Gluten in Cosmetics?

A lot of people have asked me about gluten-free cosmetics. I only buy gluten-free shampoo and conditioner, because my reaction to those is immediate, but I'm a little flaky when it comes to anything else. If I can find a gluten-free anything, I'll probably buy it. Eyeliner, eyeshadow, especially lipstick. I don't exclusively buy gluten-free products, but I make sure not to buy things that are specifically gluten-ized. You know, oatmeal-infused hand lotion and things like that.

So my January Ipsy bag came in the mail, and I wasn't as blown away as I was last time. There was a moisturizer, a three-in-one moisturizer-serum-toner, a stick of eyeshadow, a tinted lip gloss and a leave-in conditioner.

Battling the Beast

Truthfully, I haven't felt like I've been in control for quite some time now. There is this thing hanging over my head that determines what I can eat, where I can go out to eat, how much energy I have, and how I feel about food. I've tried to own this disease of mine, making the eating restrictions just another part of who I am. The one thing I will never have control over, though, is getting sick. I have no say as to when, how bad or why I get sick. I can't make it go away faster, I can't even silence the symptoms. I am helpless to the angry beast that is my stomach.

This last weekend, I went out with a group of friends. We went to a restaurant I've been to several times and never had a problem with, but something went wrong. Before I'd even finished eating my food I started to feel it. Two of the people I was out with have watched me get sick before; they know the symptoms and they know how fast they set in. They started to pick up on how I was feeling right away and asked if I wanted to go home. I insisted on staying, but eventually everyone else started to notice too.

Quick Meals - Slow Cooker Dump-Pot Soup

Well, the new year is not everything I hoped it would be. I haven't done a lick of baking, I haven't blogged much so far, I still don't have much energy, and I'm still crazy busy. We're only ten days in, sure, but I just feel like I've failed the last ten days.

I have been cooking, though! Sort of... I've made two dinners in a slow cooker this week. One of them turned out fantastic, and the other was so-so. So what was so fantastic? My dump-pot soup, that's what. I basically took everything I had lying around and threw a bit of it in the slow cooker.

I started with a pound of ground beef, and added some water and cooked it on low for four hours. When I was home for my lunch break, I added some more. Two tomatoes, some spinach and half an onion went in the food processor before going in the slow cooker. I also minced two cloves of garlic, and added a bay leaf and some oregano for spice. I tossed in a tiny slice of dehydrated jalepeno, and a few baby potatoes sliced thinly.

In hindsight, I should have left out the potatoes. I was thinking that the soup needed something with consistency, but the potatoes left it feeling like a really thin stew.

It was really tasty though, and even tastier the next day after the soup sat in the fridge.

My Untraditional New Year's Eve Party

I'm pretty sure I was meant to be a sixties housewife, but somebody somewhere messed up and I was born in the nineties. What the crap, guys? I live in a time where I'm not expected to bake, host dinner parties and clean all the time. I'm expected to have a job, go to work, and be independent. I would way rather be home all day, keeping the house clean, making casseroles for dinner, baking plenty, and hosting dinner parties often. Honest to goodness, I was meant to be a sixties housewife.

But with the way life has been going, I haven't been hosting much. The last event I had at my house was in May. Recently, a couple friends of mine were planning a New Year's Eve Bash, so I jumped on the chance to host it. Yes, that meant I would need to do a lot of cleaning, but goshdarn it, I wanted to have people over again.

Until it was time to plan the party, and then I realized I've never even been to a NYE party... I mean, my parents had friends over every year, and I used to go out to a big youth event, but that's it. I've never even been to a bar for NYE.

So I didn't know what to make, what to serve, what to do, or what to have on hand. I felt totally at a loss. I figured it out, and I think it went really great, but I didn't exactly do anything traditional.

Happy New Year!!

Happy new year.

I guess the arbitrary calendar this culture adheres to has flipped a page and we must celebrate.

Numbers only have as much meaning as we assign to them, and New Year's is all about numbers. I honestly find it all really arbitrary and meaningless. I'm not one to make a whole list of resolutions and feel all heartbroken when they only last for two weeks. I don't really think that the calendar turning one page will help me become a better person.

However, in the same way that I celebrate Valentine's day and mother's day, I will celebrate New Year's. I appreciate holidays like this, because although we should honour our mothers every day, and remember to love our SO's all the time, it helps to have one day a year where the world reminds us to. So in the spirit of remembering what we should always be doing, I'll take the time to look back and look forward.