Jennifer's Cellular Regeneration Log

[Korven]

I am sorry for your loss Jennifer. I don't know if it's of much help but I remember Ray replying to a question about losing a loved one: " It activates the “helplessness” reactions in the body, stress weakening your own life, and I think it can help to get out of that if you think of your life as a continuation of theirs—the same life, though with fewer bodies. "

Sending internet hugs!

 

[Jennifer]

Thank you for the kind words and hugs, @Richiebogie and @Korven. They are very much appreciated. And thank you for the quote, Korven. I think similarly to Ray, though, I wish I felt a sense of helplessness. Maybe then I could truly grieve.

 

[Jennifer]

Update:

It’s been over 7 months since my last update so this is going to be a beast of a post and I don’t blame anyone who doesn’t want to tackle it. And I apologize in advance if it seems all over the place. I take passages from my journal and attempt to organize them into something coherent, but my mind has been all over the place so this post may reflect that.

I struggled to post this update, not because I’m ashamed of anything I share in it, but because I didn’t want to give the wrong impression of my mum, detract from her strength and resiliency or how proud I am of her, by sharing something that’s in the past, especially something that we had worked so hard to overcome and make peace with. However, I often get asked what I did to overcome illness, and I sometimes sense that people are looking for what foods and supplements got me here, but my main focus has ultimately always been on what led me to becoming ill because that’s where the answer to my healing would be found, and it was never really about food. It’s about self-love and why I so often stress the importance of it. It influences every decision we make in life, and it not only affects us but everyone around us, whether we realize it or not. So here we go…

There’s been a lot of self-reflecting and growth happening since my last update, and a lot of cleaning. Between funeral arrangements, settling my mum’s affairs, running errands, cleaning my parents house from top to bottom, clearing out and organizing a basement that housed a substantial amount of belongings that were packed up in preparation for a future move, cooking and baking for my dad and basically, readjusting to life without my mum, it’s been a lot to manage and navigate. The hardest thing was seeing my mum’s grave for the first time—it took me weeks to build up the courage to see her death carved in stone—and clearing out her art supplies. I’ve had to clear out quite a few loved ones’ belongings after they passed, and anyone who has had to do it knows how emotionally draining it is, the sadness of what was and will never be again.

It’s been difficult going anywhere without secretly springing leaks because I went everywhere with my best friend. I get hit with these flashes of memories that play like scenes from a film, and I can’t tell if it’s my mind that’s remembering or my heart that is, however, the main thing I’m still working through is the actual event of her passing. My mum died in my arms suffocating to death from a pulmonary embolism, just 3 days after returning home from the hospital. I heard the paramedics coming as she managed to yell out that she was dying. I told her to hold on, that I could hear the medics and my dad coming up the stairs, but she died just as they hit the landing. It was totally devastating and traumatizing, and knowing that it might not have happened had I been able to convince her to stay just one more night at the hospital to have the CT scan that was scheduled the following morning, has been a lot to work through, and even more so because I couldn’t get my mind to process everything that had happened. It’s like it wasn’t real.

I thought that if I could feel helpless then maybe my brain would finally get that her death was out of my control. She was sick the majority of her life and I felt a need to protect her, to care for her and advocate for her, so as irrational as it might have been, I felt I failed her. Because I’m a problem solver and at times, too optimistic for my own good, when I can’t solve something or help someone, my tendency is to blame myself and my mind ruminates with thoughts of what if—what if I had done this, hadn’t done that, said this, hadn’t said that, would things be different? I realized upon reflection that by blaming myself, I keep a sense of control, which is less painful than facing the fact that I had no say in whether or not my mum lived or died. I also realized that I had been unfair to myself. More on that to come, but I’ll just say for now that as a child, my sensitive nature and impressionable mind had distorted reality. I was my mum’s sunshine and one of her greatest joys in life.

For months after my mum passed, I was upset with myself because I wasn’t completely falling apart, as if my level of suffering was a gauge of how much I love her, but then it occurred to me that maybe, with all the work she and I were doing to overcome our handicaps, both physical and emotional, the years of hell we pushed through, I have, in fact, been growing this whole time, not because of it but despite it. Here I was measuring my successes in inches gained when perhaps, I should have been measuring them in adversities overcome. Still, I miss her and I’m not okay. I’m not okay with what happened, having lost my ride or die, and I’m not okay with my god or life right now, however, I’m continually learning that it’s okay to not be okay. For years now, I’ve questioned why I’m still here when so many others who faced similar challenges aren’t, what my purpose is, but I‘m starting to think that maybe our only real purpose is to discover and express ourselves and accept the gift—that being here for the experience of hugging, kissing, tasting, smelling, laughing, crying and even death, is a gift.

For 6 months prior to her passing, my mum was going through a rough patch. She overcame ovarian cancer, but developed painful blood clots after her hysterectomy, and having been sick the majority of her life, she thought she was being punished and for a moment after she passed, the thought started to creep in that maybe she was right and I was being punished, too, but I asked myself the same thing I asked her. “If illness is punishment, what has a baby with cancer done to warrant such an infliction?” Punishment for mistakes made is an ingrained belief in society, the act of forgiveness and redemption seem like nothing more than a foreign concept these days, self-punishment is rampant, even cleverly masked as narcissism, and the word karma, so often gets thrown around, well, I don’t know that I believe in karma. I just know that bad things happen even when we do good things and good things happen even when we do bad things, and there are far too many glass houses to be throwing stones.

The truth is, my mum struggled with suicidal depression from low self-worth. Though a kind man, she had a father who suffered from alcoholism and she grew up believing that if she were lovable, he wouldn’t drink, she was sexually abused by a relative, was a chronic self-sacrificer and dieter from a very young age, things that would ultimately contribute to her death, so it was understandable that she would feel she was being punished. And given this apple didn’t fall far from the tree, it’s understandable that, for a moment after she passed, I would think I was being punished, too. As a child, I sensed my mum’s unhappiness, even believed I was the cause of it and tried compensating by being pleasing. One afternoon, when I was a teen, she told me that she wanted to commit suicide. I was upset because not only did I love her and we had so much invested in each other, she wouldn’t get help, and with my understanding still in its infancy, my juvenile but honest response was that I would never forgive her if she chose to end her life. She said I saved her that day when really, it was her own guilt that had.

For the longest time after, I believed my mum wanting to commit suicide meant that she thought my brother, dad, and I, and the life she had with us, weren’t enough but the truth is, she believed she wasn’t enough. That’s the thing about low self-worth, it doesn’t just hurt its host, so self-love isn’t selfish. I think loving ourselves is the best thing we can do for others. If we all knew that we are inherently worthy, and that our worth isn’t even dependent on us knowing we’re worthy, we just are, I think there would be far less suffering on Earth. As far as I’m concerned, there is no above or below anyone, there are only equals. We all equally matter it’s just some haven’t reached this understanding yet. With that said, my mum’s cup runneth over for others and she was making great strides in saving some of that love for herself. Her capacity to love, and show it, was enormous, and she wasn’t afraid of the heavier emotions and being vulnerable, which makes her the bravest person I’ve ever known. I just hope that in the end, she left this world knowing how truly priceless she is.

It’s my belief that we come from a place of unconditional love, that love is who we are at our core, and many are on a quest to return to that state. We spend so much energy in an attempt to overcome not only our lack of love for ourselves, but other people’s lack of love for themselves that’s been projected onto us. It’s been challenging maintaining self-love while sexually abused, told I’m a loser, stupid, the devil, a skinny b*tch, hideous, but I never liked the feeling of my worth being at the mercy of other people’s opinions of me and for me, self-love isn’t about convenience or perfect conditions. I don’t pick and choose when to love myself, I love myself unconditionally, and because unconditional love doesn’t need to be earned, knowing that there’s one person whose love I never have to fight for has been a game changer for me. One afternoon, while sitting on my bed, I was struck with the thought of the world without me in it, and it brought me to tears. It felt as if I was mourning the loss of a loved one. In that moment, I knew my worth. It’s one thing to tell ourselves we’re worthy, but it’s a whole other thing to know it. It’s the spirit overcoming the veil of this world, and the conditioning of the mind.

For years, it was really hard overcoming my insecurities enough to heal, like really heal, beyond the cellular level—at the soul level. I could blame the past and those who hurt me, the present situation and unfair circumstances, stay victim to them, but it’s really my own thoughts and beliefs that ultimately get the best of me. Not other people, not God or the universe, but me. They weren’t the ones who made me believe I was inferior and incapable, spend all kinds of money on supplements and protocols after succumbing to illness, and all of my time and energy on “my disease,” because I neglected to honor myself. It was me. Too often I had unknowingly bought into the belief that things were impossible, by silencing my inner knowing that they aren’t, and life was proving me right because my actions weren’t reflecting this knowing. How would my body ever do the “impossible” if I didn’t make choices that reflected that I actually believed it could? What my body really needed was me standing firm in my knowing, and following through.

Since the spring, I’ve been going out with my dad and uncle on the rail trail that runs through our town and the next one over, and it has taken me right back to my hiking days, and how I felt as a person then. I had forgotten what it felt like to be that girl who climbed scary things, who got swept up and thrashed against boulders in 45+ mile an hour winds in the dead of winter, who trudged through waist deep water crossings and flooded trails, and who pushed through her paralyzing fear of heights. I was so tied up in someone else, that I saw myself as an extension of her and not totally my own person so when my mum died, in a lot of ways, it felt like I died too. It hit me how hiking had given me a chance to realize my own strength. The mountains broke me down, sure, but they provided me an opportunity to rise to the challenge of overcoming my self-doubts, my inner BS. It was reassuring to learn that strong girl had stuck it out with me until I came back around.

It has been my dream, and only that much more since my mum’s passing, to climb a mountain at least one last time so I can honor those who climbed the metaphorical mountain with me, and that when I find myself at the summit, I’m hit with the realization of all it took to get to that point and actually feel the sweet release so in the chance that my ride or dies are still connected to me like I hope they are, they can feel with me what it feels like to have accomplished our impossible. I allowed myself the time to sit with my anger, but I don’t like sitting with it for too long. I believe energy can’t be destroyed only transmuted so I needed to transform this anger into empowerment before it paralyzed me, and having experienced my world dissolving in an instant on more than one occasion, I didn’t want to keep putting off what might never have the chance to manifest so I accepted that fragile, divine feminine part of me and swam in her pool of dreams for a bit, getting clear on what it was I set out to accomplish way back, the impossible I wanted to achieve and had ultimately and unknowingly been fighting for since childhood, then dove headfirst into that other part of me, the strong, divine masculine, to make that dream a reality.

The way I see it, strength doesn’t need for conditions to be perfect. It need not wait until it has achieved a towering stature and other people’s respect to take what rightfully belongs to it so I wasn’t going to let 3” of height and some doctors’ lack of vision prevent me from taking back what is rightfully mine. I just needed to be wise about it this time around, be mindful of my body’s current limitations, and take things slowly but steadily. I loaded up my daypack, Sapphire, put on my hiking boots and some music, and began climbing the flights of stairs at my house. There are railings in case I lose my balance and I can stop whenever I need a break, without the worry that I’m going to find myself stuck on a mountain, hours away from the trailhead. I also keep a liter of milk nearby to have in case I ever feel adrenaline symptoms kicking in which, knock on wood, haven’t resurfaced since a dietary shift. I continue adding gear to my pack as I get stronger, and will hopefully graduate to my backpacking pack, Ruby. The last time I wore her she held 60 lbs, more than double my weight. It’s sad to think that I could do that once but can’t currently, however, what would be even sadder is if I never had this opportunity to try.

So my diet…

I have an updated list of foods I consume, the recipes I use and an example day of eating on my profile page, but if there’s anyone who would find it helpful for me to post the list here with links to some of the products I buy, just let me know and I will.

Since my mum’s passing, I’ve made it a point of protecting what she and I had been working so hard to overcome, the generational patterns of disorder, which means letting go of, and shielding myself from, things that would harm it. It’s not about blaming or shaming but recognizing something for what it is and detaching from it if it isn’t healthy for me so I can continue on the road to recovery, and finish what she and I started long ago. I need love, not more fear so I’ve continued working on living more from the heart and less from the mind and no longer entertaining habits of self-punishment and restriction, including disordered eating of any kind, in my case, the need to control my dietary choices. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that EDs love repeat customers but this time, I’m not buying. I tried many dietary interventions on ailing loved ones in an attempt to heal them but having watched them die anyway, I finally let go. In each instance, I knew I was giving food too much credit, giving personal power away to it, but I had the need to control what I had yet to realize was out of my control, and food was my go-to because it was the one thing I felt I could control.

At the beginning of this year, I found myself craving fat, but was hesitant to cut back on carbs for fear of triggering my old friend, hypoglycemia, and the anxiety attacks and depression that always ensued. With my mum’s passing, I felt I couldn’t afford to risk it, however, I was no longer satisfied on a high-carb, low-fat diet, and was frankly miserable, so I gave into my cravings and to my surprise and relief, it was the first time since her passing that I didn’t have this underlying fear of death. I just felt very relaxed so I kept going with it and I’m really glad I did because I’m finally thriving. Looking back, the diet I thought was healthiest for me because of the high temps, insatiable appetite and euphoria I experienced, was actually preventing me from recovering. All those seemingly positive signs were actually the result of stress hormones. I spent most of my life on a high-carb, low protein, plant-based diet and reviewing my experiences in a non-fearful light, I now see things differently than I once had.

If I’ve learned anything from all of these tragedies it’s that I’m not guaranteed tomorrow, only the present moment so I make every meal now like it’s the last one I’ll ever have. I want to consume food, not let food consume me so I only consume what I truly enjoy and for me that means plenty of carbs, protein and fat at every meal, and what some might call an alarming amount of ice cream and white chocolate because currently, they help make life bearable. I’m finally feeling satisfied with my meals, my hypoglycemia and food intolerances vanished and my mood has been really stable. I also got my libido back, something I hadn’t realized had gone missing, and I was even able to reduce my thyroid dose. My diet now is closer to the one my doctor had me on just after I fractured, but this time no bloating salads, no bio-identical estrogen causing suicidal depression and thwarting all my efforts to menstruate, no debilitating pain from my spine, and world, having just collapsed, and no carbohydrate restriction.

When you see someone die, see death in their eyes where life once resided, it hits home that it really is what’s on the inside that matters most, and that the physical body needs to be respected, perceived flaws and all, for what it allows us to do like holding a loved one when they take their last breath, overcoming what once seemed impossible and summiting mountains. I think it’s a shame to not use it to its fullest capacity. To keep silent when we have a voice. To reject connections when we have arms to embrace. To avoid that bowl of ice cream when we have tastebuds. I’ve been told I’m inspiring and though I’m grateful I could be that for someone, I’ve often wondered what it is exactly that makes me inspiring. All I’ve done is keep going, but maybe that’s all that’s required of us? We’ve all had, at least one time in our lives, a reason to stay down, but getting back up every time we fall, overcoming our own inner BS and loving ourselves enough to try, well, I can’t think of anything more inspiring than that. To everyone reading this, thank you for choosing to get back up because this world needs you. You matter.


View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B5Gvdgs_R1c

 

[Blossom]

That’s so beautiful Jennifer! Thanks for coming back to give an update. Reading this was great. I think the most important thing is that we never give up and your story is a wonderful example of that.

 

[bogbody]

Thank you for this post Jennifer. So many beautiful thoughts here, and many I relate to also having lost my parents.

 

[Jennifer]

@Blossom and @bogbody, thank you. I appreciate you guys taking the time to read all of that and for your kind words. :)

 

[-Luke-]

Wow, what a post, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing. It's great that you were able to heal by turning inwards instead of drowning yourself in pills and powders - and that you found some inner peace and self-acceptance along the way.

I'm sure your mum would be (or is, wherever she is now) very proud of you.

 

[Jennifer]

Wow, what a post, Jennifer. Thanks for sharing. It's great that you were able to heal by turning inwards instead of drowning yourself in pills and powders - and that you found some inner peace and self-acceptance along the way.

I'm sure your mum would be (or is, wherever she is now) very proud of you.

Thank you, Luke.

 

[Richiebogie]

Hi @Jennifer, that was sad about your mum dying after leaving hospital prematurely.

It was also sad when you mentioned sorting through her possessions!

I am currently helping my friend and his 4 sisters and 2 brothers empty out his late mother’s house. Settlement is next week, and there are still a few cupboards to go! It seems like Lois never threw anything away.

There are a lot of possessions of her husband, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and further back in time! Luckily there are 7 children to share the load, but it is sad that the family museum is being split up. Who can say what will last into the next generation?

I found your latest diet on your profile page. It looks like you have dropped the seafood and increased the dairy fat to 35% of calories! It is good that you are feeling more nourished with each iteration.

It was good too that you realised that feeling hungry and euphoric may not be the most recuperative state to be in!

Hopefully your cravings continue to lead you to optimal health.

 

[Jennifer]

Hi @Richiebogie,

It really is so sad. While she was in the hospital, I was hit with the knowing that she was going to die and I tried to convince her to stay, but she was having none of it. She was tired of the fight and ready to go home. It breaks my heart but I try to take some comfort in knowing that she didn’t die alone in the COVID unit at the hospital, and that she was the first person to hold me in this world and I was the last person to hold her. It must be pretty darn amazing where she is for her to not come back when the paramedics tried to resuscitate her.

Yes, sorting through my mum’s possessions was hard, especially since I did it on my own. She had a tendency of jumping the gun and packed up most of my parents’ belongings in preparation for a potentional move to Georgia when they both retired, but they decided to stay here and look for property near the coast and the boxes sat packed away in the basement. Since moving was now off the table, I had to unpack a household. lol Realistically, my dad wasn’t going to do it—he went to work, wrote music, played gigs, and my mum took care of the rest—and I wasn’t about to lose my other parent to grief—he said if it weren’t for my brother and I, he wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning—so I basically took over my mum’s role. It was exhausting. I didn't even have the chance to grieve so I’m making up for it now.

I’m very sorry for your friend’s and his siblings’ loss. Was Lois older? I helped clean out my grandmothers’ apartments and good Lord, did they collect everything. Our theory was that it was a product of having lived through the Depression. lol My maternal grandmother had Alzheimer’s and had stuffed thousands of dollars in some of the most random places around her apartment, we were even pulling up carpets. But yes, it is sad to split everything up.

Yep, it’s been about 2 1/2 years since I had seafood—I just haven’t wanted any since—and I increased my fats just after my mum passed, which was like a revelation. lol

 

[Richiebogie]

Matt and I had been looking after Lois two afternoons / evenings a week for a year taking her out walking (very slowly and with Matthew holding her up).

The doctor had predicted her cancer would overcome her in 6 weeks time about 6 weeks before she died, but we were still hopeful and took her out in her wheelchair on her last day.

She died that evening after Matt had cleaned her teeth and we were picking her up to take her to her bedroom around 9:30pm. She just went limp. Her breathing had started gurgling an hour before and Matt had thought she might need some antibiotics!! We weren’t aware of the term “death rattle” or that the lungs commonly stop draining before death!

Matt’s brother who lived with Lois and the priest came, and then a nurse and the rest of the family. We stayed until 1am.

Lois was 90 but pretty strong. Her age went against her as her first 3 weeks in hospital they put her in the “end of life ward” and didn’t perform any scans. Eventually 5 weeks after her first admission another hospital did a CT scan and found a bowel tumor that had encased part of the small intestine and was leaking into the bladder!

Matt is still missing her a year later but it was good that she died at home and not alone in some cold nursing home or hospital.

Your mum was very young in comparison. At least you had started getting your health back before she died.

Has your dad been eating more like you since you have been cooking for him? Daughters often take after their fathers, so he may be benefiting from the milk, cheese fruit and egg diet too!

With so much dairy it’s great you have a source of raw milk!

 

[Jennifer]

Aww…okay. Lois was Matt’s mother. I suspected that’s who you meant when you said your friend. 90 is impressive, but I’m sorry she didn’t receive proper care from doctors because of it. It sounds like she received great care from you and Matt, though. Matt’s a good son and you’re a good friend, Richie. :) I can imagine he still misses her. I know I’ll never stop missing my mum.

Yes, definitely! I’m so thankful I had started gaining back my health so I could take care of my dad.

My dad has incorporated more milk and eggs into his diet, but he has a processed food palate so I just make all his favorites from scratch like Hamburger Helper, Sloppy Joes, pepperoni pizza, grape jelly meatballs, cheesy hash brown casserole, egg and sausage muffins, apple turnovers etc. Yesterday was his birthday and it’s a tradition that I make a special breakfast so I made him overnight brioche French toast topped with blueberry compôte and a brown sugar and butter crumble.

For sure! The farm is only 10 minutes from my house and they also make their own butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. It’s dairy heaven. lol

 

[Richiebogie]

Hi @Jennifer,

That’s great you make healthy versions of all those fun foods for your dad!

There could be untapped demand for that!

Perhaps you could film yourself making those dishes and explain the logic behind the Peaty whole ingredients as you go!

What do you do for pizza dough? The commercial stuff today uses canola oil! Do you mix wheat flour and butter, or coconut or olive oil?

Talking of canola, we have been looking after sick pigeons and found that they would prefer the little black canola seeds. We found that when we constantly refreshed the seed and took all the unwanted seed to the birds in the park, the birds at home would go bald or get oily necks! When we stopped providing the canola blends they got better within a few days!

Now that happened with the whole, raw seeds! Can you imagine what the processed oil does?

I grew up on potato crisps, oily biscuits, and peanut butter... no wonder I’m bald today!

These birds are young so they seem to bounce back!

I may be too old to bounce back, but maybe I can sag back...?

Anyway I have found that making small improvements in daily habits can make a big difference over time! So I remain hopeful for the future!

 

[Luann]

Thanks for sharing this story. It woke up some deep feelings in me about my own mom and how she sacrifices for others to an unhealthy point. As a daughter it is hard to untangle from that. Complete with thoughts on the devil, punishment, paranoia, and ideas of womanhood. The darkness there is real and by naming it, you've convinced me that it isn't deadly and that many of us feel it.

I'm happy you could give her support when she needed it. Sending light your way

 

[Jennifer]

Hi @Richiebogie,

That’s a great idea, and I would do it if I weren’t camera shy and slightly intimidated by some of the critical comments I read online. I don’t even like having my picture taken. lol I could post some step by step photos like Rinse & rePeat posts, though.

The dough I make is just organic wheat, water, salt and yeast and I also buy a pre-made one containing the same 4 ingredients. I layer the dough with sauce, diced onion, sliced low-moisture mozzarella, natural, uncured pepperoni and then I spread salted butter on the crust, sprinkle it with garlic powder and parmesan and then bake the pizza in the oven at 400°F (204°C) for 22 minutes.

Oh, how interesting! Have you ever tried giving them mealworms? We had a rooster hanging around our yard 2 years back and in the process of trying to find his owner, I would leave out food for him. At first, we thought he was a hen so I named him Penny Lane and would call to him “Here Henny Penny!” and he would come running to me from the woods and eat out of my hands. He even tried getting in my lap. lol Anyhow, he loved the scraps from my melon, and mealworms.

LOL at sag back. I think there’s good reason to stay hopeful. Like you, I’ve noticed that simple improvements in daily habits make a big difference. My grandmother was in her 90s when my mum and I “cured” her chronic kidney disease just with diet and herbs, and then there was my mum’s pretty remarkable experience with a dairy-based diet, thyroid and Progest-E when she had uterine cancer.

 

[Jennifer]

Thanks for sharing this story. It woke up some deep feelings in me about my own mom and how she sacrifices for others to an unhealthy point. As a daughter it is hard to untangle from that. Complete with thoughts on the devil, punishment, paranoia, and ideas of womanhood. The darkness there is real and by naming it, you've convinced me that it isn't deadly and that many of us feel it.

I'm happy you could give her support when she needed it. Sending light your way

Thank you for taking the time to read it, and thank you for the light. :) It is hard to untangle from it. The three main women in my life—my mum and grandmothers—were all self-sacrificing so that made it that much more challenging, however, they were also incredibly strong, openminded women, and I like to think I got some of my defiant nature from them. hehe.

 

[Dutchie]

That’s a great idea, and I would do it if I weren’t camera shy and slightly intimidated by some of the critical comments I read online. I don’t even like having my picture taken. lol I could post some step by step photos like Rinse & rePeat posts, though.

Lol.....Korean (cooking/living) vloggers make these 'headless' videos.
That's another possibility

 

[sweetpeat]

Oooo I'd love if you would share your cheesy hash brown casserole recipe

 

[Jennifer]

Lol.....Korean (cooking/living) vloggers make these 'headless' videos.
That's another possibility

Hehe. I know I’d have at least one viewer. I’ll make some crispy veggies in the air fryer just for you. I could end it with a headless mukbang. Talk about random things that no one would be interested in and cure the insomniacs out there.

 

[Jennifer]

Here’s the recipe, @sweetpeat:

Copy Cat Cracker Barrel Hashbrown Casserole Recipe

This is my favorite casserole ever! Cracker Barrel Hashbrown Casserole needs just 5 minutes of prep and is absolutely cheesy, delicious and completely irresistible! This is a perfect breakfast casserole for when you're getting a group together for a delicious breakfast or brunch.

www.spendwithpennies.com

My mum used to buy in bulk and had a lot of condensed soup and frozen shredded potatoes so this recipe was to use them up, and my dad ended up really liking it. It’s also good with the addition of sausage. In case you’re interested, this is the cream of chicken soup I use:

https://www.vitacost.com/pacific-foods-organic-soup-cream-of-chicken?ta=cream+of+chicken&t=cream+of+chicken