General Update: Bean

Time for some general update posting! I'm going to start with Bean.  Bean is now 9 months old and is dashingly handsome!

Reality check: He usually isn't dressed quite that stunningly - we'd just gotten home from church when I snapped that photo.  Typically he looks more like this: 

or this: 

Last time I checked his mouth he had four teeth.  His central incisors on the bottom are through and his lateral incisors on the top are through.  He absolutely hates people sticking their fingers in his mouth so it is really hard to get a good look at how many teeth he has. 

He is having a lot of fun playing with solid foods.  We are loosely following Baby-led weaning, which for us means that whatever we are eating he gets a little bit to eat, with a few exceptions.  He does not get any grains, nuts, or dairy yet.  Other than that, it's pretty much all good.  He goes through phases where he has a particularly favored food.  Right now it is peas and carrots, often meat is right up at the top of his list as well.  If mama has it, he wants it.  If daddy has it, he absolutely must have it!

Bean is becoming increasingly more mobile.  He can crawl with lightning speed and is pulling himself to stand and walking along furniture and such.  He also loves to climb.  If it can be climbed, he will climb it.  We picked a climber up for him at a yard sale yesterday and he loves it.  I don't have any pictures of him on it yet though. 

He has also discovered the piano.  If the door between our apartment and the big house is open, he will frequently make a beeline for the piano.  He can pull himself up to reach the keys on his own, but particularly likes it if someone holds him on their lap so that he can reach more of the keys.  In a pinch his highchair also works as a piano chair.  The hardest part is keeping the music out of his reach because he is very much at the stage that everything and anything goes in his mouth!

Bean is not great at taking naps yet, but is getting much better at sleeping during the night (not that he was ever bad at sleeping at night). He will usually nap on my back in a carrier during the morning and we often lay down together in the afternoon for "milk and snuggles" or if that's not an option, he goes on my back in a carrier again (or on my front, depending on what is going on).  On very rare occasions I get him to lay down in his bed for a nap and then I take picture as proof that it actually happened:

We are still waiting to get a definitive "pass" on his hearing test.  We had one in September and it didn't go so well - it was neither a pass nor a fail.  We have another one coming up this  month, so hopefully we will get a definitive answer.  He does appear to hear things okay, so we aren't too worried. In the meantime I occasionally use some sign with him, but that would happen whether he could hear or not. 

All in all, he's a pretty great kid and I think we'll keep him around :)

A day in the life...

With the Big House (Littlest Brother, Middle Brother, Oldest Brother, Mom and Papa) gone out West for a huge Scout event (CJ '13, if anyone's interested), David and I are running the farm and overseeing the entire herd.  It means the structure of our day has changed remarkably and pretty much revolves around feeding some creature or another.  Here's a sample:
7:00am - wake up, weigh alpaca babies, feed mosquitoes, feed alpacas, feed mosquitoes, feed the baby alpaca whose mama isn't making enough milk, let alpacas out to pasture if it's not currently pouring rain.
8:30am - retreat from the mosquito invasion, feed the dog, feed the fish, feed Husbandy, feed Wifey, field phone calls and pass messages along.  Check in with the Big House and update them on any major happenings.
9:00/9:30am - Wifey takes her morning nap.  Husbandy either goes to the other farm to help out with chores or does whatever it is Husbandy does.
11:30am/noon - Feed Wifey.  Feed Husbandy if he wants.  Feed baby alpaca whose mama doesn't have enough milk for her.
1:30pm - Miscellaneous household chores, ranging from fencing and pasture maintenance to grocery shopping and school work and everything in between.
4:00pm - Feed Wifey, bring alpacas in from pasture, sort them back into their correct paddocks, feed the alpacas, feed the mosquitoes, feed the baby alpaca who needs a bottle
5:00-7:00pm (timing is flexible) - make and consume dinner of some sort. (ie: Feed Husbandy, and feed Wifey)
8:00pm - feed the baby alpaca, feed the mosquitoes
9:00pm - fall into bed and repeat the next day

Now if we actually had a day that followed that schedule without added adventures, it would be wonderful!  Really, the only thing that stays constant is that I'm feeding something or other all the time!

Passover

Yesterday, like every other years since 1991 Mom's eighth grade Sunday school class was at our house to celebrate a seder dinner.  Here are some pictures:

The tables are set and ready to go

Matzah Tasch (three pocketed ceremonial Matzo bag)

Seder plate with ceremonial items (from top clockwise: roasted egg, lamb shank bone, charoset, horseradish, parsley. Center: bitter herbs)

David being a goofball while eating the roasted egg

lots of good food and fellowship around the table

Photo Friday - Valentine's day

I'm going to try and become more conscientious about blogging regularly.  One of the ways I want to do that is by having photo-Fridays...the day of he week where I post photos from the last week or some other recent event.  If I can come up with cool things to call other days of the week, I might try them out too.  Suggestions are welcome ;)
So this week, I'm going to post about Valentines Day because I have an amazing husband.  He told me ahead of time that he was going to make me dinner and that Mom was going to help him because I doubted his cooking skills.  I shouldn't have because he made me an amazing dinner.  He also told me we were going to have guests for dinner which made me a little unhappy until I figured out who the "guests" were.

Sweet Potato Heads!  Potatoes have played a major part in our relationship and we have 4 Mr./Mrs. Potato head figurines in our apartment, so this was very fitting.  The potatoes are baked and the vegetables are fresh. There were extra "parts" in a bowl for dipping.

He also made me bacon covered cranberry meatloaf.  Honestly, bacon makes everything better, and it was heart shaped.  I love my husband!

I made him heart shaped donuts with pretties on top.  The donuts were chocolate which is his favorite!

I even wrote his name on one of them!

All in all, it was a wonderful Valentines day and I have the bestest husband in the world (sorry mommy)

Oliebollen (gluten free, egg free, dairy free)

Oliebollen are a Dutch New Year's Eve tradition, but for years I've done without because a gluten free, egg free, dairy free version simply didn't exist. I minded but didn't think I could do anything about it.  Finding ways to make traditional recipes Joy-friendly was a challenge, especially when the traditional recipes were written in a language other than my own.  But this year, as my brother and cousins and husband went to Grandpa's house for oliebollen, and Littlest Brother and I stayed home (He can't have wheat either), I decided I would give the recipe search one more try.
I've discovered that by searching for vegan recipes I can find recipes that are egg and dairy free, even though I am by no means a vegan! (bacon wrapped dates are on the menu for later tonight) So I searched for a vegan Oliebollen recipe, and found one.  A few tweaks, and it was also gluten free.  An hour later, I was enjoying fresh Oliebollen, complete with corn-free icing sugar.

and the recipe...
Ingredients:
1.5 cup all-purpose gluten free flour
3/4 tsp xanthan gum (omit if your flour blend already contains it)
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBSP sugar
4 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup raisins
1.5 cup warm (120-130*F) water (Hint: warmer than a baby's bottle, but not as hot as a hot shower)
1/2 tsp lemon juice
oil for frying
powdered sugar

How it works:
1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Add the warm water and lemon juice and mix until well blended
3. Cover with a tea-towel and set in a warm place to rise for 45 minutes.
4. Heat the oil for frying.  You want it really hot.  We used our little deep fryer, though you could also use a pan with an ample amount of oil in it.
5. Spoon the batter in small amounts into the hot oil.  When one side is cooked (browned), turn the Oliebollen over to cook the other side.
6. Set on paper towels to drain.
7. Enjoy with powdered sugar

Christmas Fun

In our family (meaning, in this case, my parents and siblings) we have a Christmas tradition in which each sibling comes up with a "to share" gift.  This gift is always edible and is cleared with mom beforehand to make sure we get food from all the food groups.  Then, as we open gifts on Christmas day, every so often we will open a "to share" gift and share it around. By the end of gift opening we are all quite full.
This year David and I decided we were doing veggies and dip.  But we didn't want to just do a veggie tray...so we did a veggie tree!

My favorite were the little yellow stars.  We made them using a Linzer tart cutter.  David cut out the big star for the top. 

Pictures

For those of you who have been worried about whether I am still alive or not...

This is my handsome man.

This is me all dolled up for an afternoon/evening out with my handsome man

These are bacon wrapped maple glazed dates.  In other words, pure deliciousness.

This is a bowl of delicious Joy-friendly pasta in a restaurant.  There was also Joy-friendly salad and Joy-friendly bread. 

Allergy Friendly Lasagna

My determination to make tomato-less tomato sauce the other day was fueled mostly by the fact that I had been invited to a lasagna lunch after church on Sunday (which I ended up not going to). There was no way I was going to just eat salad while everyone else ate lasagna. It was just not going to happen. And to make lasagna, I needed to make tomato-less tomato sauce first. Then I could make allergy friendly lasagna free from gluten, wheat, dairy, egg, tomato, and any other nasty stuff.  There is soy in this recipe, so if you can't do soy, I'm sorry.  I can't keep everyone happy.

Now for the Joy-Friendly lasagna "recipe"*:

In one container mix: browned ground beef, tomato-less tomato sauce, spices (I use basil, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, and thyme), and sauteed peppers and onions.

In another container mix: 1 package (12oz) firm tofu, a variety of daiya cheese

Have ready: oven ready rice lasagna noodles, extra tomato-less tomato sauce, spinach, extra diaya cheese, vegan parmesan topping, a 9x13 pan

Get started:
Spread a layer of mixture 1 (meat mixture) in the bottom of the pan.
Put a single layer of lasagna noodles over it.
Add a layer of spinach
Top with a layer of mixture 2 (likely all of it, unless you have a really deep pan)
Add a layer of noodles spread rest of the meat mixture over the noodles add sauce to cover any exposed noodles
Sprinkle with diaya cheese top with vegan parmesan topping stick in the oven and cook according to the directions on the noodle package.

Enjoy your lasagna.

It tastes even awesomer than it looks.  I'm not the best food photographer.

*I'm not sure I can actually call this a recipe because I don't actually measure anything.  I just guess and go with what looks good. 

Tomato-less Tomato Sauce

At some point last year, probably in an attempt to find something to do with all the beets we had from our CSA, my amazing roommate LDK found a recipe for a soup that we dubbed "red hooker lipstick soup". It tasted a lot like tomato soup, despite the fact that it was tomato-less. Shortly thereafter a recipe for marina sauce was found, which led to adventures with chicken parmesan, again, with no tomatoes. After these discoveries, my head went wild with possibilities. If I could use these same principles, I could recreate all my favorite tomato type dishes. Without the tomato. And I could make them for my little brother who is also tomato free. So many possibilities! Since then I have successfully made chili (okay, mom helped me with the chili...I have bad experiences with cooking dried beans...it's a long story) and my little brother has successfully made, canned and dried "tomato" sauce. This particular day it was my turn to make "tomato" sauce. 

I don't do things in small quantities. I purposely made a whole bunch so I can freeze some and have it when I need "tomato" and don't have time or energy to make any. So I started with about 60 oz (2 cans) of pureed pumpkin, 30 oz (2 cans) of whole cooked beets, 2 cups of chicken stock, 3/4 cup of lemon juice, 4 TBSP of balsamic vinegar and 4 tsp of salt. I was a little heavy on the salt. Next time I think I might cut back on the salt a bit, but in the end it was all okay. 

I pureed all of that together with my immersion blender. It was a delightful purply mess. At that point it was basically the equivalent of tomato-less tomato paste. Since I don't use tomato-less tomato paste very often I decided to go ahead and process it all the way to tomato-less tomato sauce, a product I use much more frequently. To this purple puree I added about 2 cups of lightly sauteed onion along with about 3 cloves of lightly sauteed garlic, 1 1/2 a tsp of oregano, 2 bay leaves, 1 tsp of pepper, 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, and 1 tsp of sugar. I then added about 4 cups of water and mixed it all together. The amount of water isn't important. It just had to be enough to make it liquid enough to let it cook so everything could cook together. Otherwise adding things like the oregano, bay leaves and red pepper flakes would be useless. I let it simmer on the stove top all afternoon, stirring frequently. As it cooked it went from purple to red, until by the end, when it was the right consistency for tomato sauce (all the extra water had boiled out), it looked just like tomato sauce. 

Here's a picture of my tomato-less tomato sauce all ready for use in yummy recipes.

In summary: puree together: 60 oz of pumpkin puree 30 oz of canned (or fresh cooked) beets 3/4 cup of lemon juice 4 TBSP of balsamic vinegar 2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock 4tsp of salt

Sautee: 2 cups chopped onion 3 cloves minced garlic

Add together: the puree and sauteed vegetables 1 1/2 tsp oregano 1tsp peper 1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes 2 bay leaves 1 tsp sugar about 4 cups of water

Bring to a simmer and let simmer for many hours, stirring on occasion to prevent sticking. When it has reached the right consistency for tomato sauce, it is done. Enjoy your tomato-less tomato sauce! (and clean up everywhere it splattered while cooking...)

4.5 out of 5

It's not very often that I give a restaurant 4.5 out of 5 stars, but it happened Friday.  My mom arrived just as I was finishing class on Friday and we headed to Grand Rapids to meet my cousin for lunch.  The drive was horrible.  We hadn't had much "weather" all winter and then sure enough as mom is driving into Holland we get an icky icky storm.  Go figure. My cousin had recommended that we stop by a little place called "Marie Catrib's", so I'd googled the the address and that's where we headed.  It was a little crowded in the store, so we had to wait a moment and then we were seated at a cozy table (we could have waited longer and sat less cozily, but we're all family and have been even cozier before).  The waiter brought the menu and I began to look over it.  I saw some information about gluten free bread and the next time the waiter came back we inquired further into it. The initial screening on all four types of gluten free bread came back positive. I had choices. I probably should have inquired further, but I didn't want to jeopardize anything, so I took a bit of a leap of faith.  I actually cried as I looked over the menu and realized I had choices.  Lots of choices.  I ordered a roast beef sandwich without the cheese and without some sort of sauce that had way too many vowels in it because the sauce was not Joy-friendly.  The sandwich came and I just looked at it. Here was an honest to goodness sandwich, made in a restaurant, that was safe for me to eat.  I didn't look at it long before I dug in.  It was delicious. Phenomenal.  I even got to get up and look at the dessert  case, but passed on desserts because they didn't have an ingredient list handy and Marie was at the doctor and couldn't be reached.
The service was excellent, the food was delicious.  The only thing that would have moved this restaurant from a 4.5 to a 5 would have been to have ingredient lists handy so I could have thoroughly checked things. I really wasn't supposed to have that many carbs at that point in time (I'm still paying for that!), but if I get a chance to go there again, carb restrictions or not, I'm going!

Please Listen

To those of you who work in food service, whether high end or fast fast food, to those of you who cook for other people, to those of you who share food with anyone, whether it is for a price or free.  Please read this.
If someone asks you what is in something.  Please tell them.  Tell them everything.  If you don't know, tell them that. If they are taking the time to ask, the probably have a good reason.  They aren't just trying to be annoying or steal your secret family recipe.  So tell them.  Don't leave things out because there is a just a "little bit" of it in there or because you don't usually put that in there.  Be open and be honest.
If someone asks you to leave a specific ingredient out, for example cheese or croutons on a salad, please listen. They are trusting you.  Don't assume they want it left off just because they are picky.  Sometimes that might be the case, but not always. If they say no croutons and you forget and put them on, don't just pick them off.  Make a new salad.  Same if they say no cheese.   Sometimes it's a matter of life and death.
Think I'm exaggerating?  Mom and I stopped at a place where traditionally we've been able to get "Joy-friendly" food to eat.  I was tired and hungry after an afternoon of wedding dress shopping and also crashing from too many carbs at lunch, so I needed carbs to prevent the grumps from taking over the rest of the evening.  We went through the drive through.  Mom ordered and three times stated that we wanted no cheese on the salad.  No cheese. The person taking our order repeated it back to her.  No cheese.  We got our meal and I opened my salad and began to eat.  I spit most of my first bite back out.  There was cheese on the salad. It was dark so I hadn't seen it.  Mom took the salad back in and complained. I took my first two doses of benadryl and a dose of ventolin. They remade the salad and we continued home (maybe 5-10 minutes).  Shortly there after I took my third and last permissible dose of benadryl.  Followed very quickly by an EpiPen.  The next three hours were spent at the hospital while they tried to stabilize me and observed me.  One bite is all it takes.
So if you are giving food to anyone, for any reason, at any time.  Please, listen to them.  It could change their life.

How to convince your stomach to produce too much acid

1. Go to graduate school or seminary.
2. Get a urinary tract infection (UTI).
3. Instead of going to the doctor for your UTI, try and take care of it yourself with cranberry.
4. Consume about half a gallon of cranberry juice every day.
5. Skip school because you are in too much pain to go to class.
6. Finally go to the doctor when the pain become unbearable (after about a month of self treatment).
7. Take 10 days of the strongest antibiotics the doctor feels like giving you.
8. While taking the antibiotics, travel to a funeral in another state and back (9 hours of driving each way).
9. Miss three days of school right before midterms because you are going to the funeral.
10. Continue to drink cranberry juice at incredible rates while on the antibiotics.
11. Survive midterms by staying up late, eating lots of greasy food, and generally not caring well for yourself.
12. Finish the antibiotics.
13. Realize that you are still in pain and convince yourself that you still have a UTI, because it seems like the most pleasant option.
14. Drink more cranberry juice.
15. Add apple cider vinegar to your plan for kicking this UTI in the behind.
16. Drink more cranberry juice.
17. A week after the antibiotics are gone, realize you are still in pain and it's not getting better.
18. Go to the doctor again.
19. Let the doctor poke you where it hurts.
20. Discover that your stomach has decide that producing massive amounts of acid is the best way to get your attention.
And this my friends is how you convince your stomach to produce too much acid.
So now I'm on a low acid, non greasy, non spicy diet as well as acid reducers for the next two weeks to see if that fixes the problem. If not, it will be back to the drawing board again. 
 Unfortunately, most of my favorite foods fall into the categories of acidic, greasy, or spicy (or some combination of the above!). I suppose the bacon I ate the day before going to the doctor was a bad idea, as was the apple cider I had been drinking like it was going out of style and the cranberry juice and the cinnamon and, and, and....
It's definitely been a learning curve. I learned to broil fish today instead of pan frying it like I usually do. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my Sunday chicken to eliminate the grease. The best option seems to be to boil it, let it cool, scrape the grease off and then do something with the meat. Not quite sure what yet. Maybe chicken salad or some non-spicy type of chicken tortilla, though that doesn't sound too awesome. 
I'm open to suggestions, so if you have suggestions on how to eat "bland" (as the doctor so appealingly put it), please, please, let me know. Otherwise it's going to be a long 2 weeks!

Answered Prayer

A while back I wrote about how seemingly insignificant actions can have profound impacts on people, beyond what you can easily tell.  Today someone acted in a seemingly insignificant way and became an answer to prayer.
I was having a rough day.  I was having a go round with "sunburn syndrome", a condition in which it feels like my entire body is sunburnt, even though it is not.   I don't know why it happens to me, but it does and I hate it. ( It's very uncomfortable.  It's also sometimes called allodynia, for those of you who are curious).  I'd spend most the day on pain meds and benadryl (pain meds to take the edge off, benadryl to try and sleep it off), and was generally not feeling great.  The thought of going to the freezer to get something out for supper sound unimaginably painful.  I was wishing I could just order pizza or take out or something; anything that involved me not having to cook or open the freezer (cold is more painful that hot when I have sunburn syndrome). I was kinda down on myself and not even sure if I was even going to eat.
I left the house to deliver some mail to a neighbor that had erroneously been delivered to me.  As I was walking back I saw one of the neighborhood kiddos.  She waved at me and I waved back.  I followed her into the backyard and he mother invited me in for dinner. They were having the international students over to get to know them better.  She said right away that there was no pressure with the food (she wasn't expecting me and feeding me is just hard in general), but I was welcome to come visit.  I agreed and came in.  Sitting with other people is no more painful than sitting alone.  We went through the food and found some rice and fruit that I could eat, so I ate and I visited and played with the kiddos.  Afterwards, while I was helping clean up I told my friend she had been an answer to prayer.  She hadn't even known it.
G-d is good like that.
Now it's time to brave the shower and go to bed.
Good night all!

More than a Meal

Recently I took a trip to my former college to see some friends and spend my break. One night as I sat in the dining hall I began to reflect on my food-related experiences in college. It would have been easy for me to make a case to be exempt from meal plan. I mean, for me, eating is a very dangerous activity. The college also could have easily requested that I not be on meal plan.  Trying to safely feed me is a challenge that few people undertake (The short list of my allergies includes gluten, corn, dairy, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, tomatoes, banana, pineapple, kiwi, and shellfish. At least 6 of those present with skin blistering on contact, anaphylaxis upon ingestion).  Central College however decided to take on the challenge of trying to feed me and I decided to let them.  In all honesty, I really didn't want to try and cook three meals a day for myself on top of being a student.  Central went above and beyond to make sure that I had food at every meal.  In all four years that I was at Central, the only times I got sick from food were times that I had made less than wise choices (eating food without checking the ingredients, eating food from the fryers).  Which is super impressive.  I mean, really super impressive.  Very few people/kitchens can pull that off.
As I sat and reflected upon my experiences with food, I came to realize that the staff (dietary manager, cooks, servers, etc) did far more than just provide me with food options that wouldn't kill me.  Food is a central part of social life on a college campus and the dining hall is the center of food.  On a campus with only 3 options for meal plan (the main dining hall, a fast food type place called GSC, and the Cafe), it was pretty safe to assume that most students would eat at least one meal a day in the main dining hall.  The main dining hall was also a hub of activity, especially when things got busy (so, basically, all the time).  If you wanted to catch up with a friend, it was easy to say "Let's have a lunch date".  Need a meeting time for a small group Bible study or GIG?  Everyone has to eat, why not hold it at the dining hall?  Want to practice language skills? Sit at the German or Spanish table.  Thinking about studying abroad?  Go to a Lunch and Learn.
By allowing me to be on meal plan, and making meal plan easy for me, all of these social opportunities were opened to me.  I ate almost every day with a group called "the Table".  We (almost) always sat in the same spot in the dining hall, and there was always more room at the table.  It was a time where important news was shared, where schedules were coordinated, where we could check in with each other and make sure we were doing alright.  If I hadn't been on meal plan, I would have missed out on all of that.
I would have missed out on Study Day picnic, an event which grew out of my propensity for sitting on the floor randomly to eat (people would ask me where I wanted to sit, I'd say "right here" and sit down wherever I was.  Eventually it became an organized event with a picnic blanket and everything).
Some people see meals as nothing more than a chance to eat, but they are so much more than that.  So much of our culture revolves around food.  When the dining staff decided to make an effort to provide me with safe food options, they were concerned about feeding my body.  What they ended up doing was feeding my life.
Sometimes life is like that.  People intend to meet one need and end up meeting another, often far greater need.  Or they fail to meet a need and end up failing to meet another, far greater need.
You may never know what what deeper need you'll meet by making the effort to meet a need on the surface, what wounds you'll heal by reaching out to someone.  Likewise, you may never know how much you'll deepen wounds by failing to meet surface needs.
Remember, what you do on the surface often runs much much deeper.

Getting Ready

I have spent today in preparation for my 100 day seizure free party, also being called the Psalm 30:2 celebration.  I had the oven up to temperature by 8am this morning and stayed on until almost 3pm this afternoon.  It never sat empty for long.  Anyone around the seminary this afternoon got to sample and everything passed.  The lemon lime bars didn't get taste tested because they are still refrigerating, but everything else seemed to pass.  Here's is a peek inside my "kitchen":

I ran out of cooling rack space pretty early on.  So a couple boxes of canned goods filled in for me.  This is Marmorkuchen (Marble cake?) cooling.

I also ran out of counter space.  An ironing board with a scorch resistant covering is like one giant hot-mat for putting hot pans on or anything that just needs to be out of the way.  In this picture is a tray of chocolate chocolate chip cookies waiting for it's turn in the over,  fudge brownies cooling, lemon lime bars cooling, and then containers of mini blueberry millet muffins and maple date cookies (with Ontario maple syrup) sitting out of the way. 

Now onto general clean-up.  Tomorrow will be market day to get some melon and veggies for the fruit and veggie tray, making whipped cream and then party time!

The Trip to the Grocery Store

For the average person, a trip to the grocery store is not an adventure.  But I have never been an average person, nor will I ever be an average person, so average events like going to the grocery store often turn into adventures.  Tonight was no exception...
I'd made tentative plans to go to the grocery with a friend this afternoon, but for various and asundry reasons, that didn't happen.  So after I had my supper of bacon wrapped, Daiya Cheddar stuffed Hebrew National Hotdogs, I grabbed my bike and headed out. I need to bake for a baptism party, so I really did need to go to the store.  That, and I needed food that I could actually eat right now (long complicated story).
So I grabbed my bike bags and my backpack (and my helmet and gloves and all that good stuff) and set off.  I got less than a block and realized my back tire was flat.  Big sad face.  Middle Brother had fixed it the end of June.  It wasn't supposed to be flat again.  I walked my bike back to my apartment, with a sad face on.
I called Middle Brother and asked him how hard it was to change a bike tire (I have three brothers, I've never had to change a bike tire).  He started talking about it and I glazed over. Then he remembered that he had left a can of "fix a flat" here in June.  He told me how to use it.  I listened to him. Back outside I tried to spray the "fix a flat" into my tire. Spraying it in was fine.  Then I tried to take the nozzle thingy off my tire.  "Fix a flat" gunk started going everywhere.  No big deal, I thought.  I got some on my fingers and they started to burn.  I went inside and rinsed them off and got a grease rag to help with getting the nozzle thingy off my tire.  Once I got it off I realized more air had come out of the place where the nozzle thingy had been attached.  So I reattached the nozzle thingy and tried again.  I didn't have the nozzle thingy on all the way and "fix a flat" sprayed everywhere.  Except on my clothes which made me happy.  I finally got in on, finished inflating the tire and got the nozzle thingy off, getting even more "fix a flat" on my hands.  Tire was successfully repaired.
I came inside and washed my hands, trying to get the "fix a flat" off.  I called Middle Brother to tell him that I fixed the tire and complain about my swelling fingers (they looked like mini sausages and I couldn't really bend them).  He told me that "fix a flat" wasn't really dangerous; it was just aerosol propelled liquid rubber.   I could have quackled or scrandled him right about then.  Liquid rubber = latex.  I have a latex allergy.  No wonder I had sausage fingers.  Enter anti-histamines.
I still needed to go to the store, so now, about an hour later, doped up on anti-histamines, I left for the store.  It was a good trip to the store.  The store has lots of good things.  Like sweet potatoes and sauerkraut and refried bean.  The grocery store also has Jello.   I was looking for sugar free jell tonight, because for reasons not important to this blog post I currently cannot eat sugar or anything high in carbohydrates (this is very sad.  I love potatoes.  Basically, I can eat meat and some vegetables, as long as they aren't starchy vegetables).  I found the sugar free jello. It's amazing how much lighter the packages of sugar free jello are compared to the regular jello, and they make the same amount of stuff.  I don't know how that works.  It just does.  Anyhow, I discovered that nobody makes sugar free blueberry jello.  Blueberry jello is my favorite, but neither the Jello brand or the store brand had blueberry jello.  I wonder why that is.
I also bought lunch meat (cuz I can eat meat!) and that's when  remembered why I don't buy lunch meat.  It's ridiculous how much junk is in lunch meat.  Even the most basic turkey breasts had caramel color added.  Caramel color is often made from barely, which makes in un-gluten free.  Anything that didn't have caramel color had corn syrup.  What happened to just plain old meat?  I finally found some, but it took awhile.  I should have bought pickles too.  I like pickles. But vinegar doesn't like me right now, so it's probably for the best.
I also bought pork rinds.  I've never had pork rinds before, but they look like chip-ish type things and they have no carbs, so they shouldn't kill me or make me sick.  At least, that's the hope.
And then I came home from the store.  It was dark so I wore my special vest with reflective tape and lights. It fits over my backpack, so that is nice.   Now I'm home.  I made jello and it's in the fridge so I can have some for breakfast tomorrow (today's breakfast was bacon and a hotdog, so jello seems like a step up in a weird sort of way).  Now I'm tired so I'm going to take some more anti-histamines (my fingers are still really swollen and stiff, but they won't deflate now!) and go to bed.
And that was my adventure to the grocery store.

PS:  anyone remember those yo-yo balls that were real popular about 8 years ago or so (when I was in high school)?  They were squishy balls on a stretchy string type thing that had a ring to go around your finger like a yo-yo.  They were pretty much outlawed and banned because kids would get them wrapped around their necks and strangle themselves or others.  They were a fun toy, but the strangling part wasn't so fun.  Anyhow, they were for sale in one of those vending machine thingies at the grocery.  Packaged inside one of the impossible-to-get-open-unless-you-step-on-it plastic bubble things.  Made me wonder.  Have children gotten smarter and less likely to be strangled or  have we stopped caring?

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

So I was sitting on the couch this Sunday afternoon trying to work on next Sunday's sermon (it's coming awful hard this week), when I started craving peanut butter oatmeal cookies.  Which wouldn't be such a bizarre craving, except I'm severely allergic to peanuts. Not just "if I eat I'll get sick" type allergic, but "if I touch I'll swell up and if I'm foolish enough to eat something with peanuts in it I'll be needing the emergency room and fast" type allergic.  Thankfully, there is soy butter, and even better than that, I still have some of the good Canadian soy butter that mom got me last time I was up on the farm (sorry America, this time Canada wins).
Unfortunately, every peanut butter cookie recipe I found online either had an abundance of eggs in it or required other ingredients that I simply did not have on hand.  I was stumped, but still really craving peanut butter cookies. So I decided to invent a recipe. I mean, inventing a recipe can't be all that hard, can it?  I soon found out...
The most important thing I learned about inventing cookie recipes is to first decide how much dry ingredients I want to use and THEN add appropriate liquid, not the other way around.  Cookies, in reasonable amounts, take a startling small amount of liquid.  My 5 quart mixer got a work-out today to say the least.
Second thing I learned is that Joy-butter is relatively mild in flavor compared to bean flour blends.   A rice flour blend would likely have been a much better choice, or at least a higher rice flour to bean flour ratio.
I'm not super impressed with my recipe yet.  It's going to take at least one more go around before I get something I'm happy enough with to actually share (or someone with more refined taste buds than me to try these and tell me how they like them), but I'm most impressed that they held together.  It's been awhile since I've made a cookie that actually held together.  No crumbling, no "going out" in the oven, just a real solid cookie.
And that has been my Sunday afternoon adventure.

Pickled Asparagus, Radical Evangelism, Human Trafficking and Jesus

This afternoon while I was pickling asparagus (something new for me...I've never pickled asparagus before.  Just cucumbers and beets, but I like asparagus and I like beets, so pickled asparagus sounds promising.) I was thinking about radical evangelism, human trafficking and Jesus.  I know what the last three have in common, but I am still not quite sure how packing asparagus spears into piping hot jars while listening to a Sara Groves/Tenth Avenue North/JJ Heller/Laura Hackett/Laura Story playlist bought me to the other three topics.  If you have any ideas, please feel free to let me know!

Anyone who denies that human trafficking (a fancy word for slavery!) is a problem in North America, needs to wake up a little bit and read some headlines.  Google "Human Trafficking in *insert name of country or state or province here*" and what you find may surprise you. It's happening in your back yard, whether you like it or not. 

According to Canada Fights Back, human trafficking is the second largest organized crime worldwide. It brings in more profit annually than Google, Starbucks and Nike combined.  I could give you more facts, such as the fact that every 30 seconds a child is sold or the fact that 80% of the people enslaved due to human trafficking are women, but I'll stop there.  If you want to know more, google it. 

As I thought about the problem of human trafficking, the overwhelming questions on my heart were: Who is going to reach these people?  Who is going to tell them that there is a G-d who loves them, no matter what man has done to them? (70% of those sold into slavery are sold of the purpose of sexual exploitation)

I thought about who reached the slaves when slavery was legal.  In some ways it was easier then, the slaves were visible then, whereas today, many of them are hidden. As I thought more about it, my very limited knowledge brought to mind that the Gospel was shared with slaves by other slaves.  As slaves were bought and sold they carried their most precious possession with them - the saving truth of the Gospel. When they could, they sang it.  I remembered a story about two young Moravians that I used in a sermon last spring, who willingly sold themselves into slavery so that they could reach other slaves. 

As I called that story back to mind, my mind began to wander to today...could the same concept work today? Could someone sell themselves into slavery in order to reach other enslaved people?  That would be super radical evangelism.

Jesus gave us the model for radical evangelism. He could have just sent a message from heaven to tell us about His saving grace.  But I'm not sure that would have meant anything to us.  In fact, I'm almost certain it wouldn't.  It would be comparable for me telling someone who is going through a bitter divorce how to fix their marriage...I've never been married (nor divorced) and I have no training in marriage counselling (yet). They wouldn't want to listen to me and they shouldn't listen to me!  Instead, Jesus came to us.  He came to be one of us.  To walk the roads we walk, to fight the fights we fight every day.  He earned his right to be heard. He earned it along a beach with fishermen, on the long dusty roads, in the crowded synagogues, at the painful end of a Roman whipping, as the recipient of jeers and spits, on a Roman cross, and ultimately when he rose again from the grave, conquering death.  After he had earned his right to be heard, then he could share the message he came to share (and had been sharing) and have it understood and received.  

All of this thinking led me to the inevitable conclusion: in order to reach those who have been sold into slavery, in order for the Gospel to be heard by them, someone has to become one of them.  Someone has to let themselves be sold into slavery.  

It's a hard thought.  It is not something I am called to, but the question it raised in me was "what if?"  What if that was my calling? What if I had a very clear message from the Lord that my calling was to sell myself into slavery so that I could reach other slaves?  Would I go?  Would I listen?  Or would I pull a Jonah and run as fast as I could in the other direction because it seemed so extreme? What about you?  What f that was G-d's calling on your life?  Would you go?

It's easy to say that you would follow G-d's call on your life, no matter what is.  To stand up or raise your hand at a retreat or after a short term mission trip and say that you are ready to follow G-d's call, no matter what it is, but it's another thing to realize what a potential calling might be, what it would mean, and then still say that you would follow no matter what.

For those of you holding your breath out of curiosity, wanting to know if I would actually sell myself into slavery if that is what G-d called me to: the answer is that I don't know. I would have to do some pretty serious praying about it first.  And then, at some point, if I were 100% sure that this is what I was called to do, then I would pray that I would have the faith to follow through. And that answer goes for anything that G-d might call me to, not just selling myself into slavery.

In the Interim

I have thoughts.  I want to write them.  Thoughts about love and alarms and the coming of Christ and Disney Princesses and alpaca babies and sunshine and butterflies and coloring book, but there has been a temporary setback in my ability to write these thoughts out. So in the interim, I leave you with this.  It's part of a note posted by a dear friend of mine (used by permission).  Due to a potentially chronic disease her life has been altered by diet changes and medications.  While her experience is different than mine, many of the things we feel, especially when it comes to social situations, are similar.  She did such a wonderful job capturing her thoughts and feelings, and unintentionally capturing mine, I decided to share.  I resonate most with what she writes about being socially isolated and people trying to make decisions for her.  The awkwardness of having to turn down a dinner invitation or explain special food needs or bring your own food to a function or back out of plans at the last minute because you are too exhausted or slip out to take your meds discretely is almost always less painful than not being invited in the first place. I have limits too, but I am a grown-up and can make my own decisions about when I need to slow down.  And, like my friend, I have a giant granny pill pox too.  (It's almost identical to hers). 
Without further rambling from me, here is the final portion of her note.  The only change I have made it to abbreviate the name of her condition to help protect privacy (and because it's really not that important):

It’s been hard dealing with the drugs and a special diet and everything else, but when I look back to where I was and how far I have come, I am glad I’ve been able to do these things and had people to help me along the way.  Yes, I carry a giant granny pill box with me everywhere and sometimes feel like my life is dictated by my med alarms.   No, I can't usually eat what other people are eating.  But if these things will help me to get my life back, they really are small sacrifices.

But it still has been hard to face my limitations.  It’s been hard to be different.  It’s been hard to not do everything I once did and everything I still think I should be able to do.  It’s been hard to accept help from other people.  It’s been a journey, and I know the journey is not over yet.  But it hasn’t been a journey I’ve had to travel on my own.  Yes, I have often tried to push people out of my life.  I guess it’s like I get to a point where I’m tired of depending on other people and being a burden, so I decide I’m going to live life on my own.  So I try and push everyone away.  But this never works.  God didn’t create us to live life on our own.  He created us for community.  I understand this in my rational moments, but unfortunately, all-too-often I have been less-than-rational.  This journey with LD often feels like one giant roller coaster.  (Honestly, it feels like I’m PMSing 24-7.)  Some days I can handle the ups-and-downs and take it as a part of life.  Other times I just get angry….angry at life, angry at the disease, angry that I can’t do what I want to do, angry at God, and even angry at you, if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I’ve never really been an angry person, and I have a hard time knowing how to deal with this anger.  In retrospect I can usually see what a jerk I was, but at the time, I’m just angry, and say and do things I shouldn’t and hurt people who I love.  (This is not a justification or an excuse because I am still responsible for my own behavior, but when I saw, “moody, irritable, and cry easily” on a list of LD symptoms, at least it made a little more sense where it could be coming from.)

I often feel isolated and lonely in this world of disease.  It’s a world I don’t understand and I’m living in it so I really can’t expect others to be able to understand it.  But I feel like people are always wanting to protect me.  It’s like because I’m sick, I’m now “fragile.”  They’re trying to keep my health and well-being in mind.  They’re trying to help with my healing.  So they end up doing things for me in an attempt to save me energy and bless me.  In some ways I am grateful, as the tasks they do are often things I probably couldn’t do on my own.  But in the process, so often I feel like I’m useless, like I’ve been put up on a shelf with the ceramic figurines, left to gather dust, but beyond that, I’m really not good for anything and will soon be forgotten.  Other times they don’t ask me to help out or be involved in things because they don’t want to overwhelm me.  They’re trying to protect me, and give me a chance to heal.  Like that ceramic figurine placed carefully on the top shelf out of reach, they think it’s a whole lot better to leave me alone than to actually touch me and risk breaking me.  But even if I have limits, I can still make my own choices.  I can be given opportunities and allowed to choose if I take them or not.

In this world of disease, I also often end up feeling very socially isolated.  Not only am I no longer a useful member of society, so often I feel like I am not invited somewhere because they know I can’t eat the food, or I will probably be sleeping, etc.  They don’t want me to feel left out or put me in an awkward situation (such as sitting at a restaurant and trying to explain to the waitress that really, they can’t make food that I can eat so I’m just going to sit here), so I’m just not invited.  But in reality, this just leaves me feeling more lonely and forgotten.  Or I’m with a group of people, and they totally talk “around” me, not even acknowledging my presence.  In these situations I’m left wondering if I’m not wanted, or they’re assuming I don’t want to be included, or they don’t know how to include me so it’s easier to ignore me, or what.  It’s hard.  Our society is very focused around food, and you become VERY aware of this when food is taken from you.  And let me tell you, it’s already a whole lot of fun to be eating a spinach salad while everyone else is enjoying yummy goodies, and it just makes it better when people tell you over and over again, “Yuck!  That looks gross!  I’m sure glad I’m not eating that!”  For the most part, I’ve come to terms with my special diet, but people telling me my food is gross really doesn’t help this situation.  You may not enjoy it, but guess what?  You don't have to eat it, so please keep your comments to yourself.

And speaking of food, yes, I am losing weight, and yes, I am aware that I don’t have weight to lose and that my bones are protruding in places they shouldn’t be.   Yes, I know most my clothes don’t fit me anymore and I look like a bag of bones.  Trust me.  I know these things—without you telling me.  You don’t need to point them out to me, really.  I know them, and everyone else has already taken it upon themselves to remind me of it as well.  I don’t need you joining in, too.  I have become very self-conscious of my body, and you telling me I need to gain some weight doesn’t help.  You try cutting all sugar and gluten out of your diet and not losing weight while you’re healthy, and now add the absorption issues that come with LD to that, and yes, you, too, would be losing weight.  Without your help, I am reminded of this every time I walk by a mirror. Without your help, I am reminded of this every time I put on a pair of jeans and have to tighten my belt to hold them up.  Without your help, I am reminded of this every time I put on a shirt and feel like I’m swimming inside of it.  Without your help, I am reminded of this every time I put on a dress that I’m supposed to wear for one of the weddings I’m in this summer and wonder how I will be able to hide my ugly, gangly body so that I don’t mess of the perfect pictures of the weddings I’m in.  Giving me recipes for high calorie, good-tasting foods that I can actually eat would be a whole lot more effective method of dealing with my weight loss than telling me my clothes don’t fit and I’m going to blow away if I don’t put more meat on my bones.

Most days I’ve come to terms with where I’m at.  I realize I am quite blessed to have family, friends, and doctors who have helped me figure this thing out and get on top of it before it became a bigger monster.  And although I can’t say this journey has been the most fun thing in life, I have also learned a lot through it.  I know God has me here for a reason, and He isn’t abandoning me here.  But there are still plenty of days that are just stinking hard.  And something seemingly small can very easily set me off.  Just last night some friends were going out stargazing.  I LOVE stargazing, but I knew I needed to go to bed.  Instead of being able to handle the situation like a mature adult, knowing there would be plenty more opportunities to go stargazing in the future, I became angry at this stupid disease for interfering with what I wanted to do, and angry at God for leaving me here for so long.  And now today, it’s tough to think about the fact that I am starting year two.  I had gotten to a point where I had accepted the fact that I just need to take one day at a time.  Well-meaning people will often ask me how many drugs I have left or how long it will be til the end.  These are questions I can’t answer, and I have more or less come to terms with not having answers to.  But every time I throw a drug bottle in my empties box and see the pile grow a little more, I think about the pile it came out of….a pile of unknown size.  On good days, I think, “That’s one more bottle closer to being better!” but on bad days, my mind creates a picture of a mountain of full drug bottles so big that the growing pile of empties doesn’t even look like an ant hill in comparison.  This is not a journey that has a known ending date or even destination, so I try and focus on the here and now, seeing how God is working in the midst of it.  But even as much as I try to take it one day at a time and not focus on the time, it’s hard to think that I’m starting another year.  This last year has been tough.  I don’t expect this next one to be easy.  And dare I say it?  I don’t know how many more there will be in this journey....  But God promises to go with me all the way, and I guess if He's going with me, the journey will be worth it!

PS: (From me, not my friend)  I am currently not losing weight.  I'm actually gaining some at this point because my limitations have made it much harder to be as physically active as I should be. But rest of it, spot on.

Environmentally Friendly Lawn Mowers and other cuteness

The lawn needed mowed so we engaged our environmentally friendly lawnmowers.

Atarah is checking out the inside of the shop. Her buddy Duchess would not cooperate for the camera.

This is what happens when you are late for dinner. It was Mommy's idea.  For real.  (except maybe the booger)