Popularity Contest

I was not in the "popular crowd" when I was in high school. And I'll admit it - for a while, I cared alot about that. I wanted to be popular, and agonized over the fact that I wasn't - and couldn't seem to figure out what it was that made people "popular." All I knew was that I didn't have "IT," whatever "IT" was! And then, my senior year, some things changed. I changed - or rather, God changed me. My walk with Him got a lot better - and suddenly being popular didn't matter so much. I had some real, good friends, and I didn't care about everyone else's opinion. After high school, popularity seemed to matter less and less, until I never really thought about it anymore.

And suddenly today I thought about it again. Because I left the room for a moment and all three of my kids - my very articulate 3-year-old, my stubbornly reticent 2-year-old, and my just started talking 11-month-old, all starting calling "Mama! Mama!" after me, in panic that I had left them. I just starting laughing because it struck me that finally, after all these years, I am popular! I am sooo popular...that I can't leave my adoring fans for even one minute! (they're less clingy when they're not sick). I am the most popular person in our house...pretty much all the time. This is not to say anything again Daddy. He is a wonderful Daddy, and gives lots of time and love and attention to the kids. But I am the one they want when they're hurt or sick or fussy or tired or....just about anything. I spank them and they will run right back to me to be comforted. They would probably do that even if Daddy were standing there holding cookies!

And, unlike high school, this kind of popularity matters! And will (hopefully) last. I know MY mom is still the most popular person in our household. The house just doesn't feel the same without her. Everyone wants to be around her, like bees hovering around their queen. The rest of the world doesn't have much appreciation for women who are "just" wives and mothers...but trying asking their own kids what they think.

Now, I really couldn't care less about my lack of popularity in high school. I have won the most important popularity contest of all....I'm popular with this crowd:

and I wear my crown proudly!

Oh, yes, and I'm quite popular with Daddy too...;-)

...good boy..now shake!

Have you ever been bothered by the whole "awkard hug" thing? You know, where there's this feeling of obligation that you hug the other person (especially if you don't know them well) because everyone else is doing it, but you don't really feel comfortable about it? But rather than hurt their feelings, you give them the really awkward side-hug while trying to analyze if it's "friendly enough" without being too friendly... and how long should it be? Do you count in your head? (probably not out loud...;-) Who moved forward first? Who lets go first? It's all just quite awkward, and as I am not really much of a "touchy" person except for my close family and friends, I feel uncomfortable about the whole process. It's not so bad with other girls but trying to figure out how to properly hug boys or men just makes it worse. It's like being back in high school - ack!

So I've decided in favor of bringing back the good old-fashioned handshake. Last night a young man Robert used to disciple was back in town and came over for dinner, and he gave me a nice firm handshake, not like the "dead fish" handshake that says "if I squeeze your hand I will get germs from you" but not the bone crushing "I am man and will prove my strength by breaking your fingers" handshake either. Just a nice firm handshake that says "hello, good to see you." Simple as that.

Gentlemen, please! A good handshake goes a long way and removes all the awkwardness! From now I will attempt to offer my hand first, along with a smile, and see if I can convey a pleasant and appropriate gesture of welcome without having to analyze everything!

But maybe it's just me. Maybe guys don't like shaking girls' hands, or will be insulted if girls don't hug them. Or do girls want guys to hug them? Would you rather be hugged or offered a handshake by a member of the opposite sex ?

Coffee Traitor

I have always been a strictly black coffee girl; black and strong, nothing in it, thank you very much. (Robert always says he likes his coffee like he likes his women: blond and sweet, and I respond that I like my coffee like I like my men: dark and strong! What will happen when we both go gray, I can't guess. ;-) But this morning I was making coffee for Robert as usual, and we were out of both regular sugar and milk (the last of the milk went bad since no one is drinking milk anymore...) but I had a carton of whipping cream that I had bought for a recipe I never ended up making, so I put some cream in his coffee along with some brown sugar. I tasted the coffee just to make sure it was sweet enough for him (generally what is ghastly sweet in my book) and WOW! It tasted so good. I actually made myself a cup, thus betraying my lifelong devotion to pure and unsullied black coffee. I should feel ashamed. But somehow I don't, because it was soooo good.

I am going to have to get cream out of the house. I don't need the calories! (one advantage to black coffee...)

And for those of you who read my last post and are thinking "cream is NOT on the list of casein-free products" you are right. But Robert and I decided first off that coffee is one of the exceptions, since A) the kids aren't allowed to have it anyway and B) nobody wants to see us try to be parents without caffeine! My usual cup of coffee will have to do for everyday...and banish cream and brown sugar to those special occasions!!

On the other hand...perhaps I should sell this idea to Starbucks and make lots of money...so I can hire a personal trainer...

First week of "freedom"

Our family has been "gluten and casein free" (GFCF, for short) for one week now. Why, you ask, would be embark on such a thing? Well, it's a long and headachy tale, but here's the short version:

Our second son, James, was quite a normal baby, but has had some problems as he's gotten a little older. He doesn't really talk much (as in, ever?), seems to have selective hearing when it comes to being spoken to (well, he is 2), throws huge self-destructive tantrums, and is kind of a loner when it comes to other kids. At first we thought he couldn't hear right; had that tested, turned out to be fine. Recently he's started holding his breath until he turns purple and passes out (talk about scary!) We figured these could just be stubborn 2-year old issues and hoped he'd grow out of them. We talked briefly about Autism but he never really seemed to fit the profile because all of these things were "come and go" rather than consistent. Finally, on our anniversary last week (we have been married for 5 years now, thank you very much!!) we were at a bookstore and saw a book on autsim, read through the checklist, and said "yikes...that's James" to about half the signs. So we bought the book and read through it. The doctor had a lot of good things to say about the gluten and casein (a product found in dairy) free diet, and how it could help children with autism and austistic tendencies. So we figured, ok, try it; it can't make things any worse, right?

Day 1 GFCF: James is suddenly smiling, making eye contact all the time, cheerful, and saying several words. You could have knocked us over with a feather. Not one fit; just minor fussing a few times when he didn't get his way. Can you say sold??

The week continued along the same vein. Continued cheerfulness, no breath-holding or passing out, playing nicely with brother and sister, more affectionate, and more talking every day. We went to the store and stocked up on all kinds of GFCF foods (gritting our teeth at the price! Holy rusted metal, Batman!) We figured never eating anything that tasted good again was a small price to pay for helping our son. There's been a lot of steak and salad nights! And fish (ugh, but hey, its good for all of us, even me). Some friends of my brothers who have been GF for a really long time were incredibly sweet and brought us a whole bunch of GFCF stuff, recomended good brands, and even lent me some magazines with recipes and ideas! They were awesome! And I was amazed to find out how many options they are out there now. The only thing I've had trouble finding a good replacement for is butter; let's face it, there is just no good substitute for real butter!

On to cooking without flour, milk, butter....well, that's been tough. I love to bake, and its hard to bake with no ingredients! But these magazines I was given, called Living Without, have been a huge help. Their recipes use mixtures of tapioca, rice, arrowroot, potato, sorghum, even coconut flour! I made a cherry cobbler one night, and it turned out really good. Pleased with that, I attempted a blueberry cake. It wasn't perfect but it tasted good, so I was feeling quite proud of myself. Since Saturdays were always pancake day, I decided to try to adapt my pancake recipe to the new GFCF ingredients. Oh, boy was that a mistake! A flat failure, in fact. I used the reccomended blend of GF flours, and then I used coconut and almond milk instead of regular milk. At first the batter was ridiculously thick, and the pancakes would not spread out or get done in the middle. I kept adding almond milk and water, trying to thin it out, but they would just never cook right. They tasted AWFUL! Finally in despair (because the ingredients were just too expensive to waste!) I poured all the batter into a large pan, baked it in the oven for 3 HOURS, and still the middle was all gummy. The kids seemed to like it and ate tons of it this morning, but Robert and I thought it was nasty. Sooo....pancakes = failure. Evidently you cannot convert recipes 1:1 like some books say. I might buy a GF pancake mix and try again if my courage ever returns. For now, looks like we are stuck on bacon and eggs.

Sorry for the world's longest post. My life has basically been consumed by food the last week. "Does this have gluten/casein in it?" "What on earth am I going to make for dinner?" and my favorite "I am ALWAYS hungry!!" These are the thoughts running through my head at all hours of the day and night. But so far, I would so it has TOTALLY been worth it. Even if we have to eat this way for the rest of our lives...the changes in my little boy have made all the difference.

More on my weird food adventures to come....

Laundry

I am not one of those people who stays "on top" of laundry. I sort of have the attitude of "wash and wear." As in, I wash our clothes when we have nothing else to wear. Which means the things we wear most often get washed, and the stuff we hardly ever wear (like winter clothes in summer, or vice versa) kind of get piled up and back-burnered. I am pretty good about keeping some things clean, like the kitchen and the front rooms, where we spend most of our time. But our laundry room is always kind of a disaster. And I figure, hey, who's going to see it, right? It's kind of like the inside of my refridgerator. Nobody's going to see it. So it's fallen fairly far behind, ith all our winter stuff piled up and me only washing the top of our laundry baskets. And in my defense, small children get a LOT of stuff dirty!!

from http://imagineannie.wordpress.com/2009/10/19/its-a-wonderful-life/

Yesterday our washing machine broke. Not such good timing, since we are leaving on our trip tomorrow! Ack! Fortunately I have an amazing husband who can fix just about anything, and he bought the part and fixed my machine, and now it works again! But in order to fix it we had to clean out the laundry room completely. Which meant all the dirty laundry got piled up in our room, and that's just been annoying me...so my goal for today has been to get ALL the laundry in our house done before our trip! (well, obviously not ALL the laundry, because we are wearing clothes right now, and unless we spent the rest of the day naked....but you know what I mean)Ambitious, you say? Well, yes. But I am getting close! The giant green hamper is EMPTY! I have one more load of regular clothes to finish, and then a huge pile of sheets and blankets that are dirty. But those are pretty easy. I am excited about the possiblity of having an entirely empty laundry room!

It's not so much the washing that I hate. It's really the folding and putting away part. That always takes forever. But I will try to conquer even that before I leave! Wish me luck!

(And I just realized that when we get back we will have suitcases full of dirty laundry and this will start all over again. Grrr. Now I know why I hate laundry so much....it is never done!)

Mmmmm...pancakes!

Saturday is pancake day in the Voss household. (It used to be "Waffle Saturdays" but since our family has gotten a little bigger now, it takes all morning to make enough waffles, plus our waffle iron is kind of broken now....) We get up, have a leisurely morning, and make a double recipe of pancakes. I added a little sugar to the batter so they are slightly sweet, and don't need any syrup. Then we eat them right off the pan, so no dishes! The double recipe makes enough that after everyone is full, there are plenty left over to put in the freezer. This makes a great breakfast for Sunday morning, which is always busy and short of time as we try to get out the door for church. Just pull a couple of pancakes out of the freezer and pop them in the toaster - they reheat very well!

Here is my pancake recipe, which I have perfected after much trial and error:
(note: this is the double recipe, but you can halve it if you don't need so many or want leftovers)
Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 cups "white" whole wheat flour or whole wheat pastry flour*
4 generous teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup sugar or honey**

4 eggs
3 cups milk
1 cup coconut milk***
3 Tablespoons vanilla

*I also use spelt flour in place of the whole wheat sometimes, or 1 cup of each
**I like to add the sugar so the pancakes are a bit sweet, and you don't need syrup, which cuts down on the mess with little kids, but you can omit it if you want to eat them with syrup
*** coconut milk has a consistancy similar to cream and makes really light, fluffy, and delicious pancakes. You can buy it canned in the Asian foods section at the grocery. If you can't find coconut milk, you can use 1 cup of plain yoghurt instead.

Directions:
Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with electric beater until smooth. Heat non-stick griddle or pan over medium heat. (make sure the pan is quite hot before cooking). Melt about half a tablespoon of butter on the hot pan until it is thoroughly greased. Using a cup measure, pour batter into small rounds on pan. (I found that 1 not-quite-full measuring cup is perfect for 4 pancakes, which is what fits on my square non-stick pan.) Once bubbles appear on surface and the edges appear slightly dry, flip the pancakes and cook the other side. They should cook fairly quickly - just a minute or two, depending on the heat of your stove and griddle. Remove from heat and repeat with the rest of the batter. You don't need to grease the griddle every day - maybe just once halfway through as all the butter wears off.

Enjoy straight off the griddle or smother in syrup, jam, or honey. Put half in a ziploc bag in the freezer and have quick breakfast whenever you want - just pop in the toaster on a low setting.

Apology and (partial) retraction

Oh, dear. I suppose I should double-check things before I go spouting my mouth - er, fingers off. My last post - or should I call it a tirade? - wasn't quite accurate. I did a little re-checking on the ModCloth website, and turns out I had their sizing system quite wrong. It is weird, not based on normal sizing where you measure yourself all the way around (you know, bust, waist, hips) but where you lay out a piece of clothing that you know fits you well and then measure it across the front ONLY! Oh. Oops.

So yeah. Sorry about that. That makes the sizes a bit more reasonable, rather than half as big as normal sizes, which is what i thought they were.

However, I would like to point out that they still tend to run a good bit smaller than regular sizes. AND most of their items don't come any bigger than a large, which is 15 inches across. So I still say they're designed for skinny people. Hence the "partial" retraction. But still much more reasonable than I thought. Sooo...sorry, ModCloth. I guess I need to learn to read.