positive-chronic-illness-blogs

Positive Chronic Illness Blogs

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As we get towards the end of summer, and the end of a month focusing on positivity, I wanted to share some of my favorite chronic illness blogs out there, especially ones that focus on staying positive while managing their illness. Life with a chronic illness is difficult, but it’s nice to read others who have a similar approach to the disease: engage with the positive.

Please take a moment to read through these blogs and give them a follow if you haven’t done so already.

Multiple Sclerosis Blogs

  • Fight MS Daily: Alyssa chronicles her ups and downs as she manages her MS, but she always has a positive spin to offer her readers
  • Dinosaurs, Donkeys, & MS: I love following the adventures of Heather and her “donkey” dizzy as they journey through life with MS. Through Dizzy do we get a positive perspective of living with MS.
  • Tripping Through Treacle: The name alone promotes positivity, as treacle is sweetness in the UK. Jen works to educate people on life with MS from a positive and honest perspective.

Chronic Illness Blogs

  • Invisibly Me: Caz pours everything into this fantastic blog about life with an invisible, chronic illness. You’ve seen her comment frequently here, always something sweet and positive to add to the conversation.
  • Crafts, Chronic Illness, & Adulting: Coping with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, CC&A seeks to educate readers on life with an invisible illness and fatigue. She also shares her artwork and crafts. What drew me to her blog is her humor and approach to life.
  • Life with an Illness: Mackenzie also chooses to approach her chronic illnesses (which include Lupus, Celiacs, and Fibromyalgia) with positivity and never giving up as much as possible.

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Featured photo credit: Canva

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Recipe Friday: Gluten-Free Pizza Crust

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For the first Friday of Foodie month, I asked Michelle Melton, of Michelle Melton’s Photography, to share one of her favorite weekend recipes. She graciously shared her thoughts and recipes for gluten-free pizza packets (for convenience) and a favorite gluten-free pizza recipe.

Enjoy!

Mixes: Convenience in a box

When baking, there is nothing like a box mix for convenience.  Even after I had mastered more complicated baked items from scratch such as pies, yeast breads, and pizza crust, I still enjoyed the results I achieved from box mixes. If I was short on time, the helpfulness of just adding a few wet ingredients to the mix and then popping it in the oven was always tempting.  Whether it was pancakes for breakfast or a cake for a celebration, if I was in a hurry, I’d reach for a mix.   And mixes can make the gluten-free diet easier to manage.

My first exposure to a gluten-free diet was about 10 years ago.  Although I was familiar with celiac disease from textbooks and nutrition classes, I never knew anyone who had it. Celiac seems to be like other diseases that don’t have outward or visible symptoms; the casual observer would never know that a person has it.  This was not the case, however, for my friend of mine.  From the time I met her several years before, the one thing you could not avoid noticing was her dermatitis-ravaged skin.  Her face and neck were especially affected; she was constantly scratching.   Doctors assumed it was eczema and prescribed medications to soothe the symptoms but nothing rid her of the flare-ups completely.  Then in the spring of 2008, when we met for lunch,  the woman sitting across from me was not the friend I had previously known.  Clear-skinned and relaxed she explained that a doctor diagnosed her with celiac. It wasn’t eczema at all but a flare-up of the disease.  Once she became gluten-free, her dermatitis was under control. Needless to say, I was amazed.

I began to investigate (sort of toe tipping into the water) gluten-free recipes to see if a diet change would make managing my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis easier.  Since gluten sensitivity causes inflammation, I was curious if at least reducing gluten in my diet would ease the stress on my thyroid. Ten years ago, however, the problem was every gluten-free recipe called for a different flour blend.  There was little overlap; one blend would not give the same results when used in a different type of recipe.   At the time, I tried making the flour blends that the cookbooks recommended but they required so many ingredients and the taste left a lot to be desired so eventually I gave up.

In recent years, it has become economically advantageous for some companies to cater to the gluten-free diet.  First, only specialty grocery stores carried mixes and already baked products but now major chain stores carry them as well.  I liked the convenience of mixes because I no longer needed a specific flour blend for every item I wanted to bake.  In some cases, the taste was still an issue but I found my favorites and used those often.  While we were not totally gluten-free, these new offerings made it easier to include gluten-free snacks and baked products in our diet.

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For the Love of Food

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Food plays a huge role in my life and I could list all the cliche ways it’s impacted me.

One of my proudest moments as a child was when I cooked my parents a dinner with minimal help from my mother. I remember being so thrilled that I did most of the work myself and remembering to wash my hands after handling raw meat without prompting.

My love for food comes both as something to be enjoyed and something that nourishes me to survive. I love to look at a plate for how it’s presented to me when we’re in a restaurant, along with how good it tastes. I would like to think I am a bit of a foodie, but I am far from being obsessed. I think I have a passing appreciation over whether or not a dish is good.

I want to pass this love on to Jai, so as he grows older, I plan on teaching him how to cook and bake as soon as he’s ready. He’s already showing interest as our friend, Lady, was kind enough to pass along a play kitchen that he uses and mimics mommy.

Looking Ahead

For the month of September, I will discuss my relationship with food, how food played a role in my relationship with Ash, feeding a baby and toddler so they can start their food appreciation journey, and what to do to help foster a love of food and cooking in little ones. Every Friday will have a new recipe to enjoy that I am looking forward to sharing with everyone.

Before getting started, what are some of your fond food memories? What is your favorite dish to eat alone and a favorite dish to share? Leave your stories in the comments.

Like this post? Make sure to follow me on your favorite social media platform and show some love by sharing it. Links found below.

Featured photo credit: Michelle Melton Photography

Early Childhood Education Blogs

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An important resource for teaching a toddler at home is the availability of blogs on the internet.

Twenty years ago it would be a trip to the bookstore to find a book among whatever the store had to offer. The publisher would vet a resource before printing to ensure the information was accurate and achieved a specific goal. Now we can search what we might need/want on our phone within seconds because anybody can put anything out there.

Therefore, finding a reputable resource can be difficult. Some blogs use tactics to shoot up to the top of the search results, which means that just because it’s on the front page of your favorite search engine doesn’t mean it is a good resource to use.

Not all of us go to school for early childhood education, so we aren’t familiar with the priorities in teaching a little one before they are ready to go to preschool. The researcher training I received means that I can’t just search for a specific milestone Jai should be hitting. I need to be sure whatever information I walk away with is credible.

I don’t want to be teaching him incorrectly or placing an expectation on him before he’s cognitively ready because the blog has their months wrong.

What you’ll find below are some tips for vetting your own research to determine if a blog is worth following or if they are spreading misinformation. Granted, this is less of a concern when it comes to early childhood information, but operating under that belief that a child should learning something before they are ready can make the task of preparing them for school frustrating.

How to Vet a Blog

There are several simple steps that I follow to determine if a blog or article is credible, especially if it’s on a topic I am unfamiliar with, like childhood education. Many of these suggestions seem like common sense, but even I’ve been guilty of skipping a step or two only to find a resource isn’t credible later.

Pre-Research Steps

  • Go to the experts first. Determine what are your national standards for a particular age and their recommendations. I find these sites can be a bit stuffy for their ideas which is why I branch out into the wilds of the internet.
  • Decide what you are looking for: activities or material for teaching.
    • Activities do not need as much vetting. Before you start the project, you can determine if it will be age appropriate or doable.
    • Material for teaching is where it gets dodgy. If your child is interested in space you may find that you stumble upon a set of blogs that advocate for alternative theories on planet shapes. Even the ones that advocate mainstream ideas may have incorrect facts that you inadvertently teach your little ones.

Vetting a non-scholarly/non-expert blog

  1. Do a search for the activity or material you want to do with your little one. Read the blurbs underneath the site header on the search page to determine what the site will offer.
  2. Once you click on the site, make the following observations. These are all meant to help you determine the resource’s motivation for getting you to visit their page:
    1. What is at the end of the domain address? is it a “.com,” “.edu,” or something else? My blog is a “.blog” for reference. This will determine the type of site you are visiting. Anything that isn’t .edu/.gov/.org (though .org can be problematic at times) means that the site is commercially run. It doesn’t mean they aren’t an expert, just that they may have other motives to draw you to their site.
    2. What do you see when you first visit the site? Are you met with pop-ups to join a newsletter? A  bunch of ads (if you don’t use ad block)? Cluttered layout? None of these are bad on their own, because all of these are used as a means to earn the blogger money, but it helps you determine their monetary motivation.
    3. Is the resource sponsored? Many bloggers who want to remain reputable will disclose that the post is sponsored by someone else. If the post is sponsored, is it a company you are familiar with? If it isn’t, again, not a bad thing, but you may want to do a more thorough check to determine if the product is worth getting or if you want to go with an analog. If the blogger does not disclose sponsorship, but it is clear that’s what is happening, then consider finding another resource.
    4. Check to see if there is a clear bias on the page: this can be a belief system, lifestyle, or product recommendation. Again, none of these are bad, but it might affect the material or activity you want for your little one. It is just something to be aware of as you set it up/do your research.
  3. Check the length of the post. Quantity doesn’t mean quality, but I do find there is a healthy balance in some of my favorite resources. If a post has too many pictures before getting to a very short blurb on the activity, I am less likely to stay and use that specific resource because it will be annoying to have to keep scrolling down if my page accidentally refreshes (a problem on my phone). Likewise, if the post is too short, and I need more information, I’d rather go elsewhere because it is unlikely they actually know what they are talking about.
  4. Does the information match up with the pre-research you did on the actual expert blogs? If not, but looks like something you could use later, it would be worth bookmarking until then. But be mindful about all the other information posted on the blog.
  5. See if they link out to other resources within the post, especially if you are looking for teaching information. I try to link out to other blogs/resources as much as I can, especially if I am writing a more informative post because that helps demonstrate my ethos and commitment to quality blogging. This isn’t super important to your vetting process, but it may mean that they are a blog worth following for future ideas.

It may seem like a lot of steps to go through in order to determine a blogs relevancy, but it’s worth it because it can help weed out the bad information or activities out there. Many blogs you stumble upon on the first page of a search are there because they deserve to be, but sometimes you manage to get a less reputable one in the mix.

Below are my current recommendations for some favorite childhood education blogs.

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Blogs to Check Out this Summer

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As a blogger, it’s important to read and support other bloggers out there, especially those in your area of interest.

In the summer, sometimes I love sitting down and flipping through a good blog while sipping lemonade and appreciating the AC. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite blogs that I follow relating to my areas of interest and beyond.

Please give these bloggers a read, they are worth adding to your “to read” list.

MS & Chronic Illness Blogs

Motherhood/Parenting Blogs

Inspiration Blogs

Fitness Blogs

Writing & Art Blogs

What are some of your favorite bloggers out there? I am always looking for more recommendations to add to my reading list. Leave a link to your blog (or someone else’s) in the comments.

Like this post? Make sure to follow me on your favorite social media platform and show some love by sharing it. Links found below.

Featured photo credit: Canva