Beginning to Feel a Bit Primal

I'm feeling pretty smug lately.  I think we've got it!  Or are at least on the way to getting whatever "it" is as far as eating right and maintaining a healthy balance every day.  This is not to say that these first few weeks have been easy.  There was at least one moment when I broke down in the chips aisle at the grocery store looking for a tortilla chip my poor Prednisone-hungry husband could munch on between meals with guacamole or some other gut-friendly snacky treat.  I was, and probably am still, quite worried about what I feed him.  As a result of this I have inundated our iPad with Crohns friendly food blogs. 

My mother, the consumate researcher, found two cookbooks and a blog by Danielle Walker, Against All Grain.  We've started cooking from this Paleo and Autoimmune focused cookbook in the last couple of weeks and already it's a game changer.  There are actually snacky foods and hearty main courses.  Desserts!  There are things that actually arsweets in what she has written and we love them.  Definite game changer for the two of us.  My goal over the next, who knows how many, months is to go recipe by recipe through her books.  One even offers up 8 weeks of menus with handy dandy shopping lists to guide you through the process.  As Adam tapers off of his drugs and back into normal life we're hoping to see a difference by making the subtle tweeks to our diet. 

We've gone primal and are loving it.  More on our food adventures later.

In the Beginning

This is the beginning of what I originally intended to be both an exercise in writing and an outlet for my love of color and texture. After my past 11 years in the design industry I have come to the conclusion that beyond helping people design their homes and arrange their spaces, my primary passion in design is in selecting the colors and textures that pull together someone's home and are the foundation of their style.  This could be selecting hard surfaces and cabinetry colors or simply making sure the paint colors you use all come together nicely.


The use of colors and textures in a space are more than just aesthetic.  They can be therapeutic, create a theme and even dictate the mood when you walk into room.  As I type this opening post I am looking around my living room at the collection of colors and use of fabrics, art and finish on objects that create textures throughout the space.  Green (my favorite color), a texture that can only be described as "like popcorn" on one of our favorite chairs, the bright yellow of my husband's pinball machine, the rough brown boards in his bookshelves.  Heck!  Even the books on the shelves themselves lend a color and texture combination, and so many more throughout the space.  When carefully paired together it creates a fun, if completely funky, environment that tells our story.


However, I've been distracted since first deciding attempt a blog.  Over Thanksgiving our life was flipped around a bit when Adam (the husband) woke up Thanksgiving morning with a horrible stomach ache, nausea and eventually that evening we took a trip to the emergency room when it wasn't improving.  After a CT scan, several poking and prodding doctors and being admitted to the hospital we began the search for what was making Adam sick.  It was determined a few days and a couple of well placed scope exams later (lucky Adam!) that he has Crohn's Disease.  And after some personal reflection he believes he's had symptoms since his teens.


The treatment for Crohn's would traditionally involve a toxic pharmaceutical or two, possibly some surgery to remove a portion of his digestive system or any other number of life altering treatments that Adam isn't too keen to try.  Being two people who appreciate the fine art of research (he more than me...but I'm a woman on a mission at this point, so just call me researcher) we've read enough to know that one's diet can have a huge impact on autoimmune diseases and can make Crohn's quite manageable, for what we hope to be the rest of our lives together, without the need for heavy duty drugs or surgery. 


All of this being said, I'm hoping to wander through one's palette not only inspirations in color and texture from our environment but also of our taste buds as we explore recipes that are geared toward keeping our health up and adding some variety to the new menu we need to follow.  Let the research for the tastes, colors and textures that make up our lives...begin!