It took me a week to recover from the party. Whew.

Friday the 20th was a whirlwind of a day. I did not stop from 10 am until 1:30 am. I went to the grocery store three times (once to Whole Foods and twice to Ralph's because I forgot a few things the first time) and spent the rest of the day cooking like crazy.

The party itself was a success - people commented on how great the food was, how nice our home is, etc. All in all we had a great time celebrating Gordon's 40th birthday.

I ate something that I reacted to by puffing up like crazy. I couldn't get my rings off, my eyes were puffy as can be, and I was up about SIX pounds from the day before the party. I'm still not entirely sure WHAT it was caused by since all the food I ate was O friendly (okay I had ONE bite of wheat, but that wasn't it). I suspect it was the plain soy yogurt that I ate - it was a new brand to me, but even that had no avoids in it that I noticed.

It took a few days before my body recovered, and there are still a few things to be put away around the house, but it went really well, and Gordon enjoyed it, which is the important thing.

We've eaten most of the leftovers, but we still have a bunch of veggies left, plus olives and pickles and the like that we won't eat. I may take those over to a friend or my in-laws to get them out of our house.

Tonight our friends will come celebrate Gordon's 40th birthday. We would have done held the party the weekend of his birthday except that I was in school. And last weekend was bad because we had lots of stuff going on and Gordon was working. So it's tonight!

I've got a fairly BTD friendly menu going here. Swedish meatballs (turkey) and lamb gyro (an Alton Brown recipe from "Good Eats!"), a veggie tray, a fruit tray, a little antipasto tray of olives, pickles, artichoke hearts, sliced tomatoes and crackers (rice and rye) and cheese (sheep, goat, AND cow). There's also artichoke and olive tapenade with rice crackers.

For dessert there will be brownies, chocolate chip cookies, birthday cake and chocolate fondue with fruit and biscotti and marshmallows.

It's not totally healthy, but it should please a variety of palettes and won't be terrible for me or my hubby (he won't eat the lamb). And it is all wheat-free, except for the pita for the gyros, and I won't be eating the pitas! I'm not using dairy in any of the recipes, either. The only dairy is in the actual cheeses - I'm using plain soy or almond milk for the swedish meatballs and tzatziki sauce for the gyros.

I've thrown many small dinner parties and always paid attention to the BTD for those, but I've never thrown a party for this many people and still even partly stuck to my 'wheat, beef, dairy-free' diet. We'll see how it goes! The baked goods are fabulous - completely wheat-free mixes by a company called Pamela's Products. They DO have potato starch in them, but I figure if I'm eating baked goods I'm not too concerned with the ingredients! They are wheat (and gluten) free, and they taste fabulous. Most people I've served them too have no clue that they are wheat-free.

Alright. It's 2am, and I have a busy day ahead of me tomorrow. I'll let you all know how it turned out!

Well, yesterday was Gordon's birthday. We had a little family celebration on Sunday evening at the Napa Valley Grill over in Westwood (near UCLA). The food was wonderful! I had osso buco with risotto and spinach, and it was fabulous. So tender! And everyone else raved about the food, too.

Then we went to my mother-in-law's for cake and presents. I ate about a half a piece of cake (standard wheat stuff) and drank loads of tea - still standard for me since my crud. Gordon opened his presents and we all had a good time. There was one moment that he got so into one of his presents, he looked like he was about FOUR instead of forty! It was very cute.

Yesterday he was working at the theater all day, and didn't get home until after 11 pm. Even so, I had a lemon cake for him (again, standard wheat stuff) and I gave him my presents to him. We had a little cake, he opened his prezzies, and talked about our days. It was a nice little celebration. Happy Birthday, Gordon!

Today is my friend Julie's birthday. (Hi, Julie!) We met in fourth grade, but went to different schools, so we didn't become friends until middle school. Either way, we've known each other a LONG time. Happy birthday, Julie!

I got my final exam finished by last Wednesday night, and read it over on Thursday for errors and grammatical issues. Friday I went to see "Brokeback Mountain" with a friend of mine, and we both thought it was a beautiful movie. I think my sister-in-law said it best when she said that all we can hope for is a love that strong in our lives (no matter what kind of love it may be).

Class all weekend was hard on my body (we sit and are in tight spaces all weekend) but it is always good for my spirits. I did eat well throughout the weekend, and stuck to my BTD stuff other than the birthday cake(s). I got 100 on my final exam, and did extremely well in the course overall. Yay, me!

I am pretty much over my crud, except for a little residual coughing and drainage. It IS improving day by day, but it is taking its sweet time about it.

I am finally healing from my crud. It got pretty ugly - I lost my voice completely at one point, and basically didn't want to eat much of anything for 10 days.

I did lose nine pounds during all of this, but I don't recommend it as a weight-loss method. Ugh. Copious amounts of crud coming up, constant coughing (and choking on the crud) and generally not feeling too well. Even now, the coughing spells wipe me out completely, but at least I am feeling fine now.

We stayed home New Year's Eve. I was not up to celebrating with a bunch of folks anyway, and it was raining and yucky out, so we stayed home, opened a mini bottle of champagne (that was not very good champagne anyway) and watched the ball drop in NYC (three hours after the fact). It was a quiet evening, but lovely.

I did manage to see several movies over the last few weeks in spite of the crud: "The Family Stone", "Rumor Has It", "Chronicles of Narnia", and "Memoirs of a Geisha". My net review of all of them is that if you like the genre of movie it is, you will enjoy it.

Now I'm deep in the throes of my final exam for my graduate program. It's going well so far, but it is time consuming. I hadn't planned to wait until the week it is due to start it, but I just wasn't up for it over the holidays.... It will all work out fine, though.

I'll post more after I'm done procrastinating finishing my exam!