Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Summer in Michigan

A new header photo and font colors to celebrate the beauty of Michigan summers!

With the exception of some very cool, cloudy days and a few really hot days, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous up here in our area of MI this summer. Lots of clear, sunny, low-humidity days in the 70's - I personally couldn't ask for better.

Almost 2 weeks ago we spent a little time in Ludington on Michigan's west coast when we went to pick up Noah and Isaac after they had spent the week with some friend in the U.P. (Michigan lingo for the Upper Peninsula).

I'm usually not a beach-lover as I don't care for heat and crowds. But this day the air temp. was only in the upper 60's, so the beach was comfortable and not crowded.









I'm dying to get some Lake Michigan sunset pictures; but since the sun doesn't set until 9:30pm and we live an hour from the lake, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe when the sun start setting a little earlier. (I'm so NOT a night owl!)

And here are just a few more reasons people continue to live in Michigan and endure the long gray winters . . .









Monday, July 6, 2009

Summer Rambles Along . . .

It's been about two weeks since I last posted! I hadn't been feeling well, and there really wasn't much to post about.

After making progress with my health since winter, I had a set-back for the second half of June. Between busyness and consequently not eating well and just the ups and downs of chronic health issues, some of my symptoms flared up and I had a couple bad weeks. But thankfully I'm feeling much better now.

One thing that happens when my thyroid acts up and my body gets worn down is that I start having sensitivities to a food group (or two or three!) Over the years I've had to eliminate dairy, eggs, soy, tomatoes (for some reason, that's not too common) and wheat from my diet; wheat being the most recent. I still avoid soy and milk, but I'm fine with eggs, cheese, and tomatoes now. Wheat is a really difficult one to avoid - you never realize how many things contain even a teeny bit of wheat until you can't eat it. I do feel better when I don't eat wheat. But when I get too busy, it's easy to just have a little here and a little there, and suddenly I'm showing signs of reacting to it again - like fatigue, "brain fog", headaches, and depression. ugh. Then it's back to eliminating it completely for 3 months to totally clear your system of it.

With my husband only working four days a week right now (automotive industry - need I say more?), I've only had 4 days a week alone with the kids, which has been a blessing. And he's now into the 2nd week of his 2 week mandatory vacation. So when I was really feeling yucky last week, I was able to rest a lot because he was home to watch Aaron. (Noah and Isaac were gone on their own little vacation, which I'll post about next time). So in that regards, it was great timing to be feeling down although that was not the way I had hoped to spend vacation time!

Finally feeling better, I actually had the energy to get out of the house and we got to have some fun over the weekend. Yea! I'll post some pictures after I get them downloaded from my camera.