Check out Free For All Cooking, and a chance to win the book

In my searching for Gluten Free (GF) products, I have been blessed to find Jules Gluten Free.

JulesGlutenFree.com

She has a blog where she shares many recipes, cooking tips, resources and more.

http://blog.julesglutenfree.com

I will write more about her later, but this is to inform you of a chance to win a free cookbook!

Recently, Jules has published a new book, Free For All Cooking, and that cookbook has been reviewed on another GF blog, Gluten Free Easily.  The review includes the recipe for Jules' real coffee coffee cake.  Plus, you can enter for a chance to win a free copy of the cookbook.

Here's where you go to read and register.

http://glutenfreeeasily.com/free-for-all-cooking-giveaway-gluten-free-coffee-cake-recipe/

While you are waiting to win the book, you can go to Jules site and check out the great recipes there.  It is so fun to be able to cook again!  I love the GF flour.  The first time I used it was to make homemade noodles, you know the thick, chewy noodles used in chicken pot pie (for those others with Pennsylvania Dutch background).  I could not tell that they were GF, my family could not tell, other than mom was eating them.  It was so nice.

I check the recipes that Jules has posted to see if she has a version of the recipe before I use my own, just because I know she's tried it out and I can count on the recipe working.  I made pie crust from my family recipe once and it was OK, but not great.  Since she has a recipe for pie crust, I am going to use that instead.  There are still a few things that are different working with GF products, but thankfully, Jules has taken the guesswork out of many recipes because she's done the work for you.

So, go to the Gluten Free Easily blog and register for your chance to win the cookbook.  If you don't win, however, I would suggest purchasing the book.

Here I Go

I wrote this post as I was wandering on the internet and looking at facebook.  ADD, not really multitasking since I don't think I've gotten anything done.  Anyway, as I went along trying to catch up on emails and such after being home in PA for a few days, I was blessed to cross information on another blog that has a great giveaway and I have to add it to my blog because starting another one now is too much for me.  I have to add it to the top because it's probably the best part of this page.

So here goes, I have to share this site with you (and some day I will know how to post it the right way).
It's a blog called Candy Hearts and it's written by another Wendy!  Her family is on the journey with type 1 diabetes and celiac disease.  Both are part of my extended family's journey and so I was thrilled to find such great information and links.  She currently has a giveaway and the prizes are absolutely fantastic.  Go here to check it out http://www.candyheartsblog.com/2010/12/new-years-bash-mega-sugar-bolus-give.html

OK, so I am going to give this a try and some day actually tell people I have this blog.  In the meantime, maybe this can be a type of therapy.  How sick is that?  Public therapy?!?!

Anyway, I used to write letters home when I had this incredibly long commute to and from work every day when I lived in Atlanta.  They seemed to ramble on and have all kinds of information and still my friends and family said they liked them.  They even said they missed my letters when I stopped writing because life got busy and my commute went away.  Life seemed so busy and complicated then, but now looking back, I miss those days.  Everything I am now, I am because of my past.  I think I have many regrets, but then I am not always sure I should regret the things that have made me who I am.  I am pretty OK with who I am.  Not positive that I love myself yet, but hey, it's been an incredible journey and to be at pretty OK at this point, that's really good.  Some day I may be at really OK or even better.  My life journey has been complicated, just like everyone else's.

Yet, my life has probably been so much better than so many other people so I probably just need to suck it up and walk it off.

Winter does this to me.  Retro-intro-spection.  Looking back in a mildly melancholy way and wondering if I should actually have my head examined.  Sometimes I think I am a bit manic, until I see someone who truly is manic and then I realize I am bland and boringly normal with ups and downs and a few loop-de-loops.  Makes me think of Patsy Clairmont because she wrote a book titled Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer.  Funny lady.  She wrote a ton of books, including children's books and has some CD's as well. I would suggest you check  her out.  Makes me smile to think of her, even though my mind can no longer remember the endings or details of her stories.  Still I get pictures of parts of some tales like the one where she was all dressed to the nines and strutted through town all proud, etc, and somewhere in the midst of things she realizes that she had a pair of pantyhose hanging out her pant leg that everyone was staring at. So she wasn't all that and a bag of chips.  Takes one humble funny lady to share stuff like that.  I know she's written numerous wonderful books and I had some books on tape and recordings of her from when she spoke at Focus on the Family.  Years ago, maybe even before children.  GASP!  SIGH.  Now I have to go and see if I can drag them out and actually find a working tape player...

Old age isn't for the weak or sentimental.  It just rolls over you and leaves it's marks as assorted scars, bumps and bruises.  I think they are called character.

So are you getting to know me now?  I really don't want to list a bunch of facts and data about who I am because those things are not really who I am.  This is who I am.  And I am changing.

I have many assorted rolls in life which will most likely come out in this as I go along.  For those who know me, maybe you will get to know me better.  Of course, maybe you don't want to know me better.  I promise if you do, you will have a very active prayer life just making sure I am covered.  But crazy can be fun too.

So jump in with me and if you start a blog, make sure to let me know and if you actually read this one, drop a line.  If you have comments, please be kind.  I really am that fragile and shallow that it will ruin most of year if someone posts nasty things.  Then as I am getting over it, my mind will begin to plot and plan.  Really, do you want to cause me to stumble?  I will stumble and fall as I plan all kinds of things to make you regret being a meany head.

Where do I go next from here?  I am not sure.

What Am I Doing?

I am not really sure why I am doing this.  I have always liked to write and I always have tons of ideas going through my mind at any time.  So, I am thinking of sharing some of those thoughts.  Not sure why anyone would like to read them.  Maybe for a psychology class project.  Abnormal thoughts from a crazy woman.

In a way it seems like a really bad idea.  Why would I want to open myself up to the world in this way?  Am I that vain?  Does vanity enter into it at all?  Why do people blog?

There are tons of blogs out there with lots of great ideas and thoughts; why should I add to this mess of things to read?

If and when I figure out what I am going to do, I will post more and share more.

I am technologically challenged so this is going to be a learning experience for me at least.  Maybe it will turn into a class project.  Our family homeschools.

In the meantime, lots of prayers need to be sent my way, regardless of where I wander and what I do.

Who am I?  What do you want to know?  Who are you?  Why do we do what we do?

Does anyone really want to do this with me?  Is there an audience for me?  Do I want an audience?

This may well be the only thing I ever write.

The only thing I know is that I need prayer, lots and lots of prayer.  It's funny and sad at this time in my life that I am still searching for so many answers.  SIGH

That's all for now because life is going on around me and I have to jump into the fray.