Menu Planning Monday

Monday- Lemon Herb Chicken Ring, Rice, Green Beans

Tuesday- Taco Salad - (Justin's Favorite!!) The ultimate "man" food- great for large crowds or Game Day's! You can adjust the recipe for size, this amount serves about 6!

A head of shredded lettuce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 onion, chopped
1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained with
1 packet taco seasoning
2 cups tri colored Rotini noodles
1 bottle Western dressing
Optional: tomatoes, red pepper (chopped)
Add crushed Doritos (we use Nacho Cheese flavored) and dressing just before serving

Wednesday- BBQ Pork Chops, Noodles, Veggies

Thursday- leftovers

Friday- 4th of July- OUT

Saturday- leftovers, hotdogs

Sunday- Vegetarian Lasagna

BOOK GIVEAWAY!!

Do you guys know Gary Chapman, author of the best-selling book, "The Five Love Languages"? (This book totally has helped my marriage big time!!

Becky has received two copies of his new book, "Love As A Way Of Life" that will be available on July 15th.

She will be offering her own review of it on July 14th - and will also give away a copy of it on that day. If you are interested in the drawing, please leave a comment on her post HERE and make sure you leave your email so she can get in touch with you. If you blog about this giveaway, linking to her blog, she will enter you twice!

My A1c HomeCheck Results Are In....

And my HomeCheck A1c result was a 6.9! I am pretty okay with this number... I was hoping for a teensy bit lower, but this is better than my last one which was in the mid 7's. Next time, my goal is to bump it down to a 6.5. If I could just get my hands on some more Dexcom sensors I think this goal would be easily attainable! I also got an A1c taken at the doctor's on Monday,along with a complete thyroid panal (I have hypothyroidism) but haven't gotten the results yet. I'll let you know how close they compare. I'm anxious to find out. =) I was REALLY happy with the simplicity of the test, the customer service was fantastic and their support team got back to me very quickly through email. I defitnately recommend giving them a try!

This week I am not around much. It is VBS camp week at our church and the dozens of first graders are keeping me busy!! Gabriel is really enjoying being in the Pre School dept. It's hilarious listening to him recount the Bible stories... he gets them all really confused and melds them all together.... "So Nehemiah built a BIG wall and then he put baby Jesus in a basket and floated him down the Nile river where Princess Fiona found him (who's watched Shrek too many times?) and took him fishing. Then they fed lots of people food with a couple fish and some bread. ..."

I love 3 year olds.

Friday Felicities

Things that make me happy.... for more, visit Becky.

* My Father in heaven who adores me
* Seattle's Best free coffee samples
* Devil Rays Games
* Baby Showers
* VBS
* Franklin the mighty dog and his new friend, Joe the Beagle
* Unexpected bonuses

This is Me, Raising My Voice....

On December 25th, 2007 I almost died. On December 29th 2007, I almost died again. My blood sugar plummeted into the low 20's during my nighttime sleep. On Christmas I woke up screaming incomprehensible words and flailing my arms and legs, waking my husband. On December 29th, my husband's birthday, he mysteriously awoke and found me passed out on the floor next to our bed, minutes from death. (Happy Birthday sweet heart) There is a technology available that can prevent this from ever happening to me again.

It is a frustrating thing knowing there is a technology available to help free me from the daily worry of going into a coma, or passing out because of my hypoglycemia unawareness while I am home alone taking care of my children. Or dying in my sleep because my blood sugar gets to low. Yet this technology is being denied by major insurance companies in many cases, stating that it is not "medically necessary." It brings me to the point of tears sometimes. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for my insurance company to come through for me and approve my Dexcom 7 CGMS, so I can be freed from this worry. Yet they continue to drag their heels. I haven't gotten a denial yet, but it has been pending since January. JANUARY! Ridiculous. I encourage diabetics to raise their voices and post this video by Manny Hernandez of Tudiabetes.com on your blogs!

Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems are approved by the FDA and are some of the best diabetic technology available to help control blood glucose levels. The JDRF is working on completing this technology by researching ways to create a closed loop system as a sort of external pancreas. We are making strides.

I am tired of worrying about if I will be around to watch my children complete their major milestones. Graduating college, getting married, rocking my grandchildren for the first time, retiring and traveling with my husband. I want to live to see these years.

So I beg you, Raise your voice.




Find more videos like this on Tu Diabetes - A Community for People Touched by Diabetes



Also see: Six Until Me's battle with CGMS approval

What Should I Do?

OK here's the deal....

I just transferred 3 prescriptions to the CVS pharmacy because I had the coupons that got you a $25 giftcard, with each transfer. I just got coupons in the mail from our new Publix pharmacy offering $25 giftcards if I now transfer them to Publix. Hmmmmm.... I shop at CVS all the time, I almost feel a sense of customer loyalty to them. I even witnessed them give a free CVS gift card to a homeless man that had wandered in one day. That made me feel good about shopping there. BUT that's $75 of free groceries! What would you do? I welcome your thoughts!

My Favorite Things....

It's week two of My Favorite Things over at FiddleDeeDee's Blog! Last week I saw some pretty cool stuff!
I am a Bzz Agent. I get free samples of things, occasionally and get to review them, spread the word about them, hand out coupons for them! I have handed out and used a few coupons for this product. It's the Ziploc Twist and Loc containers. I LOOOVE THEM! Basically, they twist shut instead of pressing shut, so you KNOW they are closed. They also have great measurement markers and a place to write the date on the top (great for leftovers... how long ago did we have this?? Is it growing mold yet??)
I've also used them to store craft stuff (like Gabriel's little tiny foam pieces that he loves to play with and glue to random things all over my house. )