More Gluten Stuff

Doing well with the gluten-free eating. I have found a few treats I am adoring, like my morning cinnamon roll

Got a favorite spaghetti

Found the best peanut butter cookies in the known world

Those are the type of foods I was most worried I would loose when I went gluten-free, but it turns out those were the easiest to replace with awesome stuff. The odd stuff I never thought about is what's been hard to fine perfect ones of. I still haven't found a BBQ sauce or a fake maple syrup that's perfect either. I never thought of gluten being in so many of these type of products, why does the cole slaw at KFC need gluten? Why does a salad dressing need gluten? The obvious stuff it turns out is crazy easy to replace with stuff just as tasty as any gluten product, but the other stuff is often made for multiple food allergies so the texture or taste might not be "right". Ah, well I've got the world's best gluten free store to shop in & they carry a ton of yummy things so I'm sure I'll find the perfect veggie soup & everything else soon.

Now with actual knitting content!

Finished 1 of the blue socks, now to get the other one going. Impressed the hell out of myself by doing the kitchnered toe from memory, didn't look it up at all. Pretty much did the whole sock that way, other than the cast-on number & needle size I just winged the whole thing. The toe decreases are a bit messy as I only did k2tog for it, but I still like it just fine.

Gluten Free

I figure I'll start off with the reasons why I fell off the edge of the earth 1st. Mainly I got really depressed & then after that got fixed up I moved halfway across the country. Ok now on to the actual content of the post!

When I moved out here I knew the friend I'd be living with is gluten-free & that the house would be gluten-free as well. For the past 2-3 years I've wondered if I had a problem with gluten for a host of reasons, mainly the neuropathy & the fact most everything I eat makes me sick. I stopped being able to eat lactose first, then casein; after that went carbs & meat at the same meal & then normal sized servings of meat & most fast food along with anything really high in fat. Certain veggies & fruit got the boot over the years & I developed reflux &, well sorry it's probably TMI, what I assumed was IBS. Through it all I thought it probably wasn't a gluten issue because eating just that didn't make me sick to my tummy & I craved it like mad.

Well on 26 May I moved & went gluten-free, no major changes happened at first. Once in a while I'll have a small amount of dairy & deal with "The Sick" as it's known around here. "The Sick" is around 4 hours long & I cry & it's horrible GI stuff that you don't want to know about. I cheated with a bit of dairy 2 days ago & only got a tiny bit sick that lasted for an hour & I didn't even cry.

So was it dumb luck or was it the lack of gluten in my diet? I don't know & while I'd love for it to be as easy a fix as just removing gluten from my diet & getting all the other foods back, I'm not gonna call it yet. I'll be gluten-free in this house regardless of if I have a gluten issue or not & am doing a 100% GF diet for 3 months & at the end will see how I feel & do a gluten challenge & see what happens. If it turns out it is the gluten I'll be 100% GF for good & if it turns out I've just got a useless GI tract then I'll eat gluten when I'm out & none at home.

Paining the roses red

Well, not roses, rooms. My roommate is plaining on listing this house for sale once thaw comes so between now & then we've got to clean, paint & pack up the nonessentials. Every room in the house, save my bedroom, was painted blue by the old owners. We'd been slowly working on doing all the things we wanted to the house, but painting seemed to fall to the bottom of the list. I think partially due to the fact the smell of paint gives me migraines.

The living room will become a light chocolate milk color, the dining room/my office will become a milkwash shade of lime, not sure about my room yet or the halls & kitchen. Girl child's room will stay pale purple as the only other color she's interested in is red. Not sure what color roommate is painting the master bed room yet either.

We've also got to put new tiles down in the basement & repaint all that. I'd love to pull one of the walls down there down to make a large family room, but I think that's a bigger project than she's looking to do for a house she's going to sell.

Loose tooth

Girl-child has her first loose tooth. It's right in the middle on the bottom & only just able to wiggle so it'll be a while before it falls out. She's so beyond excited about it & has asked around 8 billion times what exact day is it going to come out.

Her need to know exactly what day things will happen & her inability to accept answers like maybe, sometimes, probably & I don't know are one of the harder issues around here. When you're 5 there are a lot of maybes or I don't knows that come at you & when you have a disabled mom there are even more maybes & probablies that come down the pike. It's got to be hard & frustrating for her to get as many as she does & I do try to keep them to a minimum, but they aren't able to be gone all together.

I wonder how much of it is average kid & how much is down to ASD? I'm sure a fair chunk of it is NT, but I think a NT kid is asking because they want the quarter (what are kids getting per tooth these days?), but she couldn't care less about the quarter, she just wants to put it on the calendar so she have it plotted out.

Ears

I doubt many people show up here to hear about my ear stretching, but it's my blog so I can blather about them a bit.

On the smaller sizes (18g-12g) I was about 3-4 weeks between stretches. I touch quicker than the proper timeline of always 1 mo each. I'd hoped that the 6 weeks suggested on that timeline would be fine to go from 12g to 10g, but it's been 2½ months now & was only now able to go to the 10g.

Based on that I'm thinking it'll be end of May at the earliest to try going up again. I've 2 pair of glass plugs & 1 pair of steel dangles (that are kind of heavy), I think since I'll be at this size for a while (3-6 months I'm guessing) I might get a pair of bone earrings. Those are always so lovely, but they are $$$ & I didn't want to spend that for something that I'd be out of in a flash.

Ribbing! And knit night.

I've gotten to the ribbing on my sweater! I worked a row that had YO before you do the ribbing & a few rows in decided that the holes weren't working. I think they were meant to match the holes created from the YOs on the raglan sleeves but since I did a M1 instead of a YO for those increases it didn't match anything on the sweater. So I tinked back (ripping back is too scary for me yet) & am now only ½ a row in to the ribbing.

We had a new woman show up to knitting & while she could only stay for a short time last night she hopes to come again. She was lovely & complemented how even my stitching is especially for someone who's only been knitting for 2 years which I thought was sweet. I do hope she comes back & not just because she says nice things.

I hadn't been to knitting in 2 weeks, 1 due to the wrist being crap & last week no one felt up to it due to cold & being tired. It was really nice to see everybody again & see what they were up to. It's funny I was worried when I started the group & we got a few people coming because half of the group all knew each other from outside this group & that they might just take over the group & I'd feel left out, but that's never been the case. While I have to watch my love of obscenities & we just all avoid politics & such, I do think we are a cohesive group & I couldn't be happier.