Tasting Life Abundant

 I've been eating a lot of soup this week. I made two soups, a chicken noodle with white beans and spinach and my sweet potato, squash, spinach, sausage, romano cheese soup...Lol I need a better (shorter)name for it. This is a sampling of the treats I made for Christmas parties. Any treats I make are gluten free, and almost always corn and soy too. I have several that are dairy and egg free as well. Even though I don't have to so strictly avoid of all those myself anymore, I have a lot of family members that do avoid one or more of them, and also, I developed the recipes for a lot of my healthier treats when I was on a strict avoidance diet and I actually prefer the results when made that way. I made Butter cookies, caramel corn, peanut butter balls, double chocolate chunk cookies, banana bread, almond flour chocolate chip bars, and no bake peanut butter squares. So far. Four parties down, two to go! Christmas Eve morning breakfast! Brian was home, yay! He usually has t

I love reading the Psalms. They are one of my favorite parts of the Bible. The Psalms are so full of real life, of emotions; they are so relative and applicable. This morning I was paging through the Bible, looking for something to catch my attention for my morning devotions, and Psalm 88 caught my eye. It's titled, "A Prayer for Help on Despondency" in my Bible. The first verses say "O LORD, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before You; incline Your ear to my cry." The psalmist continues by crying out to God, detailing his struggles and pain; specifically, the feeling that God has withdrawn His presence and care, and the psalmist feels so alone and unheard. "LORD, why have you cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?" I think we have all felt this way in our lives at least once.... We don't understand the situations and trials that we come to and we wonder if God cares anymore.

Over the last week, Facebook has been sharing "Memories" with me of what was going on in my life three years ago. Three years ago, I went in for an upper endoscopy and an MRI to try to determine the cause of my chronic abdominal pain and digestive issues. Praise the Lord, everything was OK in there, (as in no cancer or severe illness), and it was very relieving to hear and see that, but it didn't answer what WAS wrong, and it took a long, long time before things really got better and I began healing. Seeing the Facebook memories has had me thinking about how things were three years ago, and has made me that much more thankful for the progress I've made and the healing that continues to happen. Three years ago, I was a mess.....an anxious, miserable, depressed, sick mess. I had a one-year-old son, and a two-year-old daughter, and I felt barely able to take care of them. My son Nathaniel had terrible colds for the first two years of his life, and neither him nor Sop

This  devotional message  I read today really spoke to me. I wholeheartedly agree that God sometimes takes things away from us, even good things, to bring something better into our lives. I am grateful to be able to see His hand in my life, working out The Plan He has for me. Sometimes now too, I remember how close I have felt to God during the hardest times, and I can see how I have drifted, even if it is only slightly, from focusing on serving Him and surrendering to Him, and I begin to crave that feeling of really being near to God. The closer you get to God, the closer you want to be.  I have been struggling a little lately....but now I have learned that while the struggle is not fun or easy, the results will be valuable and useful and helpful to me in my walk with God. Learning to welcome setbacks and pain and heartache is not something that most people probably think about, but I think that being aware of them, and allowing ourselves to feel the emotions that go with our s

Thanksgiving Dinner- Turkey, mashed yellow potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with cinnamon and nutmeg, cauliflower puree, corn, green beans, GF stuffing, and GF biscuits. Every Thanksgiving, we are faced with the decision of where to go to celebrate. We switch back and forth between my side of the family and Brian's, but even then it isn't a straight forward decision, since ALL of our extended family (both of our parents sides) live in the area, and we really actually have about 5 parties we would be welcome to attend. BUT, Brian works every Thanksgiving, so we never get to have to big sit down lunch with everyone, and to be honest, it's kind of lame to show up to a party where everyone else has just stuffed themselves and are usually in the middle of games but the time we can make it. So, this year, we decided we want a nice Thanksgiving meal together as a family, and we will just go to a party after that. So I made our Thanksgiving meal all myself, and I have to say

Just know this today... Wherever you are, whatever is going on in your life right now, you are exactly where God wants you to be. The circumstances of your life are constantly culminating with you in the center of it all, as God lays out your life, moment by moment. And in those moments, we have a choices to make; who will you serve, and what is your outlook on this?... The thought that The Plan for your life is God's Plan is all at once sobering, uplifting, humbling, wonderful, terrifying, and reassuring. The hard things of life can shake us....we see how small and weak we are, and how much we are NOT in control. We see our sin. We see brokenness. But, we do not need to be afraid. Nothing that happens is an accident... there is a purpose behind it all. Sometimes we need to let ourselves just be in the pain and discomfort...allow ourselves to really feel things. Sometimes, I feel like I need a sign in every room of my house, (probably everywhere, actually), that says, &quo

As I make progress on my journey to health and wellness, I sometimes look back over the past few years, and I can see more and more of a contrast between Then and Now. I hope that as you read this blog, you feel encouraged that things can get better for you too, and that God is working through your struggles as well. I hope my healing does not discourage you.... I hope that you feel empowered to make the changes you want or need to make to facilitate healing and well-being in your own life. I hope that you do not look at my life as "perfect", or me as someone who "has it all together", or think, "she can do those things, but I can't...". I feel you. I hear you. I've been there. I know how hard it is to make decisions in the middle of chaos. It feels a lot like looking at a room after my kids have played in it for about 7 minutes and you just look and the mess and think "How am I ever going to get this sorted out and make everything nic

Tri tip steak, garlicky sautéed mushrooms, broiled fresh green beans with bacon and onion, and instant mashed potatoes with pan sauce from the steak. Delicious, except the green beans didn't go over well with the family...we love canned, fresh are too crunchy I guess. Sophie tried the mushrooms though, and she loved them! She is quite an adventurous eater lately. Fried leftover potatoes with ketchup, fries eggs and Cheerios. And tea, of course. The kids loved this breakfast! Who doesn't love fried potatoes anyway? And yes, I do eat cereal sometimes, and thoroughly enjoy it when I do :) Lovely lemon ginger tea, and a breakfast bowl of scrambled eggs, sauteed spinach, fried minced sweet potato and pancetta, and GF toast with butter. Yum. The pancetta was leftover from making homemade BBQ chicken pizzas... also yum. I just love this soup! This time it had butternut squash, sweet potato, spinach, bacon, pecorino Romano cheese, and breakfast type sausage. I love eating th

Parties are kinda fun But afterwards I often feel sick Time for tea and soup. That little poem above is how I feel today.... Yesterday was my son Nathaniel's 4th birthday. We celebrated by having my family over for lunch between church services. And then after the evening service, we went to my in-laws house for a visit. Busy day, but everything went smoothly, and it was nice to visit with everyone. But now today, I am done. Already. At 10:30am. Well, I feel "done", but I can't be "done" because: - I'm a Mom - I have a post party mess to clean up - I need to prep everything for my next NAET appt. tomorrow, and - I'm a Mom. Parties are exhausting to me. It's not that I don't enjoy visiting with people sometimes, or that I don't like hosting guests, or even because of the post party mess..... I am just wired in a way that makes so much contact and stimulation exhausting. Classic introvert, right? I read before that for some people,

Quite awhile ago now, I told my Dr. that I felt like, through my illness and recovery, I was being prepared for something.....but I wasn't sure what. She suggested I make a Vision Board. Basically, the idea is that you put things that interest or speak to you on the board, and once you see them all together you can see how the pieces have a common theme or goal or ideal, etc. Another thought behind it is by putting things you love on it, and especially if you put it where you can see if often, you will bring more of these things into your life, and consequently bring more joy into your life.  Or some people put them together with a goal in mind and the constant reminder keeps them on track towards accomplishing that goal. My Dr. suggested two rules to me: no words and limit the amount of certain things. (For example, if a woman wants a new baby, only put one picture of a baby on there...not 10) Other than that, there are no rules! And some people do use words. I have chosen no

One morning last week, I couldn't fall back to sleep after. Rian left for work. It was a nice morning, so I decided to wake the kids up early so we could watch the sunrise together. They were very excited! They watched from the window for a little while, while I made some tea. Then we went outside and sat in a blanket and watched the beautiful morning sky. Even though they were bundled up in cozy wool blankets, it was quite chilly and they greatly appreciated the hot tea with milk and sugar. We all just snuggled up really close to keep warm and the cats climbed all over us trying to get snuggles too. We ended up sitting out there almost an hour (sunrises are pretty slow....) But it was fun and the loved it. We even saw two meteorite/comet type things (sorry, not my forte) which Sophie was really excited about. She really wants to see a shooting star, but hasn't been able to spot one yet. It was a good morning.   

*Saturday Morning Pancakes* (Gluten, soy, corn, dairy free) 1/3 cup almond flour 1/3 cup coconut flour 1/3 cup tapioca starch 1TBSP coconut sugar ... 1 tsp baking powder 1tsp baking soda Pinch of salt -mix dry ingredients, make sure to get clumps out of flour, make a well in the center and add: 3 eggs 1/4 cup avocado oil 1/2 cup milk (I used almond milk) 1 tsp vanilla Warm water, start with half a cup and mix, adding more to get a nice consistency, should be like normal pancake batter; not too thick, not too thin. I fry mine in butter, but can use avocado oil or coconut oil. I top mine with molasses, the kids like maple syrup or whipped cream and berries, or nut butter and honey.

 Dinner- Asparagus, sweet potato fries, and turkey patty with honey mustard dressing.  Breakfast- sauteed kale with bacon bits, scrambled eggs, and a GF butter cookie & raspberry leaf tea. The cookie is based on my Oma's recipe, which I grew up making whenever I went to her house, and a classic she is known for today. I made it gluten free by subbing in a mix of Bob's GF Flour blend, oat flour and a tiny bit of millet flour, and they taste yummy! Last time I tried to modify these cookies, I used the Namaste GF Flour blend from Costco, but they had a  funny after taste. I also cut the cookies thicker than my Oma does, since I like them to be slightly chewy. Yum!  Dinner- Pot Roast, baked/roasted sweet potato, and green beans. And a nice handful of supplements.... Breakfast- green beans and leftover roast and turkey, and tiny bit of Paleo mayo all warmed in a skillet (my kids loves it too!) Some Darigold White Sharp Cheddar cheese and a spoonful of cashew butter.

Alicia, my NAET practitioner, was investigating what would help balance my hormones, and one of the things she found was I needed to add fruit to my diet. "Oh, whatevs, that's not weird..." right? Actually, I hate fruit. All fruit. Except, once in a great while, I will taste some watermelon, which is usually disappointing; I'm a bad watermelon selector I guess. And yes I've read all the tricks(-.-) Anyway, I need to add 1 cup of wild blueberries per day, plus apples, along with celery, ginger, spinach and asparagus. The only way I've managed to get fruit down in the past is by juicing it, thereby eliminating the various textural issues that give me goosebumps just writing about. Fruit is so....crunchy-veiny-bursting-popping. Or mushy-sticky-slimy. Just yuck. I know, I'm in the minority of the minority... But NO juicing, she said. WHOLE fruit. (-.-) ok.... "SO, how do you see yourself getting this down?" she asked. "Smoothie." I

 I did something scary a few days ago...  I shared my Birthday Cake  post, where I talk about my first miscarriage, on Facebook.  Honestly, I didn't really want to...I don't mind sharing my experiences when it probably won't directly change my life in any drastic way; which usually means either sharing with strangers or writing it on here. But I have noticed that I usually feel so much better when I allow myself to speak freely what is in my heart, instead of holding everything inside of me. So I'm trying to do that.  My numerous doctor appointments and counseling appointments have shown me that not everyone will misunderstand me, and there are others who think like I do, and how relieving it is to just get things out.  It gets so crowded and heavy inside when you are constantly pushing stuff down and keeping your mouth closed and your brain gets so tired when you just recirculate everything instead of releasing your thoughts and emotions.  I am very thankful to ha

A few nights ago we were eating dinner, and my family was really enjoying the food and so they were having a competition to see who loved it the most. "Who ever says it first loves it the most... I do!" "Who ever raises their hand the highest!" "Who ever eats it all first!" -and then Sophie: "Who ever plunges their face into their food!!" *instantly plunges her face into her cauliflower puree* Brian and I were like, "Whaaa...?" and then Nathaniel shoved his forehead into his plate, and then everyone was laughing. (The kids were hysterical) Kids are a lot of work, but they sure do know how to make you laugh.

  *Music I'm listening to..* T he sweet, dark, wonderful smell of a chocolate birthday cake is hanging in the air as I write this.  Today is the one year anniversary of my first miscarriage. I decided that I would be making a birthday cake today, because this day is very much a birth day to me. Not just in the sense that a baby left my womb and came into this world, but also that this day changed me in a very profound way...  One year ago I experienced something that has made me grow. My capacity for grief and sadness grew, but also my capacity to love and empathize, and just feel things. I admit I did not understand how or exactly why women mourned their miscarriages so deeply before, but Now I Know.  Now I understand.  So, like many trials do, this one brought about a type of renewal and re-birth of me as a person. And I am grateful for that.  The days leading up to this day have been hard...  But this morning when I woke up, I decided that instead of starting my day as us

  Sauteed zucchini, Yukon gold potatoes with butter, and fried/grilled trout, caught by Brian and Sophie. Simple and delicious.  The allowed foods for this week's NAET avoidance phase were fisn 'n chips and cauliflower. The end. Because like every food has B vitamins in it, because there are so many types and they are so important. Thankfully, Trader Joes has some good GF fish in their freezer section, so I managed. But it was not as enjoyable as it might sound, and I have definitely had my fill of fish 'n chips for awhile. :) Eggs, wonderful eggs! So good on salads, especially with honey mustard dressing and Spam. Oh, yes, I said Spam. I haven't had any for, like, three years, and then last week I was shopping and I saw it and I was like "Yes. I need that." Lol More salad with boiled eggs, (actually steamed. hard boiled eggs ), HM dressing, and bacon bits. And a side of my creamy, garlicky, turkey/rice/veggie casserole-risotto....I'm not