All Done Whining

I love watching my daughter parent. She's an awesome mother, much better than I was at her age. She sets clear boundaries and is consistent in not allowing the flopping of a toddler shoe across the line. One of the things she does not allow is whining. I have to bite my lip not to laugh when my granddaughter says, tears streaming down her face, "All done whining! I be happy girl!"

I take this toddler lesson to heart with GAPS. It's easy to be sad when grocery shopping, wandering the aisles of forbidden foods. It was especially difficult at Christmas, when Trader Joe's had tempting chocolate treats and peppermint hot cocoa right by the check out aisle. There were times that I came close to tears, but then I'd put on a brave smile and say to my kids, "All done whining. I be a happy girl."

Being a happy girl is a choice. And a big part of making that choice is looking for things to celebrate, things about which you can genuinely be happy. I could have ruined our Christmas with whimpering and whining about all the treats we couldn't have (and don't think it would have taken the rest of the family more than 5 seconds to follow my lead), but instead I looked for ways to make our Christmas wonderful, even without the forbidden foods.

Instead of baking cookies for the neighbors, we used the time to do some much needed cleaning and decluttering.

Our stockings were hung with care (on the windowsill, because we don't have a fireplace in our living room), but they were not filled with chocolates or hard candies. I had to get a little creative and dig through the dollar bins at Target to find sparkly nail polish, a Rubik's cube, earrings, erasers, and other small, inexpensive but fun items. The kids didn't miss the candy and I didn't miss the sugar-induced melt-downs.

The biggest concern was our Christmas Eve dinner. Since the early days of our marriage I've refused to do a big Christmas dinner. It just didn't seem fair to have everyone else in their pajamas, reading books, and playing games, while I had to go into the kitchen and work for hours to produce a feast. Instead, our special Christmas meal is on Christmas Eve. And the tradition is crab and clam chowder. The french bread on the side we could live without, but the crab and the clam chowder are non-negotiable.

Crab is no problem, as far as our diet goes. We were even far enough along on GAPS that we could have butter with our crab. Yeah! Another reason to celebrate!

But clam chowder... how do you make clam chowder without flour or milk? A daunting task, yes, but not impossible. I turned to my go-to friend, the internet, and found an almost paleo recipe for clam chowder. One minor tweak and I made GAPS-friendly clam chowder that was amazing.

We served up the feast and I took a tentative first sip. Christmas would still be Christmas, even if the chowder was kind of yucky. But it was good. Really good. I think I even like it better than my old reliable Joy of Cooking recipe. The coconut milk made it creamier without the heavy floury taste that a roux can give clam chowder.

I can't promise that I'm all done whining for good. You know me. I love a good glass of whine. But for our Christmas, I was a very happy girl.

GAPS-friendly, Paleo Clam Chowder
  serves 8

6 Tbsp butter (from grass-fed cows)
6 slices bacon (from clean, pastured piggie), chopped
1 large onion, chopped
4 ribs celery with greens, chopped
8 sprigs thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried thyme, if that's all you've got)
salt and pepper to taste
4 tsp. hot sauce, optional
1/4 cup blanched almond flour
2 pints coconut milk
4 cups chicken broth
1 celeriac root, peeled and shredded
4 cans whole or chopped clams and their juice

1- Melt the butter in a large pot. Add the bacon, onion, celery, and thyme. Season with salt, pepper, and optional hot sauce and cook for 5 minutes, or until onion is soft.

2- Add almond flour and stir to combine. Cook 1 minute.

3- Add coconut milk, broth, celeriac, and clams. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then lower and simmer for 15 minutes. Taste for seasoning and remove thyme.

Random Neuron Firings

I was discussing writing with a writer friend of mine who was frustrated with the concept of writing a book. I pointed out that not all writers shine at producing a work the size of a book. Many writers excel at writing short stories or magazine articles. I've found that I best express myself in something the size of a blog post. Short and sweet.

Recently, though, I've had trouble putting together my thoughts. It's been really difficult to compile my ideas in an organized and hopefully entertaining fashion, long enough to complete a

So, my first post for the new year (since one of my New Year's goals is to not let my blog completely die) is going to be random neuron firings.

* One of the hardest things in my life right now is doing the remembering for 4 people. I have to remember and remind the family to start the day off with a glass of water and probiotics. One person has to be reminded to take a heavy metal detox liquid 10 minutes before every meal. That same person also has to be reminded to get out and rinse off the ingredients for morning juicing. And to empty the dishwasher. And to brush his teeth.

I have to remember parasite cleanse pills 3 times a day and remind 3 people. And to thaw meat and broth for the next three meals. And to have soup once a day. And to put olive oil or butter over everything. And to order and take (and remind everyone else to take) the fermented cod liver oil supplements.

(If you need to order any of those, or other pills, food, cleaners or whatever from iHerb, use the code RUC080 and save some $$ on your first order. It helps me too!)

I guess I have job security. Because there's no way they'd survive longer than two days without me. Especially after they figured out the laundry doesn't wash, sort, and fold itself.

* I hate washing dishes in the winter. Because our house is always cold, I always have long sleeves on. And when I wash dishes, the water splashes on my sleeves. I hate having cold, wet, cuffs. I'd rather go change my shirt than walk around with cold, clammy cuffs. Or let the dishes pile up beside the sink. Which is what I usually do.

* I love it when people randomly say and do nice things.

* Pinterest is a huge time suck. It makes me feel productive, pinning pictures of clever crafts and helpful household tips. But it's deceitful. I won't refinish those cupboards or turn old Scrabble tiles into charming decorations. But I suppose I can pretend. And maybe somewhere along the way I'll get super motivated and actually finish one of those projects. Or at least click through on the link and read the how-to post before deciding it's too much effort. (And if your life doesn't have enough random stuff in it, you can follow me on Pinterest - Lynn Craig.)

* Parenting involves a certain amount of schizophrenia. During December I found myself wanting to shout at my children, "Go away and leave me alone. I'm stressed out from having so much shopping and wrapping to do because I'm buying so many presents for you because I love you so much. So go away!"

Perhaps the answer is to buy less and spend more time with the kids. That's the Good Parenting Magazine answer. The real answer, of course, is that I love to give my kids gifts that will make their eyes sparkle as they say, "Thank you!!!" My favorite part of Christmas is watching them open the gifts I've been sooooo excited to give.

This year's gifting involved sewing, which is a major "Go away!" activity. It's hard to keep gifts a secret when they watch you making them. But wasn't it worth it?

I found some fabulous red, sparkly material and made a dress, and matching mommy and daughter leggings. How cute are they? (They being daughter who is auntie to granddaughter.)

* Wine is proof that God loves me.

* Sometimes pain brings you gain. And sometimes it's just pain.

* Christmas without cookies is fundamentally wrong.

(These are from 2010. Nothing like this showed up in my house this Christmas.)

* Stealing is mean and mean people suck. My daughter had Christmas packages stolen off her porch. Several times. Really? How low do you have to be to take Christmas presents???

* It's amazing how my sweet tooth has diminished. We've been craving chocolate, but in order to be GAPS legal, it can't contain added sugar or soy. I challenge you to try finding that! And when you do, send it to me. They all have sugar and soy lecithin. So we've been reduced to gnawing on unsweetened chocolate. It's just a tad too bitter for me, but it's better than no chocolate!

* If you go through the holidays with GAPS, there's no need to go to diet purgatory in January.

* Why did anyone freak out about the Mayan end of the world? Why would you trust people that ripped people's hearts out?

* I don't have control over the debt ceiling, which politician is currently trying to steal my children's futures, or whatever crisis is currently in the headlines, but I can make sure my family eats well, that the toilet is scrubbed, and the laundry gets washed and folded.

Next time I'll post food. I promise! Till then, stay warm, safe, and count your blessings.

Notes from GAPSlandia

Week 1-

- Waaahhh! Whu..? Why? How? Who? Huh?

Where's my brain? Why can't I think or string together words to form a ... word thing?

Why is my kitchen covered in grease? All the time?

When am I supposed to have time to do anything except food prep? Taking 1/2 an hour out to go pick up my farm eggs threw me into a panic. I don't have time for this! I need to be home peeling squash and starting broth cooking.

Soup. Endless soup. Hooray for the garlic that goes in every bowl. At least there's some flavor there.

How am I supposed to get everything done? And then do the schooling, the laundry, the shopping, the.... it's too much. I'm exhausted. I need to go lie down.

Boiled meat is gross.

I miss wine. And cheese. And chocolate.


Week 2-

Aaaaaah - who drove a spike through my head? Is this what die-off feels like? Because if I have to feel like this much longer, I'll pick the die option.

I worry that the nightly sauna my bathroom has with the detox bath for 4 people routine is damaging the finish on my cabinets.

We got to have stuffed bell peppers. Didn't realize they couldn't be green, so had to wait for them to ripen. It was a race between ripen or mold. Mold only won on one. I forgot to put water in the bottom of the pan, so the peppers came out a bit crisp. Oh, it feels so cheaty to eat food with crunch, but we relished the cheat.

My son now has the title of garlic boy. We go through so much garlic (and it only took me a week to figure this out) that it's much more convenient and tidier to peel at least 2 heads at a time and store them in a glass jar in the refrigerator. It's my son's job to cut the hard end off (practice those knife skills!) and peel them. He has to do this about every other day.

I'm so tired of thinking about food. I have to be constantly thinking at least 3 meals ahead to stay on top of shopping, defrosting, prepping, and cooking. Nothing is quick and easy. It might be easy to throw everything into a crock pot, but it's at least 4 hours from being done.

If one more person asks me a question that starts with "When can we have..", I'll smack them!

We talk about poop a lot.

Avocados are my new best friend.

Week 3-

More cheats. I'm sneaking in 1/2 bottle of Kombucha per day. I've let it ferment for almost a month, so I'm pretty sure there's not residual sugar in there. It tastes pretty much like drinking apple cider vinegar, but it's a change, so it's delicious.

Figured out that the cheap butternut squash from Trader Joe's is cheap because it's not organic. And I thought that was OK, but apparently it's not. So I've been carefully fixing all this squash soup and pancakes with pesticide squash. Crap. And what do I do with the rest of the squash that I've carefully stock-piled?

My inner 3 year old looked at a bowl of soup and had a tantrum. No soup, no soup!

My husband got asked at work if he had cancer. I bought him a new belt.

My son gets excited about carrot juice. My new juicer has a very high toy factor.

Week 4-

The flu hits. My daughter says, "I thought it would be impossible to get sick on this diet!" Apparently not. We're knocked on our butts for a week and regress to lots of soups. Many because I don't have the energy to make anything more ambitious. Plus chewing sound like too much effort.

My kitchen is always a disaster zone. I can barely make room on the counter to work.

I've taken to keeping a giant Tupperware bowl on the counter for all the kitchen scraps. It's lots easier than using the dainty bin we have. Giant squash shells and chunky beef bones fit in there more conveniently, plus I don't have to buy bags to go in it.

My farm box started up. Trying a new vendor was not a good plan. It's 85% fruit. Uh, yeah, can't have that. In my last box I got lots of apples, pears, and tangerines, parsnips (not GAPS legal), leeks, and kale. I'm giving away the tangerines and parsnips, making apple/pear sauce with the rest of the fruit, leaving me with a really pricey bunch of kale and 3 leeks.

I made a chicken salad with kimchi, sauerkraut, and avocado. People eating normal food probably think this sounds weird and/or repulsive. We loved it. My daughter was thrilled to have something to take to school that didn't involve a thermos.

Applesauce made it onto the menu this week. I served us each about 2 Tbsp. It was so sweet, it was like eating a candy bar. I'm almost afraid to put fruit back on the menu. Will we revert to being sugar fiends?

If you wonder where I've gone or what I'm up to these days, hopefully this answers your questions. Off to the store to buy more veggies!

Alternative to the Junk Food Apocolypse

I've been hearing from my fan base that I'm a lazy blogger. (Well, to be specific, from my fan. But it sounds better if I say fan base.) And the fan base is correct. I have been lazy. 39 days without writing anything is a long time. But  beside being lazy, I'm also uninspired.  I feel like I have nothing to blog about. When I pointed that out to the fan base, he told me that I should blog about the reason my yummy treats to make list is so thin. So I've been guilted into doing a post, and if it bores you to tears, I'll give you the email address for the fan base and you can complain to him.

I'll start out with a book review. The book that I've been working my way through for several months is The Gut And Psychology Syndrome book, commonly known as GAPS. The author, Dr. Natashya Campbell-McBride is a neurologist, specializing in the treatment of autism. In her practice she noticed that she did not see a single autistic patient who did not also have digestive disorders. Further investigation and research led her to the conclusion that the seat of many (if not almost all) psychiatric disorders spring from an unhealthy gut. And further research showed that a host of auto-immune conditions and other illnesses also had their roots in gut dysbiosis.

Our guts are inhabited by friendly, helpful, necessary bacteria. They are essential to the proper digestion of the food we eat. They also are warriors that keep the bad bacteria in check. When a gut is populated with the right amount of good bacteria (about 5 lbs in a healthy person), the bad bacteria doesn't have a chance to make us sick.

Trouble arises when that balance is upset. When we have a course of antibiotics, we can wipe out the helpful bacteria and the bad bacteria takes over. The gut is ravaged. Unchecked, they can damage the gut wall, allowing partially digested food (remember the good bacteria is essential for digesting) to leak into the bloodstream, where it can travel around the body, acting as a toxin, causing sickness.

If you have somehow, miraculously never had antibiotics, you still can't pat yourself on the back and think your guts are fine. The food that you eat affects your gut bacteria balance. Simple carbohydrates feed the bad bacteria. Eating lots of sugar, white flour, pasta, and potatoes sets up your guts for a wave of bad bacteria. Plus, processed foods are high in preservatives, nasty harmful fats, and toxic food colorings. Environmental toxins take their toll on our gut health as well. Exposure to toxic chemicals found in everyday life (new paint, carpet, air pollution) as well as antibacterial soaps wage war on your friendly bacteria.

As I read through the GAPS book, I found multiple members of my family in it's pages and I became convicted that we needed to do this diet. The purpose of the GAPS diet is to heal and seal the gut through a protocol of nourishing, easily digestible foods, that are low in carbohydrates. The bad bacteria are starved, the good bacteria are supplemented with probiotics, and the gut is soothed with bone broths and nutrient dense foods.

You need to be really convinced of the need for GAPS in your life to undertake it. It is not for the faint of heart or the dabbler. You need to commit. Depending on how damaged your gut is, the GAPS diet takes 1-1/2 to 2  years. That sounds daunting, doesn't it? But the funny thing is that the diet isn't that different from the Paleo-style of eating we've been doing. What's difficult is the Introduction Diet, which is where we are.

The Introduction Diet is in 6 stages. You start out at stage one having bone broth with every meal. You can have meats and a limited number of vegetables (squash, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, garlic, and carrots), but they all need to be boiled, preferably in broth. So, basically, it's soup for every meal. If you have places to go during the day, a thermos is your best friend.

You have to throw away the concept of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and think of Meal 1, Meal 2, and Meal 3. If you mourn over the foods you can't have, you'll be miserable and hate life. Think instead of the healing that's taking place inside you and rent a good movie. Preferably one that doesn't have restaurant scenes.

At each level you get to add in new foods. That's exciting. My family got amazingly happy when avocados came back on the menu and scrambled eggs caused a hallelujah breakdown. Have you ever seen someone moan while eating scrambled eggs? I have. Several times.

The tricky thing about the intro diet is that it's not set in concrete. My family is comprised of a bunch of OCD planners who want to put dates on the calendar. I can't tell you the number of times my son has asked me what day we get to have apples again (no fruit yet because the sugar feeds the bad bacteria). My family now knows not to ask me questions that begin with "When can we.." They know I'll shriek at them, "I don't know!! We'll get there when we get there!!!"

The reason you can't plan is that each person's physiology is unique and the damage that needs to be healed is not necessarily the same for every family member. Foods need to be introduced gradually, a tsp on the first day, watching for reactions. (Not the 1/2 an avocado some family members ate on the first day - cough cough) If there is a reaction, the food needs to be removed, then reintroduced a week or so later, to see if there's still a reaction.

If there's minimal healing that needs to take place, a person could conceivably whip through the Intro Diet in a month, then move on to the full GAPS diet. But some people stay on a particular level of the Intro diet for weeks or even months.

We are finishing up our 4th week on the Intro Diet and we are moving into Stage 4. And what progress have we seen?

The most visible change is the weight my husband and I have lost. His pants are falling off him. He got asked at work if he had cancer. Not because he looks ill, but because of the dramatic weight loss.

My son, who has always been a picky eater, continues to surprise me. Where he would formerly turn up his nose at vegetables and would prefer to go hungry than eat certain foods, he now will happily eat squash, carrot and celery juice, and soups. He even asked me if we could still have the squash and nut pancakes once we were off the diet because he loves them so much. It's amazing what a motivator hunger is, especially when there's no alternative in the refrigerator.

We were driving in the car the other day and he commented on the proliferation of fast food joints along the road. He said that when he grew up he wanted to open up a restaurant. But not something nasty like McDonalds or Taco Bell, something where you could go and get good food. Like meat and soup. Or soup and meat. I had to smile at that.

My daughter? She's tired and crabby all the time. That doesn't sound like an endorsement, does it? But it's truth. And hopefully as she heals she'll start to find more energy and feel better about life. And if not, we'll have to send her to a boarding school. (Just kidding.)

And me? Well, besides the weight loss, I found out something that makes makes my stomach churn just to think about it. It's in the TMI department, so if you're squeamish, just skip this paragraph. Still with me? Ok. I found out I have intestinal parasites. Ugh. As the low carb diet starved them, they started showing up in the waste management bin. Ok, the toilet. I was trying to be delicate about it, but there's really not a delicate way to say it. It super creeps me out. Really. Full body shudder. Sources report that there is a 1 in 3 chance of having parasites so I'm not alone. OK, poor choice of words but I never would have found that out if I hadn't been on GAPS.

If you are curious about GAPS, I highly recommend reading the book. And if that makes you seriously consider doing the GAPS diet, here are a few resources that have been helpful for me.

The Gaps Guide - This is a practical, walk-through, how to do GAPS guide. Very helpful information that makes it seem less intimidating.

The Gaps Website - loaded with helpful information. Just reading through the FAQs page takes a ton of time.

The Gaps Diet - another cache of tremendous information, as well as resources

Cooking With Gaps - DVD with clear step by step demonstrations of how to make the food recommended on the GAPS diet

30 days on the Gaps Intro Diet menu plan - This menu plan saved my bacon! (even though we can't have bacon :-( ) It does all the thinking for you - that's crucial when you're having the first week brain fog. It's worth every penny!

And a few of my favorite GAPS-friendly websites are here - (If you have one I haven't mentioned, please put a link in the comments!)

The Mommypotamus

Nourished and Nurtured

Health, Home, and Happiness

Empowered Sustenance

Blessings on your food journey!

(and a big thank you to The Fan for the title of this post!)

What I Baked On My Summer Vacation

Often, the fist back-to-school assignment in grade school was an essay titled, "What I Did On My Summer Vacation." That was a stumper for me. My friends would busily start writing because they did cool things like travel around the country, spend a month on a houseboat on Lake Powell, or laze around at their lake cabin.

I wasn't that cool. My essays would have to risk falling into the realm of fiction or else be stunningly dull. My family didn't do cool things. We either went on death marches hikes, or stayed at home to do exciting things like mowing the lawn and harvesting tomatoes and beans from the garden.  My birthday was in the summer, but that doesn't mean it was the highlight of the summer. Remember the part about my friends off doing cool things? No one was ever around to come to my birthday parties. I'd plan a huge roller-skating party and get two people to show up, so my mother would kindly offer to take us to a movie.

Perhaps that's the reason I put so much importance on birthday cakes. You may have a lousy no-show birthday party, but if you've got a few presents and a  fabulous cake, it's still a good birthday.

You might think that giving up grains and sugar might mean giving up birthday cakes. Not as long as there is breath in my body! I'm also not willing to settle for some dense, dry, nasty brick pretending to be a cake. No, a birthday cake has to look special and taste amazing. That's the rule.

I made this cake for my son's birthday and we loved it so much I made it again for my birthday. We served it at the same time as a lovely triple-layer lemon cake (which was a birthday cake for someone else) and I even had one person comment that they liked the chocolate grain-free one better! (I'm giving you the recipe as I made it the second time, but the pictures are from the first time. It's just a matter of how it's garnished.)

I found this recipe on The Moveable Feasts and did a bit of modifying. I love it and wouldn't change a thing, but I give you permission to play with the recipe and do what you want to it in order for it to make your heart sing.

Can You Believe It's Grain-Free? Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
1 tsp baking soda
14 pitted medjool dates
1/4 cup honey
1 cup of unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, very soft
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup boiling water
1/4 tsp expresso powder
   (OR, you can substitute 1/4 cup drip coffee for the water and espresso powder)
Coconut milk
Chopped dark chocolate (at least 70% cacao), about 4 oz.
Whipped cream or coconut cream
Sliced strawberries

1- Preheat oven to 350 deg. F.  Butter and 8-inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

2- In a small bowl, whisk together the coconut flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

3- In a food processor, puree the dates until completely smooth, about 20-30 seconds. This should be about 3/4 cup of puree. Add the honey and applesauce and continue to puree until it creates a thoroughly combined and smooth mixture, about another 20-30 seconds.

4- Transfer the date-applesauce mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add in the softened butter and mix on low speed until combined. Continuing on low speed, add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla and coffee. Mix until smooth and well combined. If the mixture looks a little curdled, don't freak out. It'll smooth out.

5- On low speed, sprinkle the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Mix, scraping down the sides, until the batter is smooth. The texture will be stiff, like a brownie batter.

6- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. Bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. The cake may look moist and maybe even unfinished, but if the toothpick is clean, it's done. Let the cake cool completely on a wire rack.

7- When the cake is cooled, make the ganache. You'll need to be a bit free-form about this as I eyeballed my ingredients, rather than carefully measuring.  Warm about 1/2 cup of coconut milk in a saucepan over low heat. When the milk is very warm, but before it boils, pour it over the chopped chocolate. Pour only enough milk to barely cover the chocolate. Let it sit for 2 minutes, then stir till it's smooth.

8- Pour the chocolate ganache over the cake, smoothing it to the edges of the cake. It can be refrigerated at this point and pulled out at serving time.

9- To serve, remove the sides of the springform pan. Slice into 12 slices. Serve with a heaping blop of whipped cream or whipped coconut cream and sliced strawberries.

Help Others, Help Yourself

Sometimes you hear a sad story and say, "Oh, that's tragic." Then you shrug and move on because there's nothing you can do. Today is not that day. Today is a day you can make a difference.

Jenny is a homeschooling mother of 5 children. Almost a month ago she called 911 because her husband had become disoriented and incoherent. He was immediately taken to ICU with a brain infection and fell into a coma-like state. Over the 10 days that followed, there was continuous prayer for his healing, with family and friends by his side. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride as the doctors would become hopeful that they had a diagnosis or treatment and then things would worsen once again. Two weeks ago, he passed away, leaving behind his wife and five children between the ages of 9 months and 11 years old. 

Jenny's husband was a bit better prepared than my friend, Grace's husband was. There was some life insurance. But a 2 week ICU stay is expensive and the finances are a huge burden for Jenny. 

Here's the part where you can do more than shrug and move on.

A small group of bloggers have put together a pretty amazing benefit sale, which includes the 9 ebooks listed below plus the complete set of Life Your Way printables. The set is worth more than $50, but will be available for just $5 for two days only, Wednesday, 10/3 and Thursday, 10/4.

• Easy Homemade by Mandi @ Life Your Way
• One Bite at a Time by Tsh @ Simple Mom
• 31 Days to Clean by Sarah Mae @ SarahMae.com
• Mindset for Moms by Jamie @ Steady Mom
• 50 Books to Enjoy with Kids by Veronica and Jessica
• Fill ‘Em Up by Laura @ Heavenly Homemakers
• Guide to Freezer Cooking by Crystal @ Money Saving Mom
• Tell Your Time by Amy @ Blogging with Amy
• How to Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too by Mandi @ Life Your Way

Click here to order your set: http://life.yourway.net/barlow-family-benefit/

I do not make any money from this sale. 100% of the profits go to Jenny's family. 

You can get a great deal and and do something good for a hurting family at the same time. Do it now because the deal ends on Thursday!

I promise I'll be back with food next time. Right now I need to go order my ebooks.

PSA - The Death File

Usually I try to make my blog a happy little corner of the web.  I put in stories that are (hopefully) amusing and thoughts and recipes that are (hopefully) inspiring and instructive. Today's post is breaking the mold. 

Recently I got a phone call informing me that a dear friend's husband had died. It was quite unexpected,  shocking in it's suddenness. My friend, who I'll call Grace, woke up in her normal life and went to sleep with an entirely different life. 

I talked to Grace for almost an hour. She told about the numb shock of the first few days. How for 10 days she threw up everything she ate. How she didn't sleep at all for three days until she realized it was the empty bed that kept her awake. When she had her helpers move it out to the shed and bring the guest bed into her bedroom, she could sleep a bit. With the aid of sleeping pills.

And she talked about the financial chaos her husband had left behind. Her husband, who I'll call Peter, was a big thinker, a planner, making fortunes on big deals, or sometimes losing them when the deal went bust. He was good at vision, at seeing the big picture. What he wasn't good at was details. 

In scouring the house, trying to find the financial records to assess where she stood, Grace found some interesting things. In one bin she found a month old bill. Unopened. In a seed catalog she found, being used as a bookmark, an uncashed check for $900. From 2004. The record keeping was spotty and the finances were in total disarray. She is working her way through stacks of papers she gleaned from around the house, trying to piece together an accurate picture of his business dealings and figure out how long she can stay in her house.

Many years ago on a radio program I heard a brilliant idea that my husband adopted. It's called The Death File. In it he keeps all the information I'll need in the unlikely even of his untimely demise. Bank account names, numbers, passwords, life insurance policies as well as contact information for the insurance agent, names and numbers of anyone pertinent plus any hidey holes in which he might have cash stored. Everything. This file should be updated once a year and hopefully never, ever needed. But if it is needed, what a lifesaver.

Nothing can ever replace a loved one, but if you are the one in charge of finances, you can make sure that the loved one left behind doesn't have to bear the added stress of financial turmoil in addition to their grief.

The Principle of the Thing

School starting up again has made me a little bit nostalgic. All of the pictures friends are posting on Facebook of their cute kids with their backpacks and excited/terrified faces remind me of when I was in elementary school.

I wasn't one of the terrified kids. I loved back to school time. I got new clothes, but that wasn't the real draw. The true enticement was shopping for paper, pencils, and notebooks at Grand Central. To this day I still love filling up a cart with lined paper, packs of pens and pencils, erasers and crayons. My kids moan, "Mom, enough already! We have all that stuff at home!" But it's the newness of it that matters. A Pink Pearl eraser at the beginning of the school year is totally different from that same eraser at the end of the year. It's soft and pliable, clean and smooth. It hasn't yet been whittled down to a stump in stupid math class when you can't find the right answer to save your life, or had a galaxy created on it with your pencil stabbing it repeatedly during a boring lecture.

And I won't even go into the thing I have with boxes of crayons! Well, except to say, I never got more than 16 crayons and I had total crayon envy, so I buy my kids the BIG box with the sharpener in the back. They may have to go into therapy later in life (um, no, most likely they will have to go into therapy), but it won't be crayon-related!

For some reason the things you learn in elementary school stick with you life-long. I'm not talking about stupid stuff like the state capitals and major exports of countries, I mean truly important things like when you play on the monkey bars, you need to wrap your coat around the bar, then hitch your leg over the coat to spin, otherwise you're going take get blisters the size of jellyfish on your bare skin (because, of course, all girls wore skirts then).

I learned the importance of holding your breath when walking around a lake of barf, otherwise you'll contribute to the pile.

I learned that if you volunteer for stuff (helping in the cafeteria, taking the erasers outside to clap them together, releasing clouds of chalk dust) you get out of class early.

Also taking up space in my brain is the mnemonic for spelling Arithmetic. Not politically correct, but:
A Red Indian Thought He Might Eat Tabacco In Church. Now you will never be at a loss for the spelling on that one. If that's the winning word in a spelling bee you're in, I expect a thank you note.

And if you've ever wondered how to correctly spell principle vs. principal, and which is which - the Principal of the school is a Prince and he's your Pal. Which mine was. Mr DeVries. He's in the upper left in this picture. Doesn't he look totally nice? He was. Although, it was a bit weird when he followed us to Jr. High as assistant principal there. I guess there's a ladder to climb, even for principals. It just felt a wee bit like stalking.

(Bonus points if you can guess which nerdy kid was me.)

And as to the other one, there are always principles to remember.

You might be wondering what the point of this rambling post is, and what it's got to do with that creamy deliciousness in the tea cup, and just what is that creamy deliciousness?

The point of the post is to tell you about a principle (no, not Mr. DeVries, the other kind. Didn't you look at the spelling??). The simple principle is "Don't put anything on your skin that you wouldn't put in your mouth." Now, obviously, this applies to personal care products, not clothing.

Your skin is the largest organ of your body and it absorbs things it comes in contact with. Don't believe me? If not, why are there such things as nicotine patches? Because it's absorbed through the skin. Trans-dermally is the $5 word for that. Now if you read the labels on things like shampoo, face wash, body lotion, and cosmetics, you'll find a lot of things that you wouldn't want as garnishes on your dinner. And some of them, like laurel sulfate, are even known carcinogens!

So what is a girl or guy to do when it comes to personal care? Give up and go cave man? No, no. Hygiene does not need to go out the window just because you care about your health. Like so many things, you can make it yourself better and cheaper than what you buy in the store. And you can customize it so it's exactly how you like it.

Today's luscious, creamy recipe is for body butter. I put it in the tea cup for it's photo shoot because it looks so thick and rich, you'll be tempted to eat it with a spoon. And you could, because all of the ingredients are edible! But I recommend you save it for your skin and indulge yourself with silky smooth skin and a happy body!

Rich and Clean Body Butter

1 cup shea butter
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup almond oil
essential oil

1- In the top of a double boiler, melt the shea butter and coconut oil. Let this cool for at least 30 min. Chill in the fridge, if necessary.

2- Stir in almond oil and your choice of essential oil. (Lavendar or peppermint are nice choices. Be sure it's not something that will irritate your skin.)

3- Wait until oils start to partially solidify (if it's a hot day, pop it into the fridge to speed this up), then put the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip till butter-like.

4- Resist the temptation to put a spoonful in your mouth, and scoop the mixture into clean, glass containers, preferably not too deep.

Store in the refrigerator until you're ready to use it.