Peace is Every Step

Sometimes I lack the words to express what's going through my head, but this really hit home the other day so I thought I'd share:

We can smile, breathe, walk, and eat our meals in a way that allows us to be in touch with the abundance of happiness that is available. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment.

{from Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh}

Gluten-Free Apple Cider Muffins

Around this time of year, apple orchards beckon with their numerous apple varieties, apple pie, carmel apples, apple cider and... apple donuts. I do want to try my hand at apple donuts but today I settled for muffins. These would be great with strudel topping, too!

1/2 cup brown rice flour

1/4 cup quinoa flakes (or rolled oats)

1/4 cup almond meal

1 Tbs. coconut flour

1/3 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or use cinnamon with a tiny pinch of nutmeg and cloves)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

4 Tbs. vegetable oil

2 eggs

2 Tbs. shredded apple with juices squeezed out (could use applesauce as well)

1/2 c apple cider (I used Knudsen's Cider and Spice with no sugar added)

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Mix dry ingredients well. Blend we ingredients in a small bowl and then add wet to dry, mixing just until moistened. Pour evenly into 12 prepared muffin liners and bake for 16-20 minutes.

Totally a worthwhile study break!

First, you take the graham

I know it's not campfire season anymore, but I finally succumbed to this treat on the grocery store shelves:

The picture on the front looks really fake, but Kinnikinnick does gluten-free ingredients right. And I was shocked that these tasted so good. In fact, I like them better than original grahams! If Honey Maid and Biscoff had a gluten-free bun in the oven, this would be it. It's more cookie than cracker but that's fine with me. I've been eating them straight from the box, or crumpled on top of pumpkin oatmeal in the morning. It's like eating dessert for breakfast!

 I may have to try them in graham cracker crust for a holiday pie this year. Yum!

*The fine print: I'm in no way associated with this company and I bought the product with my own money. Gluten-free goods tend to be pricey so I like to share what I buy when it's worth the money every now and then!

No-nonsense November

I think my days of boredom are long-gone. I am now over-scheduled to the max (for me, at least). I have had a lot of lofty goals in the last few months and at the end of the month I look back and either think, "yeah that crashed and burned pretty early on" or, "oh I forgot about that one."

So I have one goal for November: only check Facebook and Google Reader once a day. I'm hoping that I find oodles of either productive or relaxing time when I'm suddenly not sitting in front of my computer for no important reason (too many double-negatives there?)

This means turning my computer off overnight so I'm not tempted to check in first thing in the morning. This also means not checking it last thing at night (hopefully I'll sleep better that way). Lunch break is a good goal, but I don't care about "when" as much as I care about "once a day."

Wish me luck!

Do you have a goal for this month?

Pizza, Please

Remember when Ross and I celebrated our anniversary at SPIN! Pizza in September? We loved it. In fact, I believe we found an excuse to eat there 2 more times in the 3 weeks following that dinner. It only made sense to join their free rewards club and get discounts and accumulate points. So I started getting e-mails from them and a few weeks ago, I opened one said something to the extent of: "October is National Pizza Month! Share your pizza story and win a gift card." Free pizza? Don't mind if I do.

Ross and I do have somewhat of a unique "pizza story" so I jotted it down and sent it in. And we won! Twenty-five whole dollars to spend on pizza. I'm sure we'll pay SPIN! a visit the day the gift card comes in the mail. Just in case you're interested, here's the story:

Before my husband was my husband, we met at a wedding (I was a bridesmaid, he was a groomsman). When our friends got back from their honeymoon, I decided I needed an excuse to hang out with that cute groomsman again so several of us went to my friend’s house for pizza night. Every couple designed their own pizza and Ross and I were the odd ones out so we conveniently got paired together. I vetoed Italian Sausage, he vetoed veggie overload, but we eventually made a cute pizza and a great first date memory. 

June 2007 before we were "us"

When it came time to plan our own wedding, we wanted to serve a reception dinner that went beyond saucy chicken and buttered green beans. When the venue suggested flatbread pizza, we thought it would be a fun option reminiscent of our first date.

A year later, we were in Florida celebrating our one-year wedding anniversary and we made big plans to go to a fancy dinner. But we had rental car malfunctions and ended up ordering Pizza Hut and eating on the beach. Since that ended up being so fun, we decided we’d already had pizza 2 years in a row on September 19 so we might as well make it an anniversary tradition!

September 2009

 Last year we were new to Kansas City and ordered Pizza 51, which was good, but nothing to write home about. This past year, I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance and I was afraid our pizza tradition was out the window. But a co-worker told me about SPIN! Pizza and we celebrated our third wedding anniversary there on September 19 of this year. We have been back 3 times since then, so I think it’s safe to say we loved it! We look forward to celebrating our anniversary (and any other occasion we can think of) with SPIN! Pizza for years to come.

September 2011

 Hmmm after writing all that, I'm hungry for pizza again!

 

Month of Thanksgiving

Two years ago, I blogged a week of Thanksgiving leading up to the holiday. This year, I would like to extend it to a month-long celebration of thankfulness. Every day of November, I'm going to update this post with another thing I'm thankful for. Feel free to join along in the comments!

This November, I'm thankful for...

1.) Appliances. Let's get this out of the way now because I could spend all month listing them off if I dragged it out. I am so blessed to be able to afford a washing machine and dryer, a dishwasher, and my little space heater. They make my life so much more comfortable.

2.) I'm thankful that I have such a good job. I'm in a rough spot because we have a lot of nurses and not a lot of babies right now. I was force-canceled today and while it was kind of like a snow-day for grownups, we can't afford for it to be a regular occurance. Since it's crazy to pray for sick babies (and stupid... not a fan when co-workers say things to that extent on Facebook), I will pray that our manager will stop hiring new people!!! We have the second-highest staffing numbers in the hospital and 14 patients. For real. So I'm thankful for my job, and I hope that I can keep it this winter when our numbers naturally dip anyway.

3.) That today, at least, I didn't wake up to snow on the ground. The cold, cold rain that started last night and is still dripping down is less than pleasant, but it's mentally easier to accept than snow this early in November.

4.) I'm so thankful I got a day off today to catch up on stats homework, even if it was only 2 of the 5 lessons I was hoping to complete. It's going to be a homework-filled weekend around here!

5.) The StayFocusd app on Google Chrome.

6.) The fun dinner plans we had with friends and family this weekend.

7.) I really wan't a fan of the 5pm sunset yesterday, but this morning I was thankful that it was somewhat light outside when I left for work at 6:20am.

8.) I'm so thankful for my Physical Therapist. She is stellar-- she listens to me, takes me seriously, and always finds a legitimate reason for my pain so I feel less crazy. And then most of the time she can get the pain to go away!

9.) I'm thankful that my Global Health class isn't overwhelmingly difficult (since my stats class is). I love my Global Health teacher (a Midwife who's stories make me question my choice to leave Midwifery school... until she mentions 24-hour on-call).

10.) I'm thankful for all the opportunities in my life, even if I'm not quite sure where they're taking me.

11.) For my friend Amanda-- we're so similar and I still forget sometimes that she lives in Kansas City now instead of 12 hours away!

12.) I'm thankful that even after Ross' stressful day, he was able to pray with me before bed and thank God for today. I love him!

13.) For our church and their morning services. Amen!
      *I'm also thankful for and so proud of my brother Tommy, who turns 25 today!*

14.) I'm thankful that I got my homework done more than 12 hours before it was due :-)

15.) I'm thankful that I got to see my mom and my brother Tommy for a few hours this afternoon. I'm also glad that the hit-and-run accident I was in this morning wasn't worse (to clarify: I was hit, the driver behind me was at fault and ran).

16.) I'm thankful for my weekend premium position, and I'm hoping that I didn't trade out a friendship for 6 months of bigger paychecks.

17.) For my Global Health class. I really really like it. It definitely keeps me busy, and I'm learning a lot, but it's not necessarily a hard class. I love my teacher!

18.) For a heater and a warm apartment.

19.) I'm thankful for coffee.

20.) For a good assignment at work. I feel like real NICU nurse again.

21.) That Ross offered to drive me to and from work and even brought pizza home after I worked 3 shifts in a row!

22.) I'm thankful for accupuncture when antibiotics don't help my sinus headache.

23.) I'm also thankful for antibiotics ;-) I don't love taking them, but I'm ready to feel better!

24.) For my family's healthy Thanksgiving meal. Complete with a gluten-free rice dish that to ally satisfied my stuffing craving!

25.) So thankful for family to visit and celebrate with.

26.) I'm thankful for a husband who doesn't mind driving while I sleep.

27.) If I have to wait until the last minute to write a big paper, I'm thankful that there's at least a masochistic thrill I get from finishing after hours upon hours of work all at once ;-)

28.) I'm thankful for a good float day at work because I was so tired after staying up late to finish the aforementioned paper. I'm also thankful that I work with snuggly babies!

29.) A day off, and sunshine :o)

30.) For my brother Daniel, who turns 23 today. I'm so proud of him!

Month in Review: October

Finally, a month that didn't speed by! I can't believe I wrote my Indian Summer post 3 1/2 weeks ago. And the beginning of October seems like a long time ago. So much has happened between then and now! This month has been long and busy, in a good way for the most part. Did I meet the goals I set at the beginning of the month? Not quite. But it was still a good month in which I got outside to enjoy the changing of the seasons, started a grad school program I enjoy, and actually went out with friends more than once. Here are some more highlights I never got around to sharing:

Lots and lots of squash were consumed this month.

I started allergy drops, which are sublingual and approximately 1,000 times less painful and more convenient than the shots I'd been getting.

My friend Rachel celebrated her birthday at the Cashew. My coworkers are hilarious!

Baby basil leaf from our successful basil "harvest."

I got new running shoes, hoping they'd help my knee pain.

They did not.

I bought a $3 bag of kettle corn at the Ak-Sar-Ben Farmer's Market in Omaha with my mom. Such a good purchase!

Our Hungarian hot peppers seem to be thriving in the sunny, dry fall air. Weird.

Our friend Andy rocked the Cyclo-cross race we went to.

Early October color change

Sunset on a walk one night.

 Here are a few recipes I tried for the first time this month and loved:

These brussels sprouts with bacon grease instead of olive oil and 6 strips of bacon instead of pecans. SO good.

These pumpkin peanut butter bars, with an added 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips and 1/4 tsp salt mixed in.

We didn't have any Halloween plans, and I worked the day of, but I wore my spider earrings and my current primary patient's mom dressed her up as the sweetest Hershey's Kiss, which made my day.

Such a fun, productive, sunny month!