Curl Up In the Closet?

Great news: Our closet is ALMOST complete...with only a few hooks needed it already houses some mucky boots and dirty shoes...

Dad thought I was over-the-top strange when I showed up at his work last week and kindly begged him to plane saw an old door into sections (and he cursed up a storm as he and some strong whipper snapper pulled the heavy sucker past dangerously whizzing blade, keeping door lock bits together and glass knobs unbroken).   But when he eyed it up today he gave a slightly positive grunt which, in his loving and Dad-like manner, means he approves.

It's not professional but it's different.  And even more exciting: it's almost complete!

This should make me overjoyed.  But then I went to the bank to deposit our saved-up babysitting money only to discover that we have burned through our little "cushion" and are back into overdraft...

Geesh.

A friend just called at exactly the right moment.  In the middle of my Pity Party.  (The part that happens just before the stress and anxiety show up, bottles of wine and gluten-laden fattening cakes and chips and cookies filled with unpronounceable polysaturates in their various hands.)  She reminded me in her gentle way that I have to stop being so darn me-centred and let the Lord work on me and through me.  When I try to plan everything out ever-so-neatly and ever-so-independently it rarely happens the way I was hoping or dreaming or wishing.  And even when the road is rough and bumpy and I desire only to crawl into the ditch and hide...He always surprises me with something even more wonderful and beautiful and touching than I could have imagined!

So I can curl up in the almost-completed closet with something physically satiating (atleast for the moment) or I can simply get back to the One who loves me; the One whose "got my back" and the One who just wants me to surrender...

How To Avoid Cleaning a Toilet

After endless suffering with me through this gluten-free adventure I figured it best to avoid the topic for a day! 

Looking about me there are, as always, illimitable amounts of things to do.  I can avoid cleaning the toilet and sweeping the floors with so many other need-to-be-done tasks! 

First off: the closet near the door that I ripped out last year that, after a bout of painting and building shelves, has remained untouched for too long.

 

Measuring tape and pencil in one hand, quickly-drawn plans in the other, I head to the garage to start....Barnboard has been moved outside to make room for what is supposed to be in the garage (vehicles) and sits in an imposing, ice- and snow-covered heap beside the frozen peony bushes.  Move three boards inside; stage a "drying area" constructed of an old signboard and the heater from our bedroom.  Head back to house to re-evaluate and wait for snow to disappear.

 

After a pleasant mug of chamomile and some appointment-making phone calls I head back to check on the icy future shelves...they are barely less frigid than when I left them though I decide that I may as well attempt sawing them now anyways.  It turns out that without two sawhorses and three hands I am unable to make this safety-ed skillsaw start.

 

Alas, check the closet off of things to do TODAY....

 

The calamity of the bread making begins...with Jeanne Sauvage's "Soft Sandwich Bread, Gluten-Free" recipe staring at me from the cluttered countertop I start the process of baking THE best tasting gluten-free bread ever known to humankind.

 

I don't have sweet rice flour.  Check internet.  Almond flour should work.  The yeast doesn't seem to be proofing (apparently the outer shell of the yeast needs to be shed in order to allow this process and mixing with warm milk or water and sugar, and letting it get foamy for about 15 minutes, will do the trick)...and without cluckers in our backyard spewing out fresh nuggets the eggs aren't room temperature...wait...wait...wait some more...

 

 

 

Without a proper loaf pan, and having been unable to "roll" the loaf into any short of rounded shape due to the strange consistency of gluten-free flour (which is STICKY in the oddest, guckiest way!), I can only hope that this miraculously "perfect" loaf of divine-ness turns out just the way I picture it in my head...

So what now?  What other things can I do to avoid scrubbing that white porcelain bowl? Too chilly for gardening...

Oh!  I know!  Let's write a blogpost...

When our kids suffer from streptococcus, staphylococcus, E. coli and shigella bacteria, hepatitis A virus, or the common cold virus, you'll know it's because I chose writing a blog entry over shining up the ole crapper...shame on me...but you can tut-tut all you want as I devour some warm bread and disappear into dreams of closet plans...

A Little Difficult

I won't lie: today was a little difficult in terms of food.

It was Samplefest at work...all these hot and oozingly ready bits to be devoured - none of which I could, with any gluten-free conscience, taste. 

It wasn't because I was hungry: my huge spinach salad with eggs and other juicy bits was more than satisfying, as were the carrot sticks I munched on throughout the afternoon.  It wasn't even that I really wanted any of them.

You know what it was?  It was the fact that I just couldn't have them...that was what was killing me.  The Gluten Fairy put down her foot and I was rebelliously sulking.

Oh poor, pity party me....

Put Away The Beating Stick

Self-talk: Remember...you are not perfect.  The things you do are not perfect.  (Just ask your family family.)  You will not get everything you do right...let alone on the first try.  Put away the beating stick.  Walk away from the flagellation board.

You are not less of a person because your gluten-free chocolate chip banana bread that was supposed to take an hour at 350 was as hard as coprolites after 45 minutes and is now waiting some sort of resuscitation, if it is at all possible.  (Mom used to add an apple, cut in half, into a container with overdone muffins, leave it overnight, and it would soften them.  When that doesn't work bread pudding can always be added to the menu.  And when that resorts in nothing successful the garden is always in need of more compost or the local ravens of some snacks.)

You are not less of a person.  Honestly. 

So the gluten-free granola you made, which tasted heavenly until you discovered that spelt is NOT gluten-free, had to be given away.  So you ate a bite of a kit kat (okay, the whole darn thing) before looking at the label...uh duh... what else would those wafers be made of? So you bought two bags of gluten-free wraps that taste slightly more edible than plastic corn (you can always try to bake them into "chips")....

Ahhhhh.  God loves you even if you've found some "glitches" in this whole gluten-free adventure (and many more glitches in yourself).  So put away the beating stick...although, on second thought: it might make a darn good bat for those banana bread baseballs...

First Ditch the Caffeine and Now Gluten

It's been almost three weeks since last I had a coffee, and a couple of weeks since I had a decaf so hopefully the liquid gold no longer flows through my veins.

So quit the coffee and what's next?  Gluten of course.  (Said with full sarcasm...of course...like it's the progression of quitting...the easy next phase...HA!)

After three months of Rebekah's belly pain (yes, I am going for Mother of the Year Award...finally getting to some medical action - I won't even begin to tell the tale of the leaking stool sample....) we decided that for her sake we needed to quit wheat and see if that was the issue.  And how fun would it be to be solely a six year old's quest?  Nah.  We are a family.  And in it together.  So quit as a family we have.

I told myself, "this CAN'T be this hard"....Ha ha.  Mistake number one.  (Although sometimes the under-expectation makes things better in the end this is definitely not one of those times.)  We can simply replace pasta and bread and all that jazz with gluten-free products.  Here's the glitch (or glitches)...
1) Gluten-free products are EXPENSIVE,
2) Gluten-free products are GROSS, and
3) Gluten-free products actually have something even more dangerous than gluten in them: starches.  (Read William Davis' "Wheat Belly" and be terrified for life...the starches can, like gluten, and like narcotics, pass the blood brain barrier and attach themselves to our brain cells...creating a "high" that forces us to seek out more and more food (wheat-y "food"s and anything else sugary, etc that gets in our unhealthy pathway) .  This is, of course, the simplified version explaining that basically wheat messes us up (in oh so many ways).

So this has been an interesting journey (and we are only a week into it). 

Today I actually feel "wide awake" as though I am here and with it in this world...that may sound a bit odd but life covered in fog had become so "normal" that I didn't consider it anything but.  According to some others going through this wheat withdrawal (which is NOT a fun process for some of us, let me assure you), this sudden clarity is not unusual.

After the first couple of days of "loser me, feeling like a complete mean nag with a headache and overall icky-ness that made me want to shout at customers AND my boss and simply curl up in my bed with a heating pad" I began reading Davis' books and suddenly understood that I was not alone in my wheat withdrawal symptoms...

We are ADDICTED to this stuff (which is not the same wheat from days gone by)...and some of us suffer just that little bit much more when it's negated from our diet.

I'm sure I could go on forever however I will stop here: I have gluten-free banana bread to retrieve from the oven (and let's hope it's better than the batch of cookies I made on the first day of our journey that tasted like what I imagine crusty cardboard would be to the pallet)...

Happy Gluten-Free Night to You All!