My Birthday and Endless Noise
It was my 35th birthday the other day. I had a pretty good day and received loads of gifts. My Mum and Stepfather had given me so,me money as a birthday present so I spent the morning shopping. I got news jean, tops, bras, make-up, everything! Stephen had Abby and Jake with him so I even got to make numerous trips into the dressing room - a rare treat for me.
At my request, my birthday cake was a carrot cake. I love the creamy icing...
As I type, Jake is driving me crazy. We've had a terrible few days with him. He simply hasn't stopped moaning and his lack o communication from him is proving to be our biggest issue. Stephen feels that Jake's mood is caused by frustration. He feels that Jake wants to communicate but doesn't know how.
I thought that Jake was unwell, but now, four days later, I don't know what to think.
Right now, he is in his bed and he is supposed to be going to sleep. Instead, I can hear him crying and moaning. But I don't know what to do for him. Believe me, we've tried it all. Food, drink, pain killers - I wish that we could solve his obvious problem, but I don't know how.
I feel very, very frustrated and upset by it because I want more than anything to soothe him, to calm him. I hate seeing him upset.
Is it autistic behaviour? Is it an illness, tummy ache or ear ache? Is it frustration because he wants to talk but doesn't know how to even try? Or is it simply naughtiness?
I'm so tired.
I have to laugh because this started out as an entry about my birthday, but soon got sidetracked by the racket coming from Jake's bedroom. He looked exhausted before he went up there so I'm hoping that he'll fall asleep soon and the moaning will cease until he wakes tomorrow morning. Actually, to be more precise, I would prefer that the moaning would not start again in the morning.
We'll see.
Equality Brand Potato Chips
We did our groceries at Food Basics again today. I’m not a big fan of grocery shopping but it does give me a tiny bit of retail therapy. What can I say; I love spending money!
With Jake's GFCF diet, we spend quite a bit more time shopping for food now than we did before. We read every label and search, normally in vain, for something to feed him. Eating gluten-free isn’t that hard and neither is eating dairy-free, but comibining the two has proven to be a bit of a challenge.
While reading the label on the potato chips, I discovered an interesting and disturbing trend:
Firstly, I should explain that the Food Basics brand is called Equality (part of the Fresh Obsessed group) and these products tend to cost less that brand name items and they are packaged in a rather plain blue design. We buy a lot of Equality products because we find that the quality is just as good as the food from the big names and the price is right. A lot of the products are transfat free too, which is very important to us.
So I was reading the label on a pack of the Equality brand Ripple potato chips that have a flavor that would be described as plain, regular or salt. I was pleasantly surprised to read the ingredients as potatoes, canola oil and salt.
Such simple ingredients! You wouldn’t call the chips healthy - because chips are never described as such - but the list makes me feel good about feeding them to my children who, by the way, love them. I know what’s in them and I understand each ingredient. No long words, nothing ‘hydrogenated’ and no words that end in ‘ate’ or ‘ium’ or ‘ide’.
But then I went further and looked at the flavored chips: barbeque, sour cream & onion, all dressed, etc. The ingredient list was shockingly long and confusing. Obviously, I put a pack of the plain chips in our shopping cart rather than the flavored ones!
When I got home, I tried looking up the ingredient list online but found that although the company had a website, the ingredients were not listed there. I wanted to be able to post the list here but obviously I can’t remember the details from the packet I read earlier today.
So instead, I will quote from the President’s Choice website, which is the brand from the Independant store. For the record, when we’re not shopping at Food Basic, you’ll find us at the Independant and we regularly buy their store brand as well. Their website is much more comprehensive and includes ingredients.
Here goes:
PC Thin Ripple Cut Potato Chips - Regular Flavour
Ingredients: Specially selected potatoes, vegetable oil, salt.
Sounds good! But then there’s…
PC General Tao Chicken Chips
Ingredients: Potatoes, vegetable oil (canola and/or sunflower and/or corn), seasoning [sugar, brown sugar, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, fancy molasses, spices (including chilies, ginger), salt, maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, onion powder, gum arabic, natural flavour (including garlic), caramel colour, sunflower oil, citric acid, glucose solids, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, silicon dioxide], salt.
Oh my. What does it all mean?
OK. How about organic chips?
PC Organics Regular Cut Potato Chips - Barbecue
Ingredients: Organic potatoes, organic sunflower oil, seasoning (organic sugar, organic tomato powder, sea salt, organic corn flour, organic onion powder, organic garlic powder, organic spices, natural mesquite flavour, citric acid, silicon dioxide), sea salt
And, everybody’s favorite:
PC Kettle Potato Chips - Cheddar Cheese & Green Onion
Ingredients: Potatoes, vegetable oil (sunflower and/or safflower and/or canola), seasoning [modified milk ingredients, corn maltodextrin, green onion powder, sea salt, sugar, cheddar and enzyme modified cheddar cheese solids (contain soy lecithin, hydrogenated soybean oil), yeast extract, sunflower oil, spice, garlic powder, citric acid, disodium phosphate, corn syrup solids, flavour], sea salt.
Can you understand why I chose to stick to Regular chips?
Worldwide Flower Delivery
Whilst living in England, we would do all of our Christmas shopping online, which made it very easy to be organized and on time. It also meant that we were able to shop around and find the very best deals.
Now that we live in Canada, we have come to realize just how lucky we had been to be living in a country with such a large population. There are thousands, if not millions, of websites dedicated to servicing the British shopper. But in Canada, we are constantly at the mercy of the American vendors who charge an arm and a leg to ship into the Great White North.
But there’s one thing that we can still take advantage of here in Canada and continue to not fork out a fortune for shipping. That’s flowers. Why? Well, because there are florists all over the world that work for one central organization to bring beautiful bouquets and arrangements to consumers for “local” prices. By making your purchase over the internet, you are effectively sending your order directly to local flower shop located right around the corner from the recipient.
In the past, I’ve used Flora 2000 to send flowers to Stephen’s parents in England and we’ve always been thrilled with the service and the price. We have sent them flowers for their anniversary as well as for other special occasions. The bouquets have always arrived on time and they have routinely exceeded my expectations for beauty, freshness and size/quantity.
Flora 2000 services over 150 countries and offers 24/7 live chat customer service. Sign up at their website and they’ll even send you reminders of special occasions so that you’ll always get the flowers ordered on time.
Having flowers delivered is as easy as choosing the recipient’s country on Flora2000.com’s homepage, then you can shop by occasion, price or even by recommendation. Put in your payment details and a delivery address and it’s as easy as 1-2-3.
Flowers from Flora2000.com: the perfect way to say “you are special”.
The Strength of the Canadian Dollar
Living so close to the US (we're about 5 minutes away from the bridge), we are used to seeing our fair share of American money. And we tend to be pretty aware of the exchange rate. The stores around here accept both Canadian and American tender.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I have always known the Canadian dollar to be worth less than its American counterpart. Working in a store, we know that the total cost of a purchase will always be a few dollars less when in US funds.
But then everything changed and now the Canadian dollar is worth more than the American dollar. How strange! You should see the faces of the Americans who come into the store wanting to spend their American dollars. When we tell them the total, they'll normally ask how much it is in American money. Usually, that amount is lower. But not anymore! Now it costs more.
But this change in the trend has certainly brought about some interesting situations. For instance, Wal-Mart is now selling their greeting cards, magazines and books at the American price. Magazines have two prices listed - American and Canadian. The US price might be $4.99 while the Canadian price is $6.99. Well, now we pay the $4.99.
I bet Wal-Mart are selling more magazines, books and cards than they were before! Everyone seems to be waiting for the exchange rates to go back to "normal", but it doesn't look like they'll be doing that any time soon.
The down side is that some of my income comes from American sources. That used to be great because it calculated into more Canadian dollars, but now I get less. A few months back, $250 American became $280 Canadian. For the same amount now I only get $227.
Oh well. There are pluses and minuses, I guess.
Neat & Tidy Cottage
Stephen and I have been umming and ahhing over a gift for the kiddies for Christmas. We saw it a few months ago and put off buying it because of the vast amount of space it would take up. But it's now come down in price - from $200 to $150 - and I think we'll end up going for it.
It's the Neat & Tidy Cottage from Step 2 and it is the cutest thing ever! Jake and Abby would love it, I'm sure. They have a tent in the living room right now and play in it for ages. But it has seen better days and the material is fraying from all the abuse it takes from our two. The sturdier plastic house that we're considering will take up a whole corner of the room but, with the long, cold winter approaching, we feel like we need to get something to entertain them. And this definitely will.
So, we'll head off to Wal-Mart again some time soon and pick it up. I can't wait to see their faces!!
Technology Gifts: one click away
Do you know what’s happening 51 days from today? Would it be easier to guess if I asked what was about 7 weeks away? You got it. It’s Christmas. And would it be accurate to say that the holidays creep up on the majority of people and that a lot of us struggle right up until Christmas Eve with all that shopping? Deciding what to buy, sticking to the budget… it’s so stressful.
With budget in mind, visit TechBargains.com for the best prices of the season on anything ‘techie’. You’ll find discount computers, high definition televisions, cheap cell phones and much more. TechBargains grabs RSS feeds from all the major technology giants, like TigerDirect, Circuit City and Best Buy, to bring all the best deals into one easy-to-use website, 24/7 and even on weekends and holidays. They don’t take a break so that you won’t miss out on the best prices.
You can also have the best deals of the week emailed straight to your inbox with TechBargains’ newsletter, with Deal Alerts customized to suit your needs and interests.
And don’t forget to visit their Coupons page for further rebates exclusive to TechBargains.com. These include free shipping, money off deals and more.
So stop worrying about Christmas and let your fingers do the talking. The techie in your life will love you for it.
I know someone who would just love a Playstation 3!
Lactose-free versus Non-Dairy
Today, I reaceived an email through this blog that asked me about the gluten-free casein-free (GFCF) diet that Jake is on. The person writing the email had a son who was autistic and was also on the GFCF diet. The email went like this:
- I need to know if Lactose Free Milk is good for Autism children? He won't drink soy or rice milk but now that we introduced him to Lactose Free milk he is back to drink alot of it. We have them on GfCf diet, the only thing we are having hard time with is milk and eggs.
So I went in search of an answer. Of course, since we started the diet with Jake, we've made a few mistakes and served foods that did have gluten or dairy products in the ingredients list. Sometimes, these ingredients go by other names and it can be very difficult to get it right all the time.
My research has taught me that lactose is a naturally-occuring sugar or enzyme found in cow's milk. When products are listed as 'lactose free', it means that they have had the lactose removed, catering to those who suffer with lactose intolerance. These products are still made with cow's milk and therefore still contain casein, which is what the GFCF diet for autistic children tries to avoid.
To recap, 'lactose free' does not necessarily mean 'non-dairy' or 'casein free'.
I wrote back to the writer of the email and passed on the information that I'd found. I also stressed that I am no pro and that they should verify the facts with someone in the know.
There is such a huge wealth of information out there on the internet, but there's no telling who we can trust to get it right.
Aging Sucks
My Mum and stepfather came by today. It had been a few weeks since they'd last seen Jake and Abby and I think that my Mum was going through withdrawl. She can't stand not seeing them and makes it pretty obvious when she calls that it's them that she's coming to see.
"I was thinking about coming over on Sunday to see the kids," she says.
"Sure. No problem. We'll be here." Then I ask in a half-jokey kind of way: "But I'm your daughter. Don't you want to see me too?"
"Oh, of course," she says. Yeah right! It's the grandkids all the way.
With my 35th birthday only 5 days away, I had a feeling that my Mum would show up with something for me. She never forgets and she's always very generous. As with previous years, she did not disappoint. She brought me a new shirt and a wad of cash. I'll have to think about what to get with it. How exciting!
But as she was leaving, she gave me a hug and wished me a happy birthday. Then she commented about how she couldn't believe that she had a daughter of 35 and how it made her feel old. And that was when it struck me: I'll be 35 years old. Time flies and I'm nearing 40 a little bit faster than I'd like to. Isn't there some way of slowing this train down!?? I felt a momentary panic and quickly pushed it out of my head.
My motto in life has always been "Don't worry about the things you can't change" and it is definitely apt when it comes to aging. We all do it and the best we can do to slow it is to invest in a good moisturizer.
Closet organization at its best
After putting Abby down for her nap this morning, I went to own bedroom closet to look for my slippers. The seasons are changing and I had cold toes! I have a shoe rack made of wood that I put against the back wall of my side of the closet to try to keep my footwear under control. I don’t own many pairs of shoes, but it’s still amazing how quickly they can make a girl’s closet look like a bomb’s gone off in there.
I hunted for my baby blue slippers behind bagged Christmas gifts, a stack of baseball hats, the whole family’s winter boots and my bead collection. I found one of them fairly quickly but the other one was more elusive.
I really must do something about this chaos, I thought to myself.
So I grabbed the footstool and started from the top. I pulled everything out, threw out old clothes and tried in vain to tame my shoes and the plethora of boots. But there simply wasn’t enough room on my two-tiered shoe rack and no floor space remained to house the rest.
Obviously, I’m not the only woman who struggles with such things because I know there to be a big market out there for closet organization. We don’t have the money (or the space, really) to get one of those built-in, fancy kits, but I would like to have a more logical and organized way of putting my shoes, hats and accessories away. I need them to be easily retrievable, without having to move a million things off of them before I can pull them out. A tall order, maybe, but I see now that someone has created just that.
NeatContainers.com offer stackable containers of varying sizes to accommodate all that closet clutter. The storage containers, also called PODs, are made of transparent plastic so that you can see what’s inside and, best of all, you can stack them vertically and still pull one out, completely, without the tower crumbling. Just like a drawer! Each pair of shoes and each hat could have its own storage container to provide a wonderfully structured and controlled closet.
Check out their how-to video to see what the product looks like and how it works. The pods look sturdy and strong and would certainly make sure that my shoes were no longer inaccessible. And I would have found both my slippers without having to empty my whole closet!
NeatContainers.com accept all the major credit cards, but are somewhat unique in that they also accept PayPal. My hat’s off to them for that!
Ignoring Halloween
It's Halloween today and I've done nothing about it. I usually like the idea of getting the kids dressed up, buying loads of candy and really enjoying the holiday. But this year, I let it go for 3 good reasons:
- we're all getting over colds (Jake is still under the weather)
- every adult in the house was at work tonight other than me and I couldn't handle it all by myself
- we live in the last house on a cul-de-sac, so I wasn't very confident about getting many visitors anyway
So, I'm slightly embarrassed to report that around 6pm, when the trick-or-treat-ing normally starts, I turned off the lights in the kitchen (at the front of the house) and closed the blinds.
I am pleased to report that I didn't have to ignore any knocks on the door because no one came. In fact, when Stephen arrive home from around 6:30pm, he reported that there were loads of kids out on the next block but that our whole block was dark and quiet.
What can I say? We're grumps among grumps.
