A new start

My health is surely something I've always taken for granted. I think that is why it is easy to be in denial when something stops working the way it used to. I guess i've been in denial for a long time. It has taken 3 kids, and some crazy bad tummy aches for me to listen to my body. Thinking about it now, I wonder how I didn't see it before, but it's true that it's been a progressive decline. So now, after a good share of frustrations with doctors and remedies, I've chosen the hard road. Diet change.
Therefore, I've spent more than my share of time in the kitchen recently. My current road is all out gluten free and dairy free and I've been doing that for about a month. I've had to learn how to cook all over again! That's right, goodbye grilled cheese sandwiches, hello rice cakes.
Most days I feel like I'm doing better, and learning this ok. Soups, and substitutions have been my chrous, and my family the choir. Try changing a 5, 3, and 18 month old's diet cold turkey. We've had a lot of times when the girls have gone hungry. I'm not caving, but neither are they!
I love having to drive ACROSS TOWN to go shopping, and that if I forgot something, I'm pretty much hosed!
That happened to me this time. After spending and ENTIRE day figuring out my grocery list for the week, I still managed to forget coconut milk and a butter substitute. So I went to Raleys. They have a good natural food selection, right? hmmm...
I couldn't find anything that I needed without walking around the store 100 times, and talking to people that looked at me like I was a freak. Who on earth needs to find a non-dairy substitute for butter and cares about avoiding partially-hydrogenated oils? Apparently only me.
Anyway, I made a gf/df pumpkin pie and apple pie for Christmas dinner dessert. I hope that it's not disasterous. We'll find out.
At least now I have dinner planned out a week ahead of time. And, I'm feeling better. Well, I was until I made cookies that I could actually eat last weekend, and ate too many of them. Way too many. I'm still paying the price for that. Dang.
Turns out too much sugar gives me headaches. Good to know. Somehow it's empowering to know that I gave myself one, instead of having one every day.
But on the postitive side (without getting into too much detail) I've been feeling better. I don't know how long I'll have to do this, but I'm sure hoping it's not forever.
Thanks for everyone who has been so supportive of all of this.
The longer I do this, the more convinced I get that for now it is the right choice. I hope that God makes it clear to me as I walk this path what I should do next.
Enjoy your Christmas dinner. I'm so glad that I am making dinner. That way I can eat everything! I'll never look at food the same again.