More than 3 months gluten free...

Crazy how fast three months goes by...

Yup, and still eating gluten free. I've decided to stick with it as much as possible. As much as possible meaning staying away from things that obviously have gluten (things with wheat flour) and not really paying attention to things with modified food starch, vinegar, "natural and artificial flavors." Although, it is hard to break the habit I started with reading food labels...I keep finding myself grabbing a product from the grocery store shelves and turning it over to read the ingredient list.

I like the gluten free diet because:

1) Some GI issues I had that I thought were related to my meds have completely disappeared
2) I've found some great new ways to eat more veggies
3) I feel better...healthier in my "insides". Weird description, I know, but hopefully it makes sense.
4) I can do it - it hasn't been a hardship for me to switch to gluten free. I thank God for the easy transition.

Do I miss bread? Every so often...but then I think, "but I feel better not eating it"...and then I don't miss it so much :)

Craigslist scores again!!!

Let me just say that I think craigslist is fantastic. To date, I have spent $745 dollars and have bought the following:

Mid-century couch - oak (it weighs like 4 bagillion pounds)
Mid-century dresser - solid wood body and dovetail joints in the drawers
Mid-century end table - teak
Oak dining set
West Elm parsons desk - not so much real wood as ORANGE :)

Isn't that awesome? That's a crazy amount of furniture for under $800...especially since I like the mid-century vintage look, which seems to be popular these days, carried at designer type stores, and WAY out of my budget (at least for the solid, real wood pieces that I prefer).

I have been searching for almost a year for a 42" round pedestal table for my breakfast nook. It has to be 42" because well, otherwise people would need to sit around it without chairs and that's just not very comfortable. And it had to be white. I looked at buying a new one, but 1) the legs were too skinny 2) the table tops were too thin and 3) all the reviews said they were more off-white than white, so I would still have to paint it.

I'd been emailing this gal for two weeks to try and pick up her table, but our schedules never aligned...and then voila! earlier this week I found a different one (thanks Lord!)...10 minutes away and for HALF the cost of the other one! And it only came with 3 chairs, which was good because I really just wanted the table...I'd already bought chairs like a year ago :)...which means less room to take up in the garage with 3 instead of 4 of them. Handy for emergency seating uses though...

So, $75 oak pedestal table + $15 of paint and some elbow grease instead of $219.00-$499 off-white table +$15 of paint and elbow grease...to use a YHL phrase, "Yes please!" :)

Here's the before...we'll see how motivated I am this weekend to sand it and paint it white...

A REAL table...I've been using a card table for the last year...I'm pretty sure my generous and gracious friend Lindsey has forgotten that it actually belongs to her and not me ;-).

Cricut 101

A year and a half ago, my friends Erin and Lisa and I waited at Walmart for 3 hours on Black Friday to score awesome deals on a Cricut machine.

Cricuts are basically personal die-cut machines- you buy software cartridges to cut out specific shapes- they are incredibly handy for scrapbooking, invitation making, decorations etc. They also have quirks/tips/inside scoops that none of us have quite figured out - what's the best way to make this design or do that? So our friend, Cassaundra, who is a Cricut/scrapbooking/card making extraordinaire, came over for a Cricut 101 lesson this morning.

Great info and a great time with these ladies- my head's already full of new ideas on how to use the Cricut for some home decorating projects... stay tuned!!!

Our "teacher", Cassaundra, Lisa, and Erin

Copycat

Apparently Pottery Barn had the same idea as me...just came across this today. Mine's better...it has 6 props... ;-)

GU is gluten free!!!!!

Random, I know, but I seriously did a happy dance in front of some coworkers when I discovered that GU is gluten free. I wasn't looking forward to making my own energy gels. Go GU!!!!

There is something on my wall...

A picture!!!! of a Convair B-36 Peacemaker.

Yes, I have finally hung something on the wall of my living room.

There's a saga to it...of course there is, it's me who's typing this right?

It started when I took a picture at the Pima Air and Space Museum over a year ago. I decided I wanted to put it on canvas and put it over my couch. After editing the photo, I sent it to a canvas place. They emailed me back and said that the resolution wasn't high enough for the size I had requested, so I had them send it out anyways...yeah it was too small and got swallowed up by the wall. Yay for 100% money back guarantee and no shipping costs for returns!

I was bummed about the resolution, I must have had my camera settings on something different. So this past Christmas, I meant to go back out to PASM and take another picture with the right settings. I never got around to it.

See, saga right? A few weeks ago, I pulled up the photo file and was thinking "this resolution really should be sufficient...I am getting a second opinion". So I sent it off to Canvas Pop...and they had no issues with the custom size I wanted! And a couple of weeks later...voila! Wall art! :)
I am thrilled with how it looks, the resolution is great - the only slight graininess is what I put there via editing. Highly recommend this company.

Yes, I know that ceiling fan is hideous. It's being replaced hopefully soon. Apparently, I am very particular ( read: picky) about ceiling fans.

Progress

I'm continuing to make progress with my health and my back. My stomach and inner ear are handling the new dosage of the immunosuppressives well (they initially made me super queasy and my head all foggy). I'm definitely starting to stabilize- a long-sought answer to prayer!

This past week I completed 4 workouts:

Tuesday- run 0.75 miles, walk 2.1 miles, run 0.25 miles
Thursday- walk 1 mile, run 1 mile
Saturday- 800m swim workout
Sunday- 10 mile bike ride

The back handled it all pretty well. I definitely could tell it was getting used to the activity. I woke up this morning with sharper than my new normal pain, which made leaning over to eat my awesome flax cereal a bit of a challenge, but I spent some time stretching it out and over the course of the day, it feels back to "normal". I don't think it liked the "back-to-back" (is that a pun?) workouts, so that was a good thing to learn. I'll be careful to space out my workouts for awhile...gotta give the body time to adjust.

I am planning on signing up for a super sprint tri the first week of May. The distances are 200yd swim, 8 mile bike, and 2 mile run. Before I do that though, I want to do a short brick (bike, then run) workout to see how the back handles the loading. I'm a few weeks away from attempting that though...

In the meantime, I've signed up to volunteer at two upcoming triathlons. I'm doing body-marking (writing folks' race numbers on their arms and legs) at the Kemah tri in April (I raced this last year) and my training buddy, Lisa, and I signed up to help out at one of the bike aid stations at the Texas Ironman in May.

I am really excited about volunteering at the Texas Ironman. I figure watching an Ironman in person will just make me want to do it more. Oh yeah, I have the heart of an Ironman...not sure about the body, yet, but we'll see what it will let me do. It and God of course. Anything that I can accomplish physically is a direct testament of God's grace in my life, because my doctor says "you really shouldn't be able to do that" (when it comes to running and triathlons). So to Him be the glory. And I will be thankful for whatever progress I make, remembering the past 8 months and how walking without grimacing is a victory in itself.