a change of plans.

about two weeks ago i had a food allergy skin test of all the foods. if youve never had it done before, its a pretty interesting process; food extracts are pricked into the skin and watched for twenty minutes before being measured. it looks like this:

its actually not that unpleasant. really the sitting perfectly still for twenty minutes was the worst part. well, and i got sick for three days afterward, but that was because i was allergic to 14 of the 60 things. soy, wheat, peanut, walnut, chicken, oat, almond, hazelnut, sesame seed, navy bean, pea, celery, cantaloupe and watermelon. some of these i could really care less about, like watermelon and chicken. now i dont know if youve noticed from my previous recipe posts, but carbs, especially the wheat kind are kind of a HUGE part of my diet. and by that i mean is most of my diet is wheat based. like, ive been known to eat an entire loaf of bread, just for fun. 

i got a phone call from the doctors office today confirming that i do, in fact, have celiac disease, which basically means that gluten (from wheat products) wreaks all kinds of havoc inside my body, and is probably responsible for all my (many) other health problems. so no more wheat for me. in addition to all of these allergies, ive also had issues with foods that have eggs or certain kinds of dairy. so my options at this point are REALLY slim. did i mention were on an INSANELY tight budget right now? what about my tidy little meal planning and shopping routine? i need to gain ten pounds, how is that going to happen now?

i have no idea what to eat. i like to think of myself as a pretty creative person (i mean, i did attend art school), but i just cant even begin to sort out what this means for me, and more importantly, for my family. every time i try, i just get so overwhelmed and cant even focus (this would probably be a good time to mention that i didnt finish art school). 

i dont know. im just going to have to figure this out piece by piece. i still have more doctor appointments, i have A LOT of research to do, i have to take it one step at a time. ive made a tiny bit of progress, i bought some (ridiculously expensive) cashew butter and gluten free bread, and i learned how to make plain vegetables less depressing by roasting them:

tonight i made broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, just plopped them on a cookie sheet, drizzled with olive oil, added some salt and pepper and baked at 400 for about half an hour. it was really easy, cheap, and yummy (the broccoli kind of tastes like truffles!), so i suppose this will be a new staple of ours. 

well just have to see how this goes. 

a busy weekend and a family outfit post.

ive got a pretty bad case of the mondays today. its raining. i had to take alice to the pediatrician. the main problem though is that the house is a wreck because i havent been doing chores and theres nothing exciting to eat for lunch because i havent been making dinner so there arent any yummy leftovers. im actually ok with this though, because we spent the ENTIRE weekend having fun. and not just a regular saturday and sunday weekend, but a extra long homeschooled weekend that started on thursday, and was almost entirely free. 

we started the weekend off thursday night with a family date to yogurtland and target. james was so kind as to share his birthday giftcard with alice and i, and we were very grateful, since we hadnt been to yogurtland in a while (i think the last time we went was free yogurt day, back in like, february), because there isnt really one in our neighborhood, so it was a really special treat. 

friday alice and i went to the beach with my mom, sisters, and a few church friends. alice had the BEST time, and since there were so many other people for alice to play with. i actually got to sunbathe a bit, which was AWESOME, because last summer alice was still a tiny baby and needed a LOT of care at the beach so i got a really horrible uneven tan that im still working on correcting (i know im going to get a lot of crap for this, but im going to be completely honest: im half filipino, i grew up at the beach, having a certain amount of tan is completely necessary to maintain optimum attractiveness, and well, im not quite there yet). 

saturday i had to work for a big chunk of the day, but that did not in any way detract from the fact that it was free comic book day and star wars day. james took alice to one comic shop while i was working, and after i got home we all went over to the comic bug in manhattan beach, because they were having a really big free comic book day event. now i am very much not into comics and such, and i really, really have to applaud the comic bug for making me the least uncomfortable i have ever been while inside a comic book store. anyways, in addition to free comics they also had a bunch of artists and such and basically i stood around being incredibly awkward, but james had a really great time and thats what matters. he also got a cute little sketch of gandalf:

i have no idea why, but james spent the entire morning while i was getting ready for work dressing alice and himself in an overly fancy manner. we had a party to go to that evening (a star wars party, no less!), so of course as soon as i got home from work i had to also dress fancy so we could coordinate as a family. since james and alice looked SO cute, i thought it would be nice to do an outfit post of all of us. 

on james: shirt: h&m, pants: forever 21, watch: unknown brand, tie, suspenders, vest and shoes: vintage. on alice: dress: handmade, tights: carters, shoes: hand-me-down

james is basically wearing his default "fancy outfit" of a button up, vest, slacks, and dress shoes, though he surprised me with his tie choice: he usually goes for a skinny tie and tie clip (and every time i have to hear ALL ABOUT how his tie clip doesnt fit his skinny tie, and his fiddling with it always makes us late to wherever were going). also, hes recently started wearing his hair in a ponytail, and im really not sure how i feel about it. 

i tried SO hard to get a picture of alice by herself, but she was too excited and kept running away from me. her dress is made from a vintage sheet i got an an estate sale, when i saw it i HAD to get it, because, years ago, i made myself a dress out of that EXACT SAME FABRIC. now we have super awesome matching mother-daughter dresses. lately ive been putting her in fancy shoes all the time, because i FINALLY can. see, alice has the worlds tiniest baby feet (meaning, even tinier than regular baby feet), like, by time her feet were big enough for BABY BOOTIES, she was ALREADY WALKING. last month i bought her shoes from the real shoe section for the first time. she was one and a half. this particular pair was given to us last summer, and they were so sparkly and cute and girly and i could not wait for alice to get to wear them. i kept waiting and waiting and over six months later they finally fit so now she wears them all the time. 

dress: lauren conrad for kohls, shoes: vintage, watch: target, sunglasses: zenni optical

as i mentioned earlier, i had to work saturday. i had an extra long class and open house, so i was at work for nearly six hours instead of my usual three and a half. i have to wear a (kind of ugly) uniform, so getting fancy meant a complete wardrobe change. i didnt have the mental energy to put together anything more than just a dress and cute shoes, so i went with this one. i love it, its super comfy AND it has pockets. the only think that keeps me from wearing it every day is that its a kind of shiny crepe material and the collar has rhinestones on it, so its a little too flashy to wear all the time. if i was better at sewing, my closet would basically just be this dress in ten different colors. i was also really happy that dress goes so nicely with those purple flats, since i havent gotten to wear them much since our wedding (i did buy "real" wedding shoes, but i was really sick the week before so i had to substitute with the flats i packed for my rehearsal dinner). 

we spent saturday night with friends at a super awesome star wars day party (it was may the 4th after all), and at that point i thought that our weekend was over. not yet though, my sister had offered to watch alice sunday after church, so i asked james what he wanted to do on our afternoon alone. he chose disneyland, so we went to disneyland by ourselves, and it was perfect. it was cold, but we got to go on all the "adult" rides and eat ice cream without sharing. 

it was a wonderful weekend, but i suppose all good things must end, and now its back to real life. today was pretty rough, ive barely managed to catch up on the housework, but im sure ill catch up just in time for next weekend. 

a very exciting work-related announcement.

for those of you that dont know what i do for work outside of the house, i work very, very part-time as a knitting instructor at joanns. as far as "real jobs" go, its a pretty perfect fit for me and our lifestyle: i get the benefits of legitimate employment (easy taxes, 401k, employee discount, etc.) while doing something that i love and getting to set my own schedule. really the only downside is that all of the classes are designed and distributed by corporate to ALL the stores in the country and sometimes theyre kind of boring, or ugly, or way too complicated and labor intensive for the difficulty level and time constraints of the class. 

one really cool thing us teachers get to do though is to offer what they call "store trend" classes, which are basically classes that we choose to offer in addition to the corporate offerings. i think the main intention is for us to offer classes in techniques not covered by the main classes that customers have requested, but my main goal is to offer some classes for beginner-friendly pieces that people actually want to wear. in the past ive offered a couple trend classes based on my own designs, but for the may/june session im really excited to announce that ill be teaching how to make this chunky headband/cowl designed by lorna of knits for life:

source: knits for life

 i LOVE this project so much, its quick, simple, versatile and super cute all rolled into one! i am SO thankful that lorna was so nice in letting me offer this class, i am super excited to get to share it with my students (i seriously cant say enough about how great this project is, ive made three as gifts in the past few months). anyways, the class will be offered a few times through may and june (you can get more information about signing up here, or in person at the torrance joann store). 

source: knits for life

if you cant make it to a class (or would rather make one on your own), the pattern is also available as a free download here, or if youre not the crafty type, you could also buy a finished one from the knits for life etsy shop (or one of her many other fabulous designs, i wish i had the extra money lying around to get this chair, maybe someday). i also highly recommend checking out her blog for even more projects and inspiration (i cant wait till we have a little extra space so i can store my yarn like this, how great is that?), its one of my favorites.