My Trip to Saskatoon

I got back pretty late last night, after a full and emotional weekend.

We drove up to Saskatoon on Saturday, but we didn't leave until after six, so we got there pretty late. I dropped M off at the apartment he'll be staying at, and then went to my friend's house. She had a pretty rough weekend, family-wise, so I stopped at a gelato place on the way. Gelato is way better than ice cream at fixing problems.

We stayed up late, talking, and then driving around, and I slept in her bed and she slept on the couch. She insisted. I was totally okay with the couch.

We went to her church in the morning, went out for lunch, met up with some of her friends who were in town for something else, and then went shopping. After that, around four, I met back up with my husband, spent some time with him, then went for dinner with my friend and husband. After dinner, I dropped M off, said goodbye and drove home.

It was a whirlwind of a weekend, and a blistering mix of happy and sad.

Two Years

How do I get through an entire weekend without making food once? I honestly don't understand. I didn't cook a single dinner, or even a lunch. I actually don't think I ate the last two days, besides pb&j, coffee, and some "granola" bars.

I did do something this weekend, though! I got around to taking our second anniversary photos. Neither of us wanted to, but we both knew that if we didn't do it yesterday, it would never happen. And I would regret it forever if we missed a year.

I threw on a dress I'd just bought (and fallen totally in love with, by the way) and he threw on a dress shirt (I later thought he would have looked better in just a t-shirt, especially since he didn't tuck the shirt in, but oh well) and then we got our roommate to grab my old little digital camera and snap a couple pictures of us.

I think they turned out pretty great. Certainly not proffesional quality photoshoot, but great enough to frame one or two and keep them for years to come.

When I printed one at Wal-Mart, the man working the photo department said, "Keep that frame! You should use it every year. That's such a cool idea!" I've heard that over and over, when I tell people our (my) plans. My only regret is that I didn't make a chalkboard in time for our photos last year. I wanted one, but finding chalkboard paint, and then hunting down a frame took too long and I didn't have them in time. We did take a box of sidewalk chalk to a graffiti wall, and at one point we wrote "One Year" but those photos look weird, and you can barely see the chalk over the bright spray paint.

So anyways. Here are the best of our little photo shoot. If you aren't married yet, or have been married less than a year, I really suggest doing something like this. I think it'll look fantastic in several years.

Day 26: Back to the Vet

Today was Piper's check-up after we gave her antibiotics for two weeks. The vet was hoping all the problems in her pee would clear up, and she would stop wetting the bed. Except that she wet the bed last night. Well, wet the blanket she was sleeping on, but same thing... The point is, we know her problem with inconstancy hasn't cleared up, so we were hoping it was an old age thing, not a kidney thing. Okay, so I took her in first thing this morning, and they stuck a needle into her belly to get the cleanest sample of pee possible. I felt so bad for her. She's so happy-go-lucky. Her tail was even wagging when we pulled up to the vet's office. But then they took her away from me, and she look so sad. She didn't freak out or whine, but she just looked at me... I felt very loved. Usually she just loves me as much as she loves everyone else in the world, but she loves my husband ten times more. When he leaves her in the car for a few minutes, she barks or whines. When I do, she lays down and naps. But today, she loved me more than just a stranger. It was great.

Anyways... So the bacteria in her pee cleared out, which means her infection is gone, but she still has a low specific gravity and high proteins, which either means we need to switch her food or she has kidney problems. The other kidney signs aren't there, so we're talking about switching her food. We also got an estrogen pill to help her not wet herself. Ugh... Why did we adopt an old dog? It's so sad dealing with this kind of thing...

Food-wise, I had a very mundane day. I'm sorry, I'm such a creature of habit. I had probiotic yogurt and some cereal for breakfast, and chicken rice soup for lunch like I have for the past week or so, and then we had tacos again tonight for dinner.

I'm sorry to be slacking even more, but I bought The Love Dare today. It's a 40 day challenge about love and marriage. I'm really going to focus on it for the next 40 days, so I know I won't blog here every single day. Sorry. I'll write when I discover or cook or do something new, but when I have more days like today, I just won't write... I need to take that extra time to focus on my marriage right now. Funny how not seeing much of each other for two months, and then being diagnosed with a disease can do a number on a relationship.

Day 12: The beginning of chickpeas.

This morning, just after my husband left for work, he realized he forgot to give the dog her meds, and to take his own meds. Apparently he usually does them together so as not to forget either. So I gave the pooch her meds, and agreed to bring him his at lunch. I then texted my boss to let him know I'd be a tad late, because I slept in a bit. I have a really chill job. Then I texted the hubs to ask where his pills were. Awhile later, after wondering why on earth my husband hadn't texted me back, I opened my phone and discovered I mistakenly sent "Where are your pills?" to my boss. So it could have been a lot worse, but I was pretty embarrassed. When I got to work, he just laughed and said he'd once sent a slightly embarrassing text to one of the engineers instead of his wife.

So that's my funny story of the day. And the highlight of my work day. I have a very chill, very boring job.

For dinner I did some experimenting! I found a bag of baby carrots that are getting kind of old, and cooked those up and glazed them the way my mom always did. She'd always cook sliced carrots, and then stir them with some butter and some brown sugar. I once asked her how much, and she said, "Enough." So yeah, I know they're not "healthy" per se, but they are veggies, and they are delicious.

Feeling inspired by my pulse cookbook, I also cooked a bunch of baby potatoes, and then mashed them with some chickpeas. Someone said you hardly notice once they're mashed. I didn't taste anything different, but they were visible. We're out of milk, so the potatoes were dry in general, but that was my husband's only complaint.

I also fried some plain chicken breast with seasoning salt, another one of my mom's classics. Dinner was good, and felt healthy, even if it wasn't by "healthy eating standards" it was by ours. Ah, now you know. We've never eaten healthy. We're very unhealthy eaters. Have been since we got married. We're all drive-throughs and taco nights, and hardly ever have fruits or veggies in the house.

We went to Bulk Barn after dinner. I read a recipe for a gluten-free flour that is supposed to make things taste gluten-y, and I wanted to try it, but I didn't have any of the ingredients. So I bought about a cup of all the flours, and a very expensive bag of xantham gum, which I've read makes everything better when baking. I also picked up some gluten-free cookies, but shhh....

And actually! The cookies taste legit. Check them out. Kinnikinnick Food's KinniToos Vanilla Sandwich Creme Cookies. They're basically blonde oreos. I was gonna buy the chocolate ones (so normal oreos) but I was afraid of disappointment, so I bought ones that were more different from what I normally eat. I might try the chocolate ones now, though. I've heard good things about Kinnikinnick (if you can spell their name) on the celiac forums, and I might check out more of their products now.

Anyways... I mixed up that flour mix, but I just don't have the energy to make cookies right now. I want to make a batch of cookies with each of my gluten-free flours now, so I'll try to do that tomorrow. Oh, but the flour mix... One of the flours is oat flour, so it's really not like 100% gluten free. And the coconut flour smells amazing. I've never smelled flour that smelled so good. I just kept sniffing it. Mmm... I wanna make cookies with just that flour.

Day Eight: The Vet

Today was another one of those severely insignificant days. I'm sorry, I'll try to have more significant days for your sake.

Well, except that last night we noticed our dog had peed herself again. She's done it a few times lately, and she doesn't mean to, or even seem to notice when it happens, so I had to call the vet at lunch. The vet said it could be an incontinence thing, since she is pretty old (about ten) or it could be a bladder infection.

So this afternoon, I took my lovely puppy to the vet, where they weighed her, informed me that her shots were not up to date, stabbed her with needles, and took a sample of her pee. Have you ever tried to get a pee sample from a female dog? Not fun...

Anyways, she was just the best dog ever while they gave her two shots in the bum. She just sat on the exam table, being sweet. And she was very friendly to the other people and animals at the clinic while we waited for the pee test results. And she was very well behaved and never freaked out once. Best dog ever.

So anyways, her pee sample showed she has an infection, either in her kidneys or her bladder. So we're giving her an antibiotic now. Which is kind of sad. I've never had to deal with any dog health concerns before, so this is really sad.

I know she's old, and we knew when we got her that we would have to deal with more health things, but it's just sad. And I know it could be way worse. But seeing her get up from a nap, and turn around and discover a little puddle and look at us like, "what happened?" just breaks my heart. I can't even be mad at her for peeing in the house, because she just didn't know. Sad sad sad.

I'm sorry for going on about my dog, you don't care. She's not gluten-free, and she doesn't eat gluten-free. But that was really all that happened today.

I had chili and taco chips for lunch, we had tacos for supper again, and then I went to a friend's house with my sister, and we measured ourselves and figured out how much fabric to buy tomorrow for dresses.

So tomorrow I'm going fabric shopping. I'll have something to write about then.

I feel so lethargic and out of it. I drove home from my sister's house in a total glaze, and I sat at a red light worrying that I would fall asleep before it turned green and then I would crash and die.

PS, I have a bit of a dramatic fear about car crashes...

Piper, being very well behaved outside of the vet's office.

Day Five: Rice Spaghetti

Okay, so today had two big hurdles for me:

A) Cook dinner. I've pretty well copped out so far, eating out two nights, getting my husband to cook tacos the next, and eating crackers last night. Tonight, I was determined to make something specifically gluten-free.

B) Bake something. I had kind of figured I would just avoid that whole baking department for awhile, despite the fact that I have always loved baking, but it's just easier that way. Until I remembered there's a potluck at work tomorrow, and (sigh) I signed up to bring a dessert.

So, I tackled dinner first. My other half had to get some blood tests done today that required fasting all day, so he was ravenous at 4 when they finally sucked out some of his blood. That meant he raced to a drive-through, and had already eaten by the time I got home. Ah well, I told him, I was making pasta anyways, and right away too, because I had to bake before bed.

So I pulled out the package of rice spaghetti we bought, and studied the instructions. I was worried it would all be different, but it's really quite the same. Started a pot of water boiling, and heated up a pan for ground beef. At least I can still eat meat and tomato sauce.

The odd foam on the rice pasta

My usual simultaneous cooking of pasta and meat sauce began, and all was normal until halfway through the pasta cook time. The pot had a fondness of boiling over, so I had to stir more than usual, and then an unusual foam built up. The hubs said that's normal for rice, it happens with normal rice if you don't rinse it, it was just weird.

Also, when I drained the pasta, a thick white liquid coated the bottom of my sink. I guess it's just the rice, and it wasn't off-putting as much as unusual. The kind of thing longtime gluten-free people don't tell you, because they're just so used to it.

The finished product was okay though. It looked a little whiter than normal pasta, and it was a little more al dente than I usually cook it, but other than that, once it was smothered it my meat sauce, it tasted just fine. My husband didn't eat much, but he blamed that on having already eaten. He insisted it tasted fine. Oh, and my dog quite liked it.

Rice Spaghetti With Tomato and Beef Sauce

Piper enjoying gluten-free pasta

The very next hurdle was baking. When I signed up for this potluck, I actually selected a specific dish, being of course unaware at the time that I would need to be gluten-free. So I pulled open that cookbook and checked the ingredients. The only possible offending ingredient was oats, so I ran out and bought gluten-free oats, and the butterscotch chips I needed.

It's really a simple recipe, and I didn't have to substitute anything, and I won't have to call it "gluten-free anything" tomorrow. It's just simple. So actually, this wasn't that big of a hurdle.

I'm going to have to tackle brownies or cookies soon, because I do have gluten-free flour, and the sooner I get over using it, the easier this will all be.