Good things are happening

I know a lot of the stuff I've posted about lately has been tough things, so I wanted to share a few of the things that have been going right lately.

Daniel has started sleeping a lot better, sometimes nine to ten hour stretches. Everyone who has been reading the blog will know how I feel about that. My brain has stopped feeling quite so much like cotton candy.

My house is clean. No, I didn't do it. My mother-in-law spoke my love language by sending me Lisa, a gem of a woman who calls her cleaning service a way to make money and a ministry. Boy, did she minister to me! She and her partner Angie cleaned, organized, and left our house sparkling and looking better than it has since we moved in.

It's fall. The best time of year for so many reasons. Not the least of which is being liberated from the oven which we call a Georgia summer. I love that first little bite of cool air. It makes me feel like anything is possible.

I found a multivitamin/multimineral Daniel can take. Maybe this doesn't seem like such a big accomplishment; however, I ran into a couple of obstacles during my search. Almost all infant drops only contain vitamins, and because of Daniel's dietary restrictions, I felt that he needed something that also contained minerals. Also, I had a difficult time finding a vitamin free of all the substances Daniel is allergic to, since even the hypoallergenic formulas contained rice protein. But I finally found something. It's an aloe and seaweed base, sweetened with stevia and flavored with elderberry. Best of all, when I started giving it to him, it didn't make him itch!

I have brand new winter clothes. Thanks to a couple of productive shopping trips (which I oh-so-rarely take) and a bag of hand-me-downs, I have plenty of long-sleeve tees, a couple of cute jackets and sweaters, and enough new pants to get me through the cold weather. And I bought a pair of brown, backless, fleece-lined heels, the first heels I have bought in years. We'll see how that goes. I'm reserving them for very special occasions only (read, no kids).

I have figured out a variety of foods we can eat on the allergy diet. We've eaten plenty of meat, potatoes and vegetables, but we've also had spaghetti (thanks to the corn and quinoa pasta I found), and nachos (with my homemade taco seasoning, just as delicious as the packaged stuff and without that unnatural orange coloring). We are, by default, eating healthier than we ever have, more fruit, more veggies, more beans. Fewer preservatives, artificial colorings, and sweeteners.

I could go on, but I need to wrap up this post and pay some concentrated attention to my two favorite little good things, one of whom has just covered his hands in stamp pad ink. Here's to the good life!