Working in a Winter Wonderland

Wally!! Last Wednesday night I volunteered at a Party for the Troops at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. I am a huge sports fan so this was pretty exciting for me. I hoped I might just bump into my favorite player - Mike Vrabel - but no such luck. I did get to see Joe Andruzzi though, that was cool. And I got to see Wally and snapped this quick pic of him. My friend Steve is also a photographer in his spare time and he was asked to do Santa photos and general photos at this event and he asked me to come and help him out. It was awesome. I hope I get to do it again next year!!

Since I have decided to go forward with a second opinion and new doctor, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to re-introduce gluten into my diet. Don't want the tests to be false negatives right? And all this time I'd been thinking of all the things I've been missing that I wanted to have, like real beer, and soft cushy delicious bread. Well let me tell you something. No warm dinner roll or frosty draft bud light is worth the pain that follows. I never thought I'd see the day that I wanted to eat gluten free bread, or that the thought of a simple little cupcake would make me gag.

Friday afternoon a massive snow storm hit us hard. I got out of work early and my roommate suggested going out on a snow adventure. We walked to the bar down the street and had nachos, spinach dip, and beers. I had two draft beers, nachos with breaded buffalo chicken, and spinach dip with pita chips. She's lucky she didn't have to carry me home. By the time we were finished I was practically asleep. When we got home, I laid down on the couch and almost instantly passed out. I felt horrible. I was supposed to bake those pumpkin chocolate chip bars again to take to the two Christmas parties I was going to on Saturday. I could barely muster the energy to put myself to bed, nevermind bake anything. I decided that this whole glutening for testing thing is NOT working out and I needed to go back to GF.

Saturday morning I got up, ate a good breakfast, dug myself out of the parking lot, still feeling like miserable crap and drove down to Plymouth for my family Christmas party. The weather was horrible at home but by the time I got down to Plymouth the roads were pretty clear. I stopped at Stop and Shop to pick up a dessert since I had not been able to bake the night before. I got a huge tray of cupcakes. Went to Mom's, sat around feeling like garbage all night, ate a little food as gluten free as possible, then headed up to my friends Abi and Alex's house. By the time I got back up to Brockton the roads were horrible and I was nervous about driving home but I figured I'd be fine as long as I drove very very slowly. Abi's was fun, I ate hardly anything, drank some cranberry juice, stayed til about midnight and headed home. The highways were covered in snow. It was the scariest drive of my life. I drove 20 miles an hour the whole way and practically kissed the ground when I got home!

Sunday I sat around all day. Rested, ate well, felt a lot better. Today I'm doing ok. So at this point, the plan is to stay gluten free until I get an appointment with a new doc, explain all that I've been going through, and then if they want me to have more tests, we'll go from there.

The woman that has photographed half my friends' weddings and will most definitely photograph mine someday has Celiac, which I found out in September at my cousin's wedding. I've always been very envious of her photography career and now, my aunt on Saturday hands me a baggie with cookies in it from the photographer, including a business card, she's now gotten into gluten free baking too! I am now even MORE envious! She sent me some peanut butter cookies and some chocolate chip cookies. They were great, tasted just like the regular gluten versions that Mom makes. I'm gonna email her and thank her for sending them to me. I also told her at the wedding that I'd send her the link to this blog but forgot, so now I'll do that too, so if you're reading this - Hi Jessica!! Thanks for the cookies!!!

I also had my last class of my graphic design certificate program last Thursday! I'm so excited to be done with that. It was a lot of fun but I'm really happy that I don't have any more long Mondays. Tonight I'll be finishing up my Christmas shopping. I can't believe it's only a few days away.

Also wanted to send a shout out to Sally, thanks for all the info on docs and everything, it's a big help!!

Ok it's lunch time now and so I must go. I have a few more holiday cards in the works this week but otherwise, the office is quiet. Hope you're all having a good Monday :)