A New Chapter Has Begun

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
Lamentations 3:22-24

It's been over a month since I have posted on my blog.  The holidays were quite busy for us.  I spent my holiday planning for our new school semester.  And with our new year have come many changes for our family. 

In Octover 2010, I finally decided to spend the extra money to have Si-Bay tested for food allergies, as well as have his stool and urine tested to see just what exactly was going on in his little body.  His eczema has gone from being raised pink itchy patched on the back of his legs to covering most of his legs with tremendously dry, raised, red, and extremely itchy skin.  He's also developed asthma with no apparent trigger.  Right now he's coughing like his chest is tight but I've already given him a breathing treatment.  My little guy is very broken right now. 

In addition to all the health issues we've discovered with him, Si-Bay started speech therapy to help with a developing stutter.  He's goes twice a week to "play".  I am learning alot already. 

So this is the driving force behind our new chapter.  There are a few other minor changes that have taken place.  Underdog and I have prayfully decided that we finishing growing our family naturally.  Pregnancies are becoming very hard on my body.  So much so that I have ended up on bedrest with the last two and unable to workout because of threaten miscarriages.  So that part of our marriage has come to an end close.  We have now begun to talk about enjoying our future grandchildren.  

Another fairly minor change that was we decided to bring Jenna-bear home from her university school.  That has been a hard transition for her because she had grown into a routine and had developed some great friendships.  But the drive over there and intensity of her work was becoming a disruption to the rest of the family.  So, we felt it was best to bring her home and begin a new chapter in our homeschool. 

So just what exactly is involved in this new chapter?  For one thing, we're attempting to bring some pretty significant order back into our home.  This includes a daily schedule, finishing school each day, consistently doing chores, along with a new diet and new habits for mom and dad. 

In the coming weeks, I will be journaling about these changes.  I think my greatest change is going to be in the kitchen.  Si-Bay's allergies have left little room for convenience.  It's been a dream of mine to achieve the ability to cook all my food from scratch as well as learning to eat a real foods diet with fermentation, organic fruits and veggies, pasture raised meat, eggs, and dairy.  In the past, I have honestly chicken out and found every excuse under the sun NOT to completely move to this diet, which I am thoroughly convinced is best for us.  I have no room for excuses now.  Everything we've known about food (even our healthy foods) have been vanished from our diet or changed in significant ways.  If I am going to be able to feed Si-Bay a diet that will heal his little body, this is the direction we must go.  I have been in denial of that for a few months.  But now I am ready to surrender to this and receive this as a gift from God. 

So tonight, I took first steps in this process.  Several days ago I successfully started a sourdough starter.  Yesterday, I started a fresh starter from it.  It was ready to go tonight and so I started my first batch of fresh sour dough bread.  I have no idea if it will work or not.  I'll find out in the morning  But it's a place to start.  I took the first step which is always my hardest.  I have no where to go from here but up toward success.