Goodness....6 months have passed! Really?!

I knew it had been awhile since I blogged, but....6 months?!  Seriously?!  Let me try to sum things up...

It was a crazy, busy summer with the my kids home from college.  My son went on a life changing study abroad trip to Tokyo, Japan for 6 weeks and met his girlfriend who I believe will be my daughter in law in another few years.  My daughter went to her ballet intensive in Washington, DC for 6 weeks.  Since we live just 45 min from the city, she came home on the weekends to visit our ailing "senior" dog, Newton - who we had to say goodbye to at the end of July.  It was heartbreaking but I know we made the right decision.  We were able to have him hang on 'til my son was back from Japan and my daughter finished her summer performances.  I'm so grateful for that.

Rest In Peace, Newton (17 years old)

Before I knew it, the kids were ready to go back to college - what a whirlwind!  My daughter is back in South Carolina, got into the sorority of her dreams and settled into her apartment.  Her schedule is insane.  I'm really not sure how she manages to do everything but she's hanging in there.  My son was going to transfer to the same college as my daughter, but after meeting his lovely girlfriend, who attends Penn State, he felt it would be much too far away.  He had to scramble to find a school nearby that he could still apply to but found a school in Shepherdstown, WV that has turned out to be a great fit for him.  He's happy there and only has a 2 hour commute to visit Penn State.  Best of all, he's only an hour from home, which makes me happy.  Perfect!

Through it all, I've been selling my Lilly Pulitzer clothes on Poshmark.  I have to say - after trying eBay, Tradesy and Poshmark, Posh has won me over.  With very few exceptions, I've had great experiences selling on Posh and have made a good amount of money.  I keep my prices extremely low but it's good to get things moving out the door.  Poshmark sends me the mailing label, which is a nice time saver!  If you want to check things out, the link is here The Preppy Closet  Let me know what you think!

Part of the reason I started thinking of my blog today, is that I've sort of been going through a life changing experience and have considered starting a blog about it.  Not sure if I should keep it under this name or switch to a different name that might be more appropriate.  I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.  

To give you an idea of what I've been going through, I'll give you a little background...I have suffered from thyroid disease, chronic lyme disease and other auto immune diseases for approximately 17 years.  In fact, I really don't know if there's much of my daughter's life that she remembers me being healthy.  For much of the time, I was functioning okay but it was often a struggle to get through the day.  Once I was finally diagnosed with Lyme Disease (after 15 years), I went to a specialist in Georgetown and was put on a major antibiotic protocol.  This left me pretty much couch-bound and I gained a lot of weight from the carbs that I took, to keep the antibiotics down.  I stayed on the protocol for several months, until I got "well enough".  The biggest reason for this is that I was a Mom - my daughter was still in HS and she needed me to function.  Once you've felt as horrible as I did, you will take what you get and a little progress seemed huge for me, though I continued to suffer flare ups and inflammation - especially, if stress entered my life (which I seem to welcome with open arms).  

Needless to say, after all of my medical issues and experience with health providers, I do not have a lot of confidence in traditional medicine or our healthcare system in the United States.  Frankly, it really sucks.  Several months ago, I was introduced to DoTerra Oils and though they are not allowed to say they have a protocol for Lyme Disease, you can do a search on the internet and find one.  It has really helped me keep my symptoms from flaring.  Once I started feeling about 80% better, I decided I had to do something to lose the weight.  I've been working privately with an amazing pilates instructor once/week for years but haven't noticed much weight coming off.  I knew that it was important to re-set my metabolism.  I didn't want to do the typical diet programs with the pre-made foods because I know that I already ate healthier foods than anything with those preservatives.  I also didn't want to take medication to lose it.  I ended up trying one detox program that seemed okay but also seemed that a lot of the products were extremely sweet.  I was mid way through and losing weight but looked up reviews on Amazon where the consensus was that people should stay away from that program.  Still, the basic premise of it was clean eating and I knew that clean eating was how I wanted to go.  I ended up starting a different 30 day detox program and removed dairy, gluten, sugar, etc from my diet.  It sounds extreme but there were many things to replace the things I was taking out.  I'm actually eating more than I was and haven't felt better!  The inflammation is gone - and lyme symptoms are too.  It's been years since I've felt this great.  I've dropped 2-3 SIZES and about 18 lbs.  I wish I would have measured myself when I started because I think the inches are significant.  

I now have more things than ever to add to my Poshmark closet!  It's all very exciting but very emotional as well.  The more I documentaries I watch on our food industry, the more I'm ready to move out of this country.  Oh gosh, I'm starting to sound like my son - help! 

Soooo, I need advice - do I start journaling this experience on this M & MM blog or do I start a new one.  I really want to help people who want to make a change in their lives but not sure I'm up for keeping track of two blogs (as noted by the date of my last post, I can barely keep up with one!).  

Your thoughts?