7-Quick Takes

Join the other Quicktakers at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

1. It’s been a year and a half now since I went completely grain free. I’ve learned a lot and I really don’t miss eating bread or breaded things that much. The only time it’s an issue for me is when I have to serve a pasta dish for my runners who need a lot of carbs for energy before big races. Then I usually just eat the topping that I have prepared (meatballs or chicken in a tomato sauce) without the pasta.

I easily dropped over 40 pounds when I started eating this way, my ulcerative colitis cleared up without medication, and as an unexpected benefit, all of my eczema cleared completely up and the skin that I thought would always be rough and depigmented, is now completely normal!

There were two books that helped me greatly in this journey

and

It’s not a lifestyle that I would have picked for myself – I always loved breads and cakes and cookies – but the science behind it makes sense and I am slowly going to win the rest of my family over in this coming year.

2. That all said, my weight loss did stall before reaching my ideal body weight, and in fact even went up a little (because it is possible to eat too many of the good foods too!)  So for a while I’m following the instructions in this book and limiting carbs.

It’s odd to me because since my early 20s I’ve been limiting fat – drinking skim milk, cutting the skin off of chicken etc.

and now I can eat that stuff, and in reading labels I skip over the fat information over to the number of carbs.  I’m having to relearn all of that too!

3.
It’s finally spring!  and that means soccer season.

Gabe is reffing the little kids in our homeschool league and thoroughly enjoying it.

Izzy is playing with the high school kids, although the boys don’t really seem to let her have a chance to play much.

4.
Watching Rosie play is like watching a jumping bean – she’s got so much energy!

5. Jimmy Kimmel produced this stupid video to encourage people to vaccinate their children. 

Here’s what I think about that:

• The video uses doctors exclusively to make the point that vaccines are safe.  However, there are health care professionals including doctors who don’t believe that vaccinations are as safe as they are touted. 
• There is not one mention of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund, run by the National Health and Human Services Department. It was created for children damaged by vaccines.  
• Cussing at people is probably not the best way to persuade them to your point of view.
• Most of the people who decide not to vaccinate or to delay vaccinations have not done so lightly. Degrading, mocking, or otherwise trying to disparage parents who are thoughtfully trying to make the best decisions for their families, also will probably not win people over to your side. 

Likewise – antivax people didn’t do themselves any favors by tweeting ad hominem attacks back at Jimmy Kimmel.

6.

Last week one of my heroes, Shiela Kitzinger passed away at age 87. When I became disillusioned with my first birth experience and started to glean information about natural birth, hers were the books I read first. She made me see that birth was a natural process and not a medical disaster waiting to  happen. She blessed many women and families with her calm manner and straightforward manner. She will be missed.

7.
This week, in Michigan, it was reported that Democratic Lawmaker, State Rep Stephanie Chang, is planning to introduce legislation to require all home-schooling parents to register their home schooled children including names, ages, addresses and school district with the state.

Why?

Because this woman, Mitchelle Blair, told authorities that she was homeschooling her children AFTER they found their bodies shoved into the family freezer.

Spunky Braun of Spunky Homeschool had this on her Facebook page and I added a comment. A few hours later, she posted this.

BTW, Michigan already has homeschooling laws – how about enforcing them?