Shopping for Gifts at Uncommon Goods

I was compensated for this post, but all opinions are mine.

The summer is half over already.

Seriously.  What happened?

We're deep in summer mode over here, but I've already started my Christmas shopping.  With four kidlets of my own, 14 nieces and nephews and countless other people on my list, I've found that it's much more cost effective and less stressful for me to start super early.

On a side note, Anna saw the Christmas tree stashed under the stairs in the basement this morning and asked if we could put it up yet.  I draw the line there.

It's not just Christmas shopping though.  I tend to buy things for birthdays and other events throughout the year, mainly because if I don't, I know I'll completely forget until the morning of and then have to panic and shove some random gift in a gift bag.

Why God Hasn't Healed Me

This post contains referral links which means that if you purchase from one of my links, I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

When I was 17, I went to an outdoor Christian music festival for 2 days with some friends.  That's when I found out that I have a heat and sun intolerance and also when it got kicked into overdrive.  I spent most of my time sleeping in the tent, and it took me several months to recover.

Since then, things have gotten worse.  Each one of my pregnancies intensified my heat and sun intolerance, and now it's so severe that I often joke that I'm a vampire because I stay out of the sun as much as I possibly can.  Just a few seconds in the sun or heat, and I start feeling dizzy, nauseous, weak, and like my head is going to explode.  I panic when I get into a hot car until the air conditioner is running at full blast, I will go out of my way to walk in a shaded area versus a sunny one, and I stay indoors whenever possible.

Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Awareness Bundle Giveaway!

This post contains referral links which means that if you purchase from one of my links, I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

If you have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, you know how important it is to raise awareness for the disorder. Most people you encounter have never even heard of it and many doctors don't know much about EDS or have incorrect information on it.

If you're looking for ways to help raise awareness, I have an entire post devoted to that here.

You want to hear something really awesome though?

I'm co-hosting a giveaway for an Ehlers Danlos Syndrome awareness bundle with five other awesome bloggers!!  My co-hosts are Sarah from My Stripy Life, Brittany from A Southern Celiac, Sara from A Zebra Writes, Jenni from 1visibl3Girl, and Mary from The Headache Heroine.

Raising Awareness for Celiac Disease with A Southern Celiac!

This post contains referral links which means that if you purchase from one of my links, I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

In addition to being Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Awareness month, May is also Celiac Disease Awareness month! I invited Brittany from A Southern Celiac to tell us all a little more about it and help dispel some of the myths about Celiac's. Brittany also has Ehlers Danlos so we thought the partnership was perfect for us both. Please welcome her to Sunshine and Spoons!

May is Celiac Awareness Month, so Hannah has kindly allowed me to guest post on her blog! I'm Brittany, the Celiac behind A Southern Celiac. I was first diagnosed with celiac disease in 2012 at the age of 19 after having stomach issues since I was 18 months old! Stories like mine aren't uncommon, which is why I'm so passionate about spreading awareness for Celiac Disease.

Don't worry though, I'm not here to bore you with my diagnosis story. I've written that out before, and honestly, it was even tedious for me to re-read! Nope, today I'm here to share some surprising facts about Celiac Disease.  I'm assuming you know the basics. Celiac is an autoimmune disorder affecting the small intestine. When a celiac eats even small amounts of gluten, their body gets confused and attacks the small intestine. The only treatment is a strict gluten free diet. That seems pretty straightforward– but there's more to Celiac than it seems.

What It's Like To Be a Kid With Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

This post may be a little hard for you to read. I know I had tears in my eyes more than once while typing this up.

If you've been hanging around Sunshine and Spoons for very long, you know that at least 3 of my 4 kids have hypermobile Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which they inherited from me. Davy (3) and Nano (7) don't really understand it yet, but Katie (9) does. She goes back and forth between being proud of being a zebra to asking why God would make her have EDS and all of the pain that goes along with it.

Kids are supposed to be able to run and play. They shouldn't have to deal with chronic pain and fatigue. They shouldn't have to spend their childhoods at doctors' offices, wearing braces and explaining random bruises.

But, that's not how things always work. I interviewed 25 kids who have EDS to see what it's really like to be a child or young person with the disorder. 

Averie, 10 years old (hEDS) - "The hardest part is telling other kids that I can't do certain things, like play on the monkey bars, or do everything that my classmates are doing in gym class. EDS hurts a lot.  It's frustrating that you can't do as much as your friends, and POTS is really frustrating because I just have to explain myself more when I'm getting up more slowly than others, and have to draw attention to myself."

Health Storylines App Review

  This is a sponsored post. I have been compensated through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. All opinions remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.
Link to asthma app: http://www.allergyasthmanetwork.org/asthma-storylines-self-care-tool-for-managing-asthma/

Maybe it's just me, but I tend to forget things easily.  So when I tell my doctor that something has been bothering me and she asks me for details, I stammer for a few minutes as I try to remember when, where, why, etc.

And then there are my meds.  I found out the hard way that forgetting one of my medications for even a day has really bad side effects for me so remembering to take them every. single. day at around the same time is super important.

I've been looking for an app for my phone for a while now that would allow me to track and remember my daily medical info so I was happy to try out Health Storylines.  The company has a long list of apps for different health conditions, such as sarcoma, epilepsy, heart problems, IBD, and MUCH more.  Since I have asthma, I installed that one. You can learn more about it here.

How the Last Year has Changed My Life

This post contains referral links which means that if you purchase from one of my links, I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

I did it!

I survived a year of blogging at Sunshine and Spoons and have loved every minute of it!  It's been more amazing and successful than I ever imagined it would be.  The highlight of the last year of blogging has definitely been the emails I've received, telling me how a post I wrote helped someone.

To celebrate my first year of blogging at Sunshine and Spoons, I'm taking a cue from Mama @ Heart who also recently celebrated her first blogiversary.

How It All Got Started
I'd been blogging at Supermommy!...Or Not for about seven years.  It started as an online scrapbook of my family and it was fun to have an outlet for writing.  But in 2015, I started rethinking it.  I wanted to blog professionally, and I wanted to help people who were going through some of the same things I was.  I had gotten to the point that if something was taking a lot of my time, but wasn't necessarily benefitting my family, it was time to cut it out.  Rather than convert Supermommy!...Or Not, I decided to start fresh.  You can read about how I chose the name "Sunshine and Spoons" here.

A Look Back at Some of My Favorite Blog Posts
This is my 102nd post.  Yes, I know...I've been busy :)  I've written about everything from chronic illness to parenting hacks to gift guides.  In one year, my blog has been viewed over 270,000 times which is more pageviews than my first blog received in 7 years of blogging.

5 Things I Need From You as Someone With a Chronic Illness

Having a chronic illness is hard on so many levels, but having a good support system can make the difference between being able to handle the spoonie life or having it take you down.

If you know someone with a chronic illness, then you know that sometimes it can be hard to know how to be supportive, especially if your loved one has recently received a diagnosis.

On the flip side, it can also be hard to tell your friends and family what you need from them as a spoonie.  It's difficult to admit that something is wrong.

Here are five things I need from you as someone who has a chronic illness:

15 Coordinating Easter Outfits for Siblings

This post contains referral links which means that if you purchase from one of my links, I will receive a small percentage of the sale.  

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up and have, like, eight sets of twins.  I mean, look at how much fun it would be to dress them alike or in coordinating outfits especially for holidays like Easter or Christmas!!

Katie and Nano, 2010

And then I grew up and starting having babies and realized just how much work they are, even when they come just one at a time.

Nano, Anna, and Katie-Easter 2013

So, I settled on dressing up my four singletons instead.

My favorite way to do that is with handmade outfits.  I've always made them myself because I enjoy sewing and it can be next to impossible to find coordinating outfits for kids ranging in sizes from 8 to 2T in a store.

A Better Way to Track and Organize Your Meds

  This is a sponsored post. I have been compensated through the Chronic Illness Bloggers network. All opinions remain my own and I was in no way influenced by the company.

Shaking and dizzy, I crawled into my bed and laid down.  The room spun around me.  I had just returned from a trip to the pharmacy to which my dad had to drive me because I knew it wasn't safe for me to drive.

All I could do was lay there in bed.  I couldn't even sit up or the intense dizziness hit me again.  Shaking, I unscrewed the childproof cap off the bottle of pills I'd returned from the pharmacy with and then managed to prop myself up on my elbow just far enough to swallow one of the pills with a gulp of Gatorade.

I wasn't sick.  I had forgotten to refill an important prescription and which lead to me forgetting to take it for several days, and the side effects of stopping the medication cold turkey were brutal.

"Never again," I promised myself.

Fast forward a few months, and I've forgotten to take my meds at least several times since then, thankfully for no more than a day at a time.

I'll be honest, I'm busy and forgetful.  Trying to stay on top of meds for myself plus 3 kids is tough.  Like so many with chronic illnesses, I frequently struggle with brain fog and remembering important things.  I know I'm not the only one who has these kinds of problems, so when I was introduced to PillDrill, I knew I had to share it with you.