Life

It’s not a lifestyle choice you bastards.

by Veronica on October 19, 2016

in Life, Soapbox

Shutting the fuck up is gluten free. Why don't you add that to your diet you cunt.

Back at the beginning of the year, I had some new health problems pop up.

I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, so feeling dreadful a lot of the time isn’t abnormal, but this was New and Different, and actually pretty shit.

Between March and May, I had a whole round of blood tests done to check my health out. Why was I more than exhausted all of the time? Why was my hair falling out in handfuls? Why were my joints hurting beyond what was normal? Why did I feel so generally fucking awful without a new and good reason?

We couldn’t tell. I was anaemic, and iron supplements weren’t fixing it. My thyroid levels were elevated, and then they weren’t. My hair continued to fall out, and I was barely making it through my days.

As a last ditch effort, my doctor told me to give up gluten. “It probably isn’t coeliacs, but quit gluten for 6 weeks and see how you feel. If you get better, don’t eat any more gluten.”

It was our last option, but there it was. Quit gluten and see how you feel. He didn’t want to do any more tests because what else could we test for? (Coeliac markers maybe, but he didn’t want to.)

So I quit gluten.

That was back in May. I’ve eaten gluten properly once since then, and I spent the night head down in the toilet afterwards.

Gluten doesn’t agree with me. It makes me dreadfully sick. I get really spacey and my brain stops working well. I develop a rotten headache and reflux. I get nausea, and then all of my joints hurt and I get really angry. It lasts three days before I start feeling better after I get glutened.

It’s miserable is what I’m saying.

And yet here I am, justifying why I don’t eat gluten.

This is not a choice I made, but it is what it is. Other people don’t see it like that though. Go into a cafe and ask to not be made sick, and you’re some sort of evil orthorexic clean eating demanding bitch who wants to make their life hard. “Gluten Free Foodie Wankers” are the butt of all the jokes, as the tellers sit there in their bodies which work well, digesting whatever they feed themselves.

Of course they’re all very quick to point out that “We don’t mean people who actually have coeliacs, you know. Just everyone else? Right? Because they’re just being arseholes about it.”

Recent studies have shown Non-Coeliac Gluten Intolerance is a real thing, suffered by real people, with real symptoms, and I’m fucking pissed off, because everyone still acts like I’m making their life hard when I ask them to not put fucking breadcrumbs on my plate accidentally.

Being gluten free is not fun, or easy. Unless you live in the mecca of upmarket cafes, finding something to eat when you’re ou,t which isn’t another lettuce salad with no dressing, is a pain in the arse. You miss out on cake at parties. Actually, you miss out on everything at parties, because you can’t trust that your gluten free salad hasn’t had a contaminated spoon in it.

It’s HARD and it’s frustrating, and I fucking hate it. It’s not a choice I got to make. I can’t eat mostly gluten free but then have a cupcake on the weekend as a naughty treat. It takes work and planning to be gluten free.

I mostly don’t mind this, because I really like not feeling any shittier than I already do with the EDS. But I am so so so fucking sick of being asked to produce my credentials every time I mention I can’t eat gluten, or having people roll their eyes at me when I ask if their hot chocolate is gluten free (it usually isn’t) when I just want a hot drink at a coffee shop.

I know it makes more work, and I know it’s a hassle – trust me, I KNOW.

But for fuck’s sake, don’t make it harder for me.

People behave like they’re the food police, like they get to have a say what other people put in their mouths. And you know what? It’s bullshit.

Stop it. Stop questioning people over their dietary choices, or needs.

Stop making us feel like shit for needing to avoid certain foods.

And for fuck’s sake, can companies please stop cross contaminating all of the chocolate with wheat. It’s making it REALLY hard to not be a grumpy git when I can’t even eat plain chocolate.

Sigh.

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Multiples of three

by Veronica on November 15, 2015

in Life

We’re heading into the craziest part of the year. Markets every weekend, soap orders here there and everywhere, wholesale accounts popping up (insert quiet cheering).

Annnnd my doctor rang me the other day. Apparently my thyroid levels are fine, but my iron is “quite low” and “please start an iron supplement immediately”.

Huh. That might explain some things here, you know. Like, everything.

It’s 8pm and it’s still light outside. Summer is coming and it’s lovely – long gorgeous days, lots of light – it also makes bedtime challenging, with children who don’t want to fall asleep when it’s daylight outside (despite hanging all the extra sheets up over their curtains).

Add that to exhaustion and insomnia in equal measure, and well. It was a recipe for getting sick, really. Which I did, quite spectacularly last week, with antibiotics required.

I cancelled my Friday night market, and while I know it was the right thing to do – I’ve pretty much spent all weekend recovering and collapsing in various measures – I still feel guilty. Even though I was sick, and Nathan was sick, and Mum (my driver and co-marketer) was sick – I still feel guilty, because I said I’d be there and at the last minute, I couldn’t be. I’d really hoped my antibiotics would work fast enough, but that’s the way it goes.

Exhaustion. Illness. Anaemia.

On the upside, I’ve stopped coughing my lungs up, I can buy iron supplements tomorrow, and I’m hoping this week will be full of Netflix and packaging, rather than running around in circles.

I also turned 27 last week, which was nice. Happy Birthday to me, I’m a multiple of three… etc.

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Baby goats

by Veronica on November 8, 2015

in Life

image

Baby goats at The Brighton Show today.

These kids are drinking and getting fat on the same milk I use in my soaps. They were gorgeous, and I loved being able to meet the mother goats who supply my milk.

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Here is one of the milking does my Goat’s Milk comes from.

It was a long hot day, which is why I’m catatonic on the couch right now. Not sure the Brighton Show is my target demographic, but it was lovely weather and I got to stand and work barefoot on the grass. Very nice.

Now. zzzzzzz

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I probably ought to watch less Netflix.

by Veronica on November 3, 2015

in Life

I packed 80 soaps this afternoon while I watched Gilmore Girls, and if I’m lucky, I’ll get to pack another 80 soaps after dinner, as well as making the soap I’ve been putting off because my 3yo has decided she needs to “help” with everything I do. For the record, soap making is not conducive to being “helped” by a 3yo.

Especially not when you’re attempting a pretty swirl with a new fragrance you know is going to thicken fast. What can I say, I like to live dangerously.

Interestingly, Eve likes cooking. Way more than the other two kids ever did. She likes rolling dumplings and icing cakes and helping to peel potatoes. She also likes putting stickers on soap and throwing freshly labelled lip balms into bags, but cooking is her Big Thing. If she can sit on the bench and watch the eggs cook – that is her happy place.

Of course she doesn’t want to eat the eggs, but if I can just cook them over and over, that would be great. Bonus points if we can collect them too – although we need to start being faster than the dogs, who have discovered eggs are as fun as balls, only they’re delicious when you crack them.

Not my favourite.

Not my chicken’s favourite either, because Heidi also likes to chew on them if we’re not careful, but there it is.

Only a quick post today, while I wait for dinner to finish cooking and my children to begin to settle down for the night. I am strung out and stretched thin and bedtime for them, and Netflix for me is a happy hour here. Although I really ought to be working more and watching Netflix less. Details.

Whoever thought that starting a business while also parenting three children would be a good idea? Clearly I am a deluded idiot.

But at least I make really nice soap, so there’s that.

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Two things: Markets, and Not Having More Children

by Veronica on October 31, 2015

in Life

Two things:

1:

instagram screenshot

I did a market last night and lip balms were SOHOTRIGHTNOW. One little girl bought a lip balm and then suddenly, I had swarms of girls at the stall, buying and smelling and chattering.

It was so lovely.

It’s really interesting to me how there are giant runs on things during markets. I won’t sell bath salts for three markets, and then suddenly, every bath salt will sell out during the next market. Often customers don’t realise that previous customers have bought the same thing.

It’s a phenomenon. Is it something in the air? Does everyone get infected with the “I MUST HAVE THIS ONE THING” air as they walk into a market? No one knows.

It’s the same with soap smells. Some days, everyone wants sandalwood. The next market, everyone is into the fruity smells. Then we’ll have a run on florals. But when a soap is hot, it’s so hot and I’d better hope I have it in stock.

(Unlike the market where everyone wanted woodsy smells and the new soaps were still curing. whoops.)

Anyway. Lip balms. I need to go restock all of my market lip balms because seriously – I sold so many. Montagu Bay Primary School is going to be awash in my lip balms for a while.

I also won fourth prize in the raffle, so it made it extra worthwhile. A 60 minute massage gift voucher. Very apt, considering my physical state lately.

2:

My smallest child dressed herself this morning, including putting her own shoes on.

Then she used the toilet. Alone. Without my help. Including washing her own hands.

She’s not a baby anymore, and I am so so thankful for that. I can understand other mothers bemoaning the loss of their tiny babies, but I am not one of them. I have a smooshy baby nephew to snuggle, but my own children are growing up, growing into themselves. I feel like I can breathe again and it’s so very nice.

People still ask if I’m planning on having more children.

“But you’re so young! You’ll be desperate for another when you’re in your 30’s.”

Look guys, my husband had a vasectomy. MY HUSBAND. A VASECTOMY. We took permanent steps to remove more children from our future.

“Ah, but you never know what will happen, hey? Right?” wink wink, nudge nudge.

You’re either implying my husband is going to divorce me and I’m going to find a new man and have more children, or what? What exactly are you implying there? That my uterus rules my life and I can’t possibly just decide to not have more children? That not having more children determines my worth?

I don’t even know.

Last time I checked, sperm doesn’t magically fly through the air impregnating random women, so I think I’m pretty safe here in my sub-fertile little bubble.

Thanks though. Nice to know that whether or not I have more children is a burning concern of yours.

Hmmf.

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