Two and a half months. That’s how long its been since I made a blog post. The past 3 years or so I’ve written tons about food, food allergies, parenting, recipes and anything else I felt about. I don’t think I’ve gone through a time where I spent more than a month without writing though.
During those lulls us blog posts I was sometimes busy writing for the Fayetteville Observer. That always seemed a good excuse– writing pieces for professional publication. But I can’t use that excuse any longer it seems. I could be bummed about that for a second, except that I have much larger things in my life to be bummed about, and other, entirely different endeavours to be happy about.
I’ve put some of that food-energy into baking as more than just a hobby and a way to keep my kiddos happy and treated up, despite the lack of gluten and dairy. And soy and eggs– when you add the family up. Hobby, by the way, means something you started doing while your colicky, gluten intolerant infant was in a baby wrap, inconsolably crying at 11 p.m.
I had no idea that those night-time moments when I was trying out new gluten-free flours…. Mixing brown rice flour and millet flour and guar gum, in order to try to copy wheat bread and chase the colicky crying and rashes away would become a small business venture.
I had no idea that when my father-in-law passed away, and anyone would have understood my *not* dropping off three dozen cupcakes to the local health food store, the Apple Crate, two days after, that I would happily mix and stir and ice (icing—that is the really fun, and annoyingly messy, part) and make those cupcakes while taking my mind off the awfulness of the days and weeks before it.
And so here I am. Not writing. Mourning, but more importantly, loving a mourning husband. And baking. Never in a million years could I have predicted this month at this time last year. But I saw and felt it all coming about mid-November. I remember remarking to my husband that I felt like it was going to be a long and emotional holiday season—and at the time I thought I was only talking about our almost 3-year-old’s upcoming surgery.
