I Scream for Ice Cream!

Check it out:


http://www.shopkitchenaid.com/-%5BKICA0WH%5D-400076/KICA0WH/


I want one of these.  It is summertime.  Need I more reasons than that?

I can already think of oodles of different sorbets....

Design Dots

I can just see this in a remake of Missy's room.  I want to do this for Missy.

Sonotubes are way cheap!  And they can be cut to any length I choose.  It appears that the smallest diameter is 6 inches.  

Realistically, she can't have a whole wall of these, but I could put them above her desk.  I could paint the inside of the tubes different colors.  It would give her color, texture, shelves, and cubbies.  And it perfectly works with her new dot sheets.

A few more paper lanterns.  Paint the walls.  Delete the current bookcases (BORING!).  Get a very cool lamp with circles.  Make her a headboard (circles of course).  Oooh!  Sonotubes for the headboard????

Now...  I just need an ultra cool idea for some sort of "curtains".  Something definitely not curtains, but repurposed to be so, preferably already made of circles....

Recipes for TJs

DH had a fabulous idea:  create recipes using just TJs foodstuffs.


What do you get when you mix... ?

• GF Brownie mix, Morello cherries, white icing
• GF Ginger Snaps, vanilla pudding, orange juice
• GF Brown Rice Marshmallow Treats, white chocolate chips, trail mix
• GF Snickerdoodles, raspberry jam, vanilla pudding
• Oatmeal, orange cranberries, orange juice

Truth Be Known

how to live gluten-free

Truth be known! I love the honesty and frankness here. This is real. This is the reality of living gluten-free.

I’ve never been diagnosed with anything, because I found, on my own, what was making me feel so incredibly poor. I just started eliminating gluten and I felt much better. When I mentioned to my General Practitioner that it could be a gluten allergy or insensitivity, she just said, “Yeah, I don’t know if I believe in that.” I have never had the desire to go back on gluten and suffer, just so I could, maybe, get a diagnosis. There is no guarantee of a confirmed diagnosis, but there is a guarantee of pain, discomfort, and distress. No thanks.

I was cooking frequently (every night dinners for the family, baking extra treats on the weekend, making my own pizza crust and sauce just for the taste of it) before going gluten-free. I still cook, but now I cook differently. But not so much differently. My family has been incredibly supportive. We are not a gluten-free household, since they still have their bread and bagels and dry cereals. But anything that gets cooked for the entire family is gluten-free. And they don’t mind it (too much). Gluten-free pastas, GF noodles, GF flours for thickening sauces, GF cookies, GF cakes for birthdays. My husband and I cooked an entirely GF Thanksgiving Dinner last year and it was outstanding! Everything was GF, including biscuits, gravy, stuffing, homemade mushroom soup for the fresh green bean casserole, homemade french-fried onions for the fresh green bean casserole, pecan pie… *everything*! It was absolutely, without a doubt, the best tasting Thanksgiving Dinner ever! And I firmly believe it was because everything was fresh and homemade with care. Oh, and the leftover mushroom soup made the best base for leftover Turkey Pot Pies with an absolutely amazing top GF crust!

I’ve been through all the grieving and anger and frustration and cross-contamination setbacks. It is a new reality that cooking at home is actually easier than taking the family to a restaurant. Since one advantage of restaurants is the selection, I am now on a mission to find recipes and cook the things I can’t have at a restaurant when I’m with my family. Things like Chicken-fried Steak, Tomato Bisque, French-Onion Soup, Minestrone Soup, Meatballs, Lasagne, Quiche Lorraine… oh the list goes on an on and on. But I have now made all of these things gluten-free at home. And they have all been fabulous! And each and every time, I count my blessings for such wonderful, tasteful food. And each and every time, I thank my family. I thank them for letting me cook these things at home so that I can enjoy them. It just so happens that they have loved eating these things along with me! Just this past weekend I made the French-Onion Soup GF (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/french-onion-soup-recipe2/index.html), with a Udi’s GF bagel on mine (regular bagels floated in everyone else’s) with gruyere melted across the top. We often rate the things we make at home and this one was off the charts with everyone! It was so incredibly good!

Oh, the pleasure of good, good food.

Hmmm… did I mention the GF Monkey Bread? Mmmm, mmmm, mmmm.

Too Much of a Good Thing

One of our family Christmas gifts was for a game system.  Our choice.  We went to the game store and selected the Xbox 360 with Kinect.  Kinect actually detects motion and translate that into motion in the game.  This means no more sitting with just thumb action for the Kinect games.  On your feet, people....

Kinect has given us a new member of the family.  Meet "Mr. Cranky Calves"....  The boy jumped and hopped and bounced so much yesterday using the Kinect game that this morning he couldn't walk.  He was screaming that his calves were screaming!  The poor kid was in pain.  I showed him how to stretch, but it was difficult to get him started, with so much pain.  He's doing better now, but I've told him not to play any jumping/bouncing games today.

Too much of a good thing....  And now school is closed for a school day, and they don't even want to go outside to play with the neighbor kid.  So much for friends.

They are learning how to cooperate with each other, now that they have 2 player games that require them to work together to advance the game.  That's a first around here.

The calves will get better, the cooperation will improve, and these kids might get in shape... the fun way!

Cookies

We were going up to Pennsylvania to visit the Slate People.  We had just arrived at the Stroudsmoor Country Inn, checked into our room and were settling in.

Mr. Lego Engineer and Missy were going all through the room, poking at everything, repeatedly testing every switch, peeking in everything.  At the dresser, Mr. Engineer was examining everything.

"Hey!  They gave us a cookie jar, but they didn't leave us any cookies!"

Mr. Engineer was examining the inside of the ice bucket.