Heaven-Sent Banana Pancakes..and many other blessings

This is my first time ever posting on our blog and I am so excited for this new opportunity! I cannot even pretend to be as cool as my sisters, but I'll do my best!
I guess I'll start with introducing my "story." In February of 2013, when I was fifteen years old, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. I was completely devastated at the news and I was out of school for weeks. I was forced to be humble and put my faith in the Lord. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had during that challenging time to come much much closer to my Father in Heaven and my Savior Jesus Christ. My family was a tremendous support to me. I can speak from experience that whatever you are going through, however worthless and weak you may feel, God is always aware of you and He has a plan you. Sometimes it's like climbing a mountain, you know deep down that the summit is up there, but you can't see it. You feel exhausted and you want to give up, but God knows your potential better than you do. Don't stop! You can do anything with God.
Anyway, after a year I had things well under control and I was finally feeling a little more comfortable with my new condition. I felt like I knew what I was doing and I had quite a few ideas of how the rest of the school year was going to go. But God had a better plan for me. In February, I started feeling constantly and extremely fatigued. I couldn't drag myself out of bed in the morning and then, if I found the strength to go to school, I would come home and crash. It got worse and worse until it got to the point where some mornings I felt that I couldn't move my legs at all. As a dedicated runner, this was a very frightening thing. Once again, I was forced to rely on the Lord. After months of searching for answers, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, which basically means I am extremely gluten intolerant. Unfortunately, the diagnosis didn't really solve any problems immediately. I went on a strict gluten free diet but my energy didn't return and I was then trying to juggle two life changing diseases. That was the hardest time of my young life. After a few weeks I also found that I was lactose intolerant and unable to eat rice, beans, and potatoes. But once again I found tremendous support from my wonderful friends and my amazing mother and family. I have been blessed every day with renewed energy and strength and now, I am closer to God than I ever could have been had I not been given the chance to endure what I did. Sorry, I know the whole story is kindof a downer.
But now, despite the fact that I have 2 life-long diseases, I live a beautiful life full of blessings. I am a (somewhat) normal kid with ambitions and desires and passions. It's still very hard but I know where I'm going and I know who I'm following. I am living proof that Heavenly Father loves his children and strengthens them through trials designed just for them. These trials have blessed me with testimony and experience.

 This picture was taken this summer when my Dad and I climbed Mt. McLaughlin. I am so blessed to be able to climb! Especially with someone as amazing as my father!

I took this from the summit. The hike is hard but oh so worth every moment!

Sooooo, one of the many blessings in my life has been...banana pancakes! I know it sounds crazy but I truly appreciate this recipe (tweaked by my mom about 50 times now). It's the best recipe for gluten free, dairy free, sugar free pancakes you'll ever find! If you are going gluten free, or looking for a dang good healthy pancake, or you don't know how you got here but you just happen to be reading this random blog, please give them a try!

Heaven-Sent Banana Pancakes!

2 mashed overripe bananas
4 eggs
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4-1/2 tsp. baking powder
6 Tbs. almond flour (or tapioca starch-tapioca makes them a little more dense but more banana-ee)

Whisk together, cook on griddle as a normal pancake. Cooks slowly at 300-325 degrees.

Try them with any combination of butter, maple syrup, agave syrup(my personal favorite), mashed berries, whipped cream etc.

Makes 12-14 four inch pancakes. (6-7 carbs per pancake)

Be Careful What You DON'T Wish For: A Lesson in Eating Your Words

You know how they say God has a sense of humor?  Well my friends, that is very true indeed.  I'm here to tell you that sometimes you end up in places that you never ever wanted to be in, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Exhibit A:  As a teenager and a college student I always swore I would never live in Utah.  I am a die-hard Oregonian at heart and I never wanted to live in the "Mormon bubble" (ha, and then I decided to go to school at BYU-Idaho...go figure).  But anyway, back to the point.  During my junior year of college I was in the process of looking for an internship for the summer.  I basically had two leads, one back home in Bend with a residential company and one in Salt Lake City with the LDS Church.  But I pursued both avenues, not wanting to put all my eggs in one basket just yet.  And viola!  I got the internship in Utah.  Of course.  Although it hadn't been my first choice in locations, I was still very excited and told myself that it was okay because it was a temporary thing; I would only be in Utah for the summer, so it wasn't like I actually "lived" there, right?  Right.
The internship that Summer was excellent and I had so much fun learning from the people I worked with.  I also had the chance to get a part-time job as a hostess at The Roof Restaurant at Temple Square, which was probably one of my favorite things about the whole Summer.  And I was comforted in thinking that the Utah bubble only had me for a few short months and then I could go wherever I wanted!
Fast forward to a year later when everyone started asking what my plans were after graduation.  And for all the college seniors/grads out there, you know how wonderful that question is.  I didn't have any concrete plans to begin with, but as senior year progressed I decided I had to have some kind of idea in place.  Based on my experience looking for an internship, I reluctantly decided that maybe going back home was not the best option as far as job opportunities for me.  And that left me with one other idea; go back to Utah.  I knew I could at least go back to my job at The Roof until I found something full-time, and I knew for sure that the job market would be much better here.  So I did it, I moved to Utah.  And through lots of prayer and job-hunting, I was able to score a full-time job as an interior designer and I absolutely love it!  But more about that another time.
There's just one problem...I'm now stuck in Utah.  The place I vowed I would never live.  It's just funny how things happen to turn out that way, huh?

I said I didn't want to live in Utah, and I went and got a professional job here.

I don't like big cities, and I decided to move to the largest city in the state.

Who's idea was this?  Oh yeah, it was mine.

At least I get a view working from The Roof!

But you know, it's ended up not being as bad as I thought it would be.  Granted there are still things that I wish I could change, but life is never going to be perfect.  I've just got to learn to accept the undesirable things and focus on the parts that I actually like.  For example, I have a great job, I get to live 15 minutes away from my boyfriend and 45 minutes away from my best friend, and if I had to live in a city, Salt Lake is probably the least terrible city I could have chosen.  All in all (as much as i hate to say it), right now I'm glad I'm here.  I've learned a lot in the short time I've been in the Salt Lake valley, and I'm sure there's a lot more to come!  Bring it on, Utah! :)

An Account of the First Garden

Have you ever wanted to try something new, but you had NO IDEA how to do it?  And just the thought of trying made you cringe, but at the same time get so excited you could hardly stand it?  This is what gardening was to me.  A daunting task that only the most amazing and competent of homemakers could pull off!  And so it was, with great apprehension, that I started learning how to garden.

This Summer was our first year of growing a real garden.  We did try last year, but failed miserably.....we won't even get into that!  This year we started anew.  We prepared early: boxes were built, homemade compost was added, seeds were bought, and we couldn't wait to start gardening!  We bought several types of seeds to grow (although it was hard to narrow it down from what we wanted to grow, to what we figured we should try for our first time).  Here's what we planned:

• Carrots
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Pumpkins
• Zucchini
• Lettuce
• Iceberg
• Romaine
• Spinach

• Peppers
• Anaheim Chiles
• Banana Peppers
• Bell Peppers
  

Planting day was so exciting!  We tried to set up a drip-line system, but that didn't work out how we had hoped.  Maybe next year.  For now, we are hand-watering.

At first, we had a hard time getting some things to grow.  We had planted broccoli, tomatoes, and peppers inside.  They grew nicely as seedlings!  However, not long after we transplanted, I went into labor with my third child.  My husband and I remembered to get someone to take care of our cats, but we totally forgot about getting someone to water the garden, and so three days of no water took it's toll.  This is what we were left with after replanting some of what had died:

• 1 broccoli plant
• 6 pepper plants
• 1 row of lettuce
• Pumpkins
• Zucchini

  The pumpkins and zucchini had a slow start, but now they are flourishing!

These pictures were taken in July.  This was the point where I finally believed I COULD grow something!  Woot woot!

The top picture is pumpkins and zucchini.  The one to the left is banana peppers, bell peppers, broccoli, and lettuce.  One of those pepper plants has since died, but we have gotten so many peppers form the other plants, that it didn't really matter.

Then little baby pumpkins...





 



...and zucchini started popping up!





A month later, we have been able to harvest some of our veggies.  Here is just a sampling of what we have picked:

See that huge zucchini?!?!?!?!?!

 
We had so many ups and downs trying to grow this garden.  But I learned a lot through trial-and-error.  Next year is going to be awesome!  I can't wait to try this again.  Maybe I'll tackle strawberries, too....mmmmmm.

Plus...another great reason to try again: homemade Chocolate Zucchini Cake!  YUMMMMMM!!!

Yes, we ate it before I took a picture...it could wait!

We also had a run-in with some squash bugs...YUCK!  To see what genius method I found to deal with these, you'll have to check back next Monday when I chronicle the "Attack of the Squash Bugs"!