of control. No one wants to feel powerless.

What hurt the most weren’t the consequences of my sugar addiction:  neither weight gain nor the upset stomach nor the depression. What hurt the most was the cause of my sugar addiction:  my inability to care for myself with love, tenderness and respect.

When you act in ways that go against your beliefs, it hurts. If you think that you are a worthy, divine creature, it will hurt when you treat yourself in ways that belie that. Shame and sadness accompany any choice that goes against our values. And shame short circuits self love every time.

That is why it’s necessary to tackle destructive behaviors. Yes, we need to accept ourselves as we are, and that means accepting all of our behaviors, good and bad. But while we start at acceptance, we don’t stop there. It’s very difficult to love and accept ourselves when we’re wallowing in the shame and guilt from treating ourselves unkindly. We need to move to a space where we practice self love and self care, so we feel good from the inside, out.

Great. But how? Transforming these pesky habits can feel like a Catch-22:  bad habits feed our low self esteem and feelings of unworthiness; yet, until we change these habits, it’s very difficult to raise our self esteem or feel good about ourselves.

So where do you begin?

1. Acceptance. For me, I had to accept that I couldn’t eat sugar normally. I had to accept that when I eat sugar, I binge on it. This means that I don’t eat birthday cake, Christmas cookies, or ice cream. Accepting this fact about myself was the first step in creating change:  for me, abstaining from sugar isn’t deprivation, but evidence of self care and nurturing.

2. Forgiveness. Since the most destructive part of a bad habit is the guilt and shame that usually accompanies it, it’s important to separate the habit from the shame. This is brilliantly discussed inOvercoming Overeating, a guide to freeing yourself from food abuse. If you’re going to overeat, the first step to healing is to bring compassionate awareness to your habit. Accept that you are caring for yourself in a harmful way, and refuse to beat yourself up about it. This is also helpful as you work at healing your habit:  you will probably have times when you slip up and fall. That’s okay:  drop the guilt.

3. Compassion. Loving yourself means accepting all of who you are – including your bad habits. When you can look at your habits and see how they were an attempt to nurture yourself, you can forgive yourself. As you know better, you do better. Marshall Rosenberg’s work with nonviolent communication is an excellent tool for approaching yourself and others with compassion.

4. Self care. When I have cravings for sugar, I stop to ask myself, “What is really going on here?” Sugar cravings are cravings for comfort, care, rest, and relaxation. They are signals that I’m feeling deprived. The key is to find ways to soothe that deprivation without turning to food. Usually, what I’m really wanting is one of two things:  1. Connection: with God, my spirit, friends, or loved ones, or 2. Comfort:  sleep, a recharge (I’m known to push myself too hard), time to myself, or time outside. We call this filling the tank in our home. A walk, a nap, a break from my children, or a crafty activity usually does the trick.

5. Find help. It’s hard to admit that you don’t have it all together. But admitting your need for help softens your heart, so that others can reach in, and offer their support. Counselors, friends, support groups, books, prayer:  I’ve used it all.

Ultimately, I am not my habits. You are not your habits, either. Our frailties and stumbling blocks were given to us, on purpose, to feed our growth and development. There are no mistakes; that includes your greatest painful habit. Embrace it as an opportunity to befriend, love and care for the precious creature that is you.

For more support to heal your sugar addiction, you can order the new edition of Overcoming Sugar Addiction as well as the follow up workbook, Growing Human(kind)ness:  How to Befriend not Punish Your Way to Sugar Sobriety.

Want more help? Join my October Kick Your Sugar Habit small group class.

Share and enjoy:

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A New Year, A New Resolution

I have recently been told that people do actually read my blog. I am flattered and humbled. It has been a very long time since I updated this blog. So long in fact that I almost lost access to it! Yikes!

I came across a little exercise that I thought was really ingenious. Rather then writing a list of resolutions and goals to try to aspire to, choose a word that represents the kind of change you would like to create in your life.
Unknowingly, I actually did this last year. My word was 'acceptance' and I think some great things came from that exercise. Last year we bought a condo and moved to a smaller space. We had to accept that we could not afford to buy a house in Vancouver, but would have to learn to live in a smaller space. What came was a smaller space in a great neighbourhood with great neighbours.
Matthew started kindergarten and finished his early intervention. I was afraid of letting go of our autism services and struggled against the change a bit. Once I accepted the change I realized Matthew and I were both capable of moving on with less support. We have come a long way!
I have noticed that my face is starting to droop, along with other parts of me, and my waist line continues to grow. I am learning to accept that aging is inevitable and freeing in a way. 40 is around the corner and approaching fast!
I am  also trying to accept that I have the power to change my waist line and maintain my own health with in my own hands. I proved this to myself in September when I decided to limit sugar in my diet. I started loosing weight, I noticed my skin looked better and I felt calm and clear. My sugar abstinence did not last thru the holidays and my waistline returned to its normal spare tire size. After the holidays I am feeling tired, depressed and bloated. I know sugar is a problem for me. Accepting that and learning to live with out it will be an on going challenge for me.
The word acceptance came to me at a difficult time when I was struggling with my fears about Matthew's health and future. I realised that I had not accepted that Matthew was different and would need on going special care through out his life. I was blaming myself for his problems and constantly trying to find a 'cure', so to speak. I realised the cure was in acceptance itself. I can not change the past and I can not know the future. I can only accept what is and work to improve what can be changed. When I changed my own mentality things started to fall into place.

Most importantly I learned to accept myself, and others, for who we are. Accepting my own limitations and flaws is allowing me to focus on my strengths and to rely on others to help me in areas where I am weak.

This year my word is going to be FOCUS. This will be a challenge. I am not known for my focus. I find my self wandering around my house aimlessly and standing in a room wondering how I got there and what my purpose was for being there. I find I am thinking about so many things at once that I get overwhelmed. I can never seem to empty a laundry basket or complete an activity. I sometimes find my self blogging when I should be making lunch for the kids!
I have started taking some computer courses and I could use some focus to get through them. I will need focus to apply the new information to some actual work. I will need focus to apply that work and start a small business.

The other word I picked for myself is FINISH. Finish putting the laundry away, finish that knitting project, finish this blog post!! It is pretty self explanatory. And I just have to have a third word...KINDNESS. I need to have kindness for myself if I lose focus and forget to finish!

Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving Gluten Free feasting

Today is one of those days when I am trying to do too many things at one time. My mind is on so many different things that it is hard to focus on one blog topic. So, in light that it is coming up Thanksgiving, I will put my attention to all things pumpkin and turkey. Thinking turkey, cold turkey, cold turkey sugar free (a whole other blog post, I think). Thinking pumpkin, pumpkin pie, yummy yummy pumpkin pie. Hmmm, pumpkin pie and sugar free don't really go together.
In my search for a gluten free pumpkin pie recipe I came across a pumpkin pie pudding recipe that is actually very low in sugar, courtesy of Pattycake.ca. I plan to try this recipe out, with a few modifications, for dessert on Turkey Dinner Day. I can't wait to dive into it with a large dollop of unsweetened whipping cream!
http://pattycake.ca/recipes/pattyspumpkinpudding


Most of the time in my family I provide the stuffing, which I make with gluten free bread. It is very simple to do. Just use your favorite stuffing recipe and swap the regular bread with gluten free bread. A trick to a great GF stuffing is the use two or three different types of bread. I like to use store bought bread because they tend to be more dense then the home made variety, therefore it holds together the liquids better. I always use Kinnickinik Rice bread mixed with another variety. Even ends left over from my freezer. I have tried using pre mixed stuffing and I just don't like them. The shelf life is not so great on these products and you can often be left with a rancid oily taste to them. Yuck.
I also like to add nuts and dried fruit, like cranberries to my stuffing, to break up the flavours in the bread. Here is my general recipe modified over the years.

Turkey Stuffing
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup macadamia nuts or pecan nuts
12 slices of GF bread, two varieties
1 large onion chopped finely
1 large egg
1/4 cup fresh sage
1 lemon (juice and rind)
Salt and pepper to taste
Apx 1/2 cup chicken stock

Chop the bread up in small cubes. In a blender or food processor mix the remaining ingredients. Add to the bread and mix well. Add more chicken stock if stuffing seems too dry. Stuff the turkey and cook.

If you like a finer texture process the bread cubes into crumbs before adding wet ingredients.


It is really important for people who are very sensitive to gluten to not eat poultry stuffed with regular bread stuffing, even if the stuffing never touches the plate. The juices from the bird flow through the stuffing and back into the bird contaminating the meat with gluten.

One of my tricks for helping Matthew survive a holiday with out contamination is to always offer to make the components of the meal that are usually glutenous. In the past he was such a picky eater that it really would not matter. However these days he is eating more and more variety. We just never know when he is going to want to try something. Having to say no is heartbreaking when everyone else is enjoying the food. I also try to bring alternates that are more attractive to him. For example, he could care less about pumpkin pie, but loves jello. So I bring jello and he just does not notice that he is not eating pumpkin pie.
In the past I have not worried about gravy because he really was resistant to trying it. But this year I might have to provide the provisions for GF gravy, just in case. I like to use Pamela's Pancake and Baking mix to thicken gravy just as you would use regular flour. It really makes the gravy taste fantastic and is a wonderful texture. It does have a tendency to be lumpy so I always just strain the gravy before serving it.