The Envelope, Please

More than two weeks ago, Joshua had his blood drawn for allergy testing.

And the winner is... drum roll....

Everything we eat. Wheat including gliadin and gluten. All dairy products, even casein and goat's milk. Both the white and yolk of eggs.

If you peeked into my kitchen, one glance would be all you'd need to see we're carbo-heavy eaters. Our average weekly milk consumption is 5-6 gallons! We have cheese nearly every meal.

Before I sound like I'm whining, I'm going to count my blessings:

1) When Andrea went through an allergic period, the one product she could not be around was corn. I don't think Joshua's allergies combined can be as pervasive as corn is. In some ways, this is going to be easier.

2) We'll be eating healthier. I won't feel guilty about spending so much money to have a ton of fresh veggies and fruits stocked up.

3) Related to #2--Joshua loves vegetables. Fresh spinach is one of his favorite foods.

4) When Andrea's diet became so restrictive, we could barely scrape together enough money to buy the specialty products. Though we still are tight financially, because of other choices we've made (driving older cars = no car payment), we're able to buy the gluten-free crackers, etc....

5) Gluten-free crackers actually taste good! He's loved the special cookies we got for him to take for school snacks, the GF pretzels were also yummy, and he didn't complain too much about the hard tapioca bread.

6) Remember how I said we drink 5-6 gallons of milk a week? We were always running out and having to zip to the store for a couple more gallons. And we paid more for the hormone-free kind so our little girl might stay a girl for a year or two longer than she would have on hormone-laced milk. Now, we'll get a couple cases of soy/almond/rice milks that we like and always have more on hand.

7) Years ago, a group of scientists made allergy testing their focus. Because they were successful in their quest, I can bypass the stressful, confusing, and time-consuming process of removing foods from his diet by trial and error. This is a special blessing since Joshua's reactions are all IgG mediated responses, meaning the foods don't effect him until hours or even days after he's eaten them.

8) I have two huge resources for recipes and safe products. My aunt Jeanine has found great brownie and pizza recipes, among others, for my cousin who has celiac disease. My friend Kirsten will be extremely helpful because her daughters have both the gluten AND dairy problems.

9) My son will be living life like he never has before: without constant stomach pain. I wonder if what we thought was colic 5 1/2 years ago was really him reacting to the foods I was eating. I'm excited to see the change in his emotions and looking forward to his constant complaining dissipating. Someone mentioned that the average time to diagnose a gluten intolerance is 10 years. Joshua will be turning six tomorrow, so we caught this one early.

I'm sure there are more wonderful things hidden in this restriction. Boundaries, after all, are there to protect us. We will find freedom in the great bounty of food Joshua still is allowed to eat. At least, that's what I'm going to keep telling myself!

Photo by Angelrays

A Special Invitation

Update: One of the conditions of my publishing contract is that no portion of the book be published, so I had to ask Novel Journey to delete the critique in Nov. '08.

A few weeks ago, a new "fan" suggested that I post a scene from my novel to let you all in on my writing style. After all, I keep demanding you tell everyone you know to sign up for our newsletter even though you could possibly vomit at the horrendous awfulness of the writing. You've taken it on faith thus far, which I sincerely appreciate, that you will appreciate my talent. ;-)

Wait no longer.

Click to see a writing selection from my newest book, Undiscovered.* ** *** **** *****

*If you don't like it at all, don't give up on the book Mom and I wrote together, as that has a different feel and has been heavily edited.

**This is a humbling experience, sending you all to see a public critique of my baby. I feel like I've barely finished writing it and don't have enough distance to do the deep edit. In fact, I haven't even read the whole thing through yet!

***I agree with much of the critique and have exciting ideas to tweak the manuscript now.

****This isn't even half of the first chapter. I show much more of the man's emotions right after the selection stops. (I had to submit only the first 1,000 words.)

*****Isn't it funny how critiquing is so different from normal reading? The wonderful Novel Journey ladies approached the submission with a different intent than the awesome bloggers who left comments, which led to different opinions. I value both.

So...what do you think?

UPDATE: I didn't realize the critiques didn't show up on the link, so here they are:
Ane Mulligan's
Gina Holmes'
Jessica Dotta's

One of the Smartest Men on Earth

Maybe you noticed, maybe you didn't, but I added a new blog to my link section. Stop by Randy Ingermanson's newest venture if you'd like to be in the presence of greatness. He is insanely intelligent, but--here's the weird thing--he can also carry on a wonderful conversation in person. Few mad geniuses can do so much.

Another thing about Randy: he believes in free. Free salvation. Free friendship. (Some make me pay.) And totally free writing help. He gives away his precious gems like there's no end to them. He's mad! No, he's a genius! He knows that when you get that free nibble of information you'll want to buy his seminars and his Fiction 101 and 201 and every book he's ever written and gobble them all up.

But he's not infallible. Someone must have hacked onto his new blog. Yep, check for yourself. My blog is in his blog roll. Even worse, that bad hacker also listed me under "WRITERS." Shh...don't let him know and maybe it'll stay up for a day or so!

Bob Barker Would Be Proud

We got a kitten last year. The mother cat's family said they called the little girl "Squeaks" because she always squeaked for her mommy to come back to the basket.

We took the kitten to the vet for a check up and found out surprising news. She was a he. To remind ourselves of the sudden sex change, we took to calling him "Mr. Squeakers." We even painted it above his little cat house.* (Can I say that I'm cracking up at the thought of someone doing a blog search on "sex change" and being directed here?!)

Unfortunately, at least in his point of view, Mr. Squeakers reached the age of tom cat maturity. We took him in this week to be neutered. Now we're thinking of dropping the "Mr." from his name.

It's been a medical week, come to think of it. I finally did something I've been putting off for almost a year. Called our friend, a naturopathic doctor, and set up an appointment to figure out what Joshua is allergic to.

About, oh, fifty times a day he complains of his stomach hurting. I've been dreading this because my awesomely cool cousin, Cody, has celiac disease and can't have any gluten or... you guessed it, his stomach kills him. I like my junk food, my quick carbo-heavy dinners. What will I do? I've been down this route before, but only for about a year, with Andrea. We had to remove all corn from her diet. Sounds easy, but did you know that the inside of food boxes are coated with corn oil? That practically any food that is powdery contains corn starch? And anything runny has corn syrup? Even flash frozen chicken or added Vitamin C has traces of corn. Praise God, she outgrew that one quickly!

The easiest way to determine allergens is with a blood test. Joshua is five. Those two thoughts did not meld very easily in my mind. You will think I am exaggerating now, but I promise I speak only truth: Joshua loved having his blood drawn.

When he was two, we went to the doctor for routine vaccinations. He told the receptionist, the nurse, and the doctor, "I gonna get shot." He calmly watched them put the needle in. As the nurse applied the character-laden Bandaid, he said, "I got shot!"

When he was five, he needed four vaccinations in one visit to be ready for Kindergarten. The doctor--a beginning practitioner who hopefully has learned better by now--actually asked him if he was ready for the shots as she had them all laid out on the tray. But my boy wasn't the least bit put off. "Yes," he said. She gave the shot. Then asked him the same question! He said yes again. One more time, they shared identical dialogue. Before the fourth shot, she says--and I am not making this up!--"Now this one's going to sting." The only experience Joshua had ever had with that word involved a wasp and a very long pointy part protruding from its rear end. He began to fuss and I had to hold him down. As I buckled him into his car seat, he swiped at his tears and said, in an angry tone of voice, "She lied! It didn't even hurt!"

I shouldn't have been surprised at the blood draw, but I still was. He stuck his arm out, laughingly asked why his hand was shaking, looked away for the millisecond the needle went in, and then watched the rest with fascination. No big deal.

*My husband whipped that cat house together, making the door too small for the dogs' heads and adding a hinged top for easy access to his food dish.

The Smell of Myrrh

Our Saturday night service fed all our senses. We partook of communion (taste, touch), worshipped with song (hearing), watched the Jeremy Camp song "This Man" with the clips of The Passion of the Christ (seeing, hearing). But smell?

I admit, after hearing the service be billed as multi-sensory, I'd wondered what we'd be smelling. We were invited to dip our finger into a pot of myrrh. The aroma wasn't as strong as I expected. A little pine-y, sharp, but pleasant.

The smell of death.

I pondered it. Though myrrh was also used as a perfume, to that culture, the smell would also evoke death. A picture came to me: hands preparing Jesus' body for burial. Why do I skip over that action? It wasn't a clean, quick job anymore than giving birth in a stable was. Hands washed our Lord. Hands became smeared with His blood. Hands rubbed the greasy myrrh onto His hairy legs, His cold, dead limbs. They wrapped him in strips of cloth, so like the strips He'd been swaddled in at birth.

Those hands wrung each other, clasped themselves in prayer for the next two days.

And then they touched the warm, solid body of our living Saviour! He is Risen!

Photo courtesy of babasteve

Open Letter to Pre-Published Christian Writers

I'm fairly new to the blogging world--I heard about it for a year or so before I checked it out--so forgive me if this is an unnecessary reminder of conduct. I've been astounded at the resources available to a writer on the Internet. Click on Forensics and Faith and you go right into Brandilyn Collin's brain. Seriously! Or stop by Novel Journey and glimpse the lives of many, many published authors. One of the most helpful websites, which I visit everyday even though they don't post on weekends, is Charis Connection. I'm amazed by how open the authors who contribute to the blog are about their careers, hopes for Christian fiction, and the nitty-gritty aspects of writing.

I've also been amazed at how cavalierly some bloggers treat the authors' sacrifice of time. As an unpublished author, I find that blogs, both the reading of and writing of, serve as instant networking in a profession that is notoriously isolating. We can contact our favorite author, read a sample book proposal, get a feel for an agent's personality, and access writer's guidelines within minutes.

A blessing that comes with much responsibility.

If we are serious about becoming published, we need always to conduct ourselves as professionals. I'm not saying you shouldn't write an anonymous comment complaining about how hard it is to break into the industry, though I wouldn't do it myself. I am saying that you should never, NEVER hit the post button on the comment. It doesn't do anyone any favors, least of all yourself. If I were an editor reading such a comment, I would shrink back into my office chair and pray that the Lord would keep me far, far away from any contact with the anonymous author.

But should you post any comment if you're willing to sign your name to it? Weigh it carefully. Again, the Internet has become the writer's office. Be professional. You're building your reputation.

Maybe the snarky comments are a twisted sort of compliment. Maybe some bloggers treat these authors with contemptuous familiarity in the same way we are meanest to our family members. I don't really know.

But it embarrasses me.