Better Blogging: Comment on another blog

Today I need to catch up on my assignments for 31 Days to Building a Better Blog. It's not that I'm on a time limit or anything but with the floor collapsing in my bedroom and getting a pay check yesterday, having to buy car parts and go grocery shopping; my back was done with me before I could find time to browse the list and pick another goal for the day. I decided to pick two goals today.

My first goal is to comment on a blog I have never commented on before. I realized I don't usually comment too much on the blogs I read, I haven't read too many blogs lately and I don't have a blog roll on my blog to share my reading list with my readers. I am going to fix that today!

I spent about an hour browsing the blogs I follow and found a few to leave comments on. Then I started clicking the "next blog" button at the top of the page and found a few more I really liked and bookmarked them. Now, I am making a list of blogs I read to add to this blog to share with my readers. Here are a few to get you started (in no particular order):

• Camp4u is a political blog. I usually don't follow politics and I can't remember why I started following this blog but I lived in TN when I bookmarked the page and posted it on my blog awhile back. I pop in there every now and then to see what he is saying.
• Nikky's Circle is my best friend's blog she started recently. I am going to help her out with lay outs and all that fun stuff! I'll make a blogger out of her yet!
• The Simple Women's Daybook is one that I have followed but haven't actively joined and posted my daybook for. I plan on changing that!
• Abiding Hope Collages makes beautiful collages for those of us who have lost a child. They made a beautiful one for Brandon, my first son.
• ProBlogger is "a Blog that helps bloggers to add income streams to their blogs."
• Pillownaut is a blog I was introduced to this week by my dear friend, Sara.  I was hooked after I read the post on whistling in space. I love her style of writing!
• Nerd Bastards is a cool site. I love their tag line "entertainment for the socially awkward". That is so me! And so far I have enjoyed browsing their site.

That should be a good start to get you browsing. I'll go work on getting the blog roll added to my blog for you all to see.

FAQ How did you find out you are gluten intolerant?

Since I started posting recipes for gluten free foods, I have had a lot of people ask me how I found out I am gluten intolerant.

It all started a week after my birthday in 2010 when I got my MRT results back. I had already consulted with a GI specialist who wanted to run a test to see if I have Celiac sprue AKA Celiac disease. My test results listed 47 food allergies. Wheat was one of my worst reactions. The dietitian I was very helpful in helping me figure out what I CAN eat, offered a few recipes, helped me find creamer for my coffee (since I already know I am lactose intolerant) and helped me search for breads I can eat too. She was awesome!

Spelt, Kamut, Rye, Oats and Barley were on my lists of non-allergy foods. For the most part, in the beginning I ate a lot of fresh veggies, salads, some fruits and vegetable soups. One day I made a veggie soup with Barley and later that day my stomach hurt a little. That night my abdomen hurt so bad I cried, I became quite bloated and I ended up having horrible diarrhea. I chalked it up to having accidentally adding something to the soup that I am allergic to. I went over all the ingredients and couldn't find anything. I was stumped and just brushed it off as a stomach bug and went on with life.

For breakfast, I found that oats are very cheap so I started buying some cheap oats and started having the same symptoms. I eventually just quit eating oats and figured I had developed an allergy to them. I sulked for a bit and then remembered that I had made some dessert type thing with a bag of gluten free oat flour and I had no symptoms when I ate them. I also did fine eating the instant oatmeal mixes by Glutenfreeda.

The next trip to Washington to the dietitian went well. I found some spelt bread that was store bought and had nothing I was allergic to in it. I was so excited that I made myself four pizza sandwiches in the early morning hours, crawled into bed for a little sleep and left for home early in the morning.

By the time I had made it to Snoqualmie Pass, I seriously thought of finding a hospital. My gut hurt so bad it felt like someone was running a grappling hook through my intestines and every joint in my body ached. I felt like crap and I ended up stopping at every rest area and nearly every exit from Bremerton to Spokane. When I finally made it home, I was miserable for a few days and had migraines for the next week. I was sure it was the spelt bread and just threw it away even though it didn't have anything I was allergic to.

I started thinking about what the GI doctor said about celiac sprue and did a little research on what foods on the list that I can eat have gluten. I crossed them off and vowed never to eat them again. The pain wasn't worth it!

The next appointment I talked to the dietitian about my symptoms and how the GI specialist wanted to test me for celiac sprue. Living 500 miles away from my doctors, I just didn't get around to making the appointment because I couldn't get my dietitian and GI appointments on the same week. She explained that it is very possible that I am gluten intolerant.

She highly suggested the test if I wanted it but said that if I avoid gluten before the test, I could come back with a false negative result. She said if I was going to take the test then to eat something with gluten before hand, I think she said the week before? It might have been a few days. OR I could just avoid all gluten since I am obviously gluten intolerant, at the least. (Note: There is such a thing as non-celiac gluten intolerance). I really wanted the celiac test done but I just couldn't bring myself to putting myself in intense pain for a test. So, I opted to just avoid gluten.

Eventually, I would love to have the test done and some day I might actually go through it. But for now, I am very content just avoiding gluten products and not torturing myself.

Gluten Free Biscuits and Gravy

My sister in law, Tammy, made a comment on facebook about southern cooking and it really got me thinking. I found a gluten free biscuit I like but it would be even better smothered in gravy. Being allergic to wheat, I haven't found any gravy I can have. I decided to try making a gravy but wasn't sure how to start. Zack asked what I used for the biscuits and said "buckwheat oat flour". He suggested I try starting with that. I played with it a bit and ended up with a really delicious biscuit and gravy. It was a touch sweet so next time I'll try using buttermilk powder instead of powdered milk. Here's the recipe:

Gluten Free Biscuits and Gravy
You will need:
1 recipe of Buckwheat Oat Amaranth Biscuits
4 TBSP bacon grease with no bits in it.
      (In theory, you can use olive oil, butter or some other grease. I will experiment with that later.)
2 TBSP Gluten Free Buckwheat Oat flour (mix 1 Tbsp Buckwheat flour and 1 TBSP GF Oat Flour)
1 TBSP Pepper
A dash of salt (or more to taste)
2 Cups milk (I used prepared powdered milk)
2 TBSP Arrowroot starch (for thickening)

Make the biscuits according to the recipe. They will be done before the gravy.

Gluten Free Gravy


Start a pan heating on medium heat.

Pour in the grease and let it heat til it's nice an melted. Add the buckwheat oat flour and the salt and pepper. Stir and let it heat for a few minutes. I think I actually let it heat for 5 minutes. Usually I wait til the flour is browning nicely but since Buckwheat is a dark color I couldn't really tell.

SLOWLY pour in the milk while stirring constantly to keep it from clumping. Keep stirring. It will start to thicken a little but mine was still very thin for a gravy. That's when I got the idea to add arrowroot starch.

Take the arrowroot starch and put it in a small bowl. Add some gravy to the bowl and start stirring. Keep stirring until the lumps are all dissolved then pour the arrowroot starch mix into the pan while stirring constantly. It should thicken up pretty quick.

Remove from heat once it starts to thicken but continue stirring for about a minute.

Serve over the Buckwheat Oat Amaranth Biscuits and ENJOY!

For more recipes, click here.

My Bedroom Floor Collapsed

It's not as horrible as it sounds, but my bedroom floor did give way and scared the pee out of me. My kids and I were all sitting on my bed as my youngest was showing us a new game demo for a game he has been drooling over for a week. We were giggling over some of the stuff he was doing when it sounded like someone dropped a bunch of wood behind the head of the bed and then I felt it shift. We all looked at each other and my oldest jumped off the bed and I scrambled off my side of the bed as fast as I could. I think that is the fastest I have moved since June 26.

My youngest son was trying to figure out what was going on when my oldest looked at me and said "I know what that was! Mendel, get off the bed." Mendel quickly crawled off the bed and Miles started inspecting something near the head of the bed, stood back up and said "OH! I was right! The floor collapsed!" WTF!? I walked around the bed and sure enough, the floor was bowing downward. Miles pulled my bed out and then the boys moved everything away from the damaged floor area while I tried to calm my nerves.

They moved the shelf away from the wall and moved everything around. My room looks like crap now but we can clearly see a nice sized gap where the floor and the wall meet, or where they used to meet. After a lot of oogling and nerve calming, Miles decided to investigate more. He walked over and stood on the area commenting on how flimsy it felt and his brother was so supportive of his curiosity by encouraging him to jump. Oh my, children! I told him not to give me a heart attack! Instead he settled for Miles putting both feet together in one spot. I was JUST about to explain why that was a bad idea when Miles laughed and said "OKAY!" and put his feet together... and then promptly dropped an inch.

I think I actually tasted my heart as it came leaping out of my throat. Trying to keep the calm-mom-in-the-face-of-danger mode, I said "Miles, why don't you get off the collapsing floor and come over here." The look on his face was priceless as he said "I can't" and laughed nervously. It was a cross between a look that says "this is hilarious" and a look that said "I know I am about to meet the creepy spider family in the basement up close and personal!" I couldn't help but laugh. So I grabbed a hold of him and pulled him towards me.

No one has gone downstairs to see if there is damage down there, and frankly I am not that curious. I am sure someone will go look eventually but it won't be me! Besides having a hurt back and not being able to make it down and up the stairs again, have you actually seen my basement? It is creepy. Not just creepy like a normal creepy basement. My basement looks like the scene to a horror movie. No really! It does. Ever see Texas Chainsaw Massacre? You know that scene with the basement where they go down the creepy wooden stairs to a dirt and gravel floor and it's dusty and dank and cobwebs everywhere. Yea, that is what my basement looks like. It scares the hell out of me!

As if that isn't bad enough, I swear to you the amount of spiders down there is astronomical! There are cobwebs on top of cobwebs. It's like those creepy attacks in the horror movies where you have to move spiderwebs to the side so you can get by. I open the door and I instantly hear shrieking horror movie music in my head. Mostly spiders don't scare me. But a small army led by Aragog living in my basement makes my skin crawl off and leave the basement without me!

Here's the kicker. The genius that built this place had the bright idea to put the breaker box DOWNSTAIRS in the MIDDLE of the basement! I want to find that sadistic bastard that had that epiphany and make them go downstairs and flip the breaker in the middle of the night because I sure the hell am NOT going down there. You could tell me there is a chunk of gold down there and I'll do the same thing as when the breakers trip. I'll call my brother and wait for him to get off work. He'll go down there.

Better Blogging: Interlinking Posts

Today's project on the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog is to interlink your posts. Basically, when you make a post and you have an earlier post about the same topic, you add a link to the older article in the article you are writing.

On my blog, I post about many different topics so I couldn't find a lot of them to link. Instead, I went to each recipe page and added a link at the bottom to the page that has the list of recipes. It says:

For more recipes, click here.

I am also going through and cleaning up the tags for each post which connects all the posts of a similar topic. For example, by clicking the tag for 31 days to a better blog, you will end up on a page for all my posts about this project of building a better blog.

As I build my blog with more posts and topics, I will be able to interlink better. For now, I will be printing off my blog post titles and slowly finding some that I can link together.

If you are interested, I offer this post to practice. My first post on this blog "In the Beginning there was a Bored Blogger". Enjoy :)