It's the end of the world as we know it!

(and I DON'T feel fine, btw)

I feel shocked, stunned, angry, and a little bit sad. Do you know what building this is? That's right, it's the Willis Tower.

What? What's that? No, no it's the Sears Tower, you say? WRONG.

It's the Willis Tower. Or, it soon will be, anyway.

(This very well could be the 4th horseman of the apocolypse's summer penthouse.)

-sigh-

Why do they have to change stuff?

I mean really.

Who wants to go and visit the Willis Tower? All you're gonna hear is random people sayin', "Whatchu talkin' 'bout?!"

Who cares if Sears isn't there anymore? They didn't rename the Chrysler building "the Abu Dhabi Investment Council building" after Chrysler left.

We'll miss you, Sears Tower, so much that we probably will refuse to admit that your name ever changed and will continue to call you the Sears Tower, and when international tourists come visit and ask to be taken to the tallest skyscraper in our land, we'll say, "Oh, yes, the Sears Tower !" and we'll smile nostalgically and point them in the right direction, and they won't care because they'll still be calling you the Sears Tower, too, and somewhere, way up high in the sky, so important that they've disappeared from the reality of life down below, there will be an administrator shouting, "IT'S THE WILLIS TOWER!" but all we'll hear is the whistling of the Chicago breeze around your twin spires.

And then we'll go eat pizza.

The Traditional Lack of Tradition

In my family, we don't like to do things just because. We like to try new things. So, from one holiday to the next, there's no guarantee what we'll be doing or where or with whom. This makes for some fun times and some funny times.

For example:
Last Christmas, we decided to try out the Disney Christmas experience. As Christmas Day rolled around, we were with the mouse himself! It was a long, fun day. This picture was taken shortly after midnight.
On the other hand, last year for St. Patrick's day, the kids decided the world was not green enough, and they got into the food coloring while making dinner. We ended up with green mashed potatoes and green milk. Trust me on this one: you do NOT want to see the picture.

[no picture - you're welcome]

So, in keeping with our non-traditional tradition, this year we decided to hunt down a tree farm and go cut our own Christmas tree. It was so much fun wandering around the tidy little forest. For the most part, the tree types were intermingled, and so it was easy to compare the different variations.
There were clumps of all one kind of tree here and there, and we ended up in one of these because we were looking for a different type of tree: one we couldn't find on a tree lot at home.

These are blue ice trees. They're super fragrant and pretty nifty looking, too. In this picture, we're just starting to try to decide which one we want. See the tall tree behind Jim? That's the one!

We took turns with the saw, but Jimmy got to finish off the final cuts.

And here are my proud little tree hunters.

The tree is home and up in the family room. Right now it only has white lights on it, and because of the way the branches grow, as you move around, it makes the lights look like they're twinkling. Check it out:

We're going to decorate it in silver so that it looks like an ice tree. I'll put up more photos later.

Merry Christmas!

(PS. If you go to my Facebook page, you can see all the pictures from yesterday's experience.)

Christmas with celiac disease #1

I love tag. I've always loved tag. In fact, I was rather excited to get tagged again since I missed out on the first one. (Sorry, Mom!)

BUT

I was about to start a new train of thought on thishere blog. So, take 2, here we go.

Christmas is coming. I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. But I have been worried lately about how I will deal with Christmas and family dinners and hors d'ouvers and especially how I will deal with Christmas cookies.

If you don't know me, you need to realize that Christmas cookies are the BEST part of the whole year. No exaggeration there...we even have special aprons that we wear once a year when we bake. It's a 2 week operation at least, from planning to shopping to baking to feasting to gifting. Let me tell you something. When I realized that I could no longer have Christmas cookies, I put my head down on the table and cried. (It was at work, and my friend who mentioned them felt really bad. Sorry again, Sam! I luv u! I'm coming to your cookie party anyway!)

I have decided that there is no reason to give up on the tradition of the past years. I will still make my family's favorite cookies, and my personal mission for this year is to find good ways to make MY favorites gluten-free.

So, if you're out there reading this and you have tips, tricks, or recipes to share, please do so! And, have a very merry Christmas.