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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

End of May

So, it's the end of May... I didn't exactly meet my budget goal, but didn't completely blow it up either.

In my quest for good food, I have started trying different gluten-free brands. So far, the one I like the most is Glutino. It all started with a package of Lemon Wafer Cookies that my mother-in-law sent me... The package was gone within hours... I have zero will power against the Lemon Wafer Cookies... I have to ration them, or I will eat so many I will make myself sick... again... (they are really really good)

I have tried other items from the Glutino brand and have been pleasantly surprised. They have a pretty good pretzel, good bagel chips that double as croutons for me, and they make a fake-oreo like no one else... Although, I prefer the vanilla oreo-type cookie, the chocolate oreo-type cookie is really good too. I didn't really care for the chocolate covered vanilla wafer cookies, but Aaron loved them. I have some chocolate covered chocolate wafer cookies still to try.

I'm still loving my quinoa pasta, but I found another good grain-blend pasta that comes in more "normal" pasta shapes, like penne. I forget the brand, but I think it is european. It is a rice/corn blend that has the taste and texture of a "normal" pasta and not the rice pasta... I made a half-way decent penne spinach bake with it the other night. I have some tweaking of the recipe to do before I post it here, but it wasn't bad.

Still loving the benefits of going gluten-free, although I do still get depressed some about the food I can't eat anymore... We've had pollen like you wouldn't believe here in Juneau (so bad you can see swirls of it on the water and you can see the layer of it on your car) but I haven't had any bad allergic reactions to the pollen like I normally do. House cleaning still gives me some allergies, especially if I use the carpet deodorizer before vacuuming my floors. The carpet deodorizer makes my house not smell like dog, but it sure does make me react. I've tried using just Baking Soda to deodorize my carpets, but it doesn't work as well as the other stuff.

Another benefit is that everyone tells me that they can tell I've lost weight... While this is AWESOME, I am still afraid to get on the scale to see how much I've lost... My clothes are not as tight as they used to be, but I'm not down a size.. I'm guessing that I haven't lost more than 10 lbs. Probably less... But, that's just me being pessimistic.

The weather hasn't really been cooperating with me so I can exercise outside with my dogs. I know that taking Lijha for a bike ride or a long walk will benefit us both, but it doesn't seem to work that way. When it is nice outside, I am usually so bogged down with school work that I don't have time to go out. When I have the time, it's usually raining sideways and neither of us want to go out in it... I guess this is what I get when I live in Alaska instead of Hawaii... At least in Hawaii, the weather was pretty predictable.