My new food journey, plus a vegan, gluten-free breakfast: Arroz con Leche

My new discovery of the year: I have food sensitivities.

Meaning, the way my body reacts to a few certain foods may be causing my arthritis and eczema.  And/or some leaky gut problem.  Or something.  And let me tell you - at this point, I'm desperate enough that I'll do just about anything to get some relief, or even just some hope that one day I won't have to deal with the pain anymore. So if food might be one of the culprits of my discomfort, I'll give some changes a fair shot.

So, my friends, for the last month and a half, I've cut out:
wheat and amaranth
cow's dairy
eggs
honey
mustard
hazelnuts
carob
spinach, zucchini, green beans
raspberries, blueberries, pears

Random, right?  I know.  Some test said so, so I'm going with it.

And in my journey to cut out all those things, but also not starve, I've done a lot of research and a lot of experimentation.  I've learned that eating out with so many sensitivities is nearly impossible, so I've also been doing a lot of cooking.

So, I figure that I might as well share some of my more successful ventures in this journey - since the recipes are free of most people's allergens, nutritious, and best of all: they're actually tasty.

Here's my first recipe share in my allergen-free living.  I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I have :)

Lauren's Breakfast Arroz con Leche
Makes 4 servings

This warm and inviting dish is perfect for breakfast on a rainy day.  I love to make a big batch over the weekend and portion out the leftovers to take to work during the week for a quick and satisfying weekday breakfast!

3 cups soy milk
1 Tbs chia seeds (I use whole, but I'm sure ground would be fine as well)
1 cup short grain brown rice
2 cups water
2 cinnamon sticks
1/2 cup cooked quinoa
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (or other sweetener)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine soy milk and chia seeds in a bowl, cover, and set aside.

Bring water to boil over high heat in a large sauce pan with lid.  Add the rice and cinnamon sticks, reduce heat to low, and cover.  Let simmer for about 50 minutes, or until nearly finished cooking.

After 50 minutes, increase heat to medium and add the milk and chia seed mixture, cooked quinoa, and sugar (or other sweetener).  Stir frequently (doesn't have to be constant, but be sure to give it a couple good stirs, scraping the bottom, every minute or two).

Once boiling, reduce heat to low again.  Continue to stir frequently until mixture thickens to desired consistency, about 30 minutes.  Be sure to scrape the bottom of the pot while stirring..

Once mixture has reached desired thickness, remove from heat, add vanilla extract, and stir.  Discard the cinnamon sticks. To serve warm, spoon the mixture into 4 bowls.  Garish with powdered cinnamon and additional sugar, if desired.  Can be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator for several days and reheated, or enjoyed as a cold (and healthy) dessert!

Enjoy!

Love gets more complicated.

I thought that love would get simpler, somehow.  I don't know where that belief came from, but I had it.

And then I met this guy.  He is all kinds of wonderful.  He's got it all. He's kind, hard-working, loves God, has his own business, own house, own car, is geeky, and is a blast to spend time with.  And he's attractive to boot.  And I like him.  And he likes me.  

And we can't be together.

It's too complicated.  Life is complicated, work is busy, and it won't work.  The result of our last conversation was: this was nice, 'we' are nice, but it doesn't work. Life doesn't let it work. The timing is wrong.  And that's all true.

It makes my heart sore to think that it can't work.  It's so much easier to end when there are more things wrong.  At least if there was a disagreement, or there were something wrong, or somehow else it wasn't a fit. It almost makes it worse that so much of it seemed to work, and so little of it doesn't.

But that "little" is an important "little" that outweighs the rest.

I don't really think that these things are "fated."  I don't believe in soul mates or that God has just one person in mind for anyone.  But in times like this, I can't help but think that it just "wasn't meant to be."  If it could work, it would work.  

But it doesn't, and I guess that is that.

This is a new hurt for me.  I'm not heart broken, just sad.  It's unfortunate.  It's a pain.  

And now I get to get back to the playing field and try again.  I get to experience new awkwardness (ever had a conversation about mixed martial arts for an hour?  I have.), new excitement, and new disappointment.  All for that hope that somewhere out there, there's a fit.  The right guy.  A spark. Good timing.  One time, it'll work.  I have hope.

But meanwhile, it just sucks.  I hate this.  I hate these hard situations.  

But this is love, right?  Beautiful, complex, difficult, exciting.  It's all a part of living life.  

So I'll take it in stride, pick it all up, and keep on living.  On to the next.

Seek perspective. A lot.

Last week was rough.  Real rough.

I faced my worst soccer fear: my second (read: this exact thing happened before) left eye injury at my soccer game.  The nurse may have thrown around the phrase retinal detachment.  I may have had a slight, 6-hour mini panic attack. (Turns out, my eye is fine.)

The next day, I had the worst fever of my life.  I literally thought I was dying.

And then, I ripped the side view mirror off my car. I hit my own garage, first thing in the morning.

Mix that with challenges in my personal life, romantic life, the toughest work load, small crises in my family life, and my crappy attitude, and last week was pretty awful.

But the real reason why it was so bad?  I was too focused on myself, in my little head, focused on my little life.  I lost vision of the big picture, I overlooked God's perspective, I let myself wallow.  I could explain it away pretty nicely with the physical pain, maybe the financial pain (turns out, replacing a side view mirror is pricey), or just the stress of life.  But those are excuses.

I let my circumstances dictate my mood and my outlook.

I had it backwards.

What got me out of the funk?  No, it wasn't just a turn for the better of my circumstances (since then, I've broken my work phone and other "fun" life challenges). It was perspective.

I took all day yesterday to be in nature.  It's what I love most and by far the best way for me to clear my head.  I went on a couple of short hikes, ate lunch under the redwoods, prayed, and read.  And you know what?  Getting into nature, out of my routine and my own head, made a profound difference.

I had to get outside my own head to give room for God to speak into my life.  And my challenges all of a sudden look really small when I take off my blinders and let God's perspective sink in.

Life will be tough.  Challenges will come. The strong and the wise choose their mood, choose their outlook, and attack their circumstances with valiant enthusiasm and the perspective that the harder moments are small in the scheme of things, only opportunities to grow and learn.

You can't think that way if your focus is so narrow that all you can see is you and what's happening in your immediate surrounding.  You've (and I've) got to make it a point to seek perspective.  And often.

If you're in a funk, remove yourself from your routine and reflect.  Pray.  Read the newspaper.  Get into nature.  Do something to remind yourself that life is bigger and more important than your challenges.  And then watch your challenges become smaller, more manageable - and let the journey become more enjoyable in the process.

You're uncomfortable, and that's okay.

The last couple of years since I graduated college have been an adventure in figuring out who I am and where I want my life to go.  But I have to say, I wasn't prepared for it at all.  Why doesn't anyone really ever mention just how challenging the post-college, 20-something years are?  Why no warnings of how hard, confusing, and awkward it is?

One of the best things I have learned in my 20-somethinghood is how to embrace the challenge and the uncertainty that comes with it.  Basically, I just had to learn that in all situations, it's okay.

Don't know what choice is the right one?  Think you made a mistake?
Questioning your career path?
Make a fool of yourself at work?
Social life not as booming as the college years?
Going through the socially awkward reality that is making adult friendships?

It's okay.  It just is.  Life isn't going to be perfect now, or ever.

Oh, and you know that friend your age who landed their dream job, is happily married, bought a house, adopted a puppy, and still is out every weekend posting fabulous pictures of their dream adventures coming to life?  Ya, their life isn't perfect either.  If they were honest, they'd tell you.  Or, maybe they're delusional.

But the point is, no one has their act so together that they don't run into hard, stressful, depressing, or awkward situations at least some of the time.

The corny saying is totally right: life is about the journey.  It's about stupid choices.  It's about missing family and close friends who are living across the state or across the world.  It's about every weird encounter you have as you try to connect with new friends.  It's about that terrible date where you had nothing in common and that strange relationship choice you make ("what was I thinking?").  It's about making tough choices where there is no "right" answer.  It's about screwing up at work and making yourself look like a fool to the boss and coworkers that you bust your ass trying to impress.  It's about coming to terms with your own fragility and mortality, and that of those around you.

And it's also about those few great friends you make who become like family.  It's about getting to know your actual family as an adult, and enjoying them for the people you never realized they were.  It's about that ridiculously fun date that didn't end up going anywhere, and feeling okay with leaving it at that.  It's about cherishing phone appointments, Skype hangouts, and those rare occasions when you get to see the people who matter most.  It's about discovering all the things you love that make you feel absolutely alive.  It's about the risks you take that turn out in a best-case-scenario kind of way.  It's about finally getting recognition for working so hard.  It's about feeling good because you volunteer, lend a hand, donate, and do all you can to make a difference.

And it's okay.  It's all okay.  You bask in the good and inspirational moments that give you the fuel to take life by the horns and keep at it.  You don't take yourself too seriously.  When the harder times come, you realize that they'll pass, and you'll be a better person on the other side of the challenge.

Embrace it.  Just embrace the awkwardness of this life stage.  Take it for what it is, soak in every moment, the good and the bad, and learn from your mistakes.  You'll feel uncomfortable.  And it's okay.

I believe in regrets.

I don't believe in a life without regrets, but I equally don't believe in dwelling in the past.

I'm not afraid of my past.  I'm not afraid of the mistakes I've made, and I'm not embarrassed of the fact that they were, in fact, mistakes.  Sometimes, I have poor judgement.  Sometimes, I slip up.  Sometimes, I just drop the ball.

I regret the bad decisions, I don't regret the life lessons that followed.  I am proud of the person I am, I am proud of the lessons I learn after I recognize what the wrong decisions are.

I am thankful for what God's mercy has taught me in the realm of moving on with my life.  If God can forgive me in the grandest and widest frame of what matters, then I can extend forgiveness to myself.  It's peaceful knowing I can rest in God's mercy, God's grace, and my own freedom to move forward.  

Stronger, better, wiser, forward.

I'm not afraid of risks.  Sometimes they turn out to be as dangerous as I thought, like my last big endeavor, but that's okay.  It's what risks are.  And I like taking them.  I know what I'm risking when I do.  I'll act out of my limited measure of wisdom to risk that my decision is a poor one.  To risk that it will end badly.

This last time, it wasn't a mistake. I don't regret the risk, the time I spent, the emotions, the investment.  I don't regret the things I did or said or felt.  Maybe there were a few in there that weren't the best decisions of my life, but overall it wasn't bad.

So I do hold regrets.  I just don't regret this.  The risk, the hurt, or the experience.  The out come might be unfortunate, but regret doesn't cross my heart.

___ World Problems

As I sit on the floor in my childhood bedroom, staring out at the mixture of recent gifts and the things I've brought from home strewn all over my floor, I cannot find words to describe this feeling.

It's some mixture of discontent, wanderlust, and a light version of saudade, coming from a mixture of what I've been up to over the past week.

All year long, every year, I look forward to seeing all of my friends from high school around Christmas and New Year.  They're solid people, which I've come to realize in my 20-somethingness is not something found very often.  They're all over the country and world, for the most part - and here I am, still in the same state. There's the whole world out there, I'm young and able, and yet I've landed myself a comfortable 2 hour drive from my childhood home - while so many of my friends are out exploring elsewhere.

"You don't have to go so far to have adventures. You've had your own adventures," my dad tells me.  But that hardly feels true when I look at the lives of all of these fantastic people.

So there's that.

I'm currently reading Shane Claiborne/Chris Haw's Jesus for President.  They lay out this picture of how Jesus meant for Christians to act - and it's in their own community.  Yes, care for the poor, provide needs, act rightfully - but Jesus specifically did not go through the government to make that happen.  He called Christians to do it on their own.  Now, as a committed follower of Jesus and also a political nut, this is a hard pill to swallow.  But it not only makes a great deal of sense, it's Biblically truthful.

And my political ideologies and priorities are getting turned on their head a bit.  So there's that.

And then I went to the mall yesterday.  Bad idea.  I hate malls.  All malls.  Because I love things, a lot, but things aren't important (which I have to convince myself of constantly).  And when I walk into a mall it's a constant inner battle of "OMG THAT'S ADORABLE.  Wait no, don't!  Not worth it!  Probably made by slaves.  You don't ne...OMG now THAT'S SO CUTE!  Don't do it!"

But if malls get me thinking of anything, it's my own obsession with "stuff," and the unjust economic system that produces said "stuff" for the comfortable consumption by the entire US middle class.  And how I am a full participant of said middle class.  As difficult as I try to make my life by buying used things, buying fair-trade, consuming less than your average middle-classer... it doesn't ultimately make a lot of difference.  I'm not freeing any child slaves or rescuing poor women from sweatshops via my thrift-storing.

And then I feel like a prissy middle class girl with my needless first world inner dilemmas as I care about (but ultimately don't do much than throw money at causes about) third world problems.  So there's that.

Maybe I should move to a third world country and volunteer?

My Heart Breaks

Psalm 11:5
The LORD tests the righteous,
         But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.

Romans 12:17-21

"Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, butrather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. Therefore


      “ If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
      If he is thirsty, give him a drink;
      For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
   

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

I feel like when God inspired Romans 12:21, he was thinking about how I would feel at this exact moment and what he'd need to say to calm me down.

The violence is awful.  The repaying of peaceful protest with brutality is horrible.  This is wrong, in every way.  Wrong.

I love that God is a God of peace, forgiveness, and love.  And at times like this, I really need that reminder to forgive.  To forgive those police, to love those who agree with this violence, to have mercy towards the media outlets that love showing this kind of news in other countries, but refuse to pay attention when it happens in their own country.

Peace.  Forgiveness.  Mercy.

Our God is a good God.  I couldn't be more glad to know Him, especially in hard times like this.