About Me

When I was 14-16 I wanted to have goats, a garden and umm, be a nudist.

The thoughts of wind blowing through my hair (and everywhere else) while brushing goats, then making a vegetable soup with the ripe pickings from my garden were intoxicating to a girl who wished she was a Lost Boy from Peter Pan.
I swore that I would live that way when I grew up.......but real life happened.

I found that I couldn't have everything I wanted - sacrifices had to be made for time and energy. I married a "realist" who thought some of my ways were a little "quacky" :)
(He has become a lot more understanding - and I've learned to be more discerning too.)
My life was now work and stress.

I worked 54 hours a week, so pre-made, frozen junk, or fast food were all I had time for some days.  I started the South Beach Diet with great success, (31lbs gone!) and cut out a lot of junk.

Then I got pregnant.
My work schedule pretty much stayed the same and I had to eat a more balanced diet (= more carbs).
I had terrible "morning sickness" (all f-ing day sickness for me - and now that I think about it it could have been my gallbladder) and had to take two medications just to function at work properly.
I also had a disgusting friend of the hyperemesis gravidarum (the really bad morning sickness), ptyalism, that is excessive salivation (and excessive is the nicest way to put it).


Then April 2011 tornado's hit. Thankfully we had family in Georgia that we stayed with until power came back. (I know you might be getting bored but stick with me!) 
In the nasty hot Alabama summer I started to go into early labor around 29 weeks. A day in the hospital to re-hydrate and a shot of Terbutaline and I was back to work.

Back home and at 36 weeks I started to labor again. Because it was the end of the 36 week the doctors and nurses decided to let labor start. I was hardly dilating (2cm) and only 40% effaced.
They told me to go home and walk as much as I could....yeah right. I was having back labor, (Google it and pray it doesn't happen to you) and I was in extreme pain and under a lot of stress. My job would be gone once I had the baby and some family crap had just surfaced.
My sweet husband took me back to the hospital after a sleep-less night and demanded that the doctors give me something for my pain so I could sleep.

Morphine IS AMAZING.

After one shot I was out and when I woke I had dilated to 3cm and the nurses put me on pitocin to get me going ( my mom said I was holding that baby in in fear. When I finally relaxed enough my body was too tired to do it alone).

My little nugget came out after 2 1/2 hours of pushing (she had dropped early and low - talk about a cone head!).

Life went on. (and my gallbladder came out in emergency surgery, another time. Promise.)

Then one day I was looking for recipes for gluten-free pasta substitutes (thinking my baby and myself had some wheat intolerance and wanting to start the South Beach again) and I found this site: thehealthyhomeeconomist.com  (the pasta substitute)

I was back, dreams of a garden started to dance in my head again, eating raw milk sounded less yuck and more yum.

Life is still here, work is hard to find, and tiny apartments make it hard to garden. But every day I'm finding ways to improve my life - to live closer to the way I should and want to.

Maybe my way isn't totally for you, maybe too hard or too "hippie", but if you find something here that speaks to you take it and run! :)