Why I stopped Blogging

Back in October of 2017 I went to 2 blogging conferences. One was in Ohio and the other in Texas. I was convinced that the reason why I wasn’t successful in blogging was because successful bloggers went to conferences and made connections. I hadn’t gone before because conferences are expensive and I’m terrified to travel alone. I get lost easily, am afraid of crowds, and enjoy being at home.

I thought it would help my family so I went to these conferences anyway. I met a lot of lovely people and really stretched my comfort zone. I learned a lot. Mostly what I learned is that making a full time living blogging requires more than full time hours. It requires hiring staff and creating a real company that feeds a lot more people than just us. Blogging was more than writing encouraging or educational articles. It was professional photography, script writing, filming, editing, scheduling social media posts, running chat groups, a constant presence on social media, SEO optimization, production calendars, scripts, affiliate marketing, recruiting sponsors, buying and selling advertising and a whole lot more.

I met lots of people who were successful, but they all had something in common: sacrifice. Some of them lost marriages, some of them lost themselves to drugs or alcoholism, some of them lost their kids to the world, some lost their friends. Their brand depended on Looking happy and successful on the outside while life was crumbling around all about them. They talked about the people they lost like you would talk about a cancer that was removed. Oof….I wasn’t down for any of that. I also met some people who truly kept it together but the blog became a family affair. Husbands became photographers, video editors, computer programmers, or social media experts. It was hard to determine when the work day began and ended. It was never ending. My husband emotionally supported all my goals, but didn’t have an interest in personally getting involved.

I was trying to build my blog business to save my husband from his accounting career that he chose for reasons that no longer applied to us and didn’t really enjoy. But when I really looked at our situation it became clear to me that he didn’t WANT or NEED me to save him. In fact, he was much happier going to work and having clear production and end of work day boundaries then he ever could working from home as my assistant.  When or if he decides he’s ready for a career change, he is more than capable of making that change himself. I will be right behind him cheering him on in whatever his goals become.

Going to the conferences was supposed to help me to build a successful business  in blogging, but instead it convinced me that I didn’t want to do it at all. I tried to hang on for another year for the sake of my meal planning service. I even enrolled in personal training school thinking the certification would help me grow my recipe service. But then something really scary happened.

I was fixing dinner one evening in December just before Christmas 2018 and called my kids to the table. My 2nd son was in 7th grade and usually came home from school and went straight to his room for a nap. When he didn’t come to the table, I went up to his bedroom in the attic to wake him. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. I PANICKED. I asked everyone in the house if he had come home from school and no one knew. I called every friend he had to see if he had gone to their house. I called his bus driver, his school principal…everyone I could think of. I sent my oldest son up to school to look for clues while I waited at home in case he showed up.  I posted on my personal facebook page asking for community help to look for him. Eventually we exhausted all our own resources and called 911.

The 911 dispatcher asked me if my son would hurt himself. “NO!” I insisted. But then I realized every parent must feel that way. What if I didn’t really know my son? What if he was hurting and I was too busy chasing my dreams to notice? What if he was dead? I leaned over the side of my front porch and said, “I’m going to throw up.”

The dispatcher said, “Ma’am, Ma’am…stay calm. Stay with me.” He told me to stay home and he would send a police car over to take my report. Except he didn’t. He never called it in. I stayed at home waiting for a police officer that would never come wasting precious hours that I could have spent looking for my child. I find that part hard to forgive, but through the grace of God I have forgiven him.

Soon, friends were on my porch organizing a search party. Another friend called a police officer that attended church with me and knew our son. He happened to be on duty near my neighborhood, so even though he wasn’t officially dispatched he used his skills to begin searching. I didn’t know he was on the job and was still home waiting for a officer.

The police friend started at the main road and drove back and forth across every neighborhood street between there and our house. In the darkness, a block from my house, he spotted my son. He pulled his patrol car up beside him and rolled down his window. In his stern voice he said, “Dub, where are you supposed to be right now?” Dub looked up and burst into tears. Dub got into his car and the officer called my cellphone. “I have your son; I’m bringing him home.” Those are the sweetest words I will ever hear. I still cry when I think about that moment. It is forever seared on my heart. I am aware that not every son comes home, that he was at high risk, and that it was my fault.

Dub had stayed after school for Christian Club. He woke me up that morning to remind me, because the club doesn’t meet every week. I wasn’t quite awake and even though I responded to him, I didn’t register what he said. After club, I didn’t come. I was taking another son Christmas shopping without a thought that I was supposed to be there for him. Everyone left school, even the staff went home, leaving my son there alone. He didn’t have a phone and we lived 6 miles from school. He waited 2 hours for me. It got dark. He had a full backpack, his clarinet and a heavy coat under his arm and he started walking home.

He crossed the HIGHWAY on foot and walked down main roads. He passed gas stations, fast food restaurants, lots of businesses, but never went in to ask to use the phone. He said it was “too scary.” Many of my friends saw him on the road but didn’t recognize who he was. It took 3 hours of physical walking to make it to the place where the officer found him and all the while I can imagine he was thinking that we forgot him, didn’t love him, didn’t care.

The next month, we did the end of the year books for my meal plan business. There was good money potential in it I knew, but I had trouble with the advertising side of things and would need to hire more help to make it profitable. Darren showed me that I was earning less than $1 an hour after expenses and explained the sacrifice the family was making so I could chase that dream. I instantly let it go. I refunded every subscriber their remaining balance and closed the service.  Without the meal plan business there was no income to pay for the blog tools, email services etc…so I canceled them too. For the first time in years, I felt free.

Texas or Bust

I just got back last night from an extended weekend in Bryan, TX for my husband’s high school reunion and am leaving tomorrow to drive back down to Dallas for FinCon17.  We looked at the option of dropping me off in Dallas so I wouldn’t have to do so much driving, but I wouldn’t have a car that way, and would have expenses of taxi and flights, plus I’d miss all the parent teacher conferences.  I needed to see my people.

They handed me this picture at the casual luncheon and my dreamboat mostly looks the same, except for his neck width.  I was like wowza, were you power lifting?  And he said, “Nope, that was from practicing headers with the soccer ball.”

We took Darren’s parents down with us, so they could see all the old places and friends again.  The bonus was great conversation and me never touching a steering wheel for the whole weekend.  The downside was blowing right through Waco, TX without even a glance at Magnolia, because I didn’t get to touch the steering wheel all weekend.

We visited dear friends who built this house in the shape of a barn and it’s full of charm.  When I came down 20 years ago, it was the house that inspired all my dreams of what I wanted my grown up home to be.  I posted more pictures of it on my instagram account.

The lady of the home is now 84, but looks at least 20 years younger.  We chatted about her nutrition and beauty secrets which include using a facial brush and a bentonite clay/apple cider vinegar mask.  She shared a string of testimonies about how Jesus has blessed her life.  And also how her husband holds her hand everywhere they go, because she needs the stability, but it makes them look like young lovers.  Which I love.

I thought I would be able to bake, photograph and post all the recipes for the 31 days of Pumpkin before we left, but I wasn’t thinking about trimming out, caulking and painting our attic space and turning it into a guest room right before it becomes the new master bedroom that week as well.   Or on our washing machine breaking and all those trips to the laundromat.  I’m still a little disappointed with Whirlpool who should have had a part recall, and at the Sears repair service who tried to charge us $100 extra on the part over their website price and $300 in labor for a 15 minute fix.  But we fired them all and Darren fixed it himself.  If there’s a lesson in this, it’s to not let anyone pressure you into a $600 repair and that it’s ok to take time to research all your options.

I’m not sorry I tried the Write31 Days challenge.  I definitely got a lot more blogging done than I would have without it, but I’m waving the white flag until I get back from my second trip to Texas.  It was a 12 hour drive to Bryan and will be 9 hours for me to go back to Dallas for FinCon17.  So it’s kind of a big deal to my introverted self, especially since I’m driving alone and rented an airbnb with a complete stranger.

I’ll post the rest of the recipes before Thanksgiving, but I’m ready to add some other topics of blogging back in too–like our Makeover Monday posts.  Speaking of which, I only have 2 rooms left in the queue for Makeover Monday, so it’s a great time to submit your room for consideration. You can email your before pictures to angela@groceryshrink.com with a few thoughts about your hopes and dreams for the space.

P.S.  This is our selfie from Friday night football and all I have to say about that is they take their football VERY SERIOUSLY in Texas.

P.P.S. This is Irlen Syndrome awareness week and I’m loving my new, lighter colored lenses. My color lightened because my brain healed and changed some while I was wearing my first pair of Irlen Filters. You can hear about the latest research from Cornell University from this facebook live.

P.P.P.S. We are starting a Healthy Holidays fitness challenge in November that will help us reach and keep fitness goals while still indulging in some of the holiday food traditions. All members of groceryshrinkplus can join the challenge for free with special meal plans (and prizes) provided.

 

Hello there. What’s new?

I love it when my kids are home from school for the summer. I love the no pressure, hang together, play board games, take swimming lessons, go to camp, play legos, organize a closet, and build a campfire at dusk kind of life. I hate to say this out loud, but my most favorite part is no music lessons….I want my kids to be musical, but keeping track of that many kids’ practice times and lesson times and where in the world is their book times wears on me. It’s nice to take a little break before we go at that pace again in August.

I haven’t felt like getting online much. I just want to be present with them and soak in their childhood this summer. It’s my oldest daughter’s last summer as a child…and I don’t want to miss a moment that she might give me.

My mom is doing summer reading lessons with my 6 year old. He read 70 words for his teacher in kindergarten but couldn’t read a single word for me at home. We are hoping that some time with Grandma, who is a master reading teacher, will do the trick. I know I’m a teacher too…with extra training in phonics and reading instruction….but my kids won’t work for me like they will someone else.

Two of my children and I are involved in a summer musical—Mary Poppins. I’m teaching the choral pieces and our first rehearsal was a disaster. The cast is amazingly talented and sounded amazing in spite of me…I was the disaster. Our second rehearsal is tonight and I have a better plan. Here’s to hoping I improve for all their sakes.

We are also spending the summer working on my office. We tore down the old 1970’s paneling and bought new white bead board to replace it, except we came across some ventilation/water/mold issues when we had the room opened up. So thus, our 1 week easy project has turned into months of little progress. Such has been every remodeling project in this house. I’m still not sorry we bought it, but I do wish I could snap my fingers and have the projects done like they are with the magic of television.  The only big inconvenience this time is that our guest bed is now set up in our formal living room…and I’m not really sure where to go with it from here. I might need to make a rabbit trail to organize the basement and set up a temporary guest space there.

We have a new set of foster kittens. We got them because they were so wild—hissing and spitting. It took us about 5 days to be able to get close to them and now they snuggle and purr for us. We named them Cuddles, Sunny, and Snowflake. They will be available for adoption through Great Plaines SPCA in a few weeks or as soon as they weigh 2 lbs.

I’m still going strong with the meal plan service. There are a little more than 200 families that use our meal plans, and 91 of them have joined us for a Summer Fitness Challenge. If you are looking for easy weight loss meal plans and a sisterhood of accountability, we’ve got you.

Prep ahead Mandarin Sesame Chicken Salad, with easy homemade dressing and seeds that stay crunchy.

Prep ahead black bean and tomato salad–we’ll add avocado at the last minute.  The chicken breast is marinating until tonight, when we’ll grill it to slice over the top.  Yummo!

I’m also growing my MomCeo team.  It’s really rewarding to help families with an extra income stream.  If you’ve been looking for extra income from home, fill out the form and I’ll give you a call and explain what we do.

In the cracks, I’m helping my kids launch their own business, CleanKids.Club. They’ve already had several clients and find the work really rewarding.

Oh and I started a little crochet project to do when I must sit and wait for something.  It’s a wheat stitch baby blanket for one of the many baby showers coming at church this autumn.  Even though the beautiful boarder wasn’t included with the pattern, our local library had the book it is in.  I’m using Hobby Lobby’s Yarn Bee Soft Secret yarn in Mist, a light silvery tone. It’s so soft and shiny and affordable too.

So that’s all I know since I last wrote. What’s new with you?

Simplifying Breakfast

When I was a new mom I had dreams of sitting around the table every morning, with Daddy leading devotions to smiling children memorizing Bible verses set on a backdrop of a hearty home cooked breakfast. I had no idea at the time that we would welcome one baby after another and that I’d have 12 years of rough mornings. We’d be up all night taking turns with a colicky baby and Darren would peel out of bed barely rested, just in time to throw on clothes and dash to work where he had a loaf of bread stashed for breakfast toast.

Read the rest at http://www.kansascitymom.com/simplifying-breakfast/  and get the make ahead Always Ready Bran Muffin recipe that my family loves.

What if I’m already living the dream?

I’ve been a big dreamer my whole life, always reaching, never fully satisfied. Thinking of ways to improve our situation, make life more efficient. Thinking of ways to earn more money, and maybe enough that my husband and I could work together full time—finally earning the flexibility to do whatever we want. Professionally, my ultimate dream was to retire my husband from a traditional job. I imagined us working on the road as we showed our homeschooled kids the world.

Then one day a few weeks ago Read more

I’m a Budget-Compliance Motivator, but…

I still want you to have a beautiful life.  I want you to celebrate birthdays, have family vacations, reliable cars, and a beautiful home that reflects your personal style.  I want you to have nice clothes, to eat healthy food, to give good gifts and invite people over.  I want you to make memories with your family, to support missions and causes that tug at your heart and to be generous in unexpected moments.   But most of all I want you to fall sleep quickly at night, knowing there are no bills coming in the mail that you won’t know how to pay.

Do you ever read social media posts and look at the beautiful pictures of vacations, new cars, remodel projects, and family outings and wonder, “How in the world are they doing that?”   I do.  I wonder and then remember, that I have a bigger than average family with bigger than average medical needs, and an aversion to debt that makes us weird.  I can’t compare my life to theirs; it just doesn’t make sense.

Sometimes we need a voice to reassure us that, “Everyone’s not doing that.”   And sometimes we need new ideas for ways that we can re-route our money so that more of the things that matter to us are possible.  And when we’ve dug as deep as we can with our time and creativity, sometimes we need ideas to get more money.

I want to be that friend in your life, the one that tells you it’s more than ok to live simply.  To help you remember that the most important things in this life aren’t things. To help you with ideas when the money just isn’t there this time.  The one that smiles with you in solidarity over the clothing rack at the Goodwill.   The other mom at the zoo with the packed lunch from home.

How can I be most helpful to you? Choose as many as you like.

The Secret Stash

Halfway through my first year teaching, we got married. As if being a new teacher wasn’t hard enough, my 2nd year about the same time we had our first baby.  I had made a commitment early on to be an at home mom, so even though it was much sooner than we expected, I suspended my teaching career at the end of my 2nd year.

My mom was a professional homemaker, so the idea of thrift and economy wasn’t new to me. I penny-pinched and DIY’d myself to homemaker bliss and also brought in small amounts of income on the side:  a little babysitting here, some music lessons there, a garage sale a few times a year, some custom sewing and craft sales….you get the idea.  It was never a great deal of money at once.  I put it in an envelope in my lingerie drawer and let it accumulate.**

If I got birthday money or had leftover in a budget category some month, it all went in there.  I didn’t tell anyone about it.  To be honest, I rarely thought about it myself.  It’s what the farm wives of old used to call their “egg money” or “cookie jar money.”

One day my husband came home as low spirited as a man could get.  His job had been suddenly terminated.  He made a mistake and was terminated for cause so we were not eligable for unemployment.  We had a small emergency fund, so we weren’t eligible for food stamps or medicaid either.  I called every agency I could think of, and we fell through the  cracks for all of them.*  By the time we qualified for help, we would be homeless.

My husband sat on the sofa with his face in his hands thinking about his dismal job options when there was a termination for cause on his employment record.  He had 8 mouths to feed and our small savings would last us 5 months IF we just paid for power, gasoline, mortgage and $200 a month for food and all other household needs.  We immediately canceled everything extra including music lessons.  Cobra insurance would have wiped us out completely in just a couple of months, so we had to let our health insurance go too. It wasn’t safe or recommended, but we were desperate.

Then I remembered my secret stash.  I had been hoping to use it for a family vacation or a home update project.  Instead, I grabbed the fat, worn envelope out of it’s lacy nest and brought it to my despondent husband.  His eyes opened wide at this unexpected gift. We counted it together and it was enough to buy us an extra month of job hunting time.

It was a blessing at the time, but we have mixed opinions about the wisdom of a secret stash.  My husband believes all income should be reported to the family and properly budgeted for, even if it is to go in the emergency fund.  While I can see his side of things, I loved being able to surprise him with more than he hoped for, and having a little “mad money” that I could decide for alone.  He agrees mad money is a great thing, but wants to budget for it.

What do you think?  Do you have a secret stash?

*I have since learned about 20+ Harvester food drop locations in driving distance from my home. Most of them do not require enrollment or proof of need, which would have been a blessing to me at the time.

**There’s also the law that even small amounts of cash income are supposed to be reported to the government, excluding gifts and garage sales where items are sold at a loss. I didn’t know it at the time, but thankfully the largest bulk of my stash was from garage sales and birthday gifts.

Our Adventure with Irlen Syndrome

It’s important that everyone knows about Irlen Syndrome, because it is often misdiagnosed or missed altogether and leads to other health problems.  It can be the result of genetics or head trauma including whiplash, concussion or combat.   50% of children with learning disabilities have Irlen Syndrome, and 40% of children diagnosed with dyslexia have Irlen’s syndrome instead.  Irlens is very common for veterans and can cause enhanced PTSD symptoms.

Irlen Syndrome is a sensitivity to light, which sounds simple enough, but the affects are anything but.  In an Irlen patient when certain wave lengths of light hit the eye, confusing messages are sent to the brain.  This usually leads to visual misperceptions.  Words can dissolve into the white page, tremor, or tumble down the page.  It might look sharp and clear in the very center but distorted away from the center.  Items might look like they are glowing, colors might appear that aren’t really there.  Things may look closer or further away than they really are.  Depth perception may be off.   Round letters like o, e, a, and u might look identical to an Irlen child learning to read, making phonics quite confusing.  Square things might look round, including home windows and doors. A genetically triggered Irlen patient may not recognize that they are seeing anything abnormal.  It’s all they’ve seen or experienced and will naturally assume everyone else sees that way too.

Since Irlen Syndrome is a neurological disorder, both optometrists and special education teachers in the United States are largely unaware of it. I’d like to see this change. While it’s true that an Irlen patient’s eyes are not causing the problem, the pathway of the SOLUTION is through the eyes. Often the first intervention for a child with a reading problem is to take them to the eye doctor. How much better could we find and help these kids if eye doctors knew what to watch for? It would benefit every eye practice financially to offer this service and benefit the families who currently have to travel quite far to reach a practitioner. In addition, since around 50% of all children with learning difficulties have Irlen Syndrome it only makes sense to add it’s study to the course work for all Special Education teachers. Since Irlen syndrome is barely touched upon in optical school in the United States, and rarely mentioned in teacher education, many children are misdiagnosed.  My oldest daughter was diagnosed dyslexic with visual processing and processing speed disorders and we didn’t discover she had Irlen syndrome for 8 more years.

This is a tragedy because Irlen Syndrome is easily treated with colored filters.  When left untreated it causes other health conditions such as Adrenal Fatigue and Tachycardia (too fast heartbeat.)  Studies have shown for every beat per minute you can lower your resting heart rate, you extend your life by 1 year. Take a look at the typical brain activity of an Irlen patient with and without filters.

Untreated Irlen patients are stressed out all the time!  It’s common to find them grinding their teeth, clenching their jaws (with permanent joint damage), tight shoulders and neck muscles, headaches–often migranes.  This amount of stress can lead to OCD behaviors, whole body inflammation, hyperactivity, memory loss and language processing disorders (poor access to words when writing or talking,) new or worsening allergies, temper eruptions, sensory integrative disorder (sensitivity to touch, sounds, smells, tastes and textures visual clutter, etc.), depression, and social anxiety (fear of crowds or leaving home.)

I had common adrenal fatigue symptoms at an early age such as exercise intolerance, heat and cold sensitivity, low blood pressure, low blood sugar, depression, exhaustion, amenorrhea (after age 13), food sensitivities and fear of crowds. When I became a mother these symptoms increased to the point that I was bedfast for months at a time on several occasions.

I never would have considered Irlen syndrome as the root cause of my trouble, if it weren’t for my daughters.  I never struggled in school.  I learned to read spontaneously when I was 4 and went through school in the gifted and talented program, earning straight As and a full ride scholarship through college.  9% of Irlen patients are just like me.  Their visual disturbances don’t disrupt normal function.  When I was sitting in the clinic with Heather watching her 3 hour long test process, I would say things like—ooh, that color makes the whole room feel calm.  The doctor looked at me and said, “Mama, you’re next.”

“Oh no!  Not me! I read just fine.”

“I’m sure you do. You’ll get a chance to prove it in a minute.”

I sat at the testing desk and the doctor asked me a few questions:  Do you have TMJ? Are you considered clumsy?  Do you ever have trouble thinking of the right word? Do sounds, smells, and lights irritate you?  Have you struggled with Adrenal Fatigue?  Do you have night blindness? Do you grind your teeth?  Have you ever worn glasses?

I answered yes to everything.  Then I remembered when I was 12, school and social pressures and hormone changes added to the stress that my brain had already been under for years.  The visual disturbances worsened until I was blending lines together in reading, skipping and re-reading lines.  Homework was impossible.  My mom took me to the eye doctor. He said, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with her eyes, but I’m going to write her this little prescription and see if we can relax her eye muscles a little.”  That should have been my first clue that I had a neurological problem, but we just didn’t know.

The doctor gave me a medical textbook to read.  It took all my concentration to focus on the words and pronounce the complex vocabulary properly.  But I did it, really well. I beamed at her….”I proved it.”

Then she said, “What was that about?”  I couldn’t remember much from the text I read.   She turned the page and we spent several minutes looking at the page through different colored filters.  I found 2 that cut down on trembling of the text and she asked me to read again.  My speed and accuracy was pronouncedly improved and I could remember more of the text. she asked me to go home and make an appointment with the local screener. I said I’d consider it.

In the meantime, my youngest daughter’s glasses arrived in the mail.  She was at school so I tried them on.  I didn’t expect much, but a strong feeling of peace and well-being flooded over me.  I was experiencing a calm brain for the first time in my life and it was overwhelming.  I burst into tears.  I looked across the room and things far away were in focus that weren’t before. When I took the glasses off and put them back on, and off and on…. (you would too!)  I realized the room had been vibrating…my whole life.

A few days later, my oldest daughter was in the living room doing her homework in the dark…again.  “Don’t you want me to turn on some more light?”  I asked.

“No! Please, No!”  Then she burst into tears.  “Could you read my text book to me?  I’ve been staring at it forever and I can’t make sense of it.”  In the past I would have said something like, “If you’d work in adequate light, you’d be able to read it.”  But this time, I put everything together.  The headaches.  The dyslexic and processing diagnosis.  The emotional outbursts and sensitivity to sound and light.  I read her the book, then called Ken Schmidt our local Irlen screener and got her in the next day.  My suspicions were confirmed. She had a severe case of Irlens.

Heidi’s case is interesting because her verbal communication is partially locked due to Irlens.  She learned to talk late even though everything else was developmentally early.  I’ve always known to take what she says with a grain of salt.  It’s not that she’s untruthful, she just perceives things unusually. Heidi was unable to verbalize which filters helped her.  Her Irlens was so severe that she still saw visual disturbances through every combination of filters.

At our extended visit to the specialist 3 hours away, I mentioned to the doctor that I wished we could hook Heidi up to a biofeedback machine so we could test the stress on her brain through the different filters. That would help us figure out what she needed since she couldn’t tell us.  The doctor snapped her fingers.  “I can’t do that, but I can do this….”  She went to a drawer and pulled out an ear lobe pulse monitor.

She hooked it up to Heidi’s ear and measured her pulse at 84 beats per minute.  That’s pretty fast for an athletic teenage girl who has been sitting in a chair for 2 hours. Heidi held different combinations of filters up to her eyes and the doctor kept watch on the pulse monitor.  When we found the combination of filters we ordered for her, her heart rate came down to 50 beats per minute in a matter of seconds.  Heidi still had visual disturbances through those filters, but it was the best we could do.  She will wear them for a few months and then we will go back and try again, hoping that her brain will have calmed enough so she can help guide us to the correct filters better.

The doctor looked at me and said, “Mom, you need to consider this more deeply. No family has 2 daughters this severely affected without history of traumatic injury unless both parents are genetic carriers.”

Both Parents? I made an appointment for myself with the local screener.  Ken showed me several sheets of paper designed to trigger visual disturbances in an Irlen patient.  He asked me what I could see.  I would say, “This is what I see, but I know this to be true about what I’m seeing.”  He said, “I’m not testing your ability to adapt for yourself.  No one is disputing that you do that very well.  I just want to know what you see.”  Then it occurred to me that I had spent my whole life adapting, working hard to perceive, ignoring what my mind was telling me and looking for context clues to find the truth.  I saw blue and yellow auras and rivers of white running through the print. When I was counting a row of black Xs, the white swallowed them up and left me with a row of white dots.  A picture of a black box appeared to have a gray side and the lines would disappear and reappear at random intervals, sometimes doubling.  I told him everything, and said, “But doesn’t everyone see it the way I’m seeing it? Aren’t these optical illusions?”  I looked at his face and saw the answer clearly, “No.”

Trying on frames at Costco

So off I went to the specialist.  I’ll spare you the details, but when I finally found the filters I ordered, she had me hold them up to my face and walk outside.  I looked out over the horizon and everything was clear as far as I could see. Crisp, fresh.  The lenses had no curve to them, only color. How could this be?  The pavement seemed farther away than it used to be.  I walked cautiously, slowly.  Lifting my feet too high at times, and leaning on Darren’s arm for balance.  My depth perception had been this wrong?  I am going to need to learn to walk all over again.  No wonder I trip up the stairs, crash into door-frames, and knock my hips on furniture.

I have two more children that need to be tested. Their little quirks and sensitivities finally make sense in the big picture of what we’re learning. I want to run out and help them right away, but every person that gets treated costs around $1100, and I need some time to save.

Here are the steps for treatment.  Insurance won’t cover it, but most HSA plans will allow you to use pre-tax funds from your HSA account or cafeteria plan.

  1.  Take the self-test
  2. Make an appointment with a screener.  This costs $80 in my town, but saves $150 off the  Diagnostician appointment.  This is usually a 2 hour session and concludes with a set of colored overlays to read with if you are diagnosed with Irlen Syndrome. Colored overlays are helpful but are just a bandaid.  Irlens affects more than just reading and only glasses or contacts worn constantly are a real solution.
  3. Make sure to have a current eye exam.  And carry a copy of your prescription.
  4. Buy frames that are large enough to block light from reaching your eyes from the top.  Just frames, don’t fill the prescription. You shouldn’t be able to see much ceiling if you roll your eyes up with the your frames on. (We found Costco to be the best combo of style, quality and price.)
  5. Make an appointment with an Irlen Diagnostician.  Do call around.  We have 3 diagnosticians all within 3 hours of our home.  I didn’t check other states and went to one based on a friend’s recommendation.  She charges $930 for an appointment, the other one that I found out about later charges $450.  This is significant because we have so many family members affected, but now we have a history and relationship with the expensive doctor.  (The diagnostician will have advice on whether your prescription is necessary or whether the filters will be enough correction.  Ultimately it’s up to you whether you do both or not.)
  6. Follow up in 2-3 months.  If at any time the lenses don’t appear to be working, go back and have them checked.  Our doctor doesn’t charge for a check within 3 months of the last one.  If the child stops wearing them all the time, complains of headaches, or has increased emotional outbursts, it’s time to get them checked.
  7. Once you have a good set of lenses, go back annually for a follow up.  The color can fade over time and may need to be retinted.  Contacts can also be tinted, but only certain kinds.  Once your prescription is good, ask your diagnostician about your contact options.

If you made it this far and have questions or comments, I’m all ears :).

The Year of Curating

I didn’t make any resolutions this year.  It’s not that I actively rebelled against the idea.  Instead I made a smallish goal for each of the next two months.  After that I will evaluate how it worked out and what the next step should be.

For example, I’m having a spending freeze this month and invited the Grocery Shrink Plus members to join. In a private area of the site we have a support group with extra coaching and downloads related to the challenge.  But just that one thing. Yes, I want to lose weight, wish my house were more organized, and need to spend more time in quiet devotions.  I need to get up earlier, go to bed earlier, and exercise.  But shoof all of that at once is overwhelming.

As I’ve gained experience, I’ve realized the value of preventing overwhelm and curating a restful life for my family.  It is carefully selecting and then taking care of what I have chosen. It applies to home decor, after school activities, music, clothing, thoughts, budget categories, food, garden plants, relationships, jobs, entertainment.  It’s about not letting life “happen” and grumbling about the hodgepodge I find myself in, but being purposeful and thoughtful when there are choices to be made.

I can’t curate everything all at once.  A valuable museum collection doesn’t come together in one day.  It takes small steps, small decisions, to make the big picture. Sometimes that means leaving an empty spot while I wait for the right thing or the right time.

It also means re-evalutaing things that were purposeful choices in the past.  There are only a few things that are life long commitments:  My relationship with Christ, my marriage, and my family.   Everything else may be a calling just for a time.  There have been times when I’ve felt a distinct calling to serve in a specific job.  It was so strong that I thought it might be “forever” or for many many years.  I spent long hours in preparation and research to do the best job possible, then a few years later knew clearly that role was to end. Oh how I mourned! In this way I grieved my loss of homeschooling, my loss of teaching choir, and giving up my Mary Kay and Pattern Drafting businesses and yet I knew I was walking in the path God had set for me.  All too readily I looked around for something to fill the empty space when God’s plan was to leave a space.  Space to heal, space to grow, space to appreciate life.

So this is the year I curate space, beauty, rest.  It feels lovely to write that.

How about you? Do you have big plans for the new year?

How to Make Something not a Big Deal

When I was growing up, my mama did a lot of things around the house.  She used power tools, repaired furniture, skim coated drywall, decorated cakes, sewed clothes, baked fresh bread, gardened and preserved the harvest, had a family dinner every night, and taught Sunday School.

bread

As I grew up, all these activities were normal to me.  It wasn’t a big deal for me to bake bread or sew clothes, it was just something that mamas do.  Having a nightly family dinner was just something you DO, it never occurred to me to skip it.  When we were done, we cleared the table, washed the dishes and wiped down the counters.  We didn’t even think about it, we just did it.

hands-in-dough

We walked away from stuff when it cost too much even though my dad made good money. Mom’s willingness to walk away and do without, or wait for the right deal made sure they had savings.  They paid off their house when I was 9 and never borrowed another dime after that.  It built character in me to not have the latest trends and to wait for things. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but the skill of waiting has served me well as an adult.

hand-tape-measure-sewing

We went to church.  Every time the doors were open.  I never had to ask if we were going.  We just did.

My babies came so soon after I married and so close together that I lost some of my good habits—like going to bed early, getting up early, working out consistently, and daily Bible study.  Now that life has settled down a little (knock on wood) I’m figuring out how to build these habits back into my day.  My first thought was to get up early and do them before my kids are up.  That way I can have uninterrupted quiet time (sounds so good!)  If I did that, they would never see me do them.  And those are the important things that I want them to think are just part of being a mama.  Mamas read their Bibles.  Mama’s take care of their bodies. Mamas pray.

mama-reads-the-bible

The habits that I want to be second nature for my kids, the ones I don’t want to be a big deal, just something they DO, those are the things I need to model for them now.  They need to see it consistently, day in and day out.  Not stressful, not a big deal, just accomplished.

I wonder what my kids will just do and not think about, because it was a normal part of their childhood.  I hope using cash is one of them, along with saving up to pay for stuff, being ok with roughing it to pave the way for a bigger goal, and giving to people who are in need.