ButYouDontLookSick.com magazine is about living life to the fullest with any disability, invisible disease, or chronic pain and hopes to provide answers to
the endless questions of:
But you don't look sick?
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Dyeing Easter Eggs the Natural Way!
When I was little my mother hated us to dye the eggs we would later be eating with the food dyes from the store. She claimed the food dyes would seep through the egg shell and we would be eating unnecessary chemicals. Therefore, dyeing Easter eggs wasn’t a huge pastime of my family’s. That is until now. I recently discovered a niche in Easter egg dyeing: using natural foods to dye eggs! Now you too can dye your eggs with the same food you eat in order to stay away from unnecessary food dyes and keep your family happy AND healthy this Easter!
Ideas for "Spring Break" For Chronically Ill College Students
I know many of us have those days/weeks/months, maybe even years, when we do not even get out of bed. I know I have watched friends live life while I simply let it pass me by. For this reason, being chronically ill is one of the worst feelings in the world for a college student, and there is no worse time to be under the weather than "Spring Break". I don’t know about the rest of you, but I live in constant fear of traveling. Unfortunately, my colitis comes with rather disgusting symptoms, and foreign food is the last thing I want to be eating. As a result, I will spend my Spring Break in the familiarity of San Diego, eating non-diary, non-beef, non-nut, and non-wheat foods, while the rest of my posse is living it up “foreign country” style. However, there are ways to enjoy Spring Break in the comfort of your own hometown. So forget your best friend who is spending Spring Break in Mexico, drowning in margaritas, and do one of the following:
The holidays are over. We will celebrate the New Year. If you’re like me, this isn’t your favorite time of year. But, to look at the positive side of things, it’s a clean slate and time to begin anew. And with that clean slate is another block of 365+ days to stay on top of things and keep our complex lives organized.
Making a beaded bracelet is easy and fun! This project will cost you around $5.00 and you can keep it for yourself or give it to a friend for a special Valentine gift! Caution - making beaded jewelry is addictive!
Right about now your skin is showing the effects of drying winter winds, central heating, and low humidity conditions. Aside from increasing the humidity in your environment, there are several other things you can do to relieve painful, dry winter skin.
Your skin is your largest living organ and its cells die and are replaced every day. The dead skin cells stack up and can become hardened and cause problems like cracked and bleeding skin - ouch! The key is to exfoliate the skin all over your body, exposing the fresh new cells underneath so that the benefits of moisture treatments can reach them.
I live for holidays. All year long, I eagerly anticipate the next approaching day, all building up to the fall and winter seasons. With most of the major festivities (birthdays, Christmas) in my family coming in the latter half of the year, we have to wait a long time for the big events. Thus, after Christmas is over, I get the feeling I used to get as a child when the 4th of July hit: the enchantment is over and we’re about to reenter the “real world.” (If you don’t understand the 4th of July marker, here in NC, school begins in early August, so that meant the summer bliss was about to end.) So, here are 10 fun, quirky, and serious ways you might try to battle the January blahs.
Christmas is over, the parties are finished and you are exhausted. But the traditional thank you notes haven’t been sent out yet, and they sit like an anvil on the back of your mind. Growing up, thank you notes were always carefully penned on beautiful stationary or tucked inside cute little cards. So much time spent trying to remember what everyone got you, trying to keep it all straight, finding the cards, collecting the addresses, buying stamps and mailing them all out in reasonable time. If you have a long list of thank you notes to send, you might feel like you will never get through it.
This year do I want to make a resolution to lose weight, save money or learn a foreign language? Or even something more vague like have more tolerance or patience? Let’s just face it, a nice easy resolution is the best bet. If it is easily achieved, and that achievement will give you a warm fuzzy feeling that you have actually accomplished something. Having no resolution also works, but then you have to defend your reason for not having one when asked, so it is just easier to make one up. Resolutions regarding improvements to your life style and health are truly worthy goals, but they are quite a bit harder to achieve, given they require sustained effort and
many obstacles.
In the winter it's harder not to get sick, than it is to remain healthy throughout the season. For many reasons, we find ourselves grabbing for the tissues instead of our vacation guides. Many of us already are sick 365 (or 366 if it's a leap year!!) days of a year, so we need to get over this whole mess fast! Here are the top ten tips and products to help you get through the cold and flu season this year.
The annual tradition of making New Year's resolutions can be a source of stress for those with a chronic illness. Sometimes we're just so overwhelmed with getting through the day, that committing to more demands on our
time and psyches seems unfathomable. And to some, forcing ourselves to adhere to a list of rules and regulations smacks of unrealistic expectations. But it doesn't have to be that way.
We all know the feeling - we kick on the furnace for the winter and within days our skin starts screaming... loudly... for attention! It "screams" by getting dry and itchy, developing rough flaky patches, and just generally acting cranky! We have to DO something - we rush to buy the latest, greatest moisturizer - shell out the big bucks for whatever the magazines and TV or our next door neighbor says will WORK. Trouble is, it doesn't. We are still dry, we still itch, our skin seems to drink in the moisturizer insatiably. WHY?
Top Ten Holiday Gift Ideas for Kids with Fine Motor Skills Needs.
Are you looking for a good gift for someone with special needs? Are you a caregiver of a child with fine motor skills issues? These gifts will help you, help them at the holidays.
I love going to people’s houses during the season and seeing how everyone decorates their house, however, when it comes to decorating mine, it’s not my favorite task. Even worse is taking it down at the end of the season.
Because I still live at home my parents and sister help so it’s not too bad, but this year I wasn't in the mood and my mother and father are getting older and don't get into it like they used to. So this is how we decorated our house to be simple and still look homey and Christmassy.
It's fun to get gifts but buying them when you have a chronic illness can be anything but fun. Having to get bundled up if the weather is cold and walk through crowded malls and stores, if you have a compromised immune system, can be a bad idea. So here are a few tips to keep holiday shopping fun and easy.
4 Reasons Why I Love to Shop Online During Christmas, and Why You Should Too!
1. Free shipping!
I think my UPS man assumes I have a crush on him. I don't want to date him, but I do love that he delivers heavy packages right to my door. It is cold, shopping bags are heavy and I hate parking in crowded lots. It is really that simple. Most stores are now online and most offer free shipping. Why drag myself out in the cold, walk with pain, deal with crowds and lines, when I can get the same item delivered to my door within days. I used to have to beg friends to hold my shopping bags when my arms got too tired. I used to have to plan rest breaks from walking and shopping. Now I sit at home and wait for the packages to come to me. Ah, I love the internet! (If you are a store owner please note that I am swayed to shop at online stores that do offer free shipping over those who don't)
This is the time of year to give and receive Christmas cards! I love opening my mailbox and finding Christmas cards, it's so much fun. However, when you have a chronic illness, the task of Christmas card writing can be a little
hard and tiring. These are just a few tips to help with keeping Christmas card writing easy and fun.
It's fun to get gifts, but wrapping them especially if you have sore or weak hands can be hard. Here are a few tips to help you wrap Christmas gifts easily.
Seasonal Tips: Ho, Ho, Ho-Oh No! What’s For Dinner?
The holidays are upon us. Though most articles are about the perfect Thanksgiving or Christmas spread, what about all of the everyday meals in between, during this busy holiday season? It’s hard enough to find the energy to shop and plan for large family get-togethers, and most healthy people (let alone “Spoonies”) will rely on takeout or fast food to fill the daily gap. But at a time when we’re trying to maintain our energy and health to the best of our ability, this habit can wreak havoc on our bodies. This is when having a few necessities on hand is important in order to create nourishing, whole-food meals while saving those “spoons”!
Plants freshen up a home and bring life to even the dreariest sick room. When you can't get outside much, houseplants can help to bring the outside in to you and lift your spirits. However, Spoonies - indeed most people generally! - should select their houseplants carefully: there is nothing uplifting about dead and dying plants.
What is one of the most stressful things to do during the holidays? Travel!!! Most of us have more than one place to be this holiday season, whether it's traveling between in-laws or traveling between family members, it's still the
stress of having to pack up the car and the kids and traveling as long as hours on end.
Did someone give you a beautiful poinsettia plant this holiday season? If not, pick one up the day after Christmas when they go on clearance! You can enjoy poinsettias for months, even years with the proper care. They can even survive the move outdoors when the weather warms in summer!
Top Ten Gift Basket Ideas For Those Suffering With Chronic Illnesses!
Buying gifts for someone who is suffering with a chronic illness is never easy, especially when you are looking for the perfect, practical gift. Below is my top ten gift basket ideas for anyone suffering with a chronic illness. I will also give you tips on how to keep the costs of your baskets low and a special chocolate covered spoon recipe.
This is the time of year that inspires us to examine our lives with a closer look and make a checklist of what we are truly thankful for. No matter what your religion or your background, Thanksgiving has become a national holiday where we are reminded to take an inventory of the many blessings we often take for granted.
I love the thought of New Year's Day. It is a great chance to renew the spirit, set goals, and start fresh. Whatever you have experienced in the past year this is a chance to have a new outlook. What a great feeling!
For those of you who were members of this newsletter last year, you might remember that every New Year's eve, instead of "resolutions" I pick a one word that encompasses all the things I want to work on, for the upcoming year. I have encouraged friends, family and readers of this website to do the same thing.
What to Wear? Surviving The Dreaded Holiday Party Outfit
What is guaranteed to: 1) Hang in your closet and never be worn again, 2) Cause you more stress than all your holiday shopping put together; 3) Cost you more than any other clothing item you own and 4) Be so uncomfortable you can't wait to get home and tear it off? The Holiday Party Outfit!!
At the time of this writing, it is a few weeks before Thanksgiving in the US. Each day, I must fight an overwhelming array of symptoms caused by Sjogren's syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic myofascial pain, hypothyroidism, diabetes, celiac disease, gastroparesis and periodic limb movement disorder. I am learning to cope with new medication that is fraught with unpleasant side effects. I am in the midst of the disability application process and have no income. And yet, I know that I am blessed, without question. How can this be?
Easter is a nice time to get together with all the family and sit down for a meal together. Here is our traditional meal for 8 people that has been tried and tested by a hungry family every year. It is easy and fairly fool proof (even I can do it!)
Many of us who do not feel well this season, have to do most of our shopping online. Especially with the colder
weather, and lots of walking and crowds in malls- I know I find online shopping essential.
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