Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Happy Mardi Gras!

It's Fat Tuesday - Happy Mardi Gras, everyone!

We used to live in New Orleans, so we celebrate Mardi Gras in high style here at our house. Since CFS, we have had to scale back all of our celebrations, including Mardi Gras, but we have adapted and found ways to enjoy this - and other holidays - while staying within our limits.

My mom raised me to celebrate even the little things in a big way, and I have adopted her mindset. My kids have loved all of our traditional celebrations, even when they were too sick to do much else. Especially when dealing with chronic illness, we all need these moments of joy and special occasions in our lives to lift our spirits and remind us that life is meant to be enjoyed!

We used to have over 50 people over for a huge blow-out Mardi Gras party every year that would last into the wee hours of the morning. Now, we have just a few close friends over, they all help out, and everyone is gone by 10 pm!  But we are still keeping our tradition alive, and it's something we all look forward to.  On this Weekend Cooking post at my book blog, I wrote about the foods we make for Mardi Gras, along with a list of ways to celebrate the holiday no matter where you are (or what your restrictions are). It's not too late - there is still time to ask a friend or family member to bring home a King Cake or some Popeye's tonight!  The parades are over, but you can still check out the Jackson Square cam to enjoy New Orleans' Mardi Gras vicariously.

And later this week, we'll take down all the purple, green, and gold decorations and replace them with red hearts to celebrate Valentine's Day!

Any occasion will do, really - add a little joy to your life with a celebration this week!

My boys and a friend, 2006


3 comments:

Renee said...

Amen! Love hoe you celebrate the big and small things in life.

upnorth said...

Glad you are able to still find the fun. It's so important.

Anonymous said...

I have been suffering from CFS and Fibromyalgia officially for about 2 years, though I think I was getting it for about 10 years. I felt like a 90 year old woman most days. I would sometimes get up take the kids to school and have to go back to bed for three hours before I could do anything else at all that day. I had to give up various jobs because I was soooo tired I could not do a full day's work and could not sit up at a desk. I went part time but was finding even that difficult.

Anyhow I tried various cures, potions, exercise regimes, diets.. you name it.. Savella is a drug that worked on the fibromyalgia but ironically it seemed to make the CFS part worse - I was even more tired, though in no pain!

But now I think I have found a combination that works for me, and I would love others to try it:

Drugs (daily): Imipramine 10mg per day (take at night), acetaminophen pm (tylenol pm) - take a quarter of a tablet maximum each night, just to ensure you sleep through but are not groggy/tired next day
Multivitamins: Nature's Away Alive! Whole Food Eneergizer Multivitamin Max Potency - 1 in the morning and 1 at night

Food/Drink:
Replace With
Sweeteners Stevia
Beer/wine/fizzy drinks Fruit juice/Vegetable juice/water
White bread Wholewheat bread
Meat Seafood/fish
Cheese Avocado
Tea/coffee Herbal teas (sleepytime at night, apple cinnamon or lemon zinger celestial seasonings)
Bananas Apples
Chocolate Dark chocolate
Cereal Fruit

Avoid: Nuts and Beans


The reason for these subsitutes is to replace acid forming foods with alkaline forming foods (I thought I was being really healthy eating bananas, cereal, nuts and beans
but they were making my CFS worse!)

See if this works for anyone else out there?