Last week I was all excited about a gluten free bread book. Yesterday I started to bake bread, and found that I could not use the recipes in the book - too many A and O avoids. To get her breads to rise without gluten, the author uses such things as garbanzo bean flour (Type A avoid), whey (A & O avoid), potato flour (A& O avoid), and gelatin (Type A avoid). The purpose of the bread project is to find bread beneficial for my As. The book was not a total waste of time. In the introduction it says when bread starts to rise then sinks in the middle it means too much water. It suggests using an egg to add spring. My spelt-kamut-rye bread was better yesterday using some of the author's suggestions. When it is really good, I'll post my recipe. In the meantime, the gluten free bread book will get swapped for another used book at Half Price Books.

I read a novel yesterday by an author I have enjoyed. It was advertised as a love story, and is soon to be released as a movie. The theme turned out to be that the love of your youth can give life meaning when you are facing cancer, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer's, and arthritis in a nursing home. It left me feeling bummed out. I am not naïve enough to think that eating right will prevent aging; indeed my world view assures me that death and dying are inevitable on this earth. I do however hope that the effort I put into nutrition and exercise will give me a better quality of life than the misery described in the book. While I love my husband dearly, we would agree that at the end of lives we hope to see more purpose than just our love for each other.

Following two disappointing books, I needed something uplifting. I found it in a quote from Corrie ten Boom. If you are not familiar with her, she survived a Nazi death camp. She said, "If you look at the world, you'll be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you'll be at rest!"