It's not pox!

It looks like hives... or mystery bumps of some sort. Thank goodness! I really think that that would have put me right over the edge! Scary to imagine having to deal with a potentially very sick hubby at this point. We had gone to the doctor a couple of years back to see if we could get my hubbys immunity tested for the pox ( I know that you can have your titres checked in the States) but they don't offer the test. My hubbys brother had had the chicken pox when they were young but my MIL said that hubby never got them in his childhood. They offered him the vaccine for two doses at 80 bucks each, but he didn't want to get it if he was potentially immune. I have some homeopathics put aside for him just in case, and good access to a herbalist in an emergency so that we could at least keep him comfortable... just didn't really want to deal with that right now. It feels like I have already been playing nurse all winter already.
It was an odd day outside today. Sunny, and snowy all at once. We got out there a bit, cleaned the house really well today and even got the bikes and skateboards out for a bit outside. I did some cupboard organising and some creative cooking! I found some beef bones in the bottom of the freezer and a small bag of freezer burnt strawberries. I roasted some bones and put on a stock for tomorrow. Not sure what I will make but I made a really nice soup a couple of weeks ago with homemade curry and chickpeas seasoned with homemade chutney. The kids don't like it but they will have to just deal with it I suppose! I took some dried pears that I had tucked away, simmered them and took off the peels , threw in some dried apples and the freezer burnt strawberries and made some strawberry applesauce something. It smells yummy! I found a bag of millet, a small amount of quinoa and a package of gluten free hot cereal mix that the kids don't like. I spent a little over an hour and ground it all up in the coffee grinder. Even though I can't eat the grains, at least the boys will have some flour to make bread over the next couple of days. I think that I made about 3 or 4 pounds of flour, so that will make for some good bread with the soup! So it was busy today but I managed to make the strange random bits of food into something edible! Thank goodness for my hours and hour of food prep and drying in the growing season! I am just finishing the last of the nettles from last year just as the new ones are about to come up again! This year I plan to be even more organised ( I even have my special trees in the orchard which I know make the best apple rings, best tart plums, best apple butter etc etc!) and at least double the garden. I couldn't grow much of anything last year because the water reservoir was vandalised in our community and we weren't able to water the garden. Therefore I wasn't able to put anything at all away.
Times like this really make me remember how important it is for us to have a good pantry and stock of foodstuffs from harvest time. How much it helps to have those things when you only have beans and rice.
We might go into town tomorrow, but would rather not use the gas. We have to go into town on Monday for work and circus class and it would probable be more cost effective to save the gas for then. I have a 25 dollar gift certificate ( one of those ones that you receive if you spend a certain amount of money on a grocery shop) so we should be able to get eggs, water( our pipes are 80-100 years old and the water makes us sick to drink so we refill our big jugs at the store), rice milk , dried beans, garlic and onions. That is about what we can get for 25 bucks these days.
Hopefully we will get paid on Monday sometime because we are out of EVERYTHING! I really need things like laundry soap and dish detergent.
My oldest kiddo has his circus performance on Monday afternoon. I promise some photos... it should be so fun!

Not today either.

The bosses talked to the main contractor/ owner of the project and used the words " hungry, families, food bank," and he said that he would be back with the chequebook. They asked again today and he somehow has left on vacation for the weekend now. The other employees went to the food bank yesterday. They know that it is a lot harder for us to use the food bank because of the food issues. They don't usually have much of anything that is gluten/ casein free... besides, dry grains and legumes are the only things that I DO have. We are in need of some protein sources and something fresh.... fruit and veggies would be nice! I searched out in the bush for nettles today but only found two tiny little heads/ buds. It is calling for snow tomorrow so I don't think that I can hope for nettles as greens for at least another couple of weeks!
I have some sort of cold/ flu bug and felt that I just needed a little something. I harvested some Douglas fir needles for tea ... it is soooooo delicious. Lemony, fresh and yummy like a Christmas tree!


My hubby just called me into the bathroom to check my littlest guy who has a huge cluster of spots on his lower torso. I am not sure what it is yet... I will have to wait to see if they develop a blister or not. My hubby hasn't had chicken pox. I want to crawl into a hole for a little while ok? lol

Still no pay....

And it won't be anytime today. Hopefully they will come through tomorrow. One week late. I guess that it is a good thing that I paid all of the bills with the money we had before last payday, but it left us with no grocery money at all left over because we were expecting payday. I have stretched the last two week shop into a three week shop. We spent 50 bucks of our final tiny bit of money left on asthma meds on the weekend and had enough to buy water and eggs and onions. I have awesomely stretched out what we have in the pantry, but it is running super low. Maybe we have enough to get through the weekend before we run out completely. So here I am crossing my fingers that everything will just sort itself out. I was trying to search for labour rights and such to see where we stand or what our rights are or how to cover our butts here. Essentially , if the company can't pay out, my hubby took the gamble of continuing to work even though he wasn't paid ( because all of the sudden there are NO houses being built and a ton of tradespeople are out of work... he feels happy to be employed at all and reluctant to put himself in the position of losing the job) so as of tomorrow he will be owed for two pay periods ( payday again next week). If they can't pay, we are completely screwed. And it isn't even like we are unemployed! He is still out there working a normal 40 hour workweek! Enough bitching about it, but It worries me that a ton of people may see themselves in this situation. At least if you get laid off you can get the ball rolling for unemployment!

Ridiculously enough the boys have over a thousand dollars of learning investment money that I need to spend within the next 9 weeks we have left of school reporting. ( I have to show receipts and the purchases need to match their learning plans in some way, so it is not as if it is OUR money... just to clarify !) We have met most all of the age required ministry outcomes for the year and are trying to figure out where the funds are best spent. Our learning consultant has given the suggestion and go ahead to purchase a video camera for my oldest son as he has been into photography for a long time and has been spending a ton of his time making movies with the video camera function on his camera.

So there is something completely bizarre about purchasing a 300 dollar video camera for your kid when you don't have groceries in the cupboard!lol. Truly this is out of my hands, but since I am not a big consumer in the first place I have this weird sense of guilt! So great to have this funding and it really insures that the kids learning needs/ desires are met. We would never be able to provide them with such wonderful ( read excessive!) resources.

So if you see us at the food bank documenting our adventure on a brand new video camera... life is funny sometimes!

Lazy rainy day

Still not paid yet. At what point do you stop working until you have that owed pay in hand? We can't afford to take time off right now. Kind of a bind to be in!

Dang!

It was only three weeks ago when we were recovering from the last bout. Bummer.

Not stoked...

Hubby didn't get paid today. Well actually, he was the only person to get paid and they gave him enough for rent because we have a family. But nothing else. So no grocery shop that we were planning this weekend ( the every two week shop). I got that sinking sick feeling in my gut. They are working on a huge job and supposedly the contractor didn't pay ANY of the trades working on the job. So a huge huge amount of companies involved. My hubbies company did a huge bunch of extras for them this month, spending a ton of thier own money on the project, not expecting that there was any chance that they wouldn't get paid.
Oh well. Nothing we can do about it. We are going to enjoy our typical pre shop( but without the shop) bacon and egg dinner by candlelight and just enjoy each other. Cause that is all good!

It is working!

I just KNOW it is working!!! I was almost moved to tears tonight when I went for a walk alone with my littlest guy. A few posts back I mentioned my internal struggle with taking him off of dairy and casein. Already we have seen an increase in his appetite and more than a two pound weight gain. Tonight he was super chatty on the walk and was thrilled to have found 3 different types of new spring flowers peeking out of the snow. We headed to the little health food store in town and there was a new woman working there. My little guy walked up, said" hey guess what?", and proceeded to show as well as tell her all about these flowers. He talked to the staff there, multiple conversations and multiple topics, for the entire time we were there.( small town so talking a lot to shop owners and staff is the most common appropriate social behavior!) He looked at them, showed them things and asked questions. This is probably not anything special for most 5 year olds.

One month ago though , this would have been an entirely different picture. Usually we would go in and he would hide in this tiny crevice crouched down the entire time. If a child came in or anyone tried to talk to him , he would leave the store and growl. If he knew you well enough to talk to you at all ( even if he knew you he wouldn't respond to greetings or questions much more than half of the time) , he wouldn't look at you and would walk in circles while he spoke. His speech wasn't clear so on the part of the circle where he wasn't facing you , you wouldn't have a clue what he was saying at all. Through this tiny bit of" conversation " he would be shrugging or making random wild arm gestures that wouldn't match what he was saying at all. People always had a puzzled look on their face when they tried to interact with him.

At the end of the conversation and as we were leaving he said goodbye and offered to take them on a flower walk if they couldn't find any... he could help them out!

This has all been pretty gradual, and when I stepped back today and realised what progress he has made in such a tiny span of time I was shocked... and so so happy! Doctors don't usually give credit to dietary changes in my experience... who knows, maybe he has had some strange coincidental incredible leap in development. Clearly though, it coincides perfectly with the dairy removal. And it is SUCH a huge leap in development... like two years of development in a month!!
Just one little added thing... a month or two ago he was very very negative all of the time. He was angry and hated everything, and most everyone. He said disturbing things a lot too. He was talking tonight about how much he loves helping people and helping the earth. He just seemed so much more positive and confident and all around in a better place. I am so happy to " see him" again. I know deep down that his is who he is, and that he isn't such an unpleasant seemingly mean little guy. I just hope that he continues to feel better through this!