Crohn's....Flare....Argh.....

Unfortunately, it appears that Chana is having a "flare" of Crohn's. Her stomach hurts in the same way and place as it did when she was first ill, she's very tired, and, in general, just feels lousy. We thought it started this morning, but, looking back, I see that she hasn't been 100% since Tuesday.

When she saw her dr. a few weeks back he thought that she might need to go back on iron supplements, but gave us one month to try to deal with it nutritionally. So I've been encouraging Chana to eat tons of nuts and seeds. Those can be very hard to digest, and aren't even used on her diet until a person has been symptom-free for six months. I think I "pushed" the seeds waaaay too much over the past week or two, and I am now wondering if this is seed-related, or just the nature of this beastly disease.....

I spoke w. her doctor today and he said to make sure to keep her 100% on the diet, but take out nuts and seeds (of course) and beans. Unless she has a dramatic turnaround, we will go in tomorrow for blood work to see if her inflammation markers are up. She's also seeing the acupuncturist tomorrow.

Please send some good thoughts her way. Aside from feeling lousy and being scared about what's going on, Chana is also worried that our trip next week to Florida will get messed up.....I'm hoping that we've caught this early enough to nip it right in the bud.

Wish I was writing about something more fun.....

40 pounds....

That's how much soap base got delivered to my house the other day. The poor UPS guy. For a moment I couldn't remember what I had ordered that would be in such a large box. Then I said, "Oh, that must be the 40 pounds of soap base!". He gave a little grunt of confirmation and asked if I wanted him to put it on the floor :)

In the past, the largest amount I've ever ordered for our company (www.4sisterssoaps.com) is 25 pounds, and never as a huge block, always in 1-, 2- or 5- pound bricks. But this was SUCH a good sale that I couldn't resist.

Glycerin soap isn't hard to cut. But the thing about 40 pounds is that it's rather more like chopping up a small glacier than gently cubing soap bricks into 1-ounce bits.

I shall return tomorrow to cut again! And again....And again....

The kitchen (before)

We've known since the first time we stepped foot in our house that the kitchen needed to be redone. Despite being quite large, it had almost no counter space or cabinets, and the ones that were there were chipped, cracked, and didn't line up or close well. Did I mention the kitchen was pretty ugly as well?

But we didn't get motivated to actually do it until Chana started on the SC diet (add two yogurt makers, a food dehydrator and pounds upon pounds of raw ingredients) and we added meat into our previously-vegetarian lives (add second set of dishes, pots, utensils, etc to kosher kitchen). That plus my father deciding that finding us a contractor was one of his part-time jobs for the summer (I think it turned more into a full-time job, but he was still a good sport about it, even when it got to the absurdity of him letting himself in to our house and meeting with contractors when I wasn't even home!)