Gluten Free During the Holidays

Before Dr. McDreamy (he is that good looking) uttered those three life changing words "You have Celiac's." I always thought people who didn't eat gluten were just super weird, super picky eaters. 

I was wrong. Way wrong. 

Cutting gluten out of my diet has been amazing. I don't know how I went that long without realizing there was something wrong.  I'm losing weight, I'm happier and I just have soooo much energy now. I tell Husby frequently that I feel like I can take on the world now. And no longer after a brief 5 hour nap! 

I thought it would be hard giving up so many of my favorite foods at first but, a quick trip Sprouts changed all of that for me. I can easily find lots of gluten free versions of my favorite items.  Life goes on!

And then the holidays rolled around and it occurred to me that gluten is in sooo many of my favorite holiday foods. Thanksgiving was miserable, I couldn't eat any stuffing and the GF stuffing I found this year was uh, interesting to say the least. I will have to continue my search for an edible GF stuffing next  year.  Gravy was interesting, it looked like congealed something. I ended up dumping it on my stuffing to make it somewhat edible. It helped a little. 

While at my MIL's house this week I cried again realizing now many of her yummy holiday treats I'm going to miss out. 

No pies, no cookies, no crackers for cheese ball, no pumpkin bread! 

But then she shared her recipe for spiced pecans and oh my I was in heaven. I could eat the pan myself. 

You need 3.5-4 cups of pecans, a stick of butter, two egg whites, 1 cup of sugar and 1 tsp of cinnamon.

Brown the pecans in a 9x13 in pan at 350* for about 10 minutes. 

Melt the stick of butter in a small bowl. In another bowl beat the egg whites until they are frothy, add the sugar and cinnamon to the egg whites, mixing them tiger her gently. Pour the butter and sugar mixture over the pecans and toss to gently coat the pecans.

Bake at 350* for about an hour. Stir about every 10 minutes until all the liquid has been asorbed. 

She suggested using pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon but I'm not a big pumpkin pie fan. It makes a rather large ziplock bag full. I would show pictures but I ate them all already...

C'est la vie. 

Dancing in the Rain

Husby and I have celebrated 3 brand new years without Cooper.

We've survived 1,224 days or 3 years, 4 months and 6 days.

We should have a 3 year old running around. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like and I teach 3 year olds!  This should have been his first Christmas that he he would have gotten into the fun and specialness of the holidays. I have a list of traditions that I want to do but for now they wait.

I was thinking back to the first Christmas without him. I was driving to the post office with Binx in the backseat. I looked into the rearview mirror and noticed he was fogging up all the windows. The base of his car seat was still there. I began to sob thinking about what it would been like to have a giant dog and my 4 month old son in the backseat while I hurried around checking things off my holiday to list. I finished my errand and it wasn't until I got back to the car that I realized that if Cooper hadn't died, I wouldn't have been at the post office that day. I had been mailing gifts to three mothers I had become close with the past 4 months. All four of us had lost a child from NEC that year.

Husby was just talking today about where our lives would have gone if Cooper hadn't died. life would be drastically different for us. He would still be in the Air Force and stationed somewhere else. We'd probably have another baby. I would have stopped teaching to stay at home while they were little.

Instead, he was discharged from the military. He's working on getting his degree. I've a great job with a company I love. We are back in Oklahoma near our families. We're trying to have our Rainbow baby. We're enjoying life again. If you had told me 5 years that this is where we be and I would have laughed.

Life hasn't always been a storybook fairytale for us. We've had a lot of really crappy stuff happen to us. But we've also got some really good stuff going for us.  I love this quote:

'Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...It's about learning to dance in the rain.'

It's taken us nearly 3 years to figure it out, but Husby and I are figuring it out.  I would rather have Cooper with us but, I know that God is going to use all of this for good one day.  Some days I feel like we getting farther from him but at the same time we getting closer to spending eternity with him. I look forward to that day but until then we still have a whole lot of life left to live. 

C'est la vie.