We’ve redone the website from scratch, hopefully making it easier to read. We’ve also changed the focus a little bit – when we first started this blog it was 80% Autism related, and 20% GFCF (gluten free casein free) cooking. Since that time, Dorothy (our daughter with asperger’s) has grown up and is now living on her own – something we thought would never happen! So we are a lot less involved in what’s new and hopeful in Autism research,
An elevator speech can be a really useful tool to have in your arsenal. I have several, depending on the situation, but I thought I would share just this one with you, dear readers, in the hopes it will give you some ammo when trying to get through the day. What is an elevator speech, you ask? It is a quick, couple of sentences speech that explains something complicated in a simple way in about the time an elevator ride
Gluten-free cooking does not have to be hard. In fact, I have learned that simplicity can be the soul of dinner. But don’t get me wrong, keeping it simple does not have to mean bland or uninspired. The beauty of keeping it simple can mean something delicious and even sort of elegant. Tonight for dinner, I had some very boring looking pork chops daring me to make them fabulous. I grabbed the olive oil, and started drizzling. A tiny voice
Sometimes I feel like if I have to read one more article about autism, I am going to just explode. One more huge meltdown and I am through- I’m going to throw in the towel, get in the car and just drive to some remote town, change my name to Gladys, and become the small town waitress in the diner with the mysterious past. I would never have to deal with anything more complicated than whether or not table 6
or how a spoonful of courtesy and common sense would do us all a boatload of good. Every once in a while I get on the blogs and start reading about other people’s journey through autism with their family. It is interesting, but usually baffling to me how much venom and energy is wasted on these forums discussing controversy and ideology. I can’t get on board with any of it- I can’t stand the holier than thou neurodiversity people who
One night I was sitting at my computer, utterly exhausted and crying. It had been a long day with autism at our house. She was finally asleep, and I was doing what a lot of us do, frantically searching the Internet for anything that would shed some light on what on earth we were supposed to do to help this child. Grasping at straws. After a few hours of turning up nothing, I typed Autism sucks into the search engine
Our local grocer is in the process of remodeling. Because of this, they have lost about 1/3 of their frozen foods section – eliminating less popular items like gluten free bread. So to get bread we either need to make a 1/2 hour drive or make it ourselves. While we have a lot of experience and success in GFCF baking, my bread always turns out horrid! Well, no more! I have finally figured out a quick, easy, and (relatively) cheap
We’ve been extremely busy this month, and have been missing the ability to have easy meals – like ordering a pizza. After a bit of work, we finally came up with an easy GFCF dinner we were able to buy at our neighborhood grocery store. (Disclaimer: it’s a ‘gourmet’ grocery store for all of the rich people on the other side of the tracks…. you won’t find this stuff at 1) Course one: Ian’s Sweet Potato Fries or Alphatots. They
With some serious cardiovascular and psychiatric problems – including sudden death – related to these drugs, the FDA has mandated warning labels and patient guides. What a scary position for the parents who are using these drugs with their children. I am so glad that the strongest thing we have Dorothy on is Singular, which seems fairly safe. We have been so blessed to have found other very effective ways to deal with her issues, rather than to over-medicate her.
I was asked on one of the forums to discuss our experiences with the Low Oxalate Diet (LOD) – and thought I would post them here as well. I have to start with a disclaimer that we don’t fully follow the low oxalate diet… When we were last at our DAN Dr. (Dr. Bradstreet in FL), he recommended cutting back on our oxalate consumption – challenging us to cut our intake in half. His common sense advise was to cut