The One Question Doctors Don’t Seem to Ask

My son has had this persistent cough for about a year now that seems to get worse whenever he comes back from staying the weekend at his grandparents.  I’ve made several conclusions on its causes from maybe he gets exposed to more cooties there, to maybe he just gets too worn out playing that his immune system gets taxed.  His doctor diagnosed his coughs as allergies and prescribed an over the counter allergy medication.  It worked for a while, and then it stopped working.  So I decided to have him see an allergy doctor to see what he was reacting to.  They did some tests on him, to which he came out negative for all environmental allergens.  They said he might be just mildly allergic to mold.  Yet they sent him home with a bag full of medication with complicated directions for administering.  After discussing this issue with other moms, the question about food allergies came up.  The allergy doctor never even got into this.  I looked up food allergies and ways to determine what my son might be allergic to.  To make a long story short, after careful observation, I’m suspecting he’s allergic to dairy. It’s been a few days since he’s had cheese.  So far so good, hardly any coughing at all.

Two weeks after his appointment with the allergy doctor, I got a letter from them stating the results of his allergy tests and that he’s a good candidate for allergy shots.  Allergy shots???  He was only mildly allergic to one out of the 20 environmental allergens and they’re recommending allergy shots???  When I did the same test about 2 years ago, I came up allergic to everything except dogs, and all I got was a nasal spray (which I never used).  I had my other son undergo the same test, with the same results and just got the letter from the allergy doctor.  I didn’t even bother opening it.

I truly believe the cause of a lot of what makes us sick is the food we eat.  Yet doctors never seem to ask their patients what they eat.  They just slap them with a prescription to take care of the symptoms they’re having.  Got diabetes?  Here’s 523 types of pills you need to take 73 times a day.  Have high cholesterol?  Add 53 more pills to that.  Afraid of cancer or the swine flu?  Here’s an untested vaccine that MIGHT prevent it.  In the meantime, go on with your merry lives eating burgers, soda and hot fudge sundaes.   They might tell you what not to eat if your case is really bad, and they might ask you what you had for lunch.  But they never ask you what you eat on a day to day basis.  Knowing what you’ve been eating for the last week or two will give a pretty good indication of what’s causing your symptoms.  Relying solely on prescription medicine to alleviate health problems is like constantly buying more expensive shoes while walking on broken glass.  Save your money and get off the broken glass!!

Most health problems can be solved by spending more time at the produce section of the grocery store, not at the pharmacy.  All doctors should know this.

To a Child, Love is Spelled T-I-M-E

I have been busy the last couple of weeks, and will be busy the next few more weeks, trying to prepare for a big trade show in September.  I’ve got new products lined up, prototypes and samples to create, marketing materials to design, and taking care of all the logistical details of exhibiting in a trade show.  In addition, I’m adding a new brand/product line, coordinating production and materials for 3, possibly 4 manufacturing facilities, and trying to get our websites a total makeover.  Most of my days are now spent either in front of the computer or in my sewing room.  I’m always trying to get the baby to sleep, and stay asleep, just so I can finish the list of things I have to do.

This weekend, my husband took our boys fishing for the first time.  They were so excited about the whole thing.  They went and bought their own little fishing rods and tackle boxes.  In between the actual fishing, they dug up worms, stepped on cow shit, got bit by bugs, and picked beans, cucumbers, cabbage and corn from the garden of my husband’s grandfather’s farm.  Despite coming home all dirty, sweaty and missing their naps, which usually makes them highly irritable, they were in good spirits the kept playing with their new fishing rods and tackle boxes, long after they’ve gotten back to civilization.  I didn’t go with them, and stayed in our bug-free, animal-poop-free, air-conditioned world I call our home.

My husband and I try to work hard to provide our family with the best life possible.  But in the midst of everything I’m doing for the business, I always have to remind myself of what really matters for my family and the kids, and the need to slow down once in a while.  This short movie really says it all.

Why You Need to De-Clutter Your Home

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you?

-You needed a roll of tape to wrap a present, went to the store and ended up buying a 6-pack roll because you get a free roll when you buy 5.  You think, “Well, I’ll use them up someday”, and proceed to store them somewhere in your house.  10 years later, you still have 5 of the 6 rolls you bought.

-You have a pair, or several pairs of ’skinny jeans’ or outfits that you keep in case you finally lose that weight you’ve been battling with and start fitting back in your skinny clothes.  You never lose the weight.  And you never get back into your skinny jeans–which are, by the way, out of style already.

-You keep gifts given to you that you don’t like, thinking you will re-gift them to somebody else someday.

-You collect pens, stationery, soap and shampoo from every single hotel you stay at, but never really use them.

-You keep all sorts of items because you paid good money for them, or just in case you finally find the time to sell them at a garage sale or on Ebay.

There is a big difference between keeping something that you will be using between now and a few months down the road vs. keeping something you have absolutely no need for now or in the near future but decide to keep it “just in case”.  Before you know it, you have an attic/basement, and even a house full of just-in-case-I-might-need-them items that are actually nothing more than junk.  A lot of people don’t like to let go of all these junk because they usually think they will eventually need them.  But what really happens is one of 2 things: either when you actually need that item you can no longer find it among the rest of your junk and end up buying a new one anyway, or you end up never needing the item at all.

I used to be one of those people that never threw away anything.  I had tons of magazines that I wouldn’t throw away thinking I might re-read them later.  I kept all sorts of stationery or any blank paper thinking I’ll use them for scrap paper someday.  I stored all these nifty little gadgets from several years ago thinking I might use them again.  But this habit just created a way for my home to gather dust.  Then I learned about “space-clearing” from a friend of mine who was a Feng Shui master.  All it is is just getting rid of clutter.  Surprisingly, the less I had in my home, the more abundant our lives were.

The amount of junk you have in your house inversely relates to the amount of luck/blessings you have in your life.  It’s kind of ironic, but true.  The more junk you keep, the less fortune you receive.  You need to be able to detach yourself from things you don’t need in order to get more of what you do want/need.  I’ve been to enough people’s homes to know this to be true.  People who tend to keep everything and don’t throw away anything tend to be the ones that are either struggling financially, feel stuck, or don’t have a lot of joy in their lives.  Same thing applies to people that buy and hoard a lot of things or have messy, crowded, over-decorated and cluttered homes.  If you have a messy desk, chances are that your career isn’t doing too good.  If your kitchen, dining area or refrigerator is cluttered, chances are that your health isn’t at its peak.  If your bed and bedroom looks more like a dump than a personal sanctuary, love and romance is probably lacking in your life.  Get the idea?  You need to respect your living area, because it will reflect how your life is going to be.

But isn’t just throwing things away wasteful?  Not if you don’t need them anyway.  What good are they going to do sitting around in your house and turning it into an oversized trash can?  Forget how much you paid for them, how much they’re worth or how much money you can get out of your junk.  If you can’t find some way to use them now, or find some way to recycle them or somebody who can use them now, just get rid of them.  And learn to stop buying things you don’t need, even if they’re half price.  Is all that clutter really worth the few pennies or dollars it might save you in 5 years?  There is no point keeping stuff that doesn’t enrich your life or bring you joy.  Make room in your home for abundance by simplifying your living space.  If there’s less stuff to clean, less stuff to organize, maybe you’ll have more time and space to enjoy what really matters.

How I Lost 20 lbs in 2 Months…Without Any Exercise

It has always been relatively easy for me to lose weight whenever I stuck to a good ’starvation’ diet and workout routine.  Problem is, with 3 kids and a business, it’s hard for me right now to make the time to exercise.  I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been to the gym.  I’ve tried a few types of diets in the past, mostly just different variations of portion control and keeping track of calories.  But what has been the most effortless diet for me is eating a vegan diet.  I have experimented with this way of eating on and off for over 15 years now but never really stuck with it.  However,  I have noticed that the pounds always seem to melt away fast whenever I commit to not eating meat.  Eating a vegan diet doesn’t necessarily translate to salads, tofu and rabbit food all the time.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s really no big deal and not as strange as it may seem.

I gained about 35 lbs. with this last pregnancy, lost 10 lbs with the birth and another 5 lbs. a month after.  Beginning May 1st of this year, about a month after I gave birth to Isabella, I decided to get serious about losing all this extra weight, and easily lost the last 20 lbs just by eating vegan as much as I can.  I didn’t really have a structured meal plan, or a caloric limit intake.  Here is what I’ve been eating the last 2 months:

Breakfast (I eat/drink all morning long from 8 a.m. until lunch time):

Fresh fruit juices (fresh squeezed orange & grapefruit; sometimes I’ll mix in some fresh apple juice if the grapefruit is too bitter)

Fresh fruit smoothie (pineapple, berries, bananas, apples, etc)

Any type of fruit and as much as I want of it

Recently I’ve started adding a vegetable juice concoction (found in Natalia Rose’s book Raw Food Life Force Energy) before eating any of the above

Lunch:

Some type of gazpacho soup or other veggie soup

Vegetable fried rice

Stir-fried veggies & rice

If I get too lazy…peanut butter & jelly sandwich

Snack:

Muffin, mini-bagel or fruit

Dinner:

If I’m good, it’s some type of grilled seafood and veggies.  Otherwise, I just eat whatever my husband and kids are eating…including dessert

What has made this easy for me is the fact that my kids generally don’t like to eat meat (or any kind of unidentifiable object for that matter), so I don’t really have to buy or fix special meals just for me.  And I also take it easy on myself during dinner, since my husband likes “regular” food.  As long as my first 2 meals of the day is vegan, I get the benefits of that diet.  Eventually, I’d like to eat a 100% vegan diet, just because it feels right to me.  I feel lighter, have more energy, and can concentrate better.  I also don’t get sleepy after a big vegan meal like I do after a big meal at a Chinese buffet.  I feel like the food is cleaner, more pure, and not as complicated to prepare.  Other than brown rice, most vegan meals can be fixed in 15 minutes or less.

My interest in vegan eating was initially spiked by the fact that the people that I know that eat this way have really clear skin.  At that time, I was probably 18 or 19 and obsessed about my skin (at that age, who wasn’t??).  When I moved to the U.S., where vegan meals are a little bit more common than where I grew up, I started reading up more about it.  Then I learned about all the different types of vegetarian/vegan diets, including eating raw vegan and organic.  But more than just another unconventional way of eating, or a way to lose weight, get clear skin, or to live past 100, what it really boils down for me is that it’s a more conscious way of eating.  It has led me to really examine and question the type of food we all eat, why we eat it, and if they’re really good for us.  There are lots of different reasons people convert to vegan diets.  For me, it’s the sheer simplicity of it.  The resulting weight loss is just icing on the cake.  And it’s a more sustainable way of eating for me because I can realistically continue eating this way for the rest of my life and anywhere I go.

A lot of people may think, well, now I won’t get to eat all the good stuff I used to eat.  I personally don’t think of it as deprivation because it’s a conscious choice.  And what we consider as “good stuff” is very subjective.  There are people in certain parts of the world, and even in this country, that consider cow testicles, sheep brains and fish eye balls as edible, and even a delicacy.  For the majority of the population, those things are considered pretty repulsive and chosen not to be eaten.  Same thing with meat and processed food.  Some people choose to eat them and think they’re good for you, while others don’t.  I highly doubt many people will get bummed by not being able to eat sheep brains or fish eyeballs…ever.  So it’s really not a big issue for me to no longer eat steak or pork chops.

Eventually, as Isabella starts weaning herself from needing me just about every hour of the day, I will start adding excercise back into my life.  And as I learn to undo the lifelong eating habits I’ve formed, I will eventually wean myself completely off of all types of animal products and processed food.  But I’m taking it slow for now and allowing a few slip-ups here and there because once in a while, I still like to eat my fried chicken and donuts.  Maybe by next year, they will be as appetizing as cow testicles to me.

How I Got My Mother-in-Law Out of Prison

It took us (me and my husband) a few months, but we sure did it.  We got his mom out of prison. Yes we live in Tennessee, and my husband and his mom’s side of the family were all born and raised here, but this isn’t one of those freaky redneck stories that you hear about in the 6 o’clock news.

Kathy, my mother-in-law, actually worked for one of the high-security prisons here as a corrections officer.  For over 10 years, her job was to teach inmates how to sew and supervised the production line.  But for as long as I can remember, I don’t think she really liked it there.  She seems to always be complaining about her supervisor, stuff they have to do, etc.  And she’s not complaining because she’s one of those lazy people that just want to get out of having to work hard, in fact, she’s too much of a hard-worker that she makes a lot of people look bad.

In 2007, we decided that if we hit a million dollars in sales that year, that I’d like to offer Kathy to work with us.  Back then, we had 2 employees plus me and my husband on the payroll, and a bookkeeper.  Our problem was that those 2 employees we had constantly needed to be supervised or nothing would get done.  We felt that they were a little too close in age to us that they viewed us more as buddies than bosses.  We needed an authority figure in the office to keep employees, and future employees in line.  The business had a lot of potential and had been doubling in volume since its inception.  We now needed to add structure to our operations if we wanted to keep the momentum going.  I figured that if Kathy can supervise over 2 dozen hardened criminals day in and day out, these 2 little employees we have will probably seem like ants to her.  We would have needed to hire somebody anyway, might as well be her.  Our bookkeeper is actually her sister-in-law, so I know they’re going to get along well.

She didn’t immediately jump on our offer though.  She had to think about it for a few weeks.  I guess I can’t blame her.  She’s got job security where she’s at, benefits, etc.  It’s hard to get fired from a state job, unless you really screw things up.  Maybe she also didn’t think our company might be stable enough.  In fact, she didn’t even really take me seriously when I first mentioned I was going to use cloth diapers on our first child.  But I think she was also worried that working for us might put a strain on our relationship as a family.  We don’t have that typical mother-in-law/daughter-in-law type of friction that a lot of people have.  We actually get along very well.  But eventually, she decided to go for it and join us.

As of September of last year, my husband officially became her boss.  He jokes around that he waited 30-something years to get to boss his mom around.  Payback time!!! 

Having her work with us has took a little bit of adjustment though.  We kinda had to “detox” her from a lot of habits and old mindsets she developed working for a high security prison.  It took her a while to be comfortable with a lunch break that had no specific time–just whenever she felt like taking one.  Or that forgetting to clock in/out for work won’t result in dire consequences.  And that it’s okay to hire somebody with body piercings and green hair.

I’m a firm believer that one needs to work in a field they truly enjoy, and not only because they need a paycheck.  Doing something you don’t really like but are forced to do just because you need the money will drain the living hell out of you.  We don’t necessarily hire people with the longest resumes or the best qualifications.  We try to hire people who we think will enjoy the work and the environment we have to offer.

It has been great having her join us though.  Having her now means we don’t have to worry that things are getting done, and done properly, at the office.  Recently, we’ve also put her in charge of managing our new production facility beside our office.  But more than just having a job for Kathy, having her work with us means that she’ll be able to spend more time with her son, and the grandkids.  It means she gets to experience our family’s journey with us.

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