open book schmopen book: the answers

(There are a few questions I missed due to the whole Comment Format Incident of October. I made the mistake of deleting a bunch of comment-related emails, and then changed the format, and didn't realize the interwebs would eat my comments for lunch, and so some of you will just have to refresh my memory. Sorry 'bout that. But it will give me a whole 'nother post fo NaBloPoMo, so that's cool.)

Question 1: How did I come to be homeopathically oriented?
Oh, you didn't know I'm one of those Herbly Awesome Weirdos who Doesn't Actually Vaccinate Any More? Well, now you do.

Jocelyn asked this question, and that's because me and that girl (no, not that girl) hang sometimes off the interwebs. And we talk about things like what herbs can you give your baby when he's got a wicked head cold? and digestive enzymes and raw milk, straight from the source, and, well, stuff like that.

I have had migraine headaches since I was fifteen. I just sort of picked the age of fifteen recently, when I realized I have no idea when I started having miserable headaches. I have always felt awful my entire life. My mother has told me a number of times, It is like you're a 90 year-old person trapped in the body of a _____ year-old (fill in the blank with any age, up to 31). No matter how many times I went to the doctor, nobody ever figured out why I felt crappy. Until I was 28, and went to a chiropractor who thought my random symptoms might add up to an autoimmune disorder, and recommended I stop eating wheat and dairy for a while to see if a food allergy was contributing to my issues.

I thought he was crazy, but I tried it, because my head was KILLING ME! One week later, I stopped getting headaches. I can count on one hand the number of headaches I've had in the past two years. I couldn't count on one hand the number of debilitating headaches I had in a week before that. And by debilitating? I mean rendering me completely useless.

I started thinking about health differently, as I watched my body heal itself, and started learning, a little bit at a time, about how chemistry is not the only way to heal.

And the vaccine thing? There are truly horrific ingredients in vaccines, including aborted fetal tissue (I wouldn't inject any dead person tissue in my body on purpose, thankyouverymuch, it creeps me out), animal tissue and blood, and heavy metals. One hundred percent of the population does not need to be vaccinated to maintain herd immunity (that's the term, I can't make this stuff up) as the Food and Drug Administration would have you believe. And personally, I think that the FDA would be shockingly less biased toward the use of prescription drugs if the pharmaceutical industry would step off.

Moving on.

Question 2: Which came first, the dayton time or The Mister?
I got The Mister before we got busy building the team. We both had gotten our fair share before we not-dated and subsequently got together, and it was really only about 16 minutes between when we technically started dating, got engaged and got married, so we thought we'd wait. Because really, there's no actual stress reliever good enough when planning a wedding, so why not throw a little Frustration in the midst? Thanks for bringing that up, Ree.

Question 3: Would I consider doing some sort of Dear Abby Dealio?
Sure. But y'all may not like what I have to say. So don't complain if you ask and you don't enjoy the answer.

Question 4: What's my bread recipe?
My bread recipe is crazy easy. And also? It makes four loaves at a time, which pretty much eliminates needing to make it more than once a week (unless you happen to be bartering bread for cash, not that I know anybody who does that).

I have pictures, and directions and stuff, so I'm going to post the whole shebang later in the week. Don't worry...I won't forget.

Question 5: Do we know the gender of Sweets? If not, are we going to find out? Also, do we have a list of names?
Ah, the gender question. At the moment, we do not know the gender. If I were predicting today, randomly, I would have to go boy. But that's just because you're all up in my stuff forcing me to pick rightthisveryminute. Honestly, I have no idea. Everybody would reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally like a girl. It would be nice to have another daughter, but I would prefer all the parts in the appointed places working properly. This includes the sciatic nerve-related pain in my left butt part which is caused by a herniated disc in my fifth lumbar. How do I know this? Well, the distinctive pinching that is going on all the time, and my impaired ability to stand up straight, combined with the fact that my fifth lumbar is ALWAYS either herniated or just about to be herniated. That's how I know.

Where was I? Names. That's right. I have compiled a small list of names I sort of like, however, we used up the three names we really liked. This presents a bit of a quandry, so until we know what flavour baby we are having, we are busy playing What We Will NOT Name The Baby. It is tons of fun. If you have a name we should NOT name the baby, please leave it in the comments so that we can all enjoy a good laugh.

Question 6: What was I doing at 25?
This question is from Katie. I turned 25 on a lovely Monday in May. How do I know it was lovely when I can't remember if I ate lunch? It's always nice on my birthday, except for that one time when I turned 8 or 9 or something, and it snowed six or eight inches. The Mister and I were married six months and twelve days earlier, and he had gone on tour with a band for three or four months that seemed like NINETEEN YEARS and NO, YOU SHOULDN'T ASK ABOUT IT, because high blood pressure is bad for those of us who are knocked up.

I had a little more than a month left of my Catholic school teaching gig, and was planning to go back to work there the next September. I was pregnant with Miss O, but I didn't know it yet. I was just about to get on the board of directors for my county's Habitat for Humanity affiliate. I got a job in August as a long-term substitute in a suburban school outside of Buffalo. That was an interesting experience. And by interesting? I mean Caused My Head To Explode On A Daily Basis. The Mister told me I could keep teaching or keep being married. So I quit teaching.

Miss O was born in January of 2003. I spent the next five months, until I turned 26, figuring the whole parenting thing out (I should note I haven't figured it all out yet), trying to be married and a parent at the same time (still working on that, too), and trying to remember important information (mmmmyeah...haven't mastered that, either).

That's the short version.

Thanks to everybody who contributed a question. If I missed your question, let me know, unless you are SardineMama, and you'll get yours tomorrow, I promise. And that's not a threat...honest. It's just that her question made me dig out my soapbox. And dust it off. And stand on it. Get ready.

And if you asked a question, and I didn't link you, it's not because I don't love you, it's probably the stupid comment incident that took the questions from me. Let me know and I'll fix it, pronto.

Y'all are fun.