06/30/2022
Long time no post! I have neglected the online portions of my business the last couple of years- if I'm being honest, I neglected the rest of it too! I have mainly been doing the occasional custom order that has come my way now and then and have not focused on stocking up on inventory, doing events, or promoting myself online or in groups via posts or SEO. I'm hoping to change all of that in the coming months, but I'm making some other very exciting changes too, which I hope to begin to show you over the next few days!
One of the changes I wish to make is to be more personal and open with those who follow my business- those of you who have supported me and my endeavors over the years. I hope to post more often, both what I am up to for the business as well as allowing you all to get to know me more as a person. I follow many businesses myself and have realized I enjoy hearing about them and their families and that perhaps it is time I opened up as well. Some of you already know the things I'm going to say here because many of you are personal friends and family. But to others, this is news.
This time last year was very hard for my family. Our health was suffering immensely and we found out that mold was growing in our HVAC plenum box due to an unknown leak (it was leaking out the back in the corner of our utility closet so it was very hard to see if you did not know it was there). Every time the AC or heat was on (We live in TX, so it was much worse in the summer with the AC running so much), mold spores would be pumped through all of the registers in our house, settling on all of our belongings and floating in the air for us to breathe. I am very allergic to mold and was the one who had the worst symptoms, though making dietary changes was helpful in managing things, even before we knew what was causing the symptoms. My husband and I were both run down, out of energy, constantly fatigued but sometimes unable to sleep until far too late to get a good night's sleep. Our middle son would cough and cough every night when he went to bed, as well as sometimes in the day but it was much less when we were away from the house. The whole family got sick more often than normal. I had constant flareups of my autoimmune arthritis, became allergic to the medication I was taking *for* the autoimmune arthritis and then found out that garlic and onion are both cross reactive to that medication (I was having tight throat and lung feelings when I ate garlic- which was multiple times a day!). Over a year ago, I had to cut out all garlic and onion, and was already eating a WFPBNO (Whole food plant based no oil) diet and avoiding high histamine foods. This meant I was spending inordinate amounts of time preparing all of my meals from scratch. I could not even eat leftovers because leftovers gain histamine and I had had 2 severe allergic reactions due to eating leftover items (I could eat it the first day but the second day would immediately react). Some nights I would sleep with my epi pen next to my bed and fall asleep wondering if I would wake up the next morning. I'm a homebody and stay home most of the time- I stay at home with my kids and generally only have plans once or twice a month other than church if any at all, but I found that if I did not get out of the house once or twice a week, I would begin to have a harder time breathing. I had to vacuum very frequently with our bagged vacuum with HEPA filter. We ran an air filter 24/7 and changed and clean filters often. Some nights I would sit near an open window just to breathe better for a while. I also noticed some neurological symptoms. My memory became very bad. I would forget words- sometimes very simple words- frequently, even several times a day. It took a while, but we eventually got in with a fantastic mold inspector. He did a full inspection of our house and pinned down other problem areas, checked every room thoroughly, and put together a protocol for a remediation company to follow. We chose a company after getting quotes, finally set up remediation work, went through months and months of dealing with insurance before, during and after the work was done.
The end of November 2021, our family of 5 rented a trailer style RV from a small family owned RV rental company and had them deliver it and hook it up in our driveway. We rented a storage container and had it placed in our driveway next to the RV. Then, we began the very hard work of determining what in our home could potentially be cleaned of mold and what had to be thrown out. The items we might be able to clean got packed up and placed into the storage container. Among those items was the thousands of legos our sons have amassed over the years (which can be taken apart and cleaned in the dishwasher), clothing, some other non porous toys, books (We are hoping to save them, but do not know yet), and a handful of higher quality furniture we wish to try to save (but nothing upholstered, with the exception of our mattresses, which the mold inspector stated were likely fine to keep if vacuumed very well because they were almost always covered with sheets and blankets and not likely to be overly contaminated (This may not have been the case if the type of mold we had was one that produces mycotoxins. Some people with certain types of mold are actually forced to throw out or leave behind ALL possessions and are not even able to keep their car or remediate their homes. Our type of mold- Cladosporium- does not put off mycotoxins. Instead, it is known for causing new and worsening allergies. So while we did suffer with acute symptoms, especially allergy related ones- we are thankful it was not worse, as it could have been). Of the things we threw away were all pillows, cheaper/older/porous furniture (including our couch, recliner, computer chair, bookshelves, dressers, etc), and anything else that may be difficult to clean properly. Unfortunately, one of the items that absolutely cannot be cleaned properly is yarn and crocheted finished products. I have been crocheting for around 20 years, and it was very emotional and upsetting for me to bag up every single one of my hundreds of skeins of yarn, as well as countless hours of work in the form of stuffed elephants, unicorns, and baby booties. Every single finished project I had in my business inventory and every single bit of fiberfill and skein of yarn was a total loss- destined for the landfill.
We lived in the RV for 5 weeks while parts of our house were demo-ed, remediated, and tested. One bathroom was completely gutted and 2 bedrooms, the hallway, and the living room had to have chunks of wall removed and all carpets pulled out. The kitchen had one whole wall of cabinets and counter tops taken out, including the sink and dishwasher (which we still have but are not connected). One room that didn't have work in it had high numbers when tested, so we had to revisit it- turns out there was water and insect damage in the walls- the wall that was right next to our middle son's head when he slept- the source of his coughing (which had stopped almost as soon as we moved into the RV!). We then moved into a hotel for a week, staying there at night while going home (and my husband to work and my sons to school) during the day. Because our utility closet was the main source of mold, the entire thing had to be gutted, the HVAC replaced, the hot water heater replaced, even new walls and decking. Getting a quote or companies to work on it was almost impossible. Apparently, construction work was backlogged at the time with crews being booked out weeks in advance. My husband ended up doing the rebuild work himself. We got the new HVAC put in, but had to wait for it to be functional until February because my husband and a friend from church were doing all new ducting themselves and it took time around work (We wanted rigid ducting but all of the HVAC companies we spoke with would only use the flex ducting which gets lots of dust caught in the accordian-like folds). We lived in the house from the beginning of January to the middle of February with no hot water or heat. Bath days meant a full day of boiling water in every pot we had. We chose to do those on the coldest days because heating water up increased the humidity in the air and the home felt a lot warmer. The rest of the time, we wore coats and layers whenever possible and used a space heater in the room we all slept in together. I was grateful we live in TX and not farther north where we would be unable to stay in our home in the winter due to much lower temps. These several months- throwing out belongings, living in the RV, hotel, and a home without what our society considers fairly basic appliances- was definitely one of the hardest and most stressful times in my life. That being said, out of that we were so blessed to see the support systems around us hold us up and genuinely care for us. My husband's DND friends spent part of their work vacations between Christmas and New Years helping do physical tasks around our house- cutting drywall, ripping up carpet tacks, helping with the ducting in the attic and so on. Our church family constantly inquired how we were doing, and prayed for us, and several in the church stepped up to bless us in other ways, such as helping us pack. One amazing friend literally dropped everything at a moments notice, packed almost our entire kitchen for us the night before remediation, and came back early the next morning to continue helping. Without her, I don't know if we would have ever been done.
Since then, we have gradually begun to rebuild our lives. Our home is still VERY much a work in progress. Half of our home still has concrete for floors, though we do have a rug in the living room to make things a bit cozier! There simply isn't enough room in the finances to hire out the work that needs to be done so we are doing everything we can ourselves- but that takes a lot of time, especially when my husband works out of the home full time and is still trying to recover his health. An evening here, a weekend there is what we have to work with. The storage container still sits in our driveway as we gradually pull out a few things at a time to properly clean using the 4 step small particle cleaning process required. Once the flooring we have purchased is in, we can move things into the home faster as we will have a room to store things in. I have become accustomed to washing the dishes by hand multiple times a day as we do not have a place to hook up our dishwasher yet. Some shelving units gifted to us on a local buy nothing group serve to help organize the kitchen where we are missing so much functional space we used to have. My memory has been returning gradually and my health has made significant strides overall (though I'm still hoping I will heal from the garlic and onion allergies!). We have learned to live with what we have right now and our children have shown themselves to be very flexible, understanding, and resilient.
And, while I have not had the heart to buy lots of yarn and begin replacing the finished items and supplies I had to throw out, I have begun to take custom orders again. Though, so far, I have been moving into another direction- decor instead of baby items. If you have ideas for custom orders, I am more than happy to take them on at this time, including baby and children items- I may just need a bit more time to gather supplies than I used to.
I hope to have further updates and let you all in on some of my plans soon! And if you're one of the few who have read this ENTIRE thing, you deserve a cookie!
Attached is a picture of our boys posing on the steps of the RV- when it was new and before we all got sick of living in such a tiny space!
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If you are suffering from random symptoms and cannot find the cause, I highly recommend looking into mold sickness/symptoms and getting a mold inspection by someone who truly knows what they are doing. I have facebook group recommendations where you can learn about mold and recovering from/remediating from it. If you live in the Austin area and need help finding mold related business resources, such as an inspector or integrative physicians who can help, or if you need resource recommendations for books so you can do research on mold and maybe even tackle it yourself, please feel free to drop me a message. I am here for you. Mold is serious and not something to be brushed off. It must be CUT OUT- cleaning is not sufficient. Please take care of yourselves
