You'll Crack Your Head Open!

I’ve got to go buy a bathing suit tomorrow.  I can’t just shop for one.  One must be found and a purchase must be made.  I just tried a bathing suit on for the first time this year the other day.  Not good.  Not good at all.

I told hubby that I was feeling a little ill about the whole prospect and he said that I look the same to him as I did when we first got together.  So lying.  But such a smart, smart man.   Those husband training lessons really paid off.  He’s got the “Figure out what she wants to hear and say it” part totally memorized.

If I want honesty, I’ve got the mirror and the flourescent lighting at Mervyn’s to go talk to.

In our little town we’ve got a lot of stores, but no mall.  This situation (and by situation I mean my pasty white thighs) is going to need a mall trip.  I’m thinking I’ll hit the major stores and see what I can find in two hours or less.

Why the rush, you ask?  Because we’re going camping.  For 8 days.   We leave on Sunday.

Yep.  Three celiacs in a tent, 25 miles from the nearest Safeway.   And God only knows how far away from the nearest GF food store.   Let me tell you, the kitchen is going to be burning up for the rest of this week.  I’ve got to make SO MUCH FOOD.   I made a big pot of chili and a bunch of taco meat tonight, which will hang out in the freezer until we leave.   I’m going to make meatloaf, maybe some sort of chicken thing, a bunch of stuff for breakfasts, bread, cookies, cake, brownies and whatever else I can think of.

A lot of the reason I need to do all of this is because of me.  I tend not to eat as much or as often as I should.  It’s one of the weird celiac things for me.  It’s like I’ve lost my sense of taste or something.   I don’t get hungry.  Nothing sounds good enough to bother with.  It’s very strange.   The problem is that I get cranky and headachy when I don’t eat.  When I’m cranky and headachy I really don’t care if I eat.   It continues on a downward spiral from there.

When we go camping, it’s even worse because there’s always stuff going on, so I don’t even snack.  Plus, with all the non-celiacs we camp with, and their kids, I don’t want our food just sitting out on a picnic table.  It’s practically under lock and key.  So it’s even more of an irritation to me.  So I eat some crackers or something for breakfast because I don’t want to spend an hour making eggs and bacon.   Then at lunch the kids are playing in the lake.  At that point I’d rather sit on my butt reading magazines than argue the kids out of the water so I can go cook lunch.   I decide that I will just wait until the kids are hungry before I make lunch.  And that’s where everything goes off into the ditch.  Every single time.

So hubby and I decided that I need to focus on EATING LUNCH.  Every day.  Preferably breakfast too.  But I must have lunch.   Hubby is all about the BBQ for dinner.  But this is camping.   With boats and jetskis.  Everybody is on the water until early evening.   We don’t get dinner started until almost dark some nights.   It’s just too long for me to wait to eat.

Then there’s all the desserts.  That’s for my kids.  There’s always something that someone brings that they want and can’t have.  I’ve GOT to have some sort of reasonable alternative.  Especially if there is chocolate involved.  My son is such a chocoholic.  For an eight day trip I’m planning on two pans of brownies, just in case.  I’ve also got to make some graham crackers so we can have GF s’mores.   Can’t miss out on smores.

I’m also going to be premaking a bunch of the breakfast stuff.  Who wants to fry bacon on a camp stove every morning while waiting for the coffee to kick in?  Not me.  No reason not to precook it.  So I’m doing that.  I’m also going to bake five loaves of bread for toast and sandwiches.  The four of us can easily go through a loaf and a half of GF bread (Pamela’s Wheat Free Bread Mix) in a day, so five loaves isn’t much for us.  I might even make a big batch of country potatoes before we leave too.

The good thing is that once I’ve got everything premade and ready to go, I can actually relax while we’re camping.   We’ve never been camping for this long and I’ve never premade this much stuff, but I always have a nice relaxing time once we’re on our way.   So it’s all worth it.

I just wish I wasn’t going to have to spend tomorrow afternoon going bathing suit shopping.  But I really have to.  My only bathing suit that fits is so worn out that the elastic in the bust area has pretty much just given up.  I need something with a little more, um, enthusiasm for the task at hand.

Wish me luck.

This is one of those times where a picture speaks a thousand words, but I’ll add some of my own too.  This thing holds 36 cupcakes!!!!  You can carry it with one hand.  There are four locking clips on the bottom that lock the lid to the base.  I carried this to my daughter’s birthday party at her kindergarten, held both my kids’ hands (okay my daughter held a finger) and crossed a street at the same time.  How’s that for a multi-tasking mom?

I bought mine at Target.  It was in the area with the infomercial stuff.   You can also go directly to the company’s website – The Cupcake Courier.

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

I had my diagnostic mammogram today and there’s NO CANCER!!!!

I think both Hubby and I had our lives flash before our eyes in that exam room though.  I know I did.

The first thing they did was take me back for the mammogram.  I was pretty positive and cheerful at that point.  The tech took the images and went and talked to the doctor while I waited.  The tech came back in and told me that the doctor wanted more images.  Okay.  Still positive.  Still slightly cheerful.  Two more images.

They left the images up on the computer this time and I got to look at what they were looking at.  Not too scary looking, but it was 16mm or 1.6 cm.  From all of the reading I’ve been doing over the last few weeks, I think I remember reading that any cancer over 2 cm or is it 1 cm? I can’t remember.  No I think it’s 2 cm. automatically gets you chemo and radiation.  Unless it’s gotten into the lymph nodes, which gets you chemo and radiation no matter what.

So she comes back in and says that the doctor wants an ultrasound.  Okay….  Still positive.  Not too cheerful anymore, but I’m fine.  Because of the reading I did, I knew that this was something they might do and it wasn’t anything really to worry about.  So I’m fine.  Totally fine.  Fine.   Yep.  Hey!  Did I mention I was fine?

The mammogram tech did my ultrasound.  It was taking a long time and it was starting to hurt.  If you’ve ever had an ultrasound, they don’t hurt, so that was starting to scare me.   I was watching the images.   Because if there’s something in there that’s going to try to kill me, I want to see it, dang it.  If you’re going to kick my ass and turn my life upside down have the decency to look me in the eye. Of course I had no idea what I was looking at.  It looked like gray and white paint swirled together.   Then I just started thinking about my kids and my husband and my mom and how scared she must have been and I started crying.

After the tech stopped, she went and got hubby so he could be in the room while the doctor came and talked to me.   So she brings hubby in and goes and gets the doctor.   By the time hubby comes in I’ve got my brave face back on because I don’t want him to see how scared I am.  He’s freaked out enough already.  If there’s something to cry about it can wait another five minutes.

So 27 hours later, the doctor comes in.  Okay fine, it was like five minutes.  Whatever.

The doctor introduced herself and started doing the ultrasound.  Then she stopped and said that she needed to look at the mammogram images in another room.  Something about not having the right computer hookup in that ultrasound room as the other room.  So the tech and the doctor leave again.  This time for 47 hours.  Okay, three minutes.  Fine.  Hubby is pacing and then apologizing for pacing.  Then he starts standing still but rocking back and forth. Then he’s rocking side to side and twisting at the waist.  I asked him if that was supposed to be better than pacing.

Then the doctor comes back in and starts doing the ultrasound.  Hubby gets out of the way and leans against the cabinets in the corner of the room.  I can’t see him because now the doctor and the tech are in the way because they are both looking at the ultrasound.  I’m kind of freaked out that I can’t see him because I’m just freaking out in general, but also kind of glad because I’m guessing he’s feeling the same way too.  The plastered, encouraging smiles are starting to crack a bit on both of us I think.

This time instead of looking at the ultrasound, I’m looking at the doctor’s face.   She looks relatively calm, but every once in a while something passes behind her eyes, so I have to stop looking or I’m going to start crying again.  I start wondering if I’m going to have to have chemo.  I’m not worried about dying because what they’re looking at is only 1.6 cm, so it might end up being just a lumpectomy.  But still, having a lumpectomy doesn’t make it any less cancer.

Then all of a sudden the doctor says “Well I don’t see anything to be concerned about.”  I think if I wasn’t lying down already I would have had to lie down.  I didn’t hear a clunk from over in the corner of the room, so I knew that hubby was doing okay.

The doctor said that the mass in my breast appears to be entirely normal for me with no evidence of it being cancerous, but she wants to see me for a followup mammogram in six months just to be sure the mass doesn’t change.

Thank you GOD!!!

Well it’s been a long day and I’m worn out.  I’m off to bed.  Thank you to all of you who have been praying for me.  I know that’s why I’ve been able to have a (mostly) positive attitude during all of this.  I appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.

Love,

Nancy

Today I went and got a breast thermography.  For more information, go HERE.   Basically, they take pictures of your breasts with an infrared imaging camera.

In most types of cancers, there is increased vascularity as the cancer develops its own blood supply.  The additional heat from this as well as other disease processes can sometimes show up as an abnormality on thermography.  From some of the studies I read on pubmed.gov, thermography is better at detecting fast-growing cancers rather than slow-growing cancers.  Which makes sense because I assume that fast-growing cancers produce quite a bit of heat relative to the surrounding tissue.  Mammograms, on the other hand, are better at detecting slow-growing cancers than fast-growing cancers.  Not all cancers produce enough heat to be seen on thermography, however.

My results say that my breasts have the same heat patterns on both sides, with no suspicious or abnormal findings.  YAY!

That doesn’t mean that they won’t find cancer at my mammogram tomorrow.  This is just another form of testing that can be done.

My mom died of a fast-growing cancer, so having this screening come back normal is especially relieving to me.

So by this time tomorrow, I should know one way or another.  I’m so relieved for it to be over!!!

I feel so much better today.  It just goes to show you that venting can be a good thing.

Writing has always been a good outlet for me.  For some reason, talking about what’s bothering me doesn’t seem to help as much as writing does.  I guess with writing it’s completely transferred to the page.  It makes it feel more removed.  When you talk about something, you’re not only speaking the words and hearing them return back to your mind through hearing your voice, you’re also in a conversation with someone else who is also saying similar things back to you.  It reinforces your thoughts.

That’s not to say that talking about a problem or what’s bothering you isn’t important or is damaging in some way.  But the next time I’m just in a general mood or funk about nothing in particular, I think I’m going to write about it rather than talk about it and see if it helps more.

Being irritable these last few days, things are bugging me.  In a few days, I’m planning on being more grateful than I can express about the planned outcome of Cancer Scare 2008.  (”These are the most uncancerous breasts this radiology department has ever seen.  Would you like to be in a textbook?  Can I have your autograph?”)

So at that point, I’ll be blogging about sunshine, rainbows and cute little kitty cats.

Today?  Grumpy.

Grumpy, grouchy, grump, grump.

So.

Things that bug me.

SANDALS.  What’s with the sandals people?.  From what I’ve seen the last several years you’ve got three choices.  Cute little hoochy mama sandals with three inch heels, beadazzled flip-flops or orthopedic shoes with air holes.  Lovely.

I just want something halfway cute that I can wear to Target.  I don’t want birkenstocks or their even uglier knockoffs.  I don’t want $30 flip flops.  I don’t want heels.  And don’t get me started on the crocks.  I don’t get it.  They look like wooden shoes, except made of rubber.  How do you NOT walk out of those things?

My long-suffering friend, who will remain nameless until we agree on a bloggy nickname, has had it up to here with my sandals issues I’m sure.  The only thing that makes her heart sink more when we’re out running errands than me saying I need sandals is that I need a new hairstyle.

Which brings me to my next thing that bugs me.

MY HAIR.   If I didn’t have to look at myself every day I’d just give up.  I look like a 14yo boy.  With bad hair.  What happened to me?  Oh, that’s right!  I know!  Gluten and the economy.  Look at nearly every shampoo, conditioner and hairstyling product that you own.  I can almost guarantee that it has something like wheat germ oil or oat extract in it.  If the bottle you’re holding doesn’t, comment me.  I need brand names.  My previously silky hair feels like hay.

Because I can’t afford to get my hair professionally done at least a couple times a year, AND my grays have taken over I’ve been forced to use the hair color that they sell in boxes at the store.  Apparently there is no such color in those boxes as BROWN.  I have BROWN hair.  I like BROWN hair.  I want BROWN hair.  Brown.  Not orangey brownish weirdness.  And no, it’s not a “warm brown.”  On a an art class color wheel I think my current color would be some sort of ochre.  Maybe an umber.  No wait!  I was right.  It’s Old Holland Classic, Brown Ochre Light -   Just in case you were interested, the exact color is in the orangey brown area right before it starts going gold.

That color, combined with all the frizzy, AND my roots which are totally showing because, I have GIVEN UP, is a sight to behold.

What’s not quite as bad, but only because my hair is so distracting is

MY SKIN.  I look like a 60yo truckstop waitress. (No offense to any 60yo truckstop waitresses who happen to be reading.)   Again, because of all the gluten in everything.  And the lack of funds for vanity procedures.  I’m in serious need of some sort of microdermabrasion.  I’ll just have to pick up some sandpaper the next time I’m at Walmart.

I’m thinking an 80 grit, which I’m told at Woodzone.com will smooth the surface and remove small imperfections and marks.  Now, you might be thinking that I’m going to need a coarser grit – somewhere in the 40-60 grit range, but I don’t like Woodzone’s description that it will rough up the surface.  Because I’m feeling delicate, dang it.  I’m just going to call it out by faith and trust that God and I can get it done with the 80 grit.

I’m very excited that they recommend a 220 grit for sanding between coats of sealer.  Because I think sealer is on sale next week.

Actually, not so much freaking out as so totally DONE with all the waiting.  My appointment for my mammogram is on Tuesday.  I’m going to be SO glad when it’s over.  Then I will know that I’ve got a lot of work to do or I can go on my merry way.  I’m not scared.  I’m just irritated.

Right now I feel like everything is on hold.  We’ve been invited to go camping later this month.  Can we go?  Not sure.  Ask me Wednesday.  Should we go to Disneyland this summer or nextsummer?  Not sure.  Ask me Wednesday.  Redecorate the bathroom?  Not sure.  Ask me Wednesday.

I’m not good with waiting.  I hate gray areas.  I want a yes or a no.

I should say as a matter of comparison that I was only slightly less stressed out and irritated when we bought our house.  That whole 30 day escrow business drives me absolutely insane.  I never feel like it’s my house until I have the keys in my hand.  Until then I feel like I can’t DO anything.

The good news is that Hubby is taking the afternoon off to go with me.  Which is a good thing because it’s downtown.  In the land of one-way streets, no left hand turn arrows, narrow lanes and parking that you have to pay for.  I’m sure he’s not going to be in a much better state of mind, but he drives better under pressure than I do.

I’m not quite sure what to do with him once we’re there though.  There’s no way I want him to be in the mammogram room.  No husband needs that image rattling around in his brain.  I don’t want him to be out in the waiting room though.  Do they have a husband’s waiting area where they let you grab him on your way from the mammogram room down the hall to the talk about the results room?  I want him there when they talk to me about what they find or don’t find.  Because either way I’m going to burst into tears.

Inspired by Fussy’s meme “Insert Witty Title Thursdays“.

There are so many things that I’m grateful for.  I could write pages and pages.

Today I want to talk about my family, and my friends who are like family.  They are tough.  Many of them are more prone to eye-rolling than telling you “it’ll be alright sweetie pie. ” But they’re there.  They’re really and honestly there.

They are strong.  They are strong enough to lean on when your legs go out from under you.  Strong enough to carry you through the storms.  Strong enough to hear you cry when there’s nothing they can do to help you.

They are funny.  They are just as willing to laugh at themselves as anything else.  They know where the chinks in their armor are, and they don’t hide it.

They take the health issues my kids and I have very seriously.  They make a special pot of goulash just for us.  They read labels and articles.  They make whole multi-family meals with no gluten.  They tell me about the signs at the grocery store saying “gluten-free.”  They cut out recipes.  They make eye contact, stop for a moment and say, ”You’re worth it.”

They welcome everyone.  A family barbeque will include friends and family from three or four generations, their friends, their family and anyone from the office who has moved to the area recently.  Is your sister-in-law’s best friend’s mother-in-law in town?  Bring her over!  Someone new in your neighborhood?  Plenty of room!

I’m so grateful, and I’m so lucky to be part of such an amazing, warm, funny and strong group of friends and family.

I am truly and abundantly blessed.

Okay, actually they’re not goldfish crackers.  They’re goldfish cookies.  But stick with me here.

I have tried a bunch of recipes for gluten-free crackers and various ways to add cheese in order to make something that tastes like cheese crackers.  No luck.  Not even close.  I had given up on the idea that my kids would ever have anything resembling a goldfish cracker or even anything tasting remotely like any kind of cheese cracker.

But, I’ve got a theory about trying to create a gluten-free version of regular food that will come into play in the next paragraph.  Sometimes you have to choose – Do you want it to taste like what you remember or do you want to look like what you remember?  Most of the time, I just want the taste.  But with young kids, sometimes all they really want is something that looks the same as all of the other kids have.   It’s important for kids to feel included, especially with a condition that sometimes separates them from their friends.

So, one day I was making some cut-out cookies, using my snazzy gluten-free dough rollout method, and it occurred to me that I could probably make cookies that look like goldfish crackers.

I used a package of gluten-free cookie dough mix from 123 Gluten Free .  You can use any kind of gluten-free roll and cut cookie mix or recipe, but you’ll want to make sure it works (maybe with basic circle cut-outs) before you take the time to try making the goldfish cookies.

I made the cookies according to the package directions and put the dough in a gallon-sized ziploc bag.  I started adding orange and yellow food coloring a bit at a time and squooshed it together in the bag until I got that goldfish cracker color.  I think I might have added just a tiny bit of red to make it a bit brighter.

Then I transferred some of the dough to a new bag and rolled it out, using the SGFDRM (snazzy gluten-free dough rollout method), mentioned above.   Since the goldfish cookies aren’t square, I don’t work the dough into the corners.  I just do a roundish shape like you do with regular cookies.  I roll it out to about 1/8 inch or so.

After you refrigerate the dough for a bit, take the dough out of the bag by gently peeling the dough out of the bag.

Now take a paring knife and make the goldfish shape.   It’s not as hard as it sounds.  Just think about the shape.  It’s very basic.  With just a bit of practice, you can totally do this.  And the ones that don’t turn out quite right?  Mommy Snack!

I just use the tip of the paring knife and just kind of tap the tip up and down and move it slowly rather than trying to slice the dough in a fluid motion.  Tapping allows me to have a lot more control.

When I bake them, I set the temperature about 25 degrees or so less than the package directions.  This allows me to keep an eye on them and allows them to bake a little slower.  After all the work of cutting them out, I don’t want to burn them.

This is time-consuming, but my son’s reaction to finding goldfish crackers (just like all the other kids) when he opens up his snack bag at church makes it all worth it to me.   He gets so excited, and he’s so proud that he gets to eat the same thing as everyone else.

I’ve been contemplating figuring out a way to make some sort of cookie cutter for this, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Well, making my own GF Goldfish crackers Works for Me.  For more Works For Me Wednesday tips, visit Shannon at Rocks in My Dryer.

I’ve actually done laundry for three days in a row.  I’ve only got a few loads left until I get everything but not everything because we’re wearing clothes done.  Then I’m planning on doing it once a week.  I think Thursday is a good day for laundry day, so Thursday it is.

I also cleaned our master bathroom yesterday.  There’s a lot of counter space in there, so it ends up with all sorts of junk piled on it.  My husband’s theory is that I hate flat surfaces.   Give me a flat surface and I’ll have it covered with a random assortment of stuff in no time.  It’s not that I don’t like flat surfaces.  It’s that they’re such a convenient place to put things.  So clearly, I LOVE flat surfaces.

Because I cleaned yesterday and I was taking laundry up and down the stairs, my back is killing me.  It’s not out.  It just hurts.  My last set of xrays shows continuing degeneration at the L5-S1, so basically it’s going to hurt when I do stuff.  It’s nothing compared the the shooting pain I used to get before we figured out the gluten=pain connection for me.  It’s just enough pain to seriously irritate the holy burning heck out of me.  I’m 37!  I should be able to clean a freaking bathroom and do a few loads of laundry without having to take Motrin!  For Crying Out LOUD!!!

The Little Filly is getting much better at picking things up when I ask her to help.  I’ve been giving her a timeframe that is reasonable even for a 6yo.  Today I had her pick up the big living room, then told her that she had 45 minutes to clean the family room.  She had done a great job in the living room, and I wanted her to be able to relax a few minutes, hang out, and then get started.  Instead of doing that, she actually did it right away.  The family room was clean in 15 minutes!!!  I was SO proud of her.