Gluten Free Breeze (formerly Brendygirl) Blog

Gluten-Free Me...

Celiac.com Sponsor (A13):
...gives Mucho Kudos to Chex Cereal (recently gone gluten free) for listing an informational blurb on the side of its box now that explains celiac disease as a "multi-symptom autoimmune disorder...estimated 1 in 133 Americans suffer from...", and it goes on to list a celiac website and has the logo for the Celiac Disease Foundation.

...got to participate in a luncheon at work! It was "build a salad". I can't say I liked it that much. I like expensive stuff, like spinach, raspberries, avocado, etc. So the dried up carrots and bagged iceberg lettuce were barely appetizing to me. I noticed most of the people didn't even get lettuce, opting for spaghetti and dessert instead. There were bags of lettuce remaining at the end, but the desserts were wiped out. Funny that I often hear people say they have a hard time finding healthy choices at work...but when there are, we see what they choose.... Perhaps it's good for my waistline that I'm celac, leaving narrower choices.

...missed my celiac meeting. I was taking a break from email, to minimize stress, and oops!

...went to Whole Foods Market and ate their gluten-free brownies with walnuts. Tantalizing. They were gone in 3 days. Got some cherry pie, cream biscuits, frozen pizzas, decadent cake mixes, and gluten-free beer, too. Yum-O Haven't had the beer yet. I just like to have it "in case" I go to someone's house or someone comes over.

...has been enjoying this gorgeous 80 degree and sunny weather by the pool, munching on Salt N Pepper Baked Mr. Krispers Baked Krisps and reading Ann Rule true crime books and Sons of Norway magazines.

Yesterday's Menu: Breakfast: Chex Cereal. Lunch: Turkey Tacos with avocado and Edy's mint ice cream. Snack: Mr. Krispers Baked Chips, a large fresh mango. Dinner: 3/4 of a mini-Frozen gluten-free pizza w/mushrooms. Carrots. Slice of gluten-free Cherry pie-Whole Foods Market. Workout: Fit TV channel: Star Workout Boot Camp and Shimmy Bellydancing.

Green Me...

...has been using canvas bags, as well as collapsible bags (bought at Target-folds to look like a wallet) and one with a caribeener clip called chicobag, as to cut down on plastic and disposable bags when I do grocery and other shopping. In Chicago, my brother took me to shops in Bucktown and when you bring your own bag or go without a bag, this one store gives you a token, which you put in one of the various charity boxes by the door. Each token is five cents they'll donate to the charity. I realize it's not much, but it's a cool idea.

[/color]...applied for a grant so my students can build models of solar cars. Keeping my fingers crossed to see if we get it!

Single me...

...took my Elf boy (he's five years younger than me and has pointy ears and a pointy blonde goatee) to a party at this mansion. (Winding driveway leading to hidden house atop hill, museum-like furnishings, multiple buildings, pillars on the pool house, etc., you get the picture.) There happened to be a guy (my Band Boy) there whom I gave my # to awhile back and we just text and flirt and rarely see each other because he lives an hour away. He seemed perturbed that I brought a date. He came up to me and said, "I can't believe you brought that guy. Seriously!" So, since I was drinking lotsa champagne and shots (this was my planned stress-relief I'd been waiting for...see below, Sullen me), I let myself have some fun. I was dancing with my girlfriend and then I'd sneak over and listen to Band Boy play the piano for me and kiss him behind a pillar, and then a bunch of the band boys, the 60-something owner, someone's wife, myself, my Band Boy, and my Elf Boy peel down to our undergarments and got in the jacuzzi. It was funny when the 60-something guy got naked. Others were not amused. It was fun until 3:30 AM. Then I packed up my Elf Boy in my Bond Girl Car and drove him home. I went home alone to my AWESOME bed with no snoring to keep me awake.

Style: I did not buy a new dress for this occasion. I wore a dress from four years ago. It's a BCBG tarzan- style strap, with shredded pieces of muted dyed-looking green and turquoise strips of silk and an assymetrical hemline with turquoise shellac-coated leather Carlos Santana heels with ankle straps.

Sullen me...

...My grandma passed away two days after my last blog entry. My best friend was flying in to spend the weekend in Cali, and I had to fly out and miss her visit. It was great to be there and support my mom. It was scary how happy my aunt was. She said she was happy her mother was in heaven now, but I think it's those Happy Pills she's on. Spooky. It was hard to be grieving and to be around her (although she's not a family person, she has no kids, and she rarely visits anyone, my account of her is that she's usually a moody, depressed person). She was laughing and happy and almost chipper. She's sing-song, "Look, here's Mom's obituary!" and shove it in my mom's face, to which my mom curled in a ball and sobbed. So, then she sing-songed and showed it to my mentally disabled uncle, who subsequently cried. I told her I didn't want to see it.

Later I discovered that, although my grandmother looked me directly in the eyes and told me several times this summer, "She thinks she's getting my house, and she's not. That's the only reason she came here," my aunt, who was giving my grandma morphine the three days she came home from hospice care, had my grandma change her will and quick claim deed the house to her-a day and a half before she died.

It's like a made-for-TV movie. Totally creepy. I don't think my aunt is evil, I just think she is desperate for money. When my mom and I visited her in Baltimore a couple years ago (my aunt has never visited me-even when she lived five blocks from me when I was little we barely saw her-she even missed my wedding-mind you, she has no children of her own, only one niece-me, and I've been to two of her three weddings) she had bill collectors calling her all day long. Ironic, because years ago she worked for a bill collection agency herself.

Anyway, at least she is going to take care of her disabled uncle that my grandma used to care for. I hope she does a good job with him. I don't think my deceased grandpa would like that the will he and my grandma made over twenty years ago was changed from his daughters splitting everything he worked his whole life for, to the wayward one getting everything at a last minute change while my grandma was dying.

Funny, how it's the extended uncles and cousins of my mothers I haven't seen in years that were the nicest to me and offered the sweetest sentiments of my grandma. My little brother was amazing. He literally held me up when (after being the rock for my mom all week) my knees buckled and I let out guttoral sobs on the procession behind the coffin on the way into the church sanctuary. Normally stoic me, had a "dramatic" moment. My brother is the best. He also offered the most wonderful eulogy and ended it with a tearjerker poem. There wasn't a dry eye....

It was great that I found the VHS video from the 80's that my grandpa had made about my grandma. How many women have a video made about them from their husband for no reason at all? It was like the ultimate love letter. We watched it on the LCD projector at my great-aunt's house, and also had it playing at the funeral. It started with black and white stills from when she was born, to when she eloped with grandpa at age 15, set to their "song", Leo Sayer's "More Than I Can Say". It ends with candid video footage of them driving in a tornado, them with their friends, family, and lots with us, their three grandkids. Hearing their laughter, their voices was so calming. Seeing grandpa's quirks like the "swing" he made for gram by hanging a lawn chair from a tree,wearing his tennis shoes that were more comfy after he cut the toe boxes out, etc. They were young enough to be our parents- when I was born, my grandma was 34. We were very close. I miss her.

She left me a birthday card, a birthday present, Christmas present, and some sort of small investment. I'll wait until my birthday to open the gift, but I think the card with her writing to me will be the best part.

Chubby Me...

...Since visiting so much with family, and just crying and being sedentary and lethargic, I feel chubby. In the Midwest there was lots of access to gluten free goodies. I don't regret it. I work out on the weekends still, but I have to amp it up during the week. Just to be mentally alert and aware during work is exhausting. I feel like I don't have enough clarity to multi-task like I usually do, and I have to methodically do one thing at a time and try to maintain effort to focus. I don't know if it's worse than celiac brain fog or not. My clothes aren't tight yet, but I have been wearing mostly dresses. I better get it together before it gets cool enough to wear pants.