Thankful

I've never posted this on my blog but it might give you insight into why I put many posts on and then I'll go a few weeks without anything. I'm sure many of you aren't even interested in this story so you can just scroll down to the more interesting things on the blog.


Before my life changed in Feb 2008, I was relatively healthy, losing baby weight and working out 6 days a week. Enjoying my kids and had a very busy schedule. Maybe even a little OCD.


I remember when the sickness started. At first I thought I over did it in the gym. I had pain in my calves that felt similar to a shin splint. The following week the pain did not go away it spread to my thighs, and then the following week it moved up to my hips and back. I became very ill, so ill I couldn't function. It hurt to sit, I had to pace often, I had tingling up my spine, face, and arms which clearly read neurological all over it. Every time I sat (including driving) I would all of the sudden feel like I was going to throw up. Some of the other symptoms included trouble swallowing, sore lymphnodes, extremely high blood pressure (as in high enough to go into cardiac arrest), I felt like I couldn't feel my legs or toes even though I could still walk. I also began the life of twitching and spasms (which are two different things in my book). I was on pain medication and I didn't even know what was causing the pain.


After many specialists who would diagnose or tell me what they thought was going on because it wasn't showing up on any test I refused to take any more pain medication or any other medication for that matter until they figured things out. I felt like this was the end of the road for me and that I was going to die. I felt poisoned.


Months went by. The doctors changed their diagnoses several times and 5 months later my more painful symptoms finally started to slowly leave. I would wake up and not have the throwing up one day, then wake up a week later and my lymphnodes felt better, and so on. That went on for a few more months.


I am thankful God healed that part of my sickness. It did leave me with extreme muscle pain, fatigue, muscle spasms and twitches and some other problems. It's like whatever happened triggered some things in my body. One Doctor re-diagnosed me with Fibromyalgia, another with Chronic Widespread Pain and after going to the Fibro clinic in Portland it's clear that even though I have many symptoms it's not Fibro. They do think it's something neurological.


I have also seen a naturpath and it seems like some of what is going on now is digestive related. I don't know if any of that caused my earlier symptoms or if its the other way around. Whether or not I'll ever feel "normal" again I have no idea. I am still trying to find an answer. Some days are better than others. But on my good days I would say that it's probably about a 5 or a 7 for a normal person. 20 minutes of exercise puts me into a downward spiral.

But God is good. He allowed me to live and be a mommy. I am so thankful even on my hard days that I'm a mom. It's much tougher now to be the mom I want to be than it was 2 years ago. I had the drive and energy just needed to lose the weight. Now I'm way out of shape, have little energy and sometimes don't feel good enough for these two little boys I have but I refuse to just totally give up. I keep busy throughout the day because if I slow down my muscles stop working right.

I am thankful for good insurance that pays for most of my treatments.

I am thankful for good friends that got us through those tough months, Robocop (my husband), and old and new friends who get us through the rough days now. And I'm thankful for two very energetic boys who remind me about what life is really about. And, to not take it all so seriously all the time. I'm still learning....

Piping Icing

My friend Karalee made some cupcakes for the potluck and I frosted. I think piping is getting easier and easier and these turned out too cute not to share! And she's a better picture taker than I am so I had her snap these photos. Here are closeups.

To get the raised middle, you pipe a small a small amount in the center first and then pipe around the cupcake starting w/the outside.

These were my favorites. So cute and fun. For these you pipe a star in the middle and then you just do this all around the cupcake. This seemed to be everyone's favorite.

We couldn't find all her piping gear so we used a ziploc bag, cut a small hole on the end and put the tip inside and taped the outside of the tip to the bag. It worked just fine.

When piping frosting I notice you just need to have a steady hand and consistant pressure. I love how these turned out and will probably never "frost" a cupcake again using just a knife.

Small Grown Up

I was listening to my 5 and 6 year old boys play. Since I've read Dr. Seuss I've always just called them little boy 1 and little boy 2. Annnnyyywayyy....The conversation went like this:

Little boy 2(5 years old): No, you can do that. You have to have a grown up to do that. Here, let me do it.

Little boy 1 (6 years old): Your not a grownup.

Little boy 2: I'm a small grownup.

Well, that explains it all!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Okay I thought I had these on my blog and just told someone to go look at them and guess what? They were not there, they were on my facebook page though... so

here they are:

I totally cheated using Betty Crocker's white cake mix and then divided the mix into equal parts and colored the mix with bright food coloring. Then you simply layer them into the cupcake liner. I frosted them using Betty Crocker's Cream Cheese Frosting w/a lot of food coloring in them because I wanted that bright color for my little guys 5th bday. These were fairly easy but they did take a lot of dishes and a lot more time than I thought they would take.

YUM

For frosting I piped it on there with Tupperware's squishy accordion thingy. I don't know what it's called but basically it's to pipe frosting on. It worked okay, although you can tell when it was almost empty on the ones in the back it was hard to get a nice full frosting look. It works much better very full.

Gluten Free Meetup Group

If you are looking for a gluten free "support" group there is one here in the Tri-Cities area. Here is the info.

GF Tricities- A way of life for many of us
Supporting the Tri City Area. See what we are all about!
Email Autumn Zuljevic: Glutenfreeinwastate@gmail.com

QUICK and EASY Taco Soup

This was quick and easy taco soup. It's not my "real" recipe but for the week I didn't have a stove it was a hit and it was easy.

1 lb ground beef , cooked w/taco season

(We had made up tacos before my stove died and so we just used the left over meat from that)

1 can red kidney beans

1 can corn

1 can diced tomatoes

1 can tomato sauce

1 small diced onion

Taco fixins

tomato, sour cream, cilantro, cheese, chips, whatever else you put on your tacos

Dump everything but the taco fixins in the crock pot. Cook on low 6-8 hours or high 4-6 hours. Give or take a few. It really just needs heated through. You could omit the onion and/or put it on top of the soup w/the other taco fixins.

This was super simple and didn't require much cooking. I call it my cheating taco soup recipe.

TO FREEZE: Put all ingredients into a freezer bag instead of crock pot. Cook the ground beef and add it in there. TO REHEAT: Place in crock pot or on the stove top in a pan.

Gluten Free Dairy Free Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Jalapenos

NOTE: Rice cheese (Aromatic brand) has casein in it. Which is a milk protein. So, read your labels if you need it to be 100% dairy free. Try almond or soy cheese. Or no cheese at all. Some can tolerate a small amount of casein but not milk.

Could the name get any longer? But I'm hear to tell you they are worth every bit of stuttering over their title. These were last nights an experiment while entertaining and the original recipe is adapted from Pioneer Woman's recipe only this is dairy free. Yes, they actually are good! So good that I had a few people try them and say they couldn't tell the difference, much. Maybe not quite as rich but they are still pretty yummo.

1 Tub or 8 oz of Toffuttis better than Cream Cheese. This is fairly soft already because it's not a block of cheese it's in a tub
1 PKG or 8 oz Rice Cheese. I used mozzarella because that is what I had
1 PKG Bacon
1 DZN or so Jalapenos
1/2 CUP BBQ Sauce (make sure it's gluten free)

Optional: chives, green onion or I used a couple dashes of Tastefully Simple's Onion Onion

1. Slice Jalapenos in half.


2. De-seed Jalapenos and wash. Let them dry a little while you get the cream cheese prepped. Recommend using gloves and try not to choke from the fumes. These are almost worse than onions!


3. Mix Tofutti Cream Cheese and Rice Cheese and any of the optional items in.


4. Stuff the peppers. There's no science to it just put the mix into these babies.


5. Wrap with 1/2 slice of bacon. Or if your jalapenos are real small cut your bacon into thirds.


6. Brush with a little BBQ sauce. I find this is also optional but it really helps that bacon to caramelize and taste goooooood. Here is a before picture.

7. Bake 350 for 30 minutes. This is where pioneer woman and I do it different...She cooks lower temp for longer. I have tried it both ways and they all taste good. I'm inpatient and want them sooner and they've always turned out.

Enjoy! And try not to eat them all in one whack because it's truly difficult.