Sitting Pretty, Achieving Nirvana

Yesterday finally seemed to be the corner and I turned it well. Of course, today I am wheezing but it's snowing and the temperature dropped by at least 20 degrees...both known triggers.

I don't do Black Friday. The commercialism of our culture makes me wince (even as I, at times, participate) and I hate crowds. So you will never find me anywhere near a retail box store this time of year. I like to spend my money online.

My friends tend to be like-minded. Plus they have kids.

So I invited everyone over on Black Friday.

WHAT WAS I THINKING?????!!!!

And you thought the people lining up outside Walmart at midnight were nuts.

Yowza.

It went well, but I don't know that I would do it again. First, I was still not 100%. Second, we came back from our Thanksgiving meal with family and started cleaning the house. The only upside was I hadn't gorged because I was afraid of eating anything that would trigger another reaction.

The one smart thing I did once I realized I'd just invited 8 children over to play was hire the neighbor tweens to come manage the hooligans. We organized a craft for the kids. I also told everyone to bring a flashlight and let them build a fort in the basement. The kids actually had a blast.  I think I earned my 'entertain flash mobs of small children' motherhood badge yesterday.

For the moms, I put together some easy appetizer platters: Hummus and veggies. Chips and salsa and some local kielbasa (we live where the Eastern Bloc migrated to in the US aka the land of plentiful kielbasa) with cheese. The hubby juiced spinach, carrots and apples for us because I hang with the kind of people who think juicing spinach is cool.

No, I have no idea where I went so wrong in my life. Juicing spinach...clearly there's nothing I won't do.

Anyway all us moms got to chat almost uninterrupted for several hours, which is essentially the nirvana of motherhood.

So while it was a pain in the ass to clean my house, I had a lot of fun. And mostly did not feel like shit. Today is better yet, despite the wheezing.

I'm reading all my labels and it looks like my house is 95% gluten free. Most of the foods I eat regularly are fine. There are some vitamins that are questionable, plus I still need to check my chicken broth (apparently they add gluten for some mysterious reason) and a few stray bottles of salad dressing. Everything else has been scrutinized and googled.

Basically, I just need to find a better response than 'eat all the bread in the house' when the fridge is empty. Or maybe, I don't know, invest in some gluten free bread to keep on hand for those days when I really really really need to go grocery shopping stat.