I need opinions!

My dearest readers of my personal blog:

So, I need some advice regarding my other blog, about diabetes. Diabetes Awareness Month is right around the corner, and I need some ideas/opinions about what to blog about this year. I'm totally getting ahead of the game on this one, but I thought I'd start now seeing as this will probably sneak up on me quickly!

So, I want to blog every day again for a month, but I'm not sure what to blog about. Last year I did a bunch of stuff. I covered the basics of diabetes for a considerable amount of time. I talked about the health care system a little bit, I talked about D-technology, and I blogged about some personal experiences.

So, I want to take approach things a little differently this year, but I'm not sure where to start. Do I focus solely on how diabetes affects me personally? Do I talk about some of the more in-depth nuances about diabetes or living with diabetes (I think that might be boring). There's a lot of interesting new diabetes research I could talk about too? What would you all want to hear more about? What do you think I could write about that would make someone more "aware" of diabetes and its impact on the world? Is there anything you personally want me to talk about? Should I just ask for 30 days worth of questions from people and answer a different question every day?

Opinions, please? :)

GF success, numero two!

I made these gluten free brownies, from my friend's website a few days a go, and OH_MY_GOODNESS they were so good! Ben even loved them, and he doesn't need to avoid gluten!

I couldn't tell the difference between these and regular brownies, and they were chewy and fudgey and oh-so-chocolaty, everything a girl could need for a brownie binge, and more!

Seriously, people, throw out any and all store mixes, and just make these. They are soooooo much better. AND EASY!

Thank goodness for people who have gone down this road before me!

Some thoughts on cleanliness . . .

(Random late-night migraine induced ramblings here, peeps, just FYI.)

• In my opinion there are a few things that should always be clean in one's house. First, the kitchen, or where ever you prepare food. It's just good public (and private) health. If nothing in my house is clean, you can bet my kitchen will at least be decent enough to prepare a meal in. After that is clean, then any rooms that guests might be in should be clean enough. So, living rooms/entry ways, that sort of thing. After that, it's a free for all. And of course, all of that should never be at the expense of your sanity or clarity. Because let's be honest, if your brain isn't "clean" (clear, sane, not overwhelmed) first, a clean kitchen isn't really going to be all that useful.
• Speaking of clean kitchens, cleaning my kitchen is almost always one of the last things I do before I go to bed. It's almost like part of my bedtime ritual, and it helps me wind down.
• Also, about clean kitchens: I learned by example from my Mom to clean as you go while cooking. She always did this while we were growing up. And while I didn't really have any formal cooking instruction from my mom, I must have just picked this up as I was watching her cook. I distinctly remember her washing spills off of the burners on the stove right after stuff boiled over, putting stuff away while other stuff was in the oven, etc. My Mom ran a tight ship in that kitchen, and I never walked into that kitchen and thought "what a mess!". She always said stuff like "Watch out, I'm slinging hash in here!" But even if hash was slung, she never just left it where ever it landed. She always swept it right up! Clean as you go, it's the right way to go! (Did you see how I just rhymed there?) It really is SO much easier in the long run! Thanks Mom!
• We finally bought a new vacuum cleaner. And it sucks! Big time! Woot! It's this Hoover Wind Tunnell. And I'm seriously in love, and grossed out all at the same time. I cannot believe how much dirt our old vacuum was missing! Ew!

OK, my counters are clean and sparkling, all my food is in the pantry, and the dishwasher is running its gentle, lulling, ocean-tide reminiscent sound. I'm off to bed!

I Accept.

Ben and I have been talking lately about all the craziness that can happen in life, and how it's kind of like those "check this box if you accept" EULAs when you download stuff or register for a web-site or service or something. How many of us actually read through those things?

Sometimes life can throw something at you, and you think "did I really agree to this?"

The other day, I'd had a particularly trying day. I had been dealing with this foot injury/rehabilitation, I had bruised my tail bone pretty badly (still hurting, btw), my blood sugar was low and my insulin pump was screaming at me because it was all out of insulin and it was time to change my infusion set. So, here I was, half-crazy from a low blood sugar, balancing precariously on my seat trying not to put weight on my tail bone, attempting to change my pump infusion site, and when I pulled the old site out to swap it with a new one, it gushed blood all over me. I wasn't anywhere near a kleenex, so I just slapped my had over the gushing to try to stop the bleeding, tried to stand up with half-inserted pump sites flailing tubing all over the place, while trying not to hurt my tail bone even more, and stumbled into the bathroom to get a kleenex. And, the blood was gushing between my fingers, but I did manage to keep it off of my clothes.

I got all cleaned up and put back together and got my insulin pump stuff all figured out, and then I just LOST it! Like, Ugly Cry lost it. I usually don't lose it about diabetes stuff, because I really do think it's a waste of time to feel sorry for myself, but at that moment I just lost it. Literally in a matter of 2 seconds I went from, "OK, I can handle this" to "I don't want to do this any more, I'm scared about the future, why me, why all of this?" And I had one of those moments where I thought "Man, I wish I would've read the EULA before clicking 'Accept' on this life." I was bitter, I was scared, I was hurt, and I was angry and I felt cheated. I thought that there was no way I would have chosen this for myself if I had known this is how life was going to be.

At times like that, all you can do is get on your knees, so that's what I did, and I said a little prayer, and this is the answer I got from God. I did choose this. I was fully informed about how hard this life would be, and I still chose it. I knew how great the end result of God's plan for me was, that I was willing to go through all the hard stuff to get there. And somehow, just knowing that I chose this in the pre-mortal life empowers me to continue on in mortality. Knowing that enduring tough stuff was a choice I made disarms the trials' power over me and gives me back power over my trials.

The Ugly Crying stopped. I felt instantly SO much better, and I was even able to chuckle about it a little bit. (I mean, c'mon, it really was kind of a ridiculous sight-- blood spurting, insulin pump trailing, hobbling all over the house). Perspective is a blessing.

One of my favorite mantras to repeat to myself I learned when I worked at the Center for Change. It is this: "We can do hard things." Simple, and powerful. We can do hard things. I can do hard things.

GF Success!

So, I made gluten-free zucchini bread today and it was a RAGING SUCCESS! Thanks very much to my good friend, we'll call her "Dia-T" (not to be confused with my other good friend "Tiny T") and her blog Gluten Free in SLC. I was surprised by a few things:

1. It was so MOIST! (I hate that word, but it is very appropriate here). All the GF baked stuff I've had until now has been super crumbly and dry. This was soooooooo good!

2. It tasted really good! The flavors and textures were very close to non-GF zucchini bread, and I only noticed a very fine grit right at the end of my chewing and right before swallowing.

3. It was so light! I was surprised at how light this seemed to me, compared to eating glutened stuff. I never noticed before, but when I eat glutened baked goods, I feel this heavy filmy-ness (I don't know how else to describe it) in my mouth. The contrast between that and GF baked goods was interesting and so different, and I can only explain it as feeling "lighter".

4. I didn't have itchy eyes while baking. So, I have always thought that when I make things with flour that I must be breathing in the flour dust and it is irritating my eyes or something, because that happens to me every time I bake. My eyes get itchy/watery and my nose gets itchy too. That absolutely did not happen today! And let me tell you, tapioca starch is dusty and I think I breathed in more of it than I actually put in my bread! Sheesh, that stuff flies everywhere, but I had no itchies after baking! Again, weird, but something I just took for granted was "normal" until trying something different.

So, I was very heartened by this initial success. I know GF baking/cooking can be hard, and I was scared and didn't want to fail and get discouraged and give up. I count this as a little blessing that will encourage me to persevere! I'm sure I'll make a bazillion batches of gross stuff in the future, but this was a nice start to my(very slow and reluctant) exodus out of the land of Gluten. Thanks everyone who had a hand in my first success!

Brain Cloud! I knew it . . . but I didn't know it!

How is it already the middle of August?! We've had a few cooler days this last week, and it made me realize that fall is just around the corner. Sad and happy all at the same time! We have been so busy, the summer has flown by! And I realize it's been a few weeks since I've blogged.

I've had so many things going through my brain lately, I'm not really sure why. It feels like there have been a lot of new and exciting things going on in our life, even though I can't really pinpoint what any of them are. Weird? My mind seems to have taken a "productive" or "creative" turn lately, and I have a bazillion projects and ideas that I want to do/work on that my brain is just overwhelmed and needs to find some clarity! So, if anyone has any suggestions on where I can get some of that, let me know. :)

Here are some things I've been thinking about of late,in no particular order, and probably leaving many of the things I've been thinking about out!:

1. Family History Work-Holy cow, have I caught this bug! And Ben too! We actually went out to the middle of Nowheresville, Ohio last weekend and tromped around some graveyards taking pictures of graves of people that Ben is related to! And I think we're going to do it for my side of the family in the next couple of weeks. Turns out we both have Ohio ancestors! And, don't worry, I'm still working hard on my Norwegian ancestry, although there's something going on with the Norwegian National Archives website that is making it hard for me to do more at the moment. Some sort of restructuring that I don't really understand because the announcement gets lost in Google Translation . . . (Tamsin? any ideas?)

2. Foot/Leg Rehabilitation-Stagnant, but with a possible breakthrough this evening. This has been a hard injury for me. I'm not used to not being more active, especially in the summer. I don't like having to be careful and patient. But, tonight, I stretched in a very different way, and was immediately able to touch my toes! right after! My hamstring has been SO tight, and this is what I believe has been the biggest contributor to my plantar fasciiitis, so a loose enough hamstring to touch my toes is a BIG deal.

3. GF Cooking/Baking- Thanks to the good ole' Type 1 Diabetes, I think I'm slowly heading on board the gluten-free train, never to return. I'm not testing positive for Celiac via the blood test yet, but I have tried spurts of GF eating and goodness gracious does it seem to make a difference! My digestion is slow and gross when I eat gluten, which makes my blood sugars very unpredictable. When I don't eat it, I don't feel gross, and I have predictable blood sugars. Ugh. I'm still totally in denial, and am right now of the mind that "if I ever test positive then I'll take it completely seriously" and until then am trying to avoid gluten when possible. Probably not the best attitude, but I'm not ready to make that behavior change yet! But right now, I'll eat it when we go out with friends, or if there's something particularly tasty that tempts me. So . . . it's all a big "we'll see" at this point. I did actually go out and buy some "alternative" flours and am going to start experimenting with baking using them. I love to bake so much, and if the time comes when I have to give up gluten completely, I absolutely could not live with out baked goods. So, I'm looking at this as preparation and having some fun experimentation time in the kitchen. Sorghum flour, tapioca flour and xantham gum, let's figure you guys out!

4. Missionary Work- With so many family members serving missions right now, missionary work has been a theme in my life lately. I'm a very reluctant member missionary (I'm a big fat chicken!) but lately, we've had little opportunities here and there to help out the missionaries in our ward and it hasn't been too scary. We've been reading from Preach My Gospel for FHE and it has helped give me a refresher course of the basics about the Gospel and the Church that would be helpful when trying to explain what I believe to other people. Plus, it's just beautiful to remember that God has a plan for everybody, that He's involved in our lives, and that Someone cares about us. Those really are the main messages about the Gospel that we want to tell people, right? Beautiful!

5. Random Projects-I have ever so many projects rolling around in my brain that I want to work on. Anything from "Make the switch to natural household cleaning products" to "lose some weight" to "paint some portraits" to "finish a quilt you started 1.5 years ago" to "organize food storage" to "finally finish reading the Old Testament" (sheesh). I even have a little notebook that I write down all the projects I want to do in, so I don't forget about them. Then, when I finish them, I can cross them off. On the project note-

6. Painting-My heavens why haven't I painted in so long!? I recently picked up my brushes again after an I-don't-even-know-how-long painting hiatus, and man does it feel good! There is something about linseed oil that is soothing to my soul. SOUL SOOTHING, people! Maybe it's the heavy fumes? I bought an easel (this one, only in black-thank you 40% off on-line coupon for Hobby Lobby), got an old LP to use as my palate (thank you Mrs. Kretchmar's art class for this idea), set myself up in the spare room and started painting again. Also, I trashed the liquin my BYU art instructor had me start using, that stuff ruined my painting for awhile, I think.

And that's my brain. Cloudy, yes. Exciting though, I think so.

Oh, and did I mention I rocked my latest A1C? 6.5, baby!

Another great quote from the Ensign:

So in the August Ensign, the first article is about Love at Home and contains a bunch of quotes from President Monson. Here's one of the quotes I really liked:

"Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved."