Redefining Food
Posted under: Then and Now
Once upon a time, I refused to acknowledge the existence of vegetables (except carrots, corn, and potatoes. Everyone else, though – prohibidado!).
I lived on meat and bread and sugars and things in cans and boxes (carefully selected so that those cans and boxes contained no outlaw vegetables!).
Back then, mine would have been the first and loudest voice asserting that I could not live my current lifestyle. Believe me, I understand the look of horror I sometimes get when I explain how I’m eating now. I was there, and it’s been a slow journey to get where I am today.
This journey has been worth every step. (Shout out to Mr. Moore, without whom I would never have grown to adore purple onions. I love you.)
Gluten
Gluten is in almost everything made of wheat. “Celiac disease” and “gluten intolerance” are becoming more and more commonplace terms. I’ll give a high level (read: simplistic) overview of them here, but I assume you can all find google if you want to know more.
Celiac disease is an auto-immune disorder wherein your body attacks itself when you eat things with gluten (wheat, for a simple definition). Gluten intolerance has many of the same symptoms of celiac disease with the notable difference that you’re probably not going to die if you eat a slice of toast.
Tests for celiac have gotten more accurate over the last few years, but tests for intolerance are still pretty iffy. In both cases, a yes probably means a yes, but a no may or may not mean no.
Symptoms of gluten sensitivities include diarrhea, constipation (yes, I am aware of how ridiculous that pairing sounds), sinus infections (wait, what?), itchy skin splotches (see, now you’re just making this up), anemia, being sick a lot, being tired all the time, migraine headaches, and possibly parking tickets. It really is a long laundry list of symptoms – if you have NO symptom on the list, I call shenanigans – not many people are THAT healthy.
Nobody watching the number of confirmed cases of celiac and gluten sensitivity/intolerance seems to be able to give a straight answer as to how Big A Deal It Is – the numbers keep snowballing as more and more people become educated about it. Try adding in the number of self-diagnoses (which may be wrong as easily as they may be right) and you’ve got one heckuva headache for any statistician trying to make sense of it.
All anyone can say for certain is that a lot of people have it and don’t realize it and that most people probably don’t have the life-threatening version of it.
Gluten In My House
Imma be honest with you guys. I love bread. I love the yeasty warm smell of fresh-baked bread, I love things slathered on toast, I love flaky croissants and hot buttered rolls and lemon poppyseed muffins.
However, betwixt Mr. Moore and myself, we managed to fairly well highlight everything on that laundry list of symptoms (except the parking tickets. We are impeccable parkers. Heck, I used to BE a Parker before I was a Moore. *rimshot* That’s a maiden name joke, folks.)
To experiment, we cut gluten from our diet, starting in December.
We did not get tested – this is entirely self-diagnosis on our part.
But wait, there’s more.
Vegan
A true scientist would modify only one thing at a time, thus being able to directly pinpoint the source of any changes.
I am not a true scientist. I’m more of a mad scientist, the kind with bad hair and green-spattered labcoats and unnecessary goggles.
At the same time that we cut gluten, we also opted for a mostly-vegan lifestyle.
Note to the uninitiated : Vegetarians do not eat meat. Vegans go a step further and do not eat animal products (dairy, eggs, etc).
It turns out I am lactose intolerant, which would explain why yogurt, despite all of its yummy tummy bacteria, actually made my problem worse instead of better. Yikes. For better or worse, we tacked soy on the list of things to avoid, too.
We opted away from meat because we disagree with the way that most of the meat we have been eating is produced but also because meat is expensive and there are both health and environmental benefits to going meat-free.
Given the right cow, raised the right way, I will eat me a burger, don’t think I won’t. I just can’t afford that burger very often because producing that cow humanely and organically ain’t cheap. (Several vegans in the audience just fainted that I would say that and still call myself vegan. The Vegan/Vegetarian debates get just as heated as any Hardcore/Casual gamer debates I’ve heard.)
Further estranging myself from Vegan society, I eat honey. Only raw, organic honey, mind you, but I do loves me some honeybees and there are some great local producers that I want to support. Also? Yum.
Is there a word for a partial Vegan? Like a Catholic who only attends mass on holidays and after doing something they really regret? If so, that’s the kind of Vegan I am. True Vegans probably wish I’d find a different nominative.
Caffeine and Alcohol
While I’m at it, I says to myself, why not try and cut way back on the caffeine and alcohol?
Not that I was scarfing down an irish coffee for breakfast every morning, but I WAS having one or more to-go cups of coffee a day (sweetened and creamed, of course) and I had been known to enjoy an alcoholic beverage from time to time. The frequency of said beverage depended upon things like work, availability, and the phase of the moon.
So I scaled it back. No more “just a little drink” here and there. I either planned for it ahead of time or I didn’t have it. If I DID have it, I noted it down and made sure that I watched the frequency.
BAM! Food Change!
So! Flash back to December, where we suddenly stopped eating meat, dairy, eggs, coffee, alcohol, and gluten.
Going through the cupboards was … fun.
Anything perishable was eaten quickly or given away. Anything nonperishable was donated to the food pantry.
We scrambled to find recipes.
Breakfast was its own special hurdle. I’ve been an eggamoobymuffin (scrambled egg and half a buttered english muffin) girl for years. Switching to oatmeal and other hot cereals, protein shakes, or savory breakfasts took some getting used to.
We also wanted to make sure we were getting enough fiber and protein. Previously, most of our fiber came from wheat products and most of our protein from chicken breasts. Finding replacements has been interesting. (Beans, Quinoa, and Lentils mostly, for the curious.)
Gluten-free recipes are easy to find these days, but many of them emphasize meats or slather cheeses. Many meat replacement products contain wheat or soy. Additionally, a lot of recipes we found called for expensive replacement flours or complex recipes.
I’m a simple gal at heart. For all I love cooking, I don’t love complexity. My previous recipe bible was nothing but 15-minute recipes.
My new recipe bible looks like it was stitched together from the corpses of several other recipe books – which is mostly true. I love it.
The Point
We cut our diets back to the very basics. If/When we add things back in, we should be able to track how our body responds to them more clearly. Before, our receptors were a mishmash of useless information that couldn’t be traced to a cause.
Take, for example, my lactose intolerance. I have a love affair with chocolate … but most low-end chocolates are not dairy free. A few weeks into this, my friend made some GORGEOUS dark chocolate fudge and brought pieces in to work to share. The recipe used sweetened condensed milk.
I had some. (Puh-lease, of course I had some. You all know where this is going). Two tiny chunks of fudge and within ten minutes, my stomach was yowling like a cat on a fence.
Pretty clear cause and effect, there. (Well, okay, I tested it again the next day. It might have been a fluke! … it was not a fluke. *sadface*)
I want to KNOW what my body is doing and why. If I feel tired all the time, I want to know WHY I feel tired all the time. Surely that’s not normal. Surely I shouldn’t feel that way. And if that’s true, then I should be able to DO something, take control of some aspect of my life to fix it.
So, like any mad scientist, I started collecting data.
The Data Thus Far
Here we are, two months later. There have been a few hiccups along the way (some intentional, others not) but we have enough data at this point to say that this diet is definitely good for us.
It’s not been a magic wand. (Well, in ONE sense it has been a magic wand. I can now state, definitively, what “regularity” really means and how FANTASTIC it is – and I did not think I had any issues in that department in days of yore.)
I still have tension headaches (remind me to tell you about the miracles of massage, KristenSue). I still have bad days and good days. I still struggle with cravings (pizza calls to me, and we are working on a vegan pizza I can eat). My acne is slowly clearing up without the use of creams, potions, or poisons.
Things are definitely better. The change in Mr. Moore has been even more dramatic, involving a rocky past relationship with the word “regularity”, the aforementioned itchy skin splotches on his ankles, and back to back to back to back DRY sinus infections which are now completely gone. Amazing. Seriously.
Additionally, we do not feel deprived by the food we are eating. This is important.
This has been difficult on our family, but my mom has risen to the occasion in a way that can only be termed as masterful. (Thank you, mom!)
Our grocery bill has plummeted (holy cow has it plummeted). Even buying organic vegetables as often as we can, we’ve easily cut our grocery bill in half every week. Bulk dry grocery is cheap, folks, and we’re happy to cook our own beans.
We feel good, and I believe this style of eating will be at the core of how we eat from here on out.
Experiment successful.
Anyone have any questions? I’d be happy to answer if I can, and I do plan on posting some of our favorite recipes, tips, and tricks if it seems like folks care to listen.
^_^
Apropos of Nothing, A Kitty
Love this.
A friend of mine calls himself a “freegan” meaning, while he’s a practising veagan, if any dairy, eggs, honey, etc. lands on his plate for free, he will eat it. He abhores meat, though.
Our own foray into gluten free has gone well. We are definitely eating healthier overall. Thankfully we have an exceptional year-round farmers market that stocks affordable local produce and organic, grass-fed meats.
It is nice to overhaul the pantry and diet when all is said and done. And, hopefully, we are on the right track to instilling good food habits in Olivia.
I’m really happy it is working out so well for you guys.
I thought of a super healthy smoothie recipe for you. Equal parts frozen bananas, frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, pomegranate juice and almond milk. Blend. Packed with vitamins and protein and antioxidants. If you put it all in the blender the night before and stick it in the fridge the fruit will melt just enough to blend smoothly.
<3
PS I typed all this on my phone. O_o
<3 I love reading about your food adventures on your blog. Your smoothie recipe sounds a lot like the one that we use! I need to try adding the pomegranate juice. A lot of times, we'll just shovel whatever fresh fruit we've got that's about to go bad into the mix with some frozen bananas and strawberries - had a galia melon/kiwi mix just yesterday!
Yikes on the phone! Good gravy, that's dedication!
Ah nutrition, one of my favorite topics. Well let me commend you on going gluten free and mostly vegan. You have a lot more willpower than I.
As for my own story, I’ve been searching for a reason behind my general “tiredness” for years. I read about imbalance in the gut and specifically having too much yeast in the body and all those symptoms matched what I was having. Very similar by the way to the symptoms for gluten intolerance, with the digestive problems and itchy skin and such. I though I either had gluten intolerance or a systemic yeast imbalance. I went on the yeast free diet for about a month and a half, which meant I had to cut out all yeast, all sugars and anything fermented. No caffeine, no alcohol, no aged cheeses, and no vinegar. Sugar of course is found in most foods, and even natural sugars such as those in fruit were off limits. Basically the idea is to starve the yeast of its food and it eventually dies off. This was difficult, but I felt so much better. Energy came back, digestive problems vanished. I even dropped a couple of pounds. Unfortunately I couldn’t maintain it. It became too difficult to abstain from drinking when out with friends, or to pass up sweets since I’ve always been a sugar junkie.
There are lots of similarities between this diet and a gluten free one, so I’ve never been really sure which one was the problem and I don’t want to pay $100′s of dollars for the testing.
Anyway, it did teach me that what we eat really does affect our overall health in a powerful way. I also discovered the magic of probiotic pills. :) Luckily your husband is on board with you because it is really hard to make a big diet change if your partner has no interest in changing theirs (I know from experience.)
Good luck with it and I would be interested to see your recipes!
Wow, I hadn’t heard of the yeast thing – most of the stuff I’ve read has praised fermented things.
I don’t go out with friends on an alcoholic basis very often, and I have a WICKED sweet tooth (I sate it on fruit/smoothies as much as possible and supplement with really GOOD dark chocolate and cocoas). I definitely hear you – it’s relatively easy to keep up at home, but at work and outside the house, it gets tough.
You could always try GF for a month or two, see how you feel on it. That’s cheaper than the testing, unless you buy a lot of replacement GF options (GF bread is very expensive if you buy it in loaves).
You’re so right on the partner thing. If this was either one of us, it would never work. It has to be both. *nod*
And yay, a vote for recipes! I will definitely share. <3
Wow. Good for you guys! That is a big, BIG change, which can’t be easy to stick by! I’m so glad it’s working for you. There certainly is a lot wrong with the way we eat in this country. I couldn’t give up everything that you have, but Andrew and I do try to eat organic and local when we can. I’ve fallen out of the habit (need to fix that) but for a while I was doing one day a week vegetarian, too. And we’re trying to follow, more or less, this book called The Paleo Diet Cookbook, which is basically all the foods we evolved to eat way back in the caveman days. I can’t entirely give up dairy or wheat products, and I certainly can’t go fully vegetarian, but cutting down on all those things helps, too. Good luck going forward!
Camelai´s last post ..A Seamstress’ Christmas
It’s easier to give up when your body tells you, in no uncertain terms, that it doesn’t want you eating that stuff.
I’ve heard of the paleo diet and I know a lot of folks that swear by it. It’s not very vegetarian friendly, from what I recall, but anything that gets people preparing their own food and paying attention to what they eat is a winner in my book. ^_^
I’ve found that just introducing a little more fiber in my diet at regular intervals did wonders. By “a little more”, I mean that I eat a granola bar on the way to work rather than skipping breakfast altogether. That plus sleeping and trading Dr. Pepper for Barq’s (cuts the caffeine per can in more-than-half and Dr. Pepper has a lot of prune juice and used to have a purpose beyond being a tasty beverage…). I know that I don’t have anything other than a digestive tract that doesn’t like change — so, if I’ve been off milk for a year and then buy some, it looks like I’m lactose intolerant for a few days. Well, that and bouts of insomnia. The new baby should cure the latter. ;)
Koliva is excellent semi-vegan fare, but it’s not traditionally gluten-free (though you can substitute rice for wheat). Greeks make fantastic semi-vegan food thanks to Orthodoxy (no meat, cheese, dairy, olive oil, or wine during Lent).
Also, you just lost all of your vegan powers. You’re no longer better than everyone else. (If you don’t know where that’s from, you should watch it. I think you’d enjoy it.)
I was actually aiming at fiber in my old diet (fiber cereals + extra fiber breads) but nothing beats having beaneriffic meals twice a day.
I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of Kolivia, and I LOVE greek food. I’m learning to like olives more, so I can eat more of it. I didn’t realize olive oil was out during Lent. What’s the motivation there?
How can I watch it if I don’t know what it’s from? (and I don’t, and you have impeccable* taste, so now I want to know)
*for values of ‘impeccable’ which can include Josie and the Pussycats
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” is an ownable movie. I can safely say that because I now own it. ;) It’s kind of an odd movie and a lot of its appeal is generational, but I like it nonetheless.
Koliva has a particular liturgical purpose, but you can also just eat it. Folks I knew called it Greek breakfast.
There are varied explanations for refraining from olive oil and most of them are probably valid. (Orthodoxy isn’t typically full of single right answers.) I’ve heard things from, “it’s loaded with fats and will make you feel full and feeling full isn’t ideal” to “it symbolizes a broken world without God and that helps bring us to contrition” to “they used to carry it in animal skins and now it’s just tradition.” Practices for Lenten fasts vary between churches and people vary in how strictly they follow them. For me, it was just one of those things I didn’t question much.
…which reminds me of a horrible joke you probably don’t want on your blog. ;)
Eeenteresting.
You can email me said inappropriate-for-blog joke. *wink*
Also, I know a guy that’s vegetarian (just because) and he now gets ill whenever he eats meat. It’s not an allergy or anything; his body just doesn’t understand the substance anymore apparently. In the past, he has been able to eat meat regularly again and get over the illness factor. So, your attempts to test your food allergies after moving to the diet you’re own might all ultimately fail. Just something to keep in mind. (I kindof hinted at that with my “lactose intolerance”, but I meant to include this other piece of anecdotal information as well.)
I follow, and I know what you mean. Our guts get used to a particular food and then start getting all weird when we change things sometimes.
Self-diagnosis is always tricky, but in this case we felt good about the choice (particularly since current medicine is so dodgy on the subject). The fact that we’re already seeing some results is what we’re going off of – neither of us got obviously physically sick when eating any of these foods (except me and the lactose).
Worst case scenario, we’re getting a lot of fiber in our diet now and we’re saving money, neh?
Oh sure. I’m not knocking your food choices. I’m knocking your test. ;)
I’m always more than happy to get new recipes – SSH and I are in kind of a food transition right now, but we’re taking steps toward more vegetables and local produce as often as possible (which is really a lot easier living in such a temperate place. the regular old grocery store stocks a TON of “Go Texan” products \o/). Still, finding recipes can be a challenge, especially with ingredients that I don’t usually use.
Something that you might enjoy adding to your regular breakfast rotation is black beans (I make mine with onion and jalapeno) in corn tortillas. I can get locally made tortillas that don’t have lard in them, and I smash the beans up pretty good and then just schmear them in the tortillas and eat them with salsa. It’s SUPER FAST, because you have everything made in advance, and very healthy and filling :)
Our normal grocery stores don’t focus on local produce, but the co-op we’ve started going to clearly labels things like that and organic foods. Are there any local farm shares you could look into? I know that opened our taste buds to a ton of new veggies – like celery root, which is AMAZING.
Hee, I love black beans! We’ve been adding them to lots of things. I’ll have to post my chili recipe sooner rather than later, I think you’ll love it.
It’s hard to find corn tortillas that have no gluten in them, BUT I also just found an awesome recipe for a really simple flatbread that would totally be a good replacement for tortillas. I’ll have to post that soon too!
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
let me start with: omg heartburn. Seriously progesterone, stop it.
then: baby, stop kicking me. I know you are strong.
ok, now on to the post: NO CHEESE? ~faint~ Justin and I have a lot more meatless meals since we started our healthier eating a few years ago, but I don’t know that we could go vegan.
and gluten free
at the same time
(I’m trying to think of the people that only show up to church on holidays. or all the people from high school who showed up at the Bacheloriate mass and I thought ‘oh? you are Catholic? when did that happen. I haven’t seen you here in all of my 10 years at this church!’ Slackers? non-practicing Catholics? if I remember something better, I’ll let you know )
I would like to know what a normal menu for your day looks like. One that you feel is most balanced.
Bernadette is clearly trying to indicate his desire to play soccer. Unfortunately, it would be more useful if she would do this AFTER being born. *big hugs*
The thought of so many big changes all at once is really daunting, but it’s a lot easier when you have an arsenal of recipes on hand.
A balanced/typical day for me would be a protein shake for breakfast (frozen strawberries, frozen bananas, almond milk, any fresh fruit on hand that’s about to go bad, and protein powder. The hemp protein powder we’re trying right now is too gritty, going to have to find an alternative. If no protein powder, we always add a little ground flax seed for fiber). Alternative flavors would be to add some cocoa powder and peanut butter (a tablespoon is all that’s needed for two shakes) to the mix. YOM.
A cup of unsweetened tea midmorning (I can do a lot of different teas without sweetener now, though it took a long time to get here. My favorites are peppermint, Tiger Spice, or green tea with a little bit of orange. Oh, or Lemon Zinger. Right. Lots of tea options). If I’m still feeling munchy, I try to sate it with a banana because lunch isn’t far off!
Lunch is always leftovers. Either a soup with lots of lentils in it, or a chili. If I’m really hungry and I don’t think what I brought will do the trick, I’ll pick up a small salad from the salad bar at work and add that. I always have some fruit with my lunch – in the winter, it’s an orange, but in the summer it’s often peaches and raspberries.
Afternoon snack is nuts – almonds and cashews. And more tea. Water throughout the day – I try to have two glasses of water before lunch, two before leaving work, and then two more after I get home. I don’t always succeed, but I try. ^_^
I’m usually hungry when I get home, so I’ll have a cup of soup (ha! I wrote soap at first. Bleh.) or some pre-made hot cereal or something. Dinner is more leftovers – soup or chili or something. (To put this in perspective, this weekend Mr. Moore cooked up a BIG pot of three different kinds of beans in a very bland chili. We separated them out and made a Beef Stew Chili (added potatoes and carrots and seasonings to make it smokey flavored), a Horseradish Chili (added some fried onion, zucchini, and celery, then a good dollop of horseradish mustard), and an Italian Chili (added some spaghetti squash, pesto, fire roasted tomatoes, olives, and all things that are good). So we have a lot of “chili” but really a lot of different meals and flavors.
After dinner, I’ll have a little bit of dark chocolate, or maybe some hot cocoa or chai tea, because I still have a sweet tooth and I like to sate it. If we were feeling spendy, I may have some coconut ice cream (made with coconut milk, so it’s dairy and gluten free, but it IS expensive),
So there you have it!
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
Beef Stew Chili? with no beef? I demand you rename that chili.
That sounds like a lot of soup/chili meals. Have you found good recipes for ‘heartier’ meals?
*laughs* With the right seasoning (we use Chicago Steak Seasoning from Penzey’s Spices) you can’t even tell that there’s no beef. ^_^
With it being winter, we’re doing a lot of hearty meals like the chilis and spicy soups. I’m curious to see how that swings in the summertime, but right now I look forward to a steaming bowl of veggies and beans with some zing to them.
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
I’ve got two terms for you that some of my Catholic friends from high school used. “Cafeteria Catholic” (as in, a little of this and a little of that) and “Easter/Christmas Catholic”.
Ha! Cafeteria Catholic. I approve of the alliteration.
I only sadfase to this because ALL our recipes involve gluten, meat and/or dairy, so I can’t share any faboo recipes with you anymore.
However if it’s working for you, that’s awesome. You guys are going at this with the right perspective: I’m doing this for my health and not because I’m turning into a (insert pop-diet of the day) nazi.
Marianne´s last post ..Side project
(that being said, I’m *severely* lactose intolerant, but completely unwilling to give up cheese. I use lactaid pills, or, “dairy aid ultra” which is the CVS store brand generic. Works better for me for half the price. And I can go through some lactaid… >.>)
Marianne´s last post ..Side project
Yikes. I don’t know if mine is severe or not, but I know that I ate beano by the handful and got nothing from it. I’d rather avoid it and find ways around it than try to help my body through it, though.
Apparently, there are some really common methods for making “cheez” using soaked nuts, blended and then strained in cheesecloth. We made a really soft walnut “cheez” and I don’t know how CHEESY it tastes (it ain’t no cheddar) but it’s definitely creamy and satisfies the mouthfeel of a spreadable cheese.
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
With regards to the pop-diet nazi thing – I’ve read a lot of vegan blogs where people talk about becoming vegan for moral reasons and staying for health reasons. Mine are a mix of both, because I don’t feel it’s immoral to eat a cow, but I don’t want to eat a cow that’s been raised the way I see so much beef raised these days, if that makes sense.
In the summer, we get a local farmer’s market, and there are some grass-fed buffalo and beef sellers, along with a few local organic chicken/beef places. I think we’ll visit them and see what we want to try out. I’d like a hamburger, I think.
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
I was meaning more the “Gluten is bad because the intarwebs say so, so no one should ever be able to eat it ever cause it’s BADBADBAD” which always seems to go around whenever something starts getting known. (Gluten can be replaced with salt, sugar, carbs, fat, anything farmed, vaccines…)
If the sum total of your (generic your *wink*) argument is “because it’s bad” or “because the internet says so” and you think that makes you right and I am obligated to follow you? Yeah, not so much.
Marianne´s last post ..Side project
Aaaah, yes, I totally understand. It’s hard to pull that off with GF (not that it keeps people from trying) because there aren’t a lot of people walking around going “yanno, I never really liked bread anyway…”
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
Unfortunately, I’ve *seen* the “Gluten is bad for me so it must be bad for you” way more than I’ve seen the “Gluten is bad for me, so please treat me as an allergic and be careful to keep it away from me” more reasonable response.
It may be a “I don’t want to be weird/different” thing or it may just be people not thinking… or it may be a product of the internet, the more out-there and unreasonable you are, the more efamous you get.
So I just wanted to say *HUGS* THANK YOU FOR NOT BECOMING A (cute) ZOMBIE MINION!
Marianne´s last post ..Side project
I don’t think I mentined how much I love that kitten. OH I LOVE KITTENS!
<3<3 I was trying to decide what images to post, and finally decided that all images were trumped by cute kitten. I have a second cute kitten, too!
http://tamimoore.com/images/animations/popupkitty.gif
Tami´s last post ..Redefining Food
Wow! (do you know how hard it is not to type that as WoW?). Good for you guys! I have managed to quit smoking. And thanks to a friend I have managed to complete my grocery shopping without touching the center aisles of the grocery store this week. Everything natural, but thats as far as I can get…lol!
Also, they call them C&E Catholics
*laughs* I definitely understand how hard it is to not type “WoW”
HUGE congrats on the smoking thing! That’s a massive step (and I know your life isn’t exactly massage parlors and daily manicures, so double kudos for doing it through the stress!)
Grats on the shopping, too! That’s one of the proponents of the Paleo Diet – going around the edges of the grocery store. Makes a ton of sense, too! Soon as you get some great recipes under your belt, it’ll be second nature. <3
What does C&E stand for?
Christmas & Easter :) (They call them that when they’re not Catholic too, just “C&E Christians” – or at least I heard it that way growing up)
Bingo!
aha! Thanks, that makes perfect sense.
Heh thanks, I figured if I quit when things were all calm and stable I’d either A: Never quit or B: Cave as soon as something troublesome popped it’s head. And as Anna said, Christmas & Easter! I’m possibly guilty of being a C&E Christian myself >.<
That sounds logical to me – and only enhances my congratulations. HUGE deal. Hope you’re loving the changes!