Life has been ...challenging and full of changes the past few years. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster with so many dips and turns. I have learned multiple life lessons and I have found out so much about myself and the people in my life. My last post shared about how life was telling me that it was just time to slow down, even if I wasn't ready to. I went through a pandemic, I watched my family become something new and different, I saw myself grow into the person that I am supposed to be and I realized how precious time is. I don't waste an ounce of it now. To some who don't really kn ..read more

 Most of my life, I have had the energy and attitude of go-go-go. If life threw me a curveball, I would allow myself small moments of silent pity parties but then I would get up and begin again. In my mind, I have no time to waste, ever. In my heart, I have too much to give not to love the right person. In my soul, I have just one life and I have zero patience to wait for anything... even the good things. Maybe it was my upbringing. Maybe it is a family trait (all of the women in my family are strong and stubborn and if you dare tell them they cannot, they will not only find a way to do i ..read more

 It's been almost one full year since I wrote a blog. One Year. I have been writing since I was very young- it's always been a passion of mine. Words flowing onto paper or otherwise because sometimes, life stifles your ability to speak the words that you need to share. So when I stopped writing, I was concerned. I thought a part of me had died, that I was losing something that I felt so deeply about. It turns out that nothing is lost but so very much has been found.  The Title    The title I chose today was not to be dramatic or to be eye catching. It is truly based on wh ..read more

 Some bullies use words.  Others use food. What happens when the two are combined? The combination is unimaginable Luckily, kaléo understands the need to help our food allergy community and I am happy to help spread the word!  Can you help out too?  No Appetite For Bullying aims to make a positive, lasting impact on the lives of children, teenagers and students with food allergies by encouraging them, their parents and peers to be voices against food allergy bullying. The campaign is a partnership between kaléo and national food allergy advocacy organizations which inclu ..read more

 I haven't been as consistent with my blogs as I was in the past. I know everyone says life gets in the way but for me, it truly did. I miss writing as this has been such a part of my life. Even as a child, I wrote poetry and my first book at age 12. But yes- life has gotten in the way of this part of what is so important to me. I had to take a step back. I had to figure out what was absolutely necessary during a HUGE shift in my life but I am so very proud of this shift. I (try) not to share too much on a personal level because I don't believe in airing my dirty laundry with everyone bec ..read more

Admittedly, I have been in this whole weird space trying to figure out where my life needs to go right now. What used to bring me passion has been put on pause. I am a person who believes everything happens for a reason, even if it does not make sense at the time that it is happening. One of my lifelong passions has been writing. I have written since I was in second grade. It is an outlet, it gives me a voice and if you are a subscriber, you have noticed that my blog articles have thinned out compared to how much I used to write.  When I am lacking in my life, I ask the Universe for help ..read more

What I love about the food allergy community is that regardless of how long it has been since we saw/spoke/communicated with each other, we are always here for one another. It's like that lifelong friend that you have known since when you were like 4 and you still call each other to catch up without feeling weird. That friend that you can just call out of the blue and they just appear, asking what they can do to help. In this day and age, isn't that an awesome and amazing thing to have? 2014 Food Allergy Bloggers Conference Today, I want to help one of my friends. I have known Dr. Ruc ..read more

 This is my first blog since February- FEBRUARY! Not like me but things happen, life happened and I am happy to report that I have some exciting news to jump back into my blog articles with. A few years back, I came across a nonprofit Mend Hunger and I immediately knew I that I needed to help. In the beginning, Mend Hunger was leading a mission to ensure that gluten free foods were available at their local food banks. That, in itself, is amazing. They fed many but still found some hiccups along the way and, like many of us, were faced with new challenges when COVID came about. Did that st ..read more

Raising children can be challenging but imagine throwing food allergies into the mix. Research shows that parents of food allergic children have a higher stress rate, which includes increased marital stresses. Obviously, this also means increased chances of divorce for those parents. Divorce is never something that enters your mind when you get married and neither does the thought of your food allergic child deciding to remain with the parent that was less proactive in their allergy protection. I am in no way saying that there aren't families that don't have both parents remaining active in th ..read more

How is everyone doing?  Was last year the year that curled you up into a ball, rolled you around and just threw you to land wherever?  This is how I feel. I'm not depressed, I'm not anxious, I'm not anything other than my constant "full steam ahead no looking back". So many of us have just had a crap year in ways beyond how our brain could have ever imagined. Life has changed us all forever. For me, the things that have pushed me down have made me wake up every single day trying to do better, trying to stand taller and trying to figure out how to get back some of what has been taken ..read more