Finally! The baby's hospital picture!

I haven't posted about our new baby yet, because when I stopped posting last summer, we hadn't yet announced our pregnancy to cyberspace. And then, I "blogfade"d. So, an email in my inbox gave me a great excuse to make our announcement post.

MsDetermined is here! She is actually two months old now. And it only took the hospital portrait company two months to get me access to her photo. I called a few times, they called me a couple of times, to no avail. At first they couldn't find her, then they could see her but I couldn't. They wanted me to order photos, which I was hesitant to do sight unseen. "Trust me," the rep said. "It's adorable."

You can see it here!

Tribute to a Prophet

From the LDS Church Newsroom:

President Gordon B. Hinckley, who led The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through twelve years of global expansion, has died at the age of 97.

President Hinckley was the 15th president in the 177-year history of the Church and had served as its president since 12 March 1995.

The Church president died at his apartment in downtown Salt Lake City at 7:00 p.m. Sunday night from causes incident to age. Members of his family were at his bedside. A successor is not expected to be formally chosen by the Church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles until after President Hinckley’s funeral within the next few days.

A man that I dearly love and respect has just passed away. Although President Hinckley was 97 years of age, he has had so much energy and vitality that his death came as a bit of a surprise. Of course there is some sadness, because we will miss him! However, it's hard to feel sad for long, because he has rejoined his dear wife, Marjorie, and other loved ones who have passed on.

President Hinckley always had a wonderful, gentle humor about him. He would deliver humorous statements with a twinkle in his eye and a little smile. His testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ was unparalleled. He reached out to leaders of other world religions, and was respected in return. He helped us feel encouraged and enabled to do our best as we lived every day. He was a wonderful man!

KSL TV in Salt Lake City broadcast a biography video last night, which you can see here: http://www.ksl.com/?sid=&nid=520

Get to know the man:

To those living gluten-free

I came across an intesting blog today in a rather roundabout way. I had recently watched Yes: Songs From Tsongas on Netflix, and looked it up on Amazon to decide for or against buying it. A strange recommendation popped up under "other customers suggested these items." Right next to all the Yes albums, there was a book entitled Gluten-Free Girl. Because my sister has celiac disease and has to eat a gluten-free diet, I was intrigued and checked it out. The listing on Amazon led me to her blog, glutenfreegirl.com. What a find! Shauna James Ahern has been living gluten-free since 2005, ever since she started to suspect celiac disease to be the cause of her multitude of health troubles. Her writing is poignant and fascinating. From her first post:

As soon as I had my blood drawn, ten days ago, I cut gluten out of my diet. And that’s really fricking hard, it turns out. Gluten is the elastic protein in wheat, rye, barley, triticale, spelt, and possibly oats. So that means bread, cookies, pies, cereal, cinnamon rolls, pasta, and oatmeal. That’s hard enough. But it also turns out that gluten hides insidiously in almost every processed food, disguised as modified food starch..., hydrolized vegetable oil, caramel color, dextrin, and even natural flavors. I have to read every box, decipher every food, ponder every bite I eat.

The impact of cutting out gluten from her diet was immediate and dramatic:

Here’s the amazing part. As soon as I cut gluten out of my diet, the same day, I started feeling better. The pain diminished. I started to eat a bit more food at one time. I started to feel more clear. Every day that passed convinced me more. On the third day without gluten, I looked up and realized I was clear. It was as though I had been wearing smudgy contacts for years, and someone had just cleaned them for me. I’ve been in a brain fog for years. Years. And now, I feel clear.

My sister Carrie has been living gluten-free for several years now. Celiac disease, or more accurately, celiac sprue, is woefully underdiagnosed. Carrie lost several unborn children and had a host of other health issues, not knowing that it was food that was making her sick! Now, thankfully, she's healthy and feeling good. I remember talking to her once and realizing how vigilant she needs to be about everything that goes into her mouth. It's a hyperconscious way to eat, and so different than the way normal Americans eat--too much, too quickly, and stuff that's not really good for the body, all without really thinking about it.

The subtitle of Shauna's book is How I Found the Food that Loves Me Back. Rather than bemoaning the lack in her diet, the life she lives and food she makes and eats is full of flavor and passion. I think we can all take a lesson from that.

We're back!

After a short stint on our own hosted domain, I've come back to blogger. Why? Well, I was facing a manual upgrade with Wordpress, and I just decided that it wasn't worth the trouble and that I could just use blogger - they would automatically upgrade me all the time! Also, because I'm using so many google things and many of them have blogger built right in, it will be easier for me to post more often. Because it's been FOREVER, I hope to post a little update post soon. We do have news...