Busy Week!!

Wow. It's been such a busy week. A couple of my co-workers were out this week, which makes it stressful in the office. Too much to do, too few people to do it, you know the drill. Kind of tough to get out of bed in the mornings!



Wednesday Dominic tested for and earned his green belt in karate. YAY!! At some point I'll upload a little video. Then I had yoga class, and we did some serious abs work. Lie on your back, legs up at 90 degrees, then lower to 45 degrees, breathe... breathe... lower slowly to the ground. SLOWLY! Over and over. I'm happy I didn't clunk to the ground, but I'm not holding it at 45 degrees as well as I used to. There's homework for me.

Thursday Daniel had his endo appointment in the morning. The pope was in DC and maybe that's the reason traffic was so awful! I'm glad we left early to go to the appointment; even though we were in the suburbs it seemed like everyone and their twelve cousins were on the road. AGH! Then, when we got to the office, it was just jammed with people. I was pleasantly surprised when we were called in only 8 minutes after appointment time.

Daniel's A1c was up a little to 7.3, but I expected as much with the highs he's been having lately. He has been getting consistently high around dinner/bed time. Today was a perfect example. His numbers were great today -- 72 breakfast, 104 after breakfast, 75 lunch, 110 after lunch, then 330 dinner. AGH! We decided to switch his lantus to a morning shot to see if that helps. So tonight is a round-the-clock testing/novolog night for us as we switch over the a morning shot.

Thursday afternoon I had my casting call for the new Emeril Lagasse show that will air on Planet Green (called Emeril Green). I met a totally cool woman named Hadley who read a prepared statement about the show, then turned on a camera and asked me a few questions about my cooking challenge (type 1 diabetes & celiac), about me, about a funny food story... she even got me to sing on camera so I probably totally screwed up any chance of them picking me (PICK ME!!! PICK ME!!!) but it was a lot of fun, in any case. If I do get picked, they would need me for 3 days. First they come to your house (GASP!) to do a little interview about your food issue. The next day you are filmed going shopping at Whole Foods to buy the ingredients for your food challenge. The next day you go to the Whole Foods demonstration kitchen & make the food. Or I guess Emeril makes it for you and you get to taste.

Hadley asked what would be the one food I'd like him to create, and I chose to-go foods. That is one of our most difficult things, and I tend to get in a rut about it. School lunches, packing to go on car trips, going to friends houses & needing gluten free food... Yeah, I can do it, but I think it all ends up the same. I'd like to introduce some variety.

So we'll see! They are sending out all the videotapes of the people interviewed to the production company for review next week, and I'll find out the week afterwards if I have been chosen.

PICK ME!

Thursday night was International Night at Nora's school. She chose to do a display on Saudi Arabia (with daddy's help). We brought along a bunch of stuff from our time there -- coffee pot, chicken basket, books, flag, head gear, and sheets on the alphabet. Matt was there to write people's names in Arabic, if they so desired. We brought dates to represent the food, although they were California dates. Not quite the same. Nora got to dress in a Kenyan outfit for the fashion show. Of course I forgot my camera. DUH! Dominic came with me and discovered that at the Israel display they were giving away Israeli chocolate treats. (Hummus and pita, too, but he turned his nose up at that.) I almost needed to hog-tie him to get him away from there!

Today at work the school nurse was out, along with quite a few other people in the office. We were a skeleton crew. I had to cover for the nurse today. Within the space of an hour I had one child crying over swollen glands (allergy attack), one with a nosebleed, one sporting a jammed thumb, and one with an itchy rash. After all that, monitoring the insulin shot for our one diabetic child was easy!!

Just after lunch Nora calls to say, "Can I go to the no-referral party after school today?" That's a party for kids who haven't gotten in trouble over the last grading period. "Sure," I reply.

"Okay. Then you need to bring a picnic blanket, a frisbee, and a snack when school is out."

WHAT? So much for getting my grocery shopping done before the kids get home.

Tonight I planned to make gluten free almond macaroons for Passover dinner at my mom's house tomorrow. I found a recipe that called for almond paste, egg whites, sugar, & almond extract. Pretty easy & all done in the cuisinart. I made the first batch and was well into the second batch when I went to count up the carbs from all the ingredients. That's when I saw on the almond paste box that it had wheat starch in it. I almost started to cry.

But I finished up the 2nd batch of cookies, went on line and found another recipe that called just for almond flour, confectioner's sugar, egg whites, vanilla (thanks, Martha Stewart) and made those. They turned out pretty good, and are 9.5 carbs each.

They're cooled off now, and it's time to put them away.

And tomorrow is another day.