(photo unrelated to anything, so you can see how we hung our guitars on the wall)
On the blog
First of all, I'm getting super-duper excited because I have a brilliantly talented designer working on a new design and sometime in the next month I will be giving GGH a much-overdue overhaul, update and makeover. All the bloggers out there will understand how nerdily thrilled I am about this.
I haven't been writing much over here lately, but in the next couple of months that should be changing a bit as well. You may have read about all the changes happening and coming to Simple Mom and therefore to the whole SLM network. As Simple Homemade comes to a close as a stand-alone blog, I will be drifting back over to these parts to get back to my roots, while also writing monthly over at Simple Mom (ahem, dreamcometrue).
If you're new around here, coming soon as I relaunch are some book reviews, ice cream posts, and more thoughts on community, creativity (including creative projects), and contentment-- the big three Cs I try to base a lot of my content on around here.
In our tummies
GAPS is going well. We are actually really enjoying breakfast and dinner, although lunch is a bit more challenging as I'm trying to avoid cooking an entire meal, and we don't always have enough leftovers.
I'll be posting soon a more detailed post on what we're eating, but I just wanted to get an overview up here to say that other than social situations, which are challenging, Gigi is doing awesome with the changes. She's totally on board with it theoretically, although still struggles when she feels the cost, such as no pizza day school. I did however make a batch of Paleo Chocolate Chip cookies and made her one with one solitary-cheater-chip in it to make her feel special.
Her energy and attitude may be improving, but it's still too early to truly tell in my opinion. I will say that her "explosions" have been fewer and farther between and bedtime has improved.
We've all had some out-of-the-ordinary gas and we definitely saw some minor "carb flu" type symptoms during the first week as we were detoxing from all the flour and sugar ("healthy" versions even) we normally eat. I feel like I have much more energy, although that may be canceled out from how late I've been staying up trying to cram everything in I want to do.
Two things: this diet is expensive (You pay now or pay later, though, right?), and time consuming. I really do spend most of my day in the kitchen, when I'm not occupied with the kids, that is.
And finally, do we (the adults) cheat? YES. David and I are definitely on a modified GAPS diet. I drink decaf coffee with a bit of raw sugar almost daily and we still must have our dessert every night. We are getting creative though. It's not ice cream every night anymore by any means. I'm not giving up homemade ice cream, don't worry. :) But we are trying to satisfy ourselves with other things, too, like warm milk steeped with cinnamon, nutmeg and raw honey mixed in (yum!), yogurt with granola & honey, bananas with cocoa almond spread (oops, that's totally not legal!), or a high quality chocolate bar (also ILEGAL but darn good).
In our homeschool
We're down to the basics around here... reading lessons, math, handwriting, our devotional, read-aloud, and not too much else. It's going really well though, especially since we've made the huge shift from morning to afternoon. I would much rather do school in the morning, but right now with an almost 3-year old and a 21-month old around, it's more like crowd control mixed with a bit of school. So we've been doing school when they nap and that's relieved me of a lot of stress.
I keep reminding myself, it's just kinder and I really just want Gigi learning to read primarily. I'm getting excited about the future though, starting Story of the World next year and going more down the Classical path. I'm going to a seminar in a few weeks on Classical education that I'm really looking forward to.
It's swim lesson season around here and our kids are doing awesome!! I love seeing them improving and getting safer and more comfortable in the water.
In our wallets
After years of reading about Dave Ramsey (mostly through Tsh), we are finally hunkering down and watching Financial Peace University and getting serious about paying off my student loan (the only non-mortgage debt we have left) and then starting that fully-funded emergency fund.
It's really exciting. I've been interested in all of this for a long time, but I've been terrible at implementing and actually sticking to the budget. Ever since David took over the money (we still can't figure out why I did it for over nine years) we've been making continual progress, and I'm loving seeing him get pumped on the Dave Ramsey plan. For those of you who know the FPU terms, he's definitely the nerd/saver, and I'm the free spirit/spender.
So that's where we're at! God is good. Questions? Comments?