My first poll

I've been trying to decide whether I really want to go through the hassle of re-covering the chair or if I should leave it as it is. Currently it's a very nice dark red microfiber, if I re-covered it, it would be in a nice dark blue (not navy) corduroy.

The walls of the room are sort of a sage green with one wall a light blue. The draperies are a darker blue. There is currently a navy blue rug down, but when we move out it won't stay. My parents will probably put a sage green rug down.

It's hard to get the lighting right to show the shades of green, blue, and red properly.The top left picture has the most accurate coloring. The bottom left picture shows my computer desk, which is where the chair will go. The bottom right picture shows the chair up against the green and blue walls. The shading of the colors isn't quite accurate, but it's the best I could manage.

So, the question is: change the chair so it blends in with the room, or leave it as is so it provides a pop of color?

Please vote and let me know what you think!

Project progress

(photo from Amazon.com)

I finally ordered my own cell phone- I haven't had one for several years- haven't needed one- but now it's time to get one. I got the Blackberry Pearl 8130. It was pretty cheap and it's web browsing capable, so now I can get online and see if something I found is selling good on ebay- answering the question that always holds me up- to buy or not to buy? (and then re-sell on ebay...)

The other ward had their Super Saturday projects out a week ago, and one of them was a bead and wire crown with a little tulle at the back. I looked at it and figured I could make one without someone showing me, so I bought some wire and some beads, dug out my tulle that's been sitting around for who-knows-how-long, and got going with the first pair of pliers I found. Unfortunately for my hand, that turned out to be Mr. M's military multi-tool. While effective, the handle has nothing by way of padding, so I have a blister on a finger and some nice bruising and sore spots on my palm and fingers.

A couple hours after starting, here's what I came up with (a bit different than the one I saw, but better, I think):

LMS modeling her crown outside. She was convinced it was going to blow away and insisted on holding it onto her head.

I started the gold 'Sleeping Beauty' crown for LMS's Halloween costume. I started by spraying some tan craft foam gold, but I need another coat or two before moving on. I'll post a pic when I'm done.

I also started a tree/leaf poster for singing time. The leaves are removable and have song names on them, and the kids take turns picking leaves. I had a 'fish aquarium' that I used for a month or two, and in another month or so I'll do some snowflakes. The fish/leaves/snowflakes attach to a piece of foam core with velcro dots, making for easy removal and replacement. I use it primarily in nursery, but also once a month for singing time in Primary. I didn't take the fish aquarium to church last Sunday because I wanted to teach them a couple new songs, and the kids all asked for the fishies. It always amazes me what makes an impression on little kids. I'll post a pic when I'm done with this one too.

New boots

Aren't these some great boots? Brand new Danskos at a great (low!) price on ebay- happy late birthday to me! I've been looking for these boots all summer and finally found them in my size at a price I could live with. They came today and I looove them! I think I'm going to have to find these boots in black, too. They have nice thick, sturdy soles, and I can put my orthotics in them. I'm going to get a lot of use out of these boots! I had a pair of Aerosoles boots last year, and the soles sucked. I only wore them a few times and I ended up selling them on ebay last week....

Homecoming parade

Friday LMS and I went to the local Homecoming parade. I love small town parades! The sports teams all ride on trucks/trailers/wagons, each high school class does a float, as do some of the elementary schools, the school clubs do something, local dance and gymnastics studios also have trailers full of kids, car enthusiasts show off their cool cars, there's some horse groups, and, of course, the police and fire departments participate.

LMS likes the candy. This year we were surrounded by adults, and I figured out that's the way for your kid to clean up: look real cute and the people on the floats will toss candy to you, and since you don't have to compete with other kids, you get it all!

Pictures, starting from top left, going clockwise: high school marching band, horse group, a pretty good picture of me that LMS took, a lady and her dog (both wearing cowboy hats) while we were waiting for the parade to start, LMS.

Living with two chronic diseases

This is a post I've been thinking about for while, and am finally finishing.

Back in August, the Meanest Mom, who has a chronic disease of her own, hosted an online Ms. Chronic Disease of America E-Pageant. Basically, you wrote in with all the sexy details of your chronic disease. I thought about entering, but I'm just not as clever with words as some people. The first contestant featured has PCOS, which got me thinking. I don't have just one chronic disease, I have two. I will have to deal with PCOS and gluten intolerance my whole life- they're not going to go away. I can minimize a lot of the symptoms, but if I do the wrong things I will definitely feel worse.

I've been feeling a lot better without gluten. After 10 years of feeling like crap (and sometimes worse), it's nice to feel almost human again. Unfortunately I keep forgetting that just because I've gotten to the root of part of my problem and figured out how to deal with it, doesn't mean that everything is completely better. I still have to deal with PCOS and yeast problems.

Comparatively, the gluten intolerance is way easier to deal with than the PCOS. Supposedly, they can both be controlled with a careful diet, but the results of a gluten free diet are seen much quicker (in me) than those of a PCOS friendly diet. I recently read 'The PCOS Diet Book' by Colette Harris. I was really hoping for something profound, but there really wasn't much I didn't already know: eat a variety of low glycemic index foods- whole grains, fresh fruits and veggies, lean meat, etc. Exercise. Lose weight. Get enough sleep.

The most helpful section was the section about herbal supplements to help with symptoms and hormonal imbalances. I'm trying Vitex to help with my hormones, and I'm taking aloe vera juice to help my intestines work properly.

The thing is is that I've always tried to eat healthy, exercise regularly, and tried (unsuccessfully till just recently) to lose weight and get enough sleep. Despite all that, I've never really noticed my symptoms getting better. Talk about depressing. Maybe that's why I've pretty much ignored it since I found out about it more than 5 years ago. Nothing works, so if I ignore it, it'll go away, right? I wish.

I've been losing weight (20 pounds now!), but it's slowed down the last few weeks. Thinking about fruit and its affect on me also got me thinking about PCOS. I've been ignoring it, but I can't keep doing that. Just because I figured out one cause of my weight problems, I haven't got all the causes of my weight problems taken care of (PCOS definitely causes weight problems, so combined with gluten intolerance, I never had a chance). So now I have to focus on figuring out how to eat to control the PCOS. I need to be more careful about the sugar that creeps into my diet. I need to work on not stress-eating, which I most definitely do (usually chocolate). I need to make sure I'm exercising a bit more consistently than I have been.

Hopefully if I can manage to do all that, I'll finally be able to alleviate some of the symptoms of PCOS, and continue to lose weight.

Another great gluten free cookbook

I found another really yummy-looking gluten free cookbook! It's not just baked goods- there's recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner too. The author is Australian, so there are some terms that need to be looked up (sago anyone?), and while the measurements are in grams, they also have them in ounces. Can't wait to start trying these recipes!

Some gluten free baking results

Today I made some corn bread using the Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread mix. The instructions called for a 9"x9" pan, which I didn't have, so I used an 8"x8" pan.

The cornbread rose nicely (more than I expected, but probably due to the smaller pan), but the center had problems cooking through. If I use this mix again, I'll use a larger pan so the cornbread will be thinner and hopefully not have problems cooking through.

It tasted best while warm- I ate it with some of the cassoulet I made yesterday and it was good and filling. I had some with my dinner, and it wasn't quite as good cooled down- it seemed to get a bit more dense and moist somehow. Not sure quite how/why that happened.

I also made some pumpkin muffins using a recipe from Gluten Free Baking Classics. With all the cold weather we've had this week, I had a hankering for some pumpkin bread.

Unfortunately, for some reason, canned pumpkin is 'temporarily out of season'. Not sure why, but I looked at 3 or 4 different stores, and no one had any. Luckily my mom had some, so I could go forth with my baking experiment.

The recipe made a dozen muffins, and they rose quite nicely. The texture wasn't quite as thick and dense as I remember pumpkin bread being, but I don't think I'll ever have that again, and the result was good, so I can't complain too much.

What we ate for lunch today

Cassoulet with lots of vegetables, recipe from October 2009 Runner's World.

Very good and gluten free without any tinkering. Meat, beans, and veggies. Perfect for a cold winter-y day. It took about an hour to prepare and cook (a little long for a lunch meal, but good for a dinner with leftovers for lunch the next day), and it wasn't till just before it was done that I realized I should have made some gluten free cornbread to go with it. I have a bag of Bob's Red Mill gluten free cornbread in the cupboard, and will mix it up for lunch tomorrow.

It made a lot more than I was expecting, so we'll have some for tomorrow. I think next time I make it I'll add some brown rice or quinoa.

Next sewing project

Now that I'm down with LMS's Halloween costume, it's time to move on to the next project: re-cover a chair I got a great deal on on craigslist awhile ago. It was a good enough deal to mess with re-covering it, so I went for it. I have to wait for LMS to go to bed before I get started though- need the space to spread out, and I don't want her messing with/stepping on/trying to help.
It's been snowing all day- great big, fluffy white flakes. It's a couple degrees above freezing, though, so it's mostly rain by the time it hits the ground. Only a little bit has actually stuck.
I dug out our coats from storage yesterday, now I think I need to go find the chains and ice scraper too. Gotta be prepared!

Avoiding wasting time

Lately I've been trying to cut down on the time I spend mindlessly wasting time on the internet. My friend brought it up recently, and it's a good thing to think about.

I have a number of blogs that I read- friends, family, gluten free, crafty types, and so on, and I used to click through each one every day to see if they posted anything new. Then I discovered Google reader. I think blogger has a similar feature, but it allows others to see which blogs you follow, and I think that's too much information available- I like to keep this as anonymous as possible.

Anyway, I linked all the blogs I follow into Google reader, and I can see at a glance who has posted since the last time I checked. Since I only do it once a day, usually in the morning, I'm not spending time throughout the day checking and re-checking blogs. This has really cut down on the time I spend online and I've been a lot more productive lately.

The only thing Google reader won't let me do is link to password-protected sites, so I still have to look at those individually, but I only have a few of those to keep track of, so it's not too bad.

Little Miss Sunshine loooves using my camera, and is always taking random pictures. Most of them don't turn out, but occasionally they do. This one of lambie turned out pretty good (for her), and since lambie is a frequent subject of her photos, I thought I'd include it. I'll be glad when Christmas comes and she gets her own camera (already bought, on ebay!).

A dress for lambie

This evening I sewed a dress for LMS's lambie. Now she can dress up in a pretty pink dress too.

This morning we got up really early to take Mr. M to the airport. He's flying out to a job fair- hopefully it'll be productive. I didn't get a lot of sleep, so I wasn't as productive as I could have been. I did manage to get the pink dress materials cleaned up (I'm a messy seamstress) and put away. Now I can move on to the next sewing project: recovering a chair for my parents' room.

Yesterday we had a cold front move in and got some snow! It was cold again today, and the reports are that we'll get several inches of snow tonight. Is summer over already?

Food That Should Taste Good tortilla chips

I've mentioned the sweet potato tortilla chips made by Food That Should Taste Good before. I've finally found some other varieties, and thought I'd mention how much I like them.

The sweet potato chips are very good by themselves. The bag offers suggestions for toppings, but I haven't tried any of them yet.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I tried the chocolate tortilla chips. They were good- not sweet, but you could taste the cocoa. The chocolate and corn made a different, but good, combination. Definitely not your every-day tortilla chip.

The cinnamon chips were another that I wasn't real sure about, but they are very good. The bag suggests topping with hazelnut spread, so I tried some Nutella. Sooooo good! Seriously addictive.

The one variety that I've tried so far that I didn't really care for is the potato & chive. They have a rather strong flavor, which by itself wasn't too bad, but they gave me heartburn. So I won't be eating them again.

There's still lots more varieties to try, the problem is finding them at the store.

This week's projects

This week I managed to keep busy. We went walking/running as a family (Mr. M is trying to get back in shape to pass his PT test next month) most days this week. The investigator finally came around to check on stuff (good news, since this means Mr. M's clearance is getting taken care of finally). I finally fixed the bike trailer- it had a bit of an accident when we did the 50 mile bike ride.





Before fixing.

After glueing fabric behind the hole.









After blacking out the dried glue, so it's not as noticeable. It's not perfect, but it should hold pretty well.





I listed some stuff on ebay, and some of the stuff I listed on half.com last week sold- now I just need the rest to sell.

I spent most of the week working on LMS's Halloween costume. I made a Sleeping Beauty dress for her, which she loves.

This is what I was aiming for, and I think I managed to do pretty well.


I started out with some fabric...
It ended up being a bit more fiddly than I anticipated, since I added and changed quite a few details from the pattern. This meant it took longer than I thought it would. Of course, part of the problem was that I worked on it in the evening after LMS was in bed, so I would reach a point where I needed her to try it on, and would have to stop for the night.In any case, I think it turned out pretty good. And while the materials cost almost as much as a store-bought Sleeping Beauty costume (a good one), I suspect that my fabric and workmanship will hold up a lot better than a store-bought one would.

Betty Crocker gluten free mixes

A few weeks ago my sister made a pineapple upside-down cake using a Betty Crocker gluten free yellow cake mix. It was quite good- better than I was expecting.

This week I finally got around to making the Betty Crocker gluten free brownies that I bought several weeks ago. I followed the high altitude directions, and they turned out pretty good, too. A little bland, which is apparently a problem when baking with rice flour, so I think I'll add some vanilla next time. Another bonus: they're about half the cost of the other gluten free mixes out there.