November

What happened to November? Well we survived it at any rate. Let's see if I can remember what happened.
Savanna had to see her school play "Once upon a mattress" and her good friend Aislyn had a part in it so it was fun to go see. Sav tried out but didn't make it, but she was a very happy and supportive friend despite this, in fact its been a long time since I've seen her as enthusiastic and cheerful as she was that night!

 Savanna also had young women's in excellence, a night of celebrating what the young women have accomplished in personal progress throughout the year. Sav had done a project over the summer but none of the value experiences, but was very humble on the day of the program to get out her journal and finish the value experiences so she could earn her Knowledge award.  She even made some sugar free gluten free bread for her display.

 Savanna gets a hold of my phone once in a while and gets some selfies taken. I don't even remember where we were going when she took the ones in the car, oh yes I do, we went to Kneaders to meet my parents to get tickets to a play at BYU.  Jared and I got to see "Our Town" and it was an excellent play with a great message and it woke me up to appreciating my life. I get so busy surviving I forget to live!  I vowed after seeing it that I would not ruin one more today by worrying about tomorrow. So far I've been able to keep the challenge, and its a nice way to live, we'll see how long I can keep it up.

 Weston, Fiora, Savanna, and Jared took a day trip down to Gunnison to see Grandpa Neil and Grandma Bonnie, Jared and Weston hauled some wood and helped take down a tree and the girls played games and watched movies. I spent the day at home catching up on some much neglected housework and started this year's gingerbread house, I worked a little too hard, that night my adrenaline level was so high I couldn't sleep.

At it again, lots of work, but lots of fun!

Weston won 2nd place at the Turkey Trot (1 mile race) at his school this week. He has some pretty good endurance to sprint that long. He won a 20 lbs turkey and was totally wiped out the rest of the day. Way to go Weston!

This turned out great...non sweet gluten free Strawberry coffee cake!

P.S. Thank you to all who offered prayers on my behalf this month as I've been back to the doctor for some more tests to try and determine why I can't seem to absorb my food. Nothing has been found conclusively yet, but I will write a full update if /when we ever find out why I'm bloated after every meal, can't gain weight, get nauseous when I eat and when I'm hungry, and have weird little ulcers and inflammation in my duodenum. I'm functioning fine despite it, ever sick but never dying! :)

Back to life

Back to life for me means back to the kitchen!  Not having control over when or even what I eat for 10 days sure made me appreciate the freedom of cooking my own food, even though its a lot of time and work. I have not been very good at eating small amounts throughout the day (very important when you have pancreatitis) because I felt for a week like I was starving all the time, so I was eating everything in sight and consequently had some burning and inflammation of the pancreas for a while, but no painful blockage thanks to a better selection of food. I'm taking enzymes twice a day now to help me digest and trying to get back to my smaller portion sizes, that really is the hardest part, I'll go off sugar/wheat/dairy and figure out how to cook good food in other ways, but having to think about eating every 2 or 3 hours and not be able to sit down and eat a full meal after you've spent 2 hours preparing it, not fair.  Look at all the fun things I've been making! I got a new Mediterranean Paleo cook book--so excited--and I've had some time this week to try some new recipes, like crepes with pomegranate reduction, pistachio crusted fish, meatball chakouka, and today eggs flourentine.

Pomegranate, pumpkin seed, apple, goat cheese salad

Crepes with pomegranate sauce

Meatball chakouka over brown rice

Poached eggs over Herbs de Province bisquits

pistachio crusted tilapia

Gluten free sugar free bread with sesame-hyssop and olive oil

My sister Heidi and her husband Gabe are trying to "eat clean" for thirty days so I invited them to my Israeli Feast Sunday dinner I had planned to make for my dad. My mom was in Ohio with my sister for 3 weeks so she wasn't able to be there, bummer, but dad drove the 35 minutes on his own just to eat my feast. That was so nice of him. I love to make food for my family, and they are so appreciative. My dad was so funny, Heidi offered him some pretzels she brought, and Dad said, "If it's not from Israel I'm not eating it."  The only thing we were missing was fresh olives, only Jared likes them anyway.

Cucumber tomato mint salad in my Jerusalem bowl

rice flat bread with hyssop

tahini dipping sauce

Arabic shawarma seasoned chicken

dates

Jared bought us a couple spots at the International Aide Serving Kids fundraising gala, a group that provides dental and health care to children in Haiti. It was $150 a plate and I had to dress nice, I felt like a fish out of water, but I survived. The food was so-so, but it was nice to spend time with Justin and Shawna.  One interesting thing, we happened to sit next to the daughter of our tour guide in Jerusalem. Wish we had more time to socialize with them, we had to be quiet for 2 hours for their mildly entertaining program. Anyway, it was for a worthy cause.

I drove down to Eagle Mountain last Saturday and bribed my dad with some breakfast to coerce him into help me build a gymnastics mushroom for Weston's Christmas present. My dad is pretty good at building little things, and he has some tools I don't have like a staple gun, so he and I whipped that thing out in an hour! I guess I'm running a real risk here blogging this before Christmas, no one tell Weston about his gift!!! I just know I will forget to blog about it after Christmas and I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to make a mushroom I have to put it in here.

The materials

First step is to buy 10 lightweight pine cylinders that are 18 inch diameter, and 2 that are 24 inch diameter. Its supposed to be 18 inches high and about 25 inches in diameter. Also buy some carpet pad remains and some vinyl fabric, you will cut the carpet pad into 5 circles descending diameters so you can make a shallow dome on top. You'll also need some screws, like 50, and some wood glue.

Next you glue the carpet pads to the 25 inch round, putting the smallest circle down first and covering with four more until its covered entirely by carpet pad. Then you pull the vinyl fabric tight over the carpet pads and staple gun them to the bottom. Then add wood glue and center the 18in pine round on the 25 in round. Then screw it down with 5 screws.

 Next, keep centering, gluing, and screwing pine rounds on top of each other. All ten.

 Lastly you glue and screw down the base 25 inch round. 

Just needs some varnish and its all done! Sturdy and somewhat nice looking.

Oh and I guess we survived Halloween. Savanna was a scare crow, Fiora an Egyptian goddess, Weston was Leonardo the ninja turtle. Seemed like we were celebrating Halloween all month long what with family and school parties, and trunk or treat NOT on October 31st, and concerts where you dress up and such, when actual October 31st came along and some trick-or-treater knocked on our door I was like, "who is that? oh yeah, Halloween STILL isn't over!" Weston was the only one who sold me his candy, which is what I gave our trick-or-treaters, and he even showed restraint about eating the candy house he made at his school party...he took three pictures of it then threw it in the trash!  The girls opted to keep Fiora's candy, and in two days ate whatever Fiora had managed to collect at the trunk or treat and her trick or treating with her friend Kimee. I did enjoy the welcome home Sandra party at the Snow's home that Halloween evening.