Ah! It is winter time!

We have been getting some e-mails asking what we've been doing since the first of the year. To be honest ... not much! This winter has been warm then extremely cold, then warm then extremely cold. It is much better when a person can get used to it being cold, then we can complain all the time not just when it gets cold.

With both boys gone it is quiet around the house. Cindy has been working 10 hour days or longer, five days a week. So I cook, do laundry and take care of the dogs. Since Christmas I have not been feeling very good. My energy level has been way low. One Doc told my that the fatigue was due to depression. He sited a study that said 9 out of 10 patients that complained of being fatigued were depressed. DUH! If you fell weak your not going to feel like your jolly old self are you? He wanted to give me antidepressants without a thought about why I was fatigued. I went to another doc who did blood test that showed I was badly anemic. Since my Crohns disease interferes with food absorption, he prescribed a liquid iron supplement and it has helped.

I have had Crorn's disease for over thirty years now. In those thirty years I have tried all the latest and greatest new meds to come along. Some of them were very very expensive but none of them worked. These new miracle drugs must work for somebody because they are FDA tested and approved, but they have not worked for me.

This winter I made up my mind to try natural healing! I got on the Internet and researched several options (some of them pure BS), and found some things I thought worth trying. Probiotics with amino acids to heal the damage in the intestines. A list of vitamins that is recommended for people with Crohn's. And lastly olive leaf extract.

Olive leaf extract is a natural antibiotic, antiviral, anti parasite. It does not work against all the bugs but it works against a lot of them. For normal healthy people it is a good supplement to ward off the normal illnesses that we get. For people that have an illness it can be helpful if you can handle the "die off" effect.

The "die off" effect can be as simple as just feeling bad for a day or two or can be as bad as causing severe joint and muscle pain. The pain is caused by the build up of toxins in the joints and muscles. As the bad bugs die off your body should flush them away, but when there is a lot of die off then the body can not flush it away fast enough thereby causing joint and muscle pain. I must of had a lot of bad bugs! I had a lot of pain. I found out later that healthy people can jump into full doses but sick people should start with a low dose then gradually build up the dose. That is one lesson that I learned the hard way.

I've also just started some other natural remedies that I won't mention now because I have not been doing them long enough to know if they work or not.

Also this last month, Kyle got a newer vehicle. His old GMC Jimmy was on it's last leg. It ran fine (if it started) but there were so many little things wrong with it. I had used wire to reattach his door panel because all the screw holes for the arm rest were broken out to the point where even the biggest fender washer was still to small. To open the hood I had fastened a locking vise grip to the cable so we had something to pull on. Driving at highway speeds I felt like we were in a boat the way it swayed and rocked. The list could go on!

We found an 08 Mercury Milan with 20,000 miles on it. We were able to get it with tax, title, plates, and etc for $13,000 and the old Jimmy! (I was just glad to get rid of the Jimmy) Yes we did a title search and the car was never wrecked or stolen, however it was a rental. That's OK we have had rentals before and not had any problems. Kyle really likes the car! It is loaded and drives very nice. A suitable car for a country lawyer! The car is a silver gray color and is now named Misty Milan. The car Trevor drives is called Ruby Regal, you can guess what color it is.

We have not had much snow here, but we did have one snow that was several inches deep. It was deep enough for our neighbor to get out his brand spanking new snow blower! Just to try it out he did our driveway too! Thanks John. It was delivered by truck last fall. A full sized semi stopped in front of our house and I instantly figured this guy is badly lost. We live on a dead end street in a subdivision! I went out to see if I could help him and found out he was in the right place. When he told me what he had I tried to convince him that my name was John and the address was one number off! But he was not that gullible. I helped him unload it and since it was a nice day we set it by John's garage door. I knew John was out of town so I planned to help Stacy slide it into the garage when she got home. Later in the day I looked out to see if Stacy was home and she already had it in the garage! Oh well my intentions were good.

Later this month is the St. Louis RV show. We plan to go even though Trevor has since planned to come home and bring two of his buddies. We will see them Friday night and again on Sunday. They are not coming to see us anyway! The last time they were in town they spent the weekend with three girls that just happened to be in town the same time that they were. I image something like that is in the works this time too!

Have fun everybody and thank God we have spell check! We will write more often when the weather warms and we can get the RV out!