Tag Archives: book

Book Review | Allergic Girl: Adventures In Living Well With Food Allergies

Posted on by Standard 2

So, I had ordered the Allergic Girl book a while ago, and did finally finish reading it, but a lot has been going on in life lately so I didn’t have any time to sit down & give it the thoughtful review that I felt it deserved. Now, I have the time to do that.

Allergic Girl: Adventures In Living Well With Food Allergies

Allergic Girl: Adventures In Living Well With Food Allergies

The author Sloane Miller has a popular blog, and is so very easily contacted via Twitter… which as I’ve remarked before, is easily now my go-to resource for any food allergy related news or information.  Twitter is how I discovered Sloane, her food allergy advocacy empire, and this wonderful book.  I’ll warn you now, this may read more like an advertisement than a review… but this is the first book of its kind that I’ve ever picked up… if there are even any more like this out there, and it really spoke to me.

The first thing that hit me about the book is that it’s an excellent balance of “hey, you’re not alone” and “we’ll work through this”.  It’s a comfort & a guide all at once.  Of course, the writing style pulled me in right away.  In the prologue, you’re dropped into a situation that could easily be a sitcom plot (or your weekend), but the seriousness is not lost in the humor… it’s underscored by it.

The book then moves into accounts of discovering and dealing with food allergies, one passage in particular that I’m going to highlight before I give it to friends & family to read… it describes the anxiety that builds after just an inkling in your mind that a certain food is unsafe (or could be unsafe) for whatever reason.  I felt like Sloane had read my mind & put down my thoughts.  From the order of thoughts jumping to other thoughts, to the hidden (or hopefully hidden) panic, down to the actions in dealing with such a situation… it’s uncanny.  It’s a hard thing to convey to people, even if they are supportive & understanding.

The book covers dating, which can be harrowing… but luckily I have my incredibly supportive wife, and I don’t have to worry about that any more.  This is a great guide to anyone in a dating situation, or for younger people with food allergies about to get into dating… or any social situation.

Allergic Girl is thankfully chock-full of resources for everything from websites to support groups to products to help you deal with your food allergies.  There are also bullet-points at the end of each chapter, not unlike a textbook… they can work as a personal checklist for you.

This book will help you get organized… build support, learn to pick your food allergy battles, and maybe even to expand your comfort zones.  This is what I personally need to work on.  Dining out can be a paralyzing fear for me, and I need to learn to find people and restaurants that will work with me to feed me & keep me safe.  Whether it’s starting the dialog the right way, using chef cards, or making calls ahead… they are all viable options of acquiring a safe meal.

If you have food allergies, have a friend, relative, or other loved-one with food allergies and want to understand their situation a little more… you need this book.  No joke.

Camp Song Books

Posted on by Standard 3

I’ve had a task in mind and in progress for a few years now, I need to make new camp song books.  It’s for a church camp where I participate several weekends out of the year as well as a full week during the summer.

I’d like the books to be usable by other groups if they want ’em, and have even thought about scrapping the book idea entirely and just using something to feed the projector that the camp has… but then you deal with the whole song being too much for a screen, and someone’s got to “flip pages”… could turn into a mess.  I’ve also thought about putting them all on an easel… but I’ve amassed a collection of ridiculous proportions.  Also, neither of these are practical at night around a campfire which is my favorite camp song setting.

There’s also the “what to include” trap.  We have a book with a lot of songs that are (to me) traditional, I’d like to add some newer ones, and have even entertained the idea of writing some of my own.  Some of the songs that I like, or that people want to sing, I really don’t have good chord progressions to back them up… and I need to get those.  Some songs, I have 3 or 4 different chord progressions and they all sound off or terrible.  I try to dumb it all down and change the key so I’m playing G, C, D, Am, & Em mostly.  Some songs have the dreaded Bm.  B, Bm, & Bm7, how I hate you.  I’m not a great guitar player by any means, but if you can strum through some chord changes… you should be able to play anything in the book.  Yeah, the songs can be corny or goofy, but I feel that it’s an important group fellowship dynamic to have that sing-along time.  It’s also a memorable part of the whole camp experience.

There’s also the alternate lyrics/verses issue.  People really take liberties with hymns, and it’s always been that way.  With some songs, I have a plethora of verses.  Some songs have alternate melodies or arrangements.  Some songs have lines changed or have been lanced with inclusive language.  (On a side issue, I know I’m UCC and on the whole it’s an incredibly liberal organization as far as Christian Churches go… but I don’t understand who’s so offended by gender-specific pronouns and why they need to change old hymns – Just write new ones and don’t mess with the words people have been singing for decades, or don’t sing the songs that you don’t like.)

I guess I generally like things to be more fluid than final, and I never have a “perfect” book idea in mind… but I need to get one done.  Here are some ideas that I’ve had…

  • A song book with a lo-fi companion CD of how exactly the songs go would be pretty cool.  (Maybe even two tracks each, one w/ vocals, one w/o so you can campfire karaoke.)
  • Mini 3-ring binders?  Would make adding songs awesome… but could get costly, and perhaps it’d make it too easy for pages to fall out?
  • Chord progressions, not just lyrics in the song books.  Lots of campers and counselors can play… so having all of the song books be the “master” would be good.
  • No page numbers.  Just look for the title of the song.  (We’re plagued by 2 or 3 different “editions” of the same song book with songs being on different pages and what-not.)  Then again, a song book without an index would be ridiculous…  maybe.

I’d appreciate the thoughts of any other camp song people, songwriters, guitar players, or any other musicians out there… or anyone who’s interested in becoming one.

 

Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Giveaway!

Posted on by Standard Reply

Yeah, I’m entering a contest via this blog post.  You ought to enter the contest too.  What is it?  It’s a giveaway from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader.  I’ve blogged about them before, so I’m sure you’ve picked up one of the plethora of books available from the BRI already.  If you haven’t, you now have no excuse, you can enter the contest and get one for free!

In all seriousness, this is my book of choice… before bed, to relax, while waiting for something, and of course on the throne.  I love how they’re broken down into short segments of information… sometimes in story form, sometimes like a nice little history lesson, always with a touch of humor.

May times I have leared about something in a Bathroom Reader, then gone right to Google & Wikipedia or the bookstore to learn more.  I highly recommend these books!

Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader