{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

Happy Dance – I’m now Losec free!!

I’m proud to say that I’ve now been medication free for 2 weeks :-). After years of reflux (while still on heavy GERD drugs, namely Losec), it’s really weird to be reflux free. I still have to follow a diet that avoids reflux triggers (like citrus, tomatoes, spicy foods) but I figure that’s a small price to pay for being medication free.

Using probiotics and deglycyrrhizinated licorice worked really well as I weaned down the dosage. I did find when I stopped completely that I had a little bit of reflux at night (which left me with a sore throat in the morning).

The answer to this has been to stop oats / porridge after dinner, as oats require large amounts of natural stomach acid to break down, and I have started taking enzymes as well as probiotics. Literally after two enzyme tablets all my residual reflux stopped.

As for the side effects of Losec, I am sleeping better and am much less fatigued as my blood counts have come back to normal. I have to wait to have a bone densitometry to check for osteoporosis as this is one of the biggest side effects of Losec (which of course your docs don’t tell you unless grilled specifically).

But voila – I am no longer reliant on the pharmaceutical machine!!

Internet Disconnect

Over the past 6 months, I have started disconnecting from the internet. I feel like it takes up two much time and full of trivial information. For example, I gave Facebook the flick. Too much personal info about people I don’t see or hear from on a day to day basis. And lets be honest – it is mostly rubbish.

But after reading Last Child in the Woods, I have decided to disconnect from the internet on a more day-to-day basis. Mainly because I started thinking about not only my connection with nature but also my connection with Little B. I want to be authentic and in the moment when I spend time with him. Not with my brain buzzing from computer use. So I have given myself the self-imposed rule that I can only turn on the computer after Little B goes to bed or is at preschool.

I normally read the paper online when I got up over breakfast. By stopping this, I’ve found that Little B and I have a really great connection first thing in the morning (even if I'm not the most awake morning person after a sleep deprived night ;-) He has completely stopped any attention seeking behaviour because he is secure in the knowledge that I am giving him my full attention. He also lets me do my morning and evening chores without raising a fuss at all.

I love blogs though because it feels like such a networking collection of mothers who have similar goals or drives as me. I dont know anybody IRL living the way that I do, and I find that I need that sense of connection or collective. So I still get to look at and blog myself in my allocated computer time. Or just spend time writing.

Now the funny thing is that I haven’t found this process too hard. Due to my previous occupation in marketing and administration, I have felt addicted to the computer and the internet for a few years. And don’t even get me started on email. Any previous attempts to withdraw, shall we say, were hard as I wanted to check emails, read the paper etc. But after reading Richard Louv and a few recent events in our lives, I have quite simply realised that it doesn’t matter.

I have gone days without checking my email, haven’t died from not reading current news first thing in the morning and found other ways to get the information that I want. I’ve also found that rather than spending all evenings on the computer as I assumed I would, I spend maybe 20 minutes then its off to my knitting projects or a belly dance class, hanging out with Mr B, watching DVD’s from the library, chatting with friends on the phone or immersing myself in a good book.

Who says technology has to be the be all and end all (even in this tech savvy age) J

Yay - party time

 

I just caught 60 minutes tonight (which I never watch).

Apparently Bon Jovi are touring in December - so I've told Mr B to mortgage the house on his way to buying me my most favouritist Christmas present ;-)

Have never missed a tour yet!! LOL

Lazy Sundays

Artwork by Art Harrison

Cooked

- Banana, Dried Fruit & Oat lunchbox Slice

- Gozleme (Cannellini beans, parnips, carrots, potatoes & Organic Lemnos spreadable cheese)

Reading

- The Legacy by Kirsten Tranter

Listening to

- Down the way by Angus & Julia Stone

Project

- Well Little B bounced back quickly from being sick on Tuesday BUT on Friday night the vomitting returned with a vengeance. Two days later, we spent most of this morning at the Royal Children's Hospital. And this afternoon I have spent cuddled up with him in bed or on the couch :-(

{this moment}

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.  Inspired by soulemama

Winterize your house

Living in a super cold house, means that I’ve been implementing lots of different strategies to winterize our house. We have big deep window sills and Holland blinds. This is actually quite good as it creates an air barrier as insulation. We extended on this by using Velcro dots to attach the hollands to the architraves. Keeps any unwanted heat losses away.

On any big windows we have thermal lined curtains to stop the heat loss (or heat gain during summer). We also use these in the bedrooms to keep them a tad warmer.

Another tip (which I haven’t used yet) is to have wall hangings. A Canadian friend has used these in rental properties as a form of insulation. Basically, he hangs doonas on the wall and puts big rugs on the floor to stop heat loss during winter.

I picked up some funky padded pants from the op shop for $5 late last year, and these keep me super warm in our super cold house. But when they are drying on our indoor rack, I freeze. So Granny B bought me a pair of Lazypatch pants. Despite the fact I think they are a hilarious concept up there with the WTF blanket or the Better Marriage blanket, these are actually really really warm.

So between the two pants I can stay warm without turning up the heat. I’d rather cope with the weather than turning up the temp on our heater. The reasons for this are three fold – firstly, I think having the heater too high just means you get sick more (from dried out nasal passages); secondly, I’d rather save money than spend besquillions on heating and finally, we want to keep our carbon footprint small.

Little B is a furnace all on his own and has been known to get about in shorts or jocks during this cold weather. Mr B just rugs up like me (but more of the two jumper variety, he wouldn’t be caught dead in Lazypatch type pants ;-).

** On a side note, the wtf blanket is a parody but the better marriage blanket is a serious product....hahahaha