It's interesting how scenery changes as you drive across the country. It goes from flat and blah to hilly and green, from no trees to lots of trees.

These were taken out the window as I drove, so they're not the best.

We start out flat and treeless:

drive past the grain silos:

and the hayfields:

oh, a few trees!

back to flat:

pretty church off in the distance:

some rolling hills covered in trees:

more trees:

higher hills:

hills covered in trees:

is that a mountain? I think they call that a mountain out here:

more (small) mountains covered in trees:

more fields, but surrounded by hills and lots of trees:

tree covered valley, stretching into the distance:

I chopped off my hair!

So, remember that one of my goals was to donate my hair to locks of love? 

We measured it and thought it was long enough, so I made an appointment to get my hair cut.

Unfortunately, when I got there, the stylist said she'd have to cut it really short (buzz cut short) in the back in order to get the minimum length. I didn't want it buzzed in the back, but I'd already made up my mind that I was cutting my hair, so we cut it anyway.

And really, I couldn't handle the headaches and lack of a real hairstyle any longer.

Cutting off all that weight has allowed the curl in back to be way more visible. I've fought it in the past, but I've finally embraced it. I let it flip out wherever it wants now. I rather like it.

Not the best pic (taken at my parents' house), I look like I'm in pain, but I'll try to get a better one soon. My hair flips out over my ears, but again, I'm embracing it, though it's actually a little less flippy since we got back. Guess the humidity is good for something. I do like the hair cut though. I think it makes me look, dare I say, older. Not a bad thing, since I've always looked young (ok, way young) for my age.

A better expression anyway (taken at our house):

Fall Soccer Season

We actually missed the first couple weeks of soccer, but since it's a low-key league, it wasn't a problem.

We got home Friday evening and Saturday morning we went to soccer practice.

LMS actually came in to my room at 8 am, all dressed in her uniform, down to her shin guards and her cleats. She wasn't terribly happy when I told her she had to wait another two hours till practice started.

Too cute not to include (she's in the center of the pics, with the braids):

Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter

Note: I wrote this before we left, and thought I'd posted it, but apparently not.

Last week I was wondering through Whole Foods (after hitting Kroger first) and I was getting more and more depressed by the number of things I can't eat it right now. In general this wouldn't actually be that big a problem for me, but since we have a roadtrip coming up I've been trying to find snacks and food that won't make me sick.

Normally I try not to eat too much junk food, but I do believe that roadtrips are made for junk food: m&m's, pringles, and licorice used to be our standard snacks, and we'd hit up whatever fast food place we came to when we were hungry.

Since those days are done, I've had to really plan out our trip (it's times like this that I really wish we had a small RV so I could just prepare normal food with the help of a refrigerator, stove, and microwave)- where we'll stop, what we'll bring, and so on. The candy we're bringing consists of fruit snacks. I can't find anything else that isn't manufactured in a facility that also processes wheat, milk, and/or eggs.

It was in this state-of-mind that I was perusing the peanut butter shelves, looking for little foil packets of nut butters. They're great for hiking and I thought they'd do well on the roadtrip also. While looking around, I saw this:

The label states that it's gluten free and dairy free, and there was no eggs or corn in the ingredients, so I read the label further, and it said that it contains a lot less sugar than other chocolate hazelnut butters, so it doesn't taste like frosting. Hmmm, I like Nutella, but it is on the sweet side, like frosting. Less sugar is definitely a good thing.

It is pricey ($9.99 for 16 oz), but it's not like I'm buying any other junk food now. The texture reminds me of the chocolate peanut butter, and the taste is similar too- not overly sweet, tiny chunks of nuts, but hazelnut instead of peanut butter. It's a healthier version of Nutella! Which I can't eat because it has dairy in it.

Definitely a thumbs-up!
Have you tried Justin's Chocolate Hazelnut Butter?

It's been awhile...

Wow, 3 weeks since I last posted. They've been a busy 3 weeks.

I ran the 4 mile race on Saturday, then on Monday LMS and I left to visit family and friends in the west. We were gone for almost 3 weeks, and 7 days of that was in the car. Yikes!

Luckily LMS does quite well on roadtrips, so the worst part was all the sitting. There was a lot of sitting. I'm going to the chiropractor in the morning...

The whole trip went really well and we had a good time. We didn't have time to visit everyone (we never do, unfortunately), but we enjoyed spending time with those that we did get to see. LMS got to play with all her cousins except for my brother's kids (they live too far away for us to visit on this trip), and got to see all her grandparents and most of her aunts and uncles.

I had two purposes in mind when I planned this trip: visit family and friends (check!) and bring back the pieces of LMS' Little Tikes playhouse and climbing thing that had to be left when we moved because we ran out of room on the truck (not check).

The day before we left to come back, we drove half an hour to pick up a small U-Haul trailer (I wasn't happy about this, since I wanted to pick it up in town, which is 10 minutes away. They claimed there weren't any available- I made the reservation a month in advance, what's the point of making a reservation if the equipment I need isn't available where I want it? But I digress....) then drove to the grocery store in town to pick up some dry ice. During the drive, I noticed that my turn signals stopped working. When we got to the grocery store, I could lock the car, but I couldn't alarm it. When we finished at the grocery store, I started the car, but I couldn't get it out of park.

I stress big time when my car doesn't work properly, so the next couple hours while I waited for my dad to get home from work weren't enjoyable. We checked all the fuses, and it turned out that 3 were blown, including the ABS fuse, which is why I couldn't get it out of park. At that point, there was no way I wanted to spend the next several days pulling the trailer across country, always wondering if my lights were working and waiting for more fuses to blow.

I packed our suitcases and stuff in the car and the next morning my mom towed the trailer to the U-Haul place in town and I told them I wasn't going to be keeping it and they could deal with it. They were pretty nice about it all and said they'd refund my money, but it doesn't change the fact that the toys are still at my parents' house  :(    Now I have to figure out another way to get them out here.

However, driving half an hour to pick up the trailer turned out to be a good thing, since if I'd only had to drive 10 minutes the fuses might not have blown till I was on the road the next morning. At least this way we didn't have to sit around and wait for someone to come rescue us from the middle of nowhere.

The trailer snafu was the only blotch on the trip, though. We had fun visiting friends and family and did some shopping (organization stuff and Christmas presents). This trip did require a lot of planning because of our dietary restrictions, but because of my planning I didn't have any problems, and I've even lost a few more pounds!

LMS had lots of fun and keeps asking to go back and play with her cousin who's only a few months older than her.
"Are we going to N's house, mama?"
"Sorry, kiddo, we're driving home, N lives in the opposite direction."
LMS frowns and pouts.

She keeps saying she's hungry and she's eating tons, so I think we're heading for a growth spurt. This would actually be kind of nice, since I'm afraid to buy pants right now. The 3Ts are just right, but if she grows any they'll be too short. On the other hand, 4Ts are still way too long. In the meantime, we'll keep wearing lots of skirts.

Women's 4 Mile Race

This morning I ran my first race in more than a year and a half- the last time was New Year's Day 2009. I was a little concerned about the course because the course description kept talking about hills, but ultimately the slight inclines couldn't hold a candle to the hills I've been running while pushing a four year old in a jogging stroller.

And can I say how much easier it is to run when not pushing said four year old in a jogger? Holy cow! What a difference! It's been at least 6 months since I ran without her, so I'd forgotten what it's like. In training, I only managed to run two or two and a half miles during my four and four and a half mile walks. I knew I could finish a four mile race, I just wasn't sure that I could run an entire four mile race.

Other than a short distance (a hundred yards, maybe) between the mile 3 marker and the water table, I ran the entire race! Yay me! And I only walked that section because I couldn't catch my breath- I still don't have my inhalers worked out properly, so they helped, but not quite enough.

Because I was able to run almost the entire race, I also finished a lot faster than I thought I would. I wasn't really sure how long it would take since I didn't have any real benchmark to go from, but I definitely wasn't expecting to finish in 42:32 (that's a 10.6 minutes/mile pace).

Making the whole experience even better, my shins didn't bother me! This is HUGE- being able to run a race without my shins killing me is something I've been looking forward to for a loooong time.

Several of my friends also ran the race, and LMS was able to stay with their husbands and kids while I ran, which really made the whole thing possible. I left my camera with LMS, and she tried to get a picture of me, but my camera is a piece of crap and way too slow. So instead of me, here's a picture of the people behind me:

and a picture of me while we walked to the starting line, waving to LMS:

Apparently one of the husbands got some good video of me waving to LMS as I ran passed them to the finish line (they were a couple hundred yards from it), but I haven't gotten a chance to see it yet.

I enjoyed the course and I'd like to do this race again next year :)

Lemon Blueberry Granola

lemon blueberry granola

Since we're not eating gluten, eggs, dairy, or corn now (yeah, I know, quite the list. but I feel so much better that it's worth it), I'm having to re-think our daily menus. Breakfast is the biggest problem since we used to eat eggs or cinnamon chex (which have corn in them) with cottage cheese and milk (tastes better than it sounds).

I made some gluten free vegan zucchini muffins that turned out quite good. Looking for recipes that are gluten free and vegan is the easiest way I've found to avoid dairy and eggs. There's a lot of recipes that eliminate one or the other, but it's harder to find recipes that eliminate both. Since vegan recipes do not contain dairy products or egg, that's what I look for these days. We're not giving up meat though!

I've also made a couple batches of granola. The first was cinnamon raisin, the second was lemon blueberry. I thought both turned out pretty yummy. Add some coconut milk, and it's even more yummy.

The base is gluten free oatmeal and quinoa flakes and is easy to make. It's actually very similar to my mom's granola recipe that I used to make in my pre-gluten free days. I like that I can adapt the recipe by adding different extracts (vanilla, lemon, orange, etc) and different dried fruit (raisins, blueberries, cranberries, etc)

I've been playing with the recipe a bit- adding unsweetened applesauce for better "clumps" and trying different flavor combinations. My next efforts will be orange cranberry and mixed berry.

What are some other flavor combinations that might be good?