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As I sit here today on my thirty-third birthday, I've got a lot to ponder, a lot for which to be thankful. I wish I could show you every image racing through my mind of things I've experienced, people I've loved and admired, heartbreak I've endured, and every song my heart has sung, but Apple hasn't released that type of technology yet.

So many people grieve turning thirty, as if the best years of their lives have already passed them by. I feel as though life began for me, in some ways, once I got to my thirties. I may not have the neck-high perky boobs of a college tart, but mine are still hanging in there. They have given life to two children, have comforted broken hearts in an embrace, and even made a couple of trips to Hawai'i. I am healthier and stronger than ever before in my life, and I feel as though I am navigating the proving grounds of physical health that will pay off in future decades. I have learned things about myself, about others, about our world, about God, that I could have never comprehended with any clarity in the days of my "youth".

By the time I turned thirty, I was a widow and mother of two children ages 2 1/2 and 9 months. In my thirties, I have learned that being a single parent really isn't the end of the world. Being tired and frustrated with life isn't an excuse to be a jerk to your kids. If you are going to survive, you adapt. Kind of a modern twist on natural selection, and quite frankly, I'm not ready to raise my white flag. I was able to reflect on the ways in which my marriage could have been much better and what things I was so fortunate to have found in T. I listened to so many of my married friends talk about their spouses, sometimes to their spouses, and discuss marriage in general. Sometimes I would cringe and wonder if I had spoken that way to or about T., which I know I had, and I could only wish that I could tell him how sorry I was, if I only had the chance to apologize face to face. I realized how quickly married couples can overlook what they mean to each other and to their children. It has made me determined that, when R. and I tie the knot, I will remember what I have learned so that I can be a better wife to him.

I've been privileged to meet so many beautiful, wonderful people who have touched my life or inspired me in ways I didn't realize until much later. Some of these people have gone on to be friends, some have wandered off in their own direction, and I don't love one less than another. My friends are truly part of my family, and if God is taking requests the day I get to heaven, I hope God will put us all around a wonderful meal or a campfire in the mountains so I can be with all of the people I love all at once.

Travel has impacted my life in such a meaningful way, too. I told R. recently that, although I don't want to be cremated when I die, if I was cremated, my ashes couldn't just be spread in one place. I would want a little piece of me to be taken to dozens of different places that I have loved. My grandparents' farm, the cemetery where T. and all my family is buried, Mount Rainier, Waimea Bay, the beach where I've gone with my parents, Washington, D.C., the pyramids in Egypt, Rome, Kusadasi, Istanbul, Rhodes, Fort Benning, and so many other places -- I have carried something beautiful from them in my heart that I simply can't describe.

I remember my birthday four years ago: a cold, crisp autumn day in Louisiana on the back of the motorcycle with T. I had specifically asked to ride to a battalion function on the bike because he was going to deploy the following spring and wouldn't be there to take me out on my thirtieth birthday on the bike. Little did I know that almost exactly a month later he would be gone. I remember being behind him on the bike and looking at the sky, thinking that if I died that day, I would have been the happiest person in the world because my life had never been happier than it was on that day. I had a great husband and two beautiful children, my health, friends and family. As I looked up at a blazing sunny sky yesterday, it was cold and crisp and I mused at how I felt the same way then as I had four years ago, and I couldn't help but offer up quiet praise to God. I know my birthday was a good one last year, but I swear they keep getting better and better.

I don't know how to make a slideshows on YouTube, but this song says pretty close to how I feel today. I hope your next birthday brings you the peace which passes all understanding as this one has brought me today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7P8pPYSXhk

Haiku for Molly

learning how to shake
licking sniffing wagging tail
our cinnamon girl

-- Mobilelly Yours, GGG

BDU haiku

his old uniform
distant yet so familiar
on his little boy



-- Mobilelly Yours, GGG

H1N1 Vaccine: What The Pork?

I'm having a dilemma these days, one I'm not used to pondering. I'm uneasy about the H1N1 vaccine. Does it strike anyone else as strange how fast a vaccine was developed for this strain of influenza? I have personally known at least four individuals who have contracted H1N1 since Labor Day, three of them children, one of them with some serious complications. This flu has been moving in and out of the ranks of Americans (and no doubt around the world) like a stealth operator on a secret mission in a faraway land. I am starting to think that this vaccine may be too little, too late. However, Li'l G's school is administering this vaccine in mist form next week, and I'm starting to get cold feet about it.

To vaccine or not to vaccine? That is the question...

Let's establish one fact: I support vaccinations. I have made it a priority to keep my children up to date on all of their vaccinations since birth and plan on keeping it that way. All three of us got the flu vaccine just after Labor Day this year, and amazingly, the kids have been in pretty good health, even though I was laid out with a pretty nasty virus about 10 days after the vaccine. However, I believe that there is a good reason to vaccine our babies against polio, TB, MMR, and so on. I have known a man who has spent nearly his entire life, since childhood I believe, in a wheelchair ever since he contracted polio. There is a reason why our infant mortality rates and childhood mortality rates are some of the lowest in the world, folks. Vaccines are not the evils that some people think they are.

That being said, I know we need to be cautious about the ingredients in vaccines. Certain agents, such as thimerosal, have been linked to causing autism in children, and I know a family who believes this is what happened to their child. Vaccines are not perfect, but by-and-large, my personal belief is that they accomplish the goal set forth by the doctors and professionals who set out to develop them.

I just have an uneasy feeling about this, however; it's nagging at me, and I cannot simply ignore it. I talk to my friends who are Vietnam vets and they are only halfway joking as they mock the medics, "Agent Orange is safe. Your government wouldn't make you do something that's going to be harmful." And so on...

Even though I did not vote the current administration into office, I do not believe that Obama and the scientists at NIH and other governmental agencies sit around a bubbling, green beaker in a back-alley lab, stirring this foaming concoction with a rusty spoon like Doctor Jekyll, and when the spoon dissolves they toss back their heads and gargle out, "Yess, finally, the vaccine is complete! Mwaa haa haaaa...!"

So why, then, am I so distrusting of this vaccine? I don't really know. It just seems to have come out so fast. Has it even had a chance to be tested properly? I don't know. On the other hand, if it's possible to crank out this vaccine in such record time, why does it take others years, decades even, to reach the masses of dying, suffering people? Is it due to corruption? Needing to allow the scientific process to run its course? I don't know. I just have so many questions and little time in which to find answers to them.

The other thing I find disconcerting is accessibility. The government is in charge of distribution. My hospital told me last month not to come to them for the vaccine, that they would not be receiving any. The public schools are going to have them for students and teachers. Active duty military will get them. Active duty military dependents will have access to them through their healthcare on post, but what about people like me, military who have been pushed into the private sector? What about the millions of people with no direct link to government? The homeless and/or insuranceless? And these vaccines are being handed out for free?!? Am I the only one smelling a rat here?

I'm sure my hospital has gotten more information in recent days since vaccines will be coming out this week and weeks to come. Either way, it's a sign of the times to be sure. I don't want to risk my children's very lives by not vaccinating them; however, they are not petri dishes on legs, available for governmental research. So help me out here, guys: what do you plan to do?

Gluten-Free Wheat-Free Triple Chipper Cookies

Disclaimer: Just because I have substituted some ingredients here doesn't necessarily mean this recipe is proven to be absolutely GF. My dietary need is just to get rid of grain-based carbs. I do not suffer from Celiac Disease or have any medical reason to be eating GF. So, take these modifications with a grain of salt and do your research. Otherwise, enjoy!

As many of you know, I have started doing CrossFit over the last several weeks in a feeble bold attempt to get into shape. BTW, I have a separate blog just for my daily reflections on my workouts -- head over to Make It Burn to read about my daily sojourn towards "forging elite fitness".

Sorry for that shameless plug there. Where was I... oh yes... Part of being a CrossFitter is thinking about how we fuel our bodies. The program wants the students eating lots of lean meats, carbs in the form of fresh fruits and veggies, and laying off on whole grains, refined sugars, flours, and starches. So when I heard this, I thought to myself, Good-bye pizza, homemade bread, rolls, muffins, cookies, and so on. However! I did find a loophole!

Gluten-free was my get-out-food-jail-free card. The problem with that list of no-no foods is that they all contain grains. High levels of sugar in our blood cause our bodies to secrete large amounts of insulin to break it down. I don't remember the rest of the biochemistry that goes behind elevated levels of insulin in our blood, but I do know that it causes us to put on weight and carry around unnecessary fat. Mine likes to hang around my joke of a belly button and flop over the top of my jeans, even on a skinny day, and make me feel like I've been driving trucks cross-country. At any rate, things that are gluten-free lack that carb component that puts your body into insulin overload I guess. Obviously I'm not terribly up-to-date on all the scientifics here, and there is a plethora (yes, I said plethora) of information online and elsewhere if you really want to research it.

Let me interject something at this point. I have always been the kind of person that believes in cooking healthy meals or goodies for my family, but if I'm going to sacrifice texture or flavor in the name of being low-fat or healthy or whatever, then you can just forget it. There are some sacrifices I don't make when it comes to my food. I consider food and culinary delights to be one of the most satisfying carnal pleasures this side of heaven, and I'm sure not gonna waste my time down here eating stuff that tastes like cardboard just so that I have one less dimple in my backside. I may look like my rear end has been pummelled with a bag full of nickels, but dangit, I'm going to be eating well and savoring every morsel.

All that being said, I vowed to do some solid kitchen testing on gluten-free stuff so that I could still cook "normal food" for my family and be able to eat it guilt-free with them. Part of being successful at CrossFit is using the proper fuel to help your body restore the energy it's using (and trust me -- you're using a LOT of energy), and if I'm going to invest the time and money to do this, I want to do it as best I can while not turning into one of those people who become annoying to be around because they only eat organic vegetables grown on mountainsides in the Andes or drink water that has run off the leaves of a rainforest fern or some kooky crap like that.

Now to my first experiment: cookies.


Every time I go through the checkout at the local grocery store, I see some charming little periodical that has yummy treats in it for fall. I am such a sucker for fall baking! After perusing its contents, I've marked off at least 15 recipes I want to try. I made the Nectarine-Plum Crostada last week, which tasted a lot like a peach cobbler -- I highly recommend it. However, I was wanting to make the Triple Chippers on p. 6 and wondered if I could do it in a guilt-free, gluten-free way. As I sit here typing this to you, I am eating one of these suckers, and boooyyy is it good! So, in short, the answer is "yes", and I'll tell you how I did it.


Here is the recipe:

1.5 c packed brown sugar
1 c granulated sugar
1 c butter or margarine, softened
1 c shortening
2 t vanilla
2 eggs
3.75 c all-purpose flour*
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1.5 c white vanilla baking chips
0.5 c butterscotch chips
1 c semi-sweet chocolate chips

*I substituted 3.75 c Pamela's Baking & Pancake Mix for the all-purpose flour. You do not need to add xanthum gum or anything like that to it -- it's already in the mix! Woo hoo!!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl, mix sugars, butter, shortening, vanilla, and eggs with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir in white, butterscotch, and chocolate chips. Onto grease cookie sheet, drop by 0.25 cupsful about 3" apart. Bake 12-15 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 4 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to cooling rack. Yield: 26 cookies.

I thought that making cookies that big sounded crazy, so I used a Tbsp to scoop out dough. I have made 24 cookies that way, and they spread out pretty big. I still have enough dough left to make at least 30 more cookies or so using a Tbsp. This would be a great recipe to make big cookies with, spread out into a large cookie to decorate, or make a kajillion of them for some kind of school function where you'll be feeding a lot of people. I plan on putting the rest of my dough in the freezer for safe keeping until holiday baking is in full swing.

The gluten-free flour turned out to be a winner. In fact, the raw dough tasted so good that I ate a LOT of it before the cookies were made, and now I'm starting to feel a little bloated. Ick... This flour has natural almond meal in it, so it has a faintly nutty taste to it that is awesome in cookies. This flour also comes with recipes on it for making pancakes, muffins, crepes, waffles, breading for fried chicken (!!), and regular chocolate chip cookies.

I will most definitely start using this in lieu of regular flour. This is a subsitution that you can make in your baking and non-dieting types of people will probably never know you switched something on them, and if anything, ask what you added to the food to make it taste better. My next experiment will be for dinner tomorrow night when I use gluten-free pasta for spaghetti night. I think I've filled up on cookies and milk (and dough) for dinner tonight!