Progress

What I'm trying to do:

Keep up with the idea of routines, as opposed to 'keep my house immaculate' or 'keep my body super awesome.'

So far? I like this a LOT. It's not perfect. In fact, after just a few days I can down with a nasty cold which has knocked me for such a loop I wasn't able to do anything for a couple days.

But I WAS able to do my little routines even when pretty miserable.

Including some new ones, like eating more carefully!

Deslobification, chronic illness style

I came across this blog the other day: http://www.aslobcomesclean.com

It's nice to listen to someone who is pretty honest about how hard they find it to keep things clean, and their own personal habits. She called her process 'deslobifiction,' which sounds just so appropriate to how this feels that it makes me grin.

She's a person who is trying to stay clean and who does NOT like to do it. That's so me - I would be quite happy to hire someone to clean for me so I can spend time doing something else I want to do with that time. If I could afford it. 

And I enjoyed a lot of her ideas. The concept of building routines - like doing a dish when you have a free moment - really appealed to me. 

I was struck, however, by one thing that this gal discusses, which I've seen in a lot of cleaning blogs: routines and habits that involve doing X or Y before you go to bed.

Yeah, thats not going to happen for many of us with chronic illness.

Homeschooling kids with allergies

Okay, so this is not so much funny as uplifting, okay? This is my 'do it yourself' blog post with a helping of 'you can totally do this!' added in.

When you have a kid with severe health problems, and you have at least one parent making enough money you can get by, homeschooling is something that often comes up. Sometimes even if you don't have enough money to get by.

But the big question becomes for many parents: can I do this? Can I homeschool and not turn my children into raging voids of ignorance and social isolation? It's not so much 'Are you smarter than a 5th grader,' it's 'can you raise someone to be smarter than a 5th grader.'

I have two kids now, both teens, both homeschooled from kindergarten on up. And I will share my copious wisdom, or rather kind of so-so wisdom and stuff I picked up accidentally over the years, in the hopes that it might help you out.

The Ass Alarm

Since I've restarted this blog, I've realized that I have no information here anymore about what it's all about. A quick summary may be in order.

I have a disorder called a Mast Cell Activation Disorder. It doesn't have any more name than that because doctors don't yet know more than that. There are a few Mast Cell Activation Disorders that are known, and named. There are more that doctors are just now realizing exist. With testing, experts are comfortable enough to admit, 'yes, your mast cells are acting completely wacky.' But they don't know why, and they don't have names for my particular brand of wackiness as yet.

So I just get to say that I have MCAD and leave it at that.

And MCAD? It is truly bizarre and can lead to an amazing number of situations that are honestly rather ridiculous and hilarious.

Like my butt.

All aboard the Humor Express...or at least the Less Whiny Express

I've had this blog since the end of 2013, around the time my biology had a good laugh at my expense. It was a good way for me to let out some angst, complain about some shit, blather about random topics, and have fun.

But I've realized that unless I make a conscious effort, the angst and the shit tend to take over while the blather, and especially the fun, fall by the wayside.

Well, no more. I need more joy in my life, not more crap, so that's what Striped Horses is all about now: the joy, especially the sarcastic, crazy, potty-humored joy that I enjoy way the hell more than I should admit to. I may have to work to see the funny side of things, but that's kind of what life's about sometimes anyway, right? Making lemonade out of those lemons. Unless they're Buddha's Hand lemons. Those suckers, you just nod at the nice Freddy Krueger citrus and run away, my friend.

Buddha's Hand Lemon: this is not a fruit to fuck with

In any case, I hope that the few lost souls who run up against this blog enjoy the coming months, because I sure plan to!