Mandy's Homemade Healthy Spaghetti Sauce w/ Butternut Squash

Below is my version of spaghetti sauce. I can it every year and even my picky kids like it! It's a great way to sneak in extra vegetables. 

Mandy's Healthy Spaghetti Sauce

This is my basic recipe for a 7qt crockpot

You'll need 1 butternut squash. Put it in the oven on 350*, seed side down (make sure it's seeded). Cook until you can put a fork through it. Then take out the squash out of the shell and puree it, adding water as needed to make it smooth. 

While it's cooking, this is the time I chop my tomatoes and onions.

Insert a crockpot liner into the slow cooker; saves on the cleanup! I cut my tomatoes up into small pieces and toss them in. You do not need to peel them! Once the crockpot is over 3/4 full, put in your squash puree on top. Add one chopped onion, 1 tablespoon salt, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1/4-1/2 cup Italian Seasonings. Depending on how watery your tomatoes are will depend on how much tomato paste you put in. I normally use 1-6oz can or 1-12oz can. I buy organic at Fred Meyers because it's so cheap!

Let cook AT LEAST 12 hours on low. After 6-8 hours, you can turn it down to the "keep warm" setting as it will still simmer.  This will help all the flavors simmer so it tastes like spaghetti sauce and not squash sauce. 

After its cooked, you can:

Put in bags or glass jars and freeze

OR

Put in glass jars and can it. 

Hanging Dish Rack

I have a fairly large family. We needed to have a dish rack to put our large dishes in. Luckily we also have a dishwasher, but having a large family means that not all the dishes fit in one load! We had the dish rack on the counter for a while and that didn't work. The dish rack on the counter was cumbersome because it took up too much precious counter-space. Then we moved the dish rack into the larger side of my sink. That didn't work as well because we really needed to use both sides of the sink! So, that left me looking for where I could put my dish rack that I so desperately still needed but where i could still utilize! I devised a plan to hang it from the ceiling right above the sink so we would have easy access to it and it would drain easily into the sink. I went to Fred Myers and got a really neat decorative chains that hold 40 pounds and had my husband put it altogether. After simple seven minutes of labor we were up and running. Let me tell you this thing can get loaded with out being pulled out of the ceiling!
Check out my brilliant idea!

Wonderful Hard Water Cleaner

I've posted it before and I'll post it again. This cleaner is AMAZING! Below, I've shown me cleaning my Corelle dishes that turn yellow from my hard water back to white using this septic safe cleaner. Please note, I wash and sanitize the dishes after cleaning them! Also works great on tubs, toilets and sinks!

Homemade Dishwasher Detergent that WORKS

About a two years ago, I scoured the web looking for a great dishwashing detergent when Washington went phosphate free. I found several recipes. All called for these two ingredients: 

                                         

                                           Borax

                                          Arm and Hammer Washing Soda

The variation of these recipes included salt, vinegar, a little Dawn dish soap, etc. I tried them all. I got dishes that never came completely clean. The cups came out with this film that just would not dissipate. So, I gave up and went back to using the Finish septic tablets. 

One day I was rounding up the Borax and Washing Soda to make my laundry detergent and stumbled upon Lemi Shine. The bottle claims to be a "Hard Water Expert" and boy, do I have hard water! So I picked up a bottle for about $3.50 and mixed in equal portions:

Borax

Arm and Hammer Washing Soda

Lemi Shine Original

I had put it in a plastic tupperware. I am always doing tons of dishes so I was able to try a load right away. Man, those dishes came out spotless with no film on the cups! I was ecstatic! The downside to this method, the detergent within 24 hours hardened like a rock! So now I am chiseling portions out of the tupperware. 

Take it from me; either 1) Mix the Borax and Arm and Hammer and just pour in the Lemi Shine on top of it when you put it in the dishwasher. OR 2) go to the Dollar Store and get little containers that hold about 2 ounces and make pre-make little containers to use. 

Below, I have attached a photo of the Lemi Shine product. All of these products are easy to find. The Borax and Washing Soda can be found with the laundry detergent products and the Lemi Shine can be found with the dishwashing detergent. 

Yea for finally finding a cheaper way to make the detergent  that WORKS!

God Always Times Events Perfectly

This afternoon I had an appointment with my general surgeon for a post-checkup. I got some pleasantly surprising news! She told me I can go back to lifting! Although, my other surgeon (my OBGYN) still has me on a 20-25 pound lifting restriction. However, I am over the moon! That means I can go back to lifting my little man! That means I don't have to rely on help any more. 

God always times events perfectly. 

Joe found out that he has to work out of town this weekend. He will have to work long hours this weekend. The surgeon's change is orders is perfect timing because we didn't find anybody to help me over the weekend. I know a lot of people just think that Joe should say "No" and pass up the extra hours, but to put it into perspective: God is giving us the opportunity in helping us pay for our onslaught of medical bills that will be coming in very soon. Some have arrived already. We are probably looking at over $3,000 in just what our insurance doesn't cover. Then we also found out that Joe will have to go to California in a week and a half again for more work there. Again, another opportunity God is giving us so we can stay afloat. 

So, I know the next few weeks won't be easy. I am hoping that people don't assume I'm completely healed because I still have a ways to go. The last few nights have been pretty brutal in dealing with my pelvic pain. 

I am itching for more time to go by so I can get doctor's write off that I can go back to exercising. I don't feel as good when I am not working out. 

I don't know if I put in my past posts that I decided to ditch my anti-depressants when I was really sick right after surgery. I figured my body would have to go through a natural balancing of hormones again. The pharmacist told me if I ever got off my anti-depressants without weaning off of them, I would get sick. I figured since I was already really sick and my kids were gone, it would be the perfect time to ditch them. So far, I have done great. I had once instance that I felt I was on the verge of being too "crazy mommy" but other than that, I feel in control of myself. So, I will keep monitoring myself and go from there. 

Although, I must say, I never thought taking my uterus out would lead to such a re-balancing of hormones. I have been extremely weepy and emotional. I can handle weepy. I can't handle irritation and anger. 

Today, a guy in a pizza joint asked what I had planned for the weekend. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "I'm watching my kids this weekend while my husband is away."
Pizza Guy: "Sounds like fun."
Me: "Probably not. I'll be exhausted because they're all young and I'm still recovering from surgery."
Pizza Guy: "Sounds like a movie weekend to me!"
Me: "Yep. I definitely won't win Mom of the Year Award, but my kids will still be alive when the weekend is over!"

I think honesty is good. :D

How I Live with a Separated Pubis Symphasis Post Partum

It's late right now... I decided that it was time to get back up because no matter what way I tossed or turned, I was in pain. I'm going to give my backstory on how I was diagnosed.

When I was 19 years old and two short months after I got married to Joe, we got pregnant with our first child. The pregnancy actually went quite well. However, Serenity was quite the stubborn baby and with a forced debut, came into the world two days before Joe and I had our first anniversary. I was a young 20 year old mother. I had a normal vaginal delivery with no complications; the doctors didn't have to really even repair me! We arrived home less than 24 hours after Serenity was born. 

Then the extreme pain set in. Looking back, I'm not sure how long I dealt with the pain before I sought out help. I remember thinking that it was 1) worse than the whole laboring/birthing process combined 2) must just be what every woman went through. However, when I started waking up in the middle of the night crying because I was in so much pain, I knew I had to go in and be seen. I think it was the week she was born, I went into urgent care. After talking to the doctor, he was convinced I had "sprained cartilage" from the birth. Trauma. He sent me home with an anti-inflammatory and told me I would be all healed up in 2-6 weeks. A few weeks went by and the meds didn't help. I spent a lot of nights crying, wondering how I could get to sleep when it felt like my pelvis was falling apart. I eventually went back to the urgent care and was basically told that this was what having babies was all about. My body had changed and this was just the healing/post-partum part. Again, since I was a first time mother and so young and inexperienced, I believed the doctors. However, in the back of my mind, I kept thinking, "If this is like this for every new mother, I am sure a woman would never have another baby. This is too hard to live like this!"

So with no better diagnosis, I resolved that that was the way I was going to have to live my life. A short 19 months later, Ila made her debut! The pregnancy was definitely more difficult. I talked to my doctor about some of the pain I was having and he just always shrugged it off as normal aches and pains of pregnancy. It was particularly difficult when they measured my abdomen. The doctor would feel for the top of my pelvis bone to measure. I always experienced a sharp pain when he did that, but I sucked it up. So again, my pregnancy came to an end. The labor with Ila was not quite so peachy. It was longer (she was induced as well) and she ended up laying on a nerve in my leg that not even the epidural could extinguish. Again, we went home soon after the delivery. And again, I dealt with what I thought was the normal aches and pains of childbearing. 

These first few years of motherhood was so difficult. I spend countless hours crying, trying to find a comfortable position in bed, trying to take weight off of my pelvis. I gave up running because the jolting of my pelvis brought on unmeasurable amounts of pain. 

One day, I took toddler Serenity and baby Ila up to a school area. There was two playgrounds a ways away from each other. Serenity kept going back and forth between the two and I eventually gave up trying to go back and forth with her. It was a pain to push the stroller back and forth and I had a hard time for standing up for long periods of time. So I gave up and just sat down on one of the play areas where I could still see her. Well, eventually, like all toddlers do, Serenity wandered away from the play area. She started to wander to where you could get out of the gate...and go towards the street. Like I good mother, I started screaming at her to come back or stop. Of course I was trying to run as fast as I could towards her. She wasn't even that far away from me, so with my running career behind me, I should have been able to catch her. However, my pelvis had such limitations on me, I could hardly run. If it hadn't of been for her stopping, I would not have been able to catch and stop her before she went into the street. It was in that moment I knew, that was not normal! I should be able to run and play (or catch in my case) my child. So I started the grueling case of trying to find out what was wrong with me. It seems this happened back before I knew about Googling symptoms. 

I was handed off from doctor to doctor; specialist to specialist. They did x-rays, blood work; etc. I'm not sure whose bright idea it finally was to do a special kind of x-ray imaging. They had me sit on this x-ray and took the imaging that way. Here's a brief description of what they're looking for ( http://www.e-radiography.net/radpath/d/diastasis_symphysis.htm ): 

DSP (Diastasis Symphysis Pubis) means an abnormally wide gap between the two pubic bones at the symphysis pubis joint situated at the front of the pelvis. It can only be diagnosed conclusively by investigation such as x-ray, ultrasound or MRI scan. The non-pregnant gap is 4-5mm but in every pregnancy there will be an increase of at least 2-3mm due to the fact that ligaments which ‘tie’ the joint become slightly slacker under the influence of the pregnancy hormones. Therefore, it is considered that a total width of up to 9mm between the two bones is normal for a pregnant woman. Following delivery, this natural extra gapping decreases within days although the supporting ligaments will take three to five months to fully return to their normal state to make the symphysis pubis a strong joint again. An abnormal gap is considered to be 1cm or more, sometimes with the two bones being slightly out of alignment, and remains evident after the time that the joint should have regained the normal non-pregnant width.

The results came back that I indeed had an abnormal gap. Finally, results. It only took over 2 years! Even in that time of being handed to specialists, I can't count how many times I was told a variation of this: "Give it a few years for the relaxin hormone to settle down. If it doesn't by then, then proceed to find something wrong; but the likelihood of anything being wrong is slim." I have since then chose to inform people that even a small chance of being that one person; that weird case, is enough to have it looked as as an option. 

The next step of having a "confirmed diagnosis" was to have a steroid shot injected into the pubis symphasis (the space between the two pelvic plates). If after the shot, if I had no pain, it would be confirmed that I have DSP. I went in for the shot and it was WONDERFUL! Okay, granted the initial shot hurt like a mother, but after the injection sight pain wore off, I felt amazing! 

So my third pregnancy came upon us. The worst pregnancy by far. The first three months, I remember nothing other than the sight of Serenity and Ila playing on my living room floor while I watch them from a horizontal position. I was so sick I lost 20 pounds and had to stop working. I had a few good months in there. However, Aviana quickly grew. With her weight and her position, I could no longer even care for myself. I was in agony all the time! Joe had to take on pretty much all the household responsibilities, he had to lift my pelvis in the middle of the night and rotate it, he had to help me get dressed, I had a shower chair, and I walked around with crutches to take some of the weight off my pelvis. To make matters worse, it was during this pregnancy I noticed that I had a nerve in my left leg/groin area that bothered me. Luckily we got through the pregnancy. It was tough, but we survived! Right after Aviana was born, we did a steroid injection into the pubis symphasis before I even left the hospital. This helped manage my pain. Don't get me wrong, I was still in a substantial about of pain, but not as bad as before. 

After Aviana was born, my OBGYN had heard from a physical therapist of my situation and wanted to work with me. So I went in and saw him. He opened up a whole new world to helping me cope with my pelvis. He re-aligned my pelvis plates which then causes back/leg problems. That really helped with my pain level. 

The question after this was, were we done having babies? I really thought so at one point. My doctor told me I could have more if I chose to; I would just have to live with the pain again. It was a tough decision for me. I really wanted a son. Finally one day the decision just hit me. 9 months wasn't forever. Joe did an amazing job helping me with all the other pregnancies and if I didn't have a 4th (which was my limit regardless), I would spend the rest of my life wondering what my 4th child would have been like. So, we chose to have one last baby. Lone and behold, we had a son! The pregnancy was easier than Aviana's, but still tough. 

I also think at some point, when you live in a higher pain level on a daily basis, your idea of what is painful gets skewed a bit. After Rowen turned a year old, I decided that I was going to try to get back to whatever kind of normal life I could. I would do it no matter the pain. I was sick of being overweight because my pelvis hurt which kept me from exercising. So with the help of Tylenol with codeine and a lot of determination, I lost 45 pounds. 

In the last few years, I ended up doing some research with the help of Google and my OBGYN. I also determined that I suffer from Pudendal Neuralgia or Pudendal Nerve Entrapment. So not only do I have a hard time with my pelvis overall, I can't sit or lay on my left hip for more than a few moments at a time. Discovering this problem was quite difficult as well as it is also uncommon. A list of some my symptoms from both medical conditions include: pain in my left hip/leg/genital area, sexual dysfunction, limited mobility, lack of being able to stay in a seated or standing position to long, constant pelvic pain, constipation, pelvis popping/slipping, back pain, difference in leg length, etc. 

What the years looking forward for me is going to hold, I am unsure. At this point, for cost solutions, it is better for me to try to manage/live with my pain than to fly elsewhere in the nation looking for surgery. So in the mean time, I may have nights like tonight when I feel like my pelvis is being held together with glue and a fishing net. 

For anybody reading this, I have a few recommendations in sleeping positions to help deal with Pelvic Girdle Pain (PGP). 
*Stomach sleeping
*sit sideways on a couch with your side and knees laying against the couch with your knees drawn towards your chest
*sit "Indian-style" on a bed and fold a body pillow on top of itself. Insert the folded end between your lap and your stomach. Lay your upper body on the top of the pillow. Focus on putting your weight on your legs, not your pelvis. (This is my favorite position when I'm in a lot of pain)
*lay on your side with a pillow between your legs

The hardest part of my medical problems is people look at me and think, "Well, she looks fine." Looks can be deceiving. I have had friends that have been around me in my painful moments or in the moments where my pelvis chooses to pop back into place (it's grossly loud!) and can vouch for me. My pain has been so bad and can be so debilitating emotionally and physically, I have wondered if I could qualify for disability. However, in the meantime I just keep telling myself, "No excuses" and try to do the best job I can do. Of course, I have to make sure I make choices that will not hurt me worse. For example, during the winter I have to be extremely careful in walking in the ice. I fell down once and put myself out of commission and into intense pain for a few weeks!

I hope that this information out there can perhaps help somebody that suffers from the multifaceted medical condition of Pelvic Girdle Pain. Also, if anybody knows of an expert or surgeon in the Inland Northwest area, PLEASE let me know. I only seem to know of surgeons and experts in the UK or Canada. Not exactly close to home!

Ideas for School Lunches

I bet all of you moms reading this are morning people and just love to slave over your kids' lunches in the morning. I know, "Yea right!" 

I've come up with a great way to give you one less thing to occupy your mornings with. Most of the time, my kids want a sandwich in their lunch so I thought about how I could crank out the sandwiches that didn't take up too much time in the wrong time of the day. So, I pre-make dozens of sandwiches, cut them (square for PB&J, triangle for tuna), and place them on a large cookie sheet and place them in the freezer for a few hours until frozen solid. Then when they're frozen, I put them in large zip-lock bags. So when you're gathering lunches in the morning, all you have to do is take out how many squares or triangles you need. By the time lunch comes around, they're ready to eat! Doing sandwiches this way solved a small problem for me. Serenity couldn't eat a full sandwich at lunch, but a 1/2 wasn't enough. So now I can just pull out 3/4 of a sandwich and I'm not wasting. By the way, I make a bunch of these at night when I'm watching TV. :D

For other quick snack/side items for kids' lunch, I go to Costco and buy bulk veggies, fruits, crackers, etc and divide them in snack bags. I do that at the beginning of the week, so I can just grab the bags and go.  I love to buy Trader Joe's style "go-gurt". There's no "horrible" ingredients like high fructose corn syrup, etc. You can also stick these in the freezer and just toss one in the lunch bag on the day of school. Makes the mornings quicker!

When my oldest first started school, I bought the best thermos possible. None better than a wide-mouth Stanley. They run about $20-$25 unless you can get them on sale, but worth every penny! Sometimes I will heat the previous night's dinner and stuff it in the thermos. It's not just luke-warm by the time they eat it at lunch, it's still hot!

I have a few recipes I will share to help you utilize the thermos. My kids' favorite thing to get is a pizza pocket. A home-made pizza pocket! Again, I make these in bulk and freeze them just like the sandwiches. Then the day I want to use them, I just heat them in the microwave and shove it in the Stanley Thermos. 

So here's the recipes. Another *TIP*, pre-make rice in a rice cooker (I have a 5 gallon bucket that I mix brown basmati rice, black rice, quinoa, and jasmine rice) and once it's done, stick about 2 cups in a ziplock bag and stick in the freezer. You can thaw it in a few minutes when you need to make the following recipe or when you're using it for another dish.