i used to keep a livejournal.

i wrote in it almost every day, sometimes many times, updating it with the most mundane highlights and reading comments from people in more interesting places than flint.  not many people read it and it sure wasn't public.  it was back in the day before facebook was talked about as if it were a sentient being, keeping us current on everyone's whereabouts and observations; the ubiquitous neighbor over the fence.  you had to have a recognized college email address to have an account.  it hadn't even entered my radar.  i wasn't as connected to everyone online as i am now.  i wasn't as picky about what i wrote either.

i used to sit with my brand new powerbookg4 open to livejournal, itunes and a crafting site.  the magnetic latch made an awesome pin cushion while i sewed and stuffed sock monkeys, made clothes for myself, and played around with stenciling.  i'd give my puppy a pigs ear and she'd curl up on her little bed, obsessively gnawing it until i was ready to call it a night.  it was a pleasant change from my whirlwind life and her manic behavior that earned her the name dory.

i met so many people through livejournal groups.  i was so open to new experiences.  my eyes were bigger, brighter, bluer then.  everything awed and inspired me.  i was so certain of who i was and where i was heading.  i was working two jobs; preparing for my move to chicago and art school.  i rented half of a two story house with a yard for half of what our one bedroom-plus, sub-level apartment costs now.

every morning i'd wake up and get ready for my job at borders.  i'd work a full shift there, change in the car, and then head to papa john's and work until they closed.  i'd eat my free ten inch pizza on the eleven minute drive home, shower again, and start writing and crafting.  i had so much creative energy that i had to have two outlets going at once.  when i had afternoons off i took dory to the park.  we'd run and play for a few hours.  then, i'd get a nice break while she napped, exhausted by the sheer excitement of living.

looking back, i can see how all the dots connected to get me where i am now.  i had to make choices, take chances and learn lessons, sometimes repeatedly.  my life is drastically different and yet i am still predominantly the same.  or maybe, i am just more me than i was then.  i am bigger in some way.

i've lost contact with most of the people that i met through livejournal, but somehow they are still with me.  they helped me to learn and grow and introduced me to new people and experiences.  i still make sock monkeys and i started writing and performing poetry.  i had to give dory away, but now i have two cats.  i dropped out of art school after only a few months but i'm still in chicago.  my once sparkling laptop has a few dents and scratches to go along with the new battery and hard drive.  my eyes are still big, bright and blue and every day is awe-inspiring.

i must confess...

i feel terribly knowing that people have been visiting my blog and yet i have only written once this year.  it makes me feel ashamed.  i created this space and yet i've failed to fill it with anything.

i could make excuses for myself.  the list would be long.

but every one of my excuses could be easily refuted.

i have lots to say about being gluten free.  i live it every day, the good and the bad.  i've been living with celiac disease for four years and, in my belief, my whole life.

so, to turn this blog productive, to get me actually writing the ideas in my head, will you help inspire me?

i need ideas and prompts and support.  i need comments and questions.  no comment is too small or question too big.  what do you want to know?  what brought you here?  do you need support or a gluten free friend?  have you tried a brand of food or restaurant?  did i leave something out?

please help me to be a better blogger.

keep on the sunny side!

every morning when you wake up you don't know what to expect for the day ahead of you. you may have everything planned and scheduled and prepared ahead of time. you might go over that days events the night before when you are falling asleep. even though you studied you can't always be prepared for that days pop quiz.

the unpredictability of life is what makes it so fascinating and yet so difficult. we have so many choices and oftentimes don't even acknowledge that we in fact have control of the outcome of each and every day. we choose which doors are opened and closed before us.

my favorite example of this is a story of a day of mine two summers ago...

i had planned to meet with a friend of a friend to do a photo shoot for an idea he had. we'd been intending to work together for quite some time and never got around to it. that very hot and sunny afternoon i rode my bike the ten and a half miles to the photographers house. when i got there i was tired but exhilarated and ready to be creative. unfortunately, he had not tried out some of the more intricate aspects of this particular idea. we spent an hour setting up and then another hour failing at attaching the ends of plastic tubes to my skin. if you compound the scent of the adhesive, the hot sun on the long ride and my now empty stomach, you'd get one horrible migraine. we decided to end for the day and i was going to go home instead of to meditation like i had planned. my migraine was escalating by the minute.

i left his apartment and walked out into the sunny street to find my bike had an eight inch pinch flat. this means that the person who helped me with my tire last, a former bike delivery guy, had failed horribly at putting my tube in and the rim of the wheel pinched my tube rendering it unfixable with my patch kit. in knew that the closest bike shop did not carry tubes that fit my tiny bike. i was very upset all of a sudden but was determined to get home and fix it and rest my head. i walked my bike to the train station and found that the trains were not running due to someone deciding to jump on the tracks a few stations south of where i was.

i started crying. i didn't know what else to do. i sent a text to my friend who was hosting the meditation and another to the friend of the photographer. i reformulated my plan on how to get home which would require an hour and a half on a bus and then 2o minutes on a train. i managed to catch the necessary bus a few minutes later while i pulled myself together.

when i was seated on the bus, my bike safely riding in front, i received a text from the friend of the photographer. she simply said that i could choose how the rest of my day would go if i decided to see the positive. this was very empowering. i started counting the blessings of the situation i found myself in and they just kept adding up:

the bus was air conditioned! people were giving up their seats on the over crowded bus to elderly people and parents holding babies! i could see out the window! i didn't get motion sickness! the bus ride was quicker than i thought! my medicine was working and taking the edge of the migraine! people were smiling and being nice left and right! there was a little boy on the train platform who liked my pink bike and the horn and played with me! there was a mom with a toddler in a sling on the train and we played with the horn, making the ride go by so much faster! my neighbors were friendly! my roommates weren't home!

the day just kept getting better! by the time i went to sleep i was a completely different person than the one who started crying when it seemed as if the whole world were conspiring against me. it was all because someone told me that i could mould my day into my own creation. i had a choice as to how i would see the world for the rest of the day! i had the power the whole time but someone had to tell me to grab hold of it.

this story has stuck with me and i have used it as an example of positive thinking many times. i am telling this story now for my own benefit. i need to find my rose colored glasses and keep them on as i find myself facing many challenges and an even rougher few months ahead of me.

The Law of Attraction and Unemployment

"When Your Practiced Thought

Becomes a Dominant Thought

Whenever you have consistently focused upon a subject, causing a consistent vibrational activation of it within you, it becomes a practiced dominant thought.  And once that happens, things that match it will begin to manifest around your dominant thought. In the same way that your earlier thought was joined by other thoughts that matched it-now things that match your dominant thought will begin to show up in your experience: magazine articles, conversations with friends, personal observations... the attraction process will become very apparent.  Once your focused attention has sufficiently activated a dominant vibration within you, things-wanted or unwanted-will begin to make their way into your personal experience.  It is Law."

-"Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires" By Esther and Jerry Hicks

So, for one (positive) example, i start talking and thinking about massage in relation to treatment for people with spinal cord injuries right as i start a class at The New School for Massage called Special Populations.  Next, i happen to grab a Massage and Bodywork magazine off my shelf that has an article called "Appreciating Clients' Health Challenges."  Then, a friend mentions a friend of hers who became an LMT just to be able to give a massage to his brother every day to help with his Cerebral Palsy.  Things keep coming to my attention that correlate to working with this specific population, including an idea that could become patented and sold to massage therapists who work with people who use a wheelchair.

When it had been first mentioned to me that i might try to receive unemployment after losing my job in August, something in my gut said "no!" and it wasn't pride.  The idea that i might not have a job, within the time frame allotted by my savings, was disconcerting at best.  While i was reading the passage above it dawned on me that if i constantly focus my attention on the fact that i do not have a job, it will continue to be a fact in my life.  So, all of the energy that i use to think about unemployment, keep track of my job searches, and deal with the hassle of paperwork not having been done correctly, the more that vibration of not having a job will resonate and i will continue to feel negative emotions that are out of alignment with who i really am.  On the flip side, if i focus on finding the job that is perfect for me right now and do visualizations and focus on all the positive emotions that go with it, then that will be my dominant thought and vibration.

i think that the most important lesson being learned by me from this is that i have to rely on/trust my gut instinct, even if i do not understand where it is coming from.  i so far have not received any unemployment payments, due to complications, but also have not decided whether closing the claim would be the right decision.  until i receive further insight, i will hold true to my grocery store wisdom and "stay in the first line that i pick."

yum!

right now i am sitting with a giant plate of gluten free beef with broccoli on my lap!  it is a really good feeling.  beef with broccoli was one of my favorite things to order from the golden dragon as a kid.  my mom also had a version and i had been craving it for a few weeks now.

since going gluten free i've missed the ease in which i had been able to eat.  i could eat anywhere at anytime.  i was adventurous in regards to trying to new foods and ethnic restaurants.  i've recently discovered the joy of vietnamese pho and go to tank noodle every tuesday.  i've never gotten sick from pho and it is super filling!  in turn, i'm becoming more adventurous with my cooking and baking.

so, one of the things i miss is chinese food.  my simple stir fries just don't cut it.  this morning i searched for a recipe and found one on a fellow bloggers page.  it is great!  i just finished my mountain of rice smothered in rich beef, broccoli and yummy brown sauce.

a few days ago i made gluten free chicken noodle soup based off of this recipe here.  i'm pretty proud of how it turned out and i made enough to eat for leftovers for the next week.  now that i have my microwave back, leftovers make more sense.

thanks for reading!  maybe i'll be able to post some pictures soon.  i had fun learning how to do hyperlinks and i hope they all work.

the basics

anyone who knows me knows i have celiac disease.  what many of you don't know is how this affects my life.  it is a constant challenge and juggling act to maintain a state of health.  i go through great lengths to eat the right foods and when i mess up it can set me back a few days and sometimes a week.  celiac disease is a very serious condition and the gluten free diet that is prescribed for it is a challenge and socially isolating.

what is celiac disease?  the statistics state that 1 out of every 133 people have celiac disease and the majority of them are undiagnosed.  gluten is the protein found in wheat, barely and rye.  people with celiac disease have an immunological reaction to gluten.  it is different than an allergy because it does not cause a histaminic reaction.

what happens when i ingest gluten?  on the technical side, the villi in the small intestine flatten.  the villi are little hair-like projections that increase the surface area of the small intestine and allow for the absorption of nutrients.  so, when the villi flatten they no longer absorb the necessary nutrients and the body is affected in many ways.  sometimes people have no noticeably connected symptoms but could still have large amounts of damage to their villi.

what can happen if i continually ingest gluten?  i could have anemia's of many major vitamins and minerals.  i could have early onset of osteoporosis/osteopenia.  i can suffer from gall bladder malfunction, neurological manifestations and nervous system disorders.  i could manifest other autoimmune diseases such as lupus or diabetes.  and, it would put me at great risk for various cancers of my g.i. tract.

what are my symptoms when i eat gluten?  my list of symptoms varies from month to month and there are over 300 symptoms of celiac disease (i haven't found a complete listing yet).  celiac disease affects the whole body and not just the intestines.  here is the run down for me: canker sores, swollen glands, dizziness, low blood pressure, gurgling and movement in my abdomen, intense pain in my abdomen, sever bloating, gas, diarrhea and constipation, abrupt weight loss, fatigue and weakness, anemia, joint and bone pain, migraines, anxiety, nightmares, little bump like rashes on my upper arms and thighs, dehydration, lack of desire to eat, cravings for gluten, inability to concentrate, emotional instability, and what i like to call a gluten fog where i can't think correctly and have a hard time doing normal activities.

how did i get celiac disease?  people have to have certain genes to develop celiac disease and if they are present then something has to happen in their life that puts great stress on the immune system.  it can be anything from an emotional upset like a divorce or a death to a physical upset like mono or a hospital stay.  i have my theories about how it was triggered in me but nothing can really be proven.  i could have had it for a very long time and didn't have symptoms for periods of time or it could have only been triggered a few years ago.

what do i do to stay healthy and gluten free?  i cook mostly at home and rarely go out to eat.  i read the label of every product that i put in or on my body.  i avoid kissing my girlfriend after she has consumed anything that contains gluten.  i try to eat fresh foods over processed foods to avoid factory cross-contamination.  i bring snacks with me so that i can have something to eat no matter where i am.  i wash my hands a lot so that i can protect my immune system.  if i'm not sure, then i shouldn't eat it!

thanks for reading and i hope that you've learned something about me and celiac disease.

the beginning

i've decided to start a blog. it will help me to get out in the open how celiac disease affects my life and my day to day living. ideally, it will help me to live healthier and make better food choices for myself.

many of you know that i have celiac disease and that i don't eat gluten. what you don't know is how this makes me feel and the lengths i go through to stay healthy.

your questions are welcome and will inspire me to write more. no question is wrong but please try to stay positive.

this isn't all negative. there are lots of good things that have happened since i figured out that i have celiac disease. i am healthier! i am smarter! i have my exorbitant amount of energy back!

thank you all for the support and encouragement. sometimes all i need is an ear and an understanding nod.