Yogurt, and saurkraut and squashes, oh, my!

Well, well...it has been forever and a day since I wrote. As tired as I am right now, I just felt like sharing some new things in our lives. For the last three months we have embarked on a challenging change in our lives called the GAPS diet. I'm sure many of you are familiar with it, but for those who are not, the diet was developed by a doctor of neurology and nutrition, Dr. Patricia Campbell-,McBride who wanted to heal her son's severe autism through diet. But in her practice, she found that leaky gut syndrome has a plethora of conditions at its root cause. Primarily, you cut out all processed foods, grains, and starchy vegetables. You then eat homemade bone broths, fermented foods (saurkraut, yogurt, kefir, etc.), lots of good quality meats and organic if possible produce preferably locally grown. There is a six step Intro. stage, then you are in what's called "full GAPS" eating all the "legal" GAPS foods. A good friend who is on this diet suggested starting on full GAPS to get your feet wet. I got the broths down, the ferments and became familiar with all the foods available to us and assembled lots of recipes along the way.

After two and a half months on full GAPS, we are now on Stage 2 of Intro, starting Stage 3 tomorrow. How has it been working so far? Lots of adjusting on everyone's part. Can't count the number of times I've been asked, "Are we allowed to have this?" Giving up candy was probably the hardest part for my kids, but we have found so many GAPS friendly dessert recipes on-line that it makes it very livable.

Have we seen any results? Absolutely, positively! One of my daughters had gotten some bloodwork over the summer and had a few things that showed up, primarily high insulin, meaning insulin resistance. We had a window of opportunity to address this nutritionally, rather than with a prescription, so we set to work. The Lord brought us through some other diets, but then providentially led me to research GAPS and I am so very grateful that I did.

Eating whole foods from scratch has been something that I have dabbled in for the last ten years and we are now fully implementing it as an entire family. But the most wonderful part is that we are seeing results...primarily, her insulin has dropped from 50 to 5!!! I got down on my kneed and cried out my thanks to the Lord!

We are discovering that many of us here in the house struggle from a few different things that could be from leaky gut, so we've still got some healing to do which is why we have now backed up to do the more healing part of the diet. But we did see healing on the full GAPS alone (but I would highly suggest to anyone not to skip Intro...do it at some point).

I truly appreciate the many bloggers out there who post recipes, especially:
Cara over at www.healthhomehappy.com. She's got wonderful e-books and menu plans that are eternally helpful. I'm compiled a nice big binder full of recipes to help us in this path.

State Fair

Well, hellllllooooo! I know it's been months since I've posted, but family's first and with my family I have been. We've been busy, busy, homeschooling, knitting, crocheting, spinning and sewing. Taking care of our bunnies and preparing to add a breeding trio of German angoras very soon. Very excited about that! We'll be working on getting our rabbitry's website up and going...Spring Valley Angoras. We'll be selling fiber, breeding bunnies for sale, and eventually sell spinning supplies.

We recently went to our state fair and had a wonderful time together. Weather was a bit hot, but not blistering; and we went on a weekday, so the crowds were not overwhelming. Thought I'd share a couple of photos! That's Joshua milking the fake cow...hand sanitizer was ready at hand.

Really, really enjoyed watching some friends of ours do a 4H competition for their cows. All three of their daughters won two first places, one second place and their oldest won grand champion. They must have been so proud of their daughters! Incredible judge who spent so much time with each child competing, giving them tips and pointers. At the end, he shared his advice on the seven most important things to teach a child:
-yes, Sir
-no, Sir
-yes, Maam
-no, Maam
-please
-thank you
-excuse me

Such wise and simple advice. One thing I would change to put in the first place, though. The most important thing to teach a child is to love the Lord Jesus with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength.

May the Lord bless your day abundantly!
Lisa

Friday's Flowers Shawl

Hello, friends! I finished my Pettine shawl using hand dyed silk single ply lace weight yarn that I bought from my dear friend, Lynn, over at her etsy shop, www.etsy/theprincessrooms.com. It was an absolute pleasure to knit...the beautiful sheen of the pink lace and the simple lace pattern. Love the triangular shape of the shawl and how the top portion lays over to make a "collar". Definitely making more from this designer and I can't wait to knit more of Lynn's beautifully dyed yarn.

May the Lord bless your day abundantly!
Lisa

Knitting in the New Year

Well, HI! Hope everyone had a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year! I spent the weekend organizing my yarn stash. I went through my binder of patterns and pulled stuff out and started to put things in sheet protectors. For my yarn I tend to see a pattern first, then I'll purchase yarn for that particular project. Often I fall in love with the whole look of an item...the pattern, the yarn and the color. Most of my yarn is from Knit Picks, so I often will substitute the yarn for something from them, but I do have a couple of skeins of some really special yarns. I just ordered some Royale Hare sock yarn to make the Maia shawl that I found on ravelry. The yarn is called Bug Juice (yuck, I know!), but the color is a gorgeous olive green with flecks of mustard/brown. Can't wait to see it!

I'm almost finished with my Pettine shawl with the hand dyed silk that I purchased from my friend, Lynn at her etsy shop, The Princess Rooms. So very lovely.

Well, I assigned each yarn to its pattern and put them in separate Ziploc bags. The photo is the Ishbel shawl that I made for my mom for Christmas and the others are some yarns for some shawls to come. I really need to increase my knitting speed because I've got NINE shawls to knit. Not one pair of socks. Think I need to change the name of this blog. :)

May the Lord bless your day abundantly!
Lisa

Bunnies, bunnies, everywhere!

This is for you, Linda! My dining room has been taken over by these two English Angoras. Our beautiful farm table made from reclaimed barn lumber has become grooming central. Please note the gigantic bag of hay and the tub of pellets. O.K. so we're not really farmers yet, but it's getting hard to take each other seriously with rabbit fur stuck to our glasses.

May the Lord bless your day abundantly!
Lisa

P.S...tomorrow I intend to write about this week and to thank friends! :)
P.P.S. Oh. The picture of Joshua is him dumping the remains of his ice cream sundae upon his head last night. My goodness...how I love my family.

Yay! Photo uploading working now!

Looks like photo uploading is now working. Think my hubby had something to do with it. :)


The wheel is an Ashford Kiwi and comes in unfinished wood. I was going to just give it a coat of something to protect it until I found a Kiwi group on ravelry and there are tons of people who paint their Kiwi's. Now, pink being my favorite color, I probably should've painted her pink, but I went with chartreuse for the wheel, then a dark walnut stain for the rest of it. I may have to decopage a little pink rose on her just to get that pink on there.
I see a lot of other spinners name their wheels, so any suggestions?

May the Lord abundantly bless your day,
Lisa

As the wheel turns...

Yesterday I finally sat down with my spinning wheel and gave her my full attention for about an hour. At last year's Rhinebeck, my wonderful husband let me buy an Ashford Kiwi wheel. For Christmas 2008, he got me a handmade wheel that I love, but I needed more of a workhorse one to figure it out before I could tackle a more delicate one. I am a little, O.K., very, machine phobic, so it takes me quite some time to take on anything with parts and/or instruction manuals. Sewing machine...finally learned about four years ago and I don't freak out anymore if the thread gets jammed. As a craft, it's very satisfying to finish something in a day, but since I can't carry it around with me, it loses serious points there.

Computer...it's nothing short of a miracle that I have a blog. JUST learned how to download pictures myself only a few weeks ago without asking hubby or two older daughters. I have to go through all the processes myself before I get it. I cannot learn by watching and listening to someone.

This is why it has taken me so long to sit down at my wheel. Watching youtube videos over and over is like Charlie Brown's teacher, "Wah, wah, wah, WAH. Wah, wah, wah, wah." I overcame my fear and just sat down. And loved it.

A while ago I had purchased a very soft bit of fine merino roving in an olive color. I would LOVE to post some pictures of my wheel and the bit of yarn that I actually spun, gleefully yelling, "I'm doing it!!! I'm doing it!!! I'm spinning yarn!!! It's working!!!", but, alas, our computer is acting very strange and every time I hit the "add image" button, a big blank screen pops up with Mozilla at the top.

I look forward to spinning lots more and becoming better at it. Then when this year's Rhinebeck comes around, instead of yarn purchasing, I can purchase FIBER. How fun. We've still got to get the hang of drop spindling, too.

Sorry no pics! :( Soon, hopefully!

May the Lord bless your day abundantly,
Lisa