Wednesday, May 18, 2011

My Husband the Closet Photographer

Initially I was going to write a post about the progress of our yard...with photos! But as I was going into iPhoto to pull up the pictures we have recently taken of the yard, and the photos I took about a month ago, I came across some pictures Isaac must have shot just for the fun of it. And I realized...he's a pretty gosh-darned good photographer, especially considering it's not a real hobby or pursuit of his!

He's good at a lot of things. Patience being a specialty. And even though he does lose his cool on occasion, he has the patience to be a good teacher, a good boss, and a good husband.

He had the patience to wait and be sneaky and not scare the geckos when he wanted some good shots of them. They are extremely shy and skittish, so to get up in their personal space long enough to get a picture is pretty tricky. You have to stay still long enough to not seem human, or they flit away before you can blink.

Anyway, I love geckos and I love these pictures. So without further ado (or Isaac's permission), here are some pictures he got of some geckos [I recommend clicking on them to see the full size image]:




Sunday, May 1, 2011

Gluten and Corn

Well, it looks like we are getting much closer to narrowing down some of the causes behind all my nasty symptoms.

When I went gluten free, initially I felt better. I avoided grains for a while (until I could find mixes and recipes that allowed me to experiment) and notice a fairly swift change in my body. Once I started seeking gluten product substitutes and recipes however, I began feeling pretty gross again, although the symptoms varied from the initial stuff that was going on.

Turns out that I am very allergic to corn! Which makes navigating the gluten free world a little trickier as flour tortillas/chips are often subbed for corn ones in a gf diet, and many recipes call for corn starches.

It will also make giving up any product with corn syrup in it a mandatory thing for me, not just something I do to give my healthy lifestyle an edge.

But...I have been feeling much better now. Lots more energy, I can stay up past 8pm again...it's nice. [I just wish there were more gf-friendly food venues out here]. Now all I have to do is combine that energy with some motivation and get back to beautifying our slowly progressing yard!