“False Negative”

Well, it seems as if I was duped y'all...or at the very least...MISINFORMED. Found out yesterday (consulted my doc as I am in the middle of a Celiac flare up)that there is NO WAY the second blood test I had done in 2019 was accurate. It showed as negative for elevated antibodies in my blood that indicate Celiac Disease because I had no gluten in my body for the necessary six weeks leading up to the test. Have you ever wanted something so much you willed it to be? Well, let me just tell you...after we spent two wonderful weeks in France and I ate ALL THE BREAD over there with no issues...I came back fully convinced that I was healed. I went right back to my gf diet and set up a second opinion test at Emory Hospital for two months later and got what I now know was a "false negative" test since I was not introducing the gluten into my system to have an accurate test. As of yesterday, I am back on the gluten free train, and am better informed. Onward and Sideways. - The GFG

It's been a WHILE...

I thought I had lost this blog. I tried and tried and TRIED to log in to it and Blogger just kept pulling up a friend's blog and not mine. I was so sad about it. THEN...on a completely dumb luck moment when a Facebook memory brought up an old post I remembered that I had changed email addresses and was logging into the wrong account! I am so overjoyed to have regained access here and to be able to have a space to just come and talk. A WHOLE lot of life has happened since my last post here. A few highlights - I landed a dream job in Atlanta. We bought a house. Gamerboy graduated high school, moved out and is now a full-time social media editor. (I guess all those years of him hogging my laptop and internet were worth it after all.) My PC also scored a killah job in Atlanta. We went on my dream trip to Paris. We made it through a pandemic.... And now, my PC and I are empty nesters and I am back to focusing on getting to know myself better and giving energy to what SERVES me rather than what weighs me down. For most of my life I have been on some sort of diet. It started at 14 when I was told "you'd be really pretty if you lost 20lbs". Fast forward, I am 44 and still hear that sentence as clear as it was spoken 30 years ago...only now, it's my own internal voice speaking it to me on the daily. I poured 30 years into an endeavor I never mastered. I believe I spent all that time and energy on the yo-yo diets because deep down...and I mean DEEP down...I think I always knew I needed to find peace, put down the yo-yo and just walk off into the forest of life on an adventure where counting calories, points, or carbs did not exist. I needed to just BE me and let the beauty all around me inspire me to create a life that is true and beautiful for me. It's been ages since I ate gluten-free. I was diagnosed in 2010 with Celiac Disease, then in 2019 after eating gf for NINE years tested again, and was told I did not have it. I thought this was my free pass to eating gluten. Strange thing is that I actually felt better when I was gluten-free. Who knows? Perhaps it wasn't the gluten. Perhaps it IS the gluten? Perhaps its me making better decisions when I am gluten free like vegetable focused meals vs. bread focused. What I know for sure is this - I am done with dieting. I am done obsessing over how much I will feed my body. I deserve to eat just like every other person and whether or not I decide to be gluten-free or not does not determine my worth as a human being. What does make me feel like a better human being is not eating meat. So, I don't do that now. Gave it up June 10th of this year, and haven't regretted it for a moment. I feel more connected to nature and my spiritual path by not consuming Mother Nature's creatures. So, yeah...gimme the veggies yo'! So, cheers to just being me, Tabitha, a happily married redhead, Mom, friend, nature loving, magic seeking word nerd who is always doing the best I can. Happy Friday, The not-so gluten free Ginger

First post in FOREVAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hiya Internet folks! I was able to reactivate my blog just in time to go on a gluten free vacation! Thanks to Carnival Cruise Lines, my reservation is flagged and all my menus will be "Tabbi appropriate". This promises to be a far less stressful vacation than I've ever experienced. Its been AGES since I felt really good about my way of eating. In a way, going silent online was me giving myself a free pass to ignore my allergy to wheat and just pretend to be one of the masses who wake up daily, eat food, and don't have to think about it. That free pass was more of a ticket to the crazy train for a very long time. I'm not saying I've done AWFUL. I found and followed a Ketogenic Diet for a while. That boasted some weight loss and got me off all grains. It also came with bonus features of the less than glitter kind like loss of hair, a sense of robotic gloom and way less energy to just DO LIFE. In the wise words of my PC - "health and happiness are the measurment. Weight isn't." So, I'm up in some pounds AND in some wisdom. Today is Day 4 of being back 110% gluten free. And that is OK. :) xoxo- The GFG

Changing Course....

Wow...It's been a while since I've been here. Life tends to get busy, eh? I've made an entire trip around the Sun since my last post but the journey has not stopped. I am still rockin' out the gluten free life and still working hard at finding my harmonious balance with nutrition. Fortunately, my absence has not been due to illness, death or demise. I have been a busy bee! I am now a certified and practicing Bach Flower Therapist and my client base is growing FAST. I love that I get to share what makes me SHINE with others. #sharing=caring #truth. Being that I am a perpetual student and absorb all the pretty things I can find about good health and happy digestion via the interwebs I am now changing up my course and dipping my toe into the ocean of a grain free lifestyle. This is NOT as easy as I thought. Finding veggies to ninja in as replacement for my beloved rice has proven to be quite the challenge. There are only so many things you can do with potatoes and cauliflower before one winds up at a Sushi bar requesting EXTRA rice with a side of rice. I've achieved three SOLID days now of grain-free living and so far I can say that I am not a fan. Health benefits cannot be deciphered in such a short time so the experiment goes on...until next time....spread some glitter. #theGFG

A Winter's Evening Ramble on Love

As a young child I spent at least two thirds of my free time wiggling around on a church pew. I was the perfect picture of a pastor's granddaughter in my multi-layered poofy dresses with satin sashes, lace trimmed socks, gloves, hats and paten leather shoes. I didn't care ONE bit how I looked in those get ups...I was concerned with two things - the horrid discomfort of my stockings and how long I was gonna have to quietly sit still. Fastforward 30 years and I am still pretty much the same with the exception that I now CHOOSE to wear dresses. I often wondered then as I wonder now when I am logging hours of my day tackling daily tasks...why in the heck are we here and why do we do the silly things we do? Why is one shirt 50 dollars more than another because it has one small picture of a seagull or an eagle on it? Who decides the master value of 'things' and why in the world is so much value placed upon articles of clothing, vehicles, jewelry and other material objects? Why is the most highest of high and precious commodities NOT our health and well being? I learned quite young the value of health when my foot was crushed in an accident. It took all of about an hour for me to see that the simple act of walking FAR out weighed any other possession I had as soon as I lost my ability to mindlessly get up and make my way across a room. Even at that young age of 10 I questioned why I was put here on this beautiful place. I knew one thing for certain then and now - there is more to this experience than 'things' acquired. So far my question is being answered with one four letter word...LOVE. Love manifested through the self, through friendships, through romantic and platonic relationships and by caring for the body that houses my Soul- THAT is why I am here. I am here to be LOVE, to experience it and to give it freely as much as I can. I am here to soak up as much knowledge about being a human as my years are going to allow me and hope that those I meet along the path are better off for knowing me and I for knowing them. Yes....I still act like a child sometimes and twirl around in my dress all happy n' junk that for a few precious moments I don't have to sit still and be quite. Yes, I get caught up with the awe of bedazzled things. Alas, I take a deep breath...feel the Sun shine down on my face, give thanks for the clothes on my back, the shoes on my feet and continue to look for ways to spread more of the good stuff around that makes me shiny. Love will carry us through the thickets and the silver linings of life and bring us out on the other side. Love is the medicine for the Soul. May you always have enough of it to Sustain you...XOXO - The GFG

2013 in mah' Rearview

WOW! What a rollercoaster of a year! I mean...really y'all...it's been BUSY. I won't bore you to pieces with the details of wedding planning. Just please know that I've had my hands in more glitter THIS year than in all the previous years of my life and it has been positively fabulous. On the 5th of October my PC(Prince Charming)and I were married BY one of our best friends, surrounded with a wedding party of our best friends and family on the historic square of Covington, Ga where we live. I had a fairytale dress and my Gamerboy gave me away. We were blessed beyond all measure of space and time that day to have so many people we love show up for us and help make our day happen. #TWUWUV We spent our wedding night at the Evergreen Resort at Stone Mountain thanks to my PC's new friend helping us out. She landed us the nicest suite in the place! A BIG thanks to Paulette for that one :) IF you have not ever had the luxury of staying there....it is seriously like the resort from the movie 'Dirty Dancing'. We were treated like ROYALS for sho'. We left out the next day(with a short stop off to sign our marriage certificate because we were having so much fun in the photo booth at the reception that we FORGOT all about it)for our honeymoon in Savannah, Ga. THANKS to the generosity of our family(blood and chosen)and friends - we had a fully stocked honeymoon fund to spend the week in style...and BOY did we do JUST that! #lifestylesofthetemoporarilyrichandfamous The rest of the year has been spent full of 'firsts'. We've had our first Thanksgiving and now Christmas as 'The Coopers'. I am excitedly studying to become part of the natural health field and anxiously looking forward to doing some writing soon with my Good Health Fairy Lori. She is an angel sent here to me and all who cross her path. So...yeah...2014 is looking really bright as I sit here with my hot pink laptop typing away. I am, of course, still rocking right along on my gluten-free lifestyle. The holidays found a rogue cookie here and there and a few bites of other offenders but I escaped no worse for the wear. The next phase - successfully eliminating processed sugar- is going well. I sure am gonna miss that Agave in mah' coffee cup! Yet...my body will thank me for it by shining a little brighter each day. May 2014 SHINE for all of you loverlies...XOXO- The GFG

Breaking Old Thoughts

Yesterday morning I crossed my first EVAH finish line. It was a 5K held here in our little Southern town to benefit school children in need of food. Up until that moment I believed that fitness activities were only for those people you see scurrying through life in spandex with REI bumper stickers who seem to have an endless well of energy that never runs out and SHOUlD it dwindle even a fraction.. have a Power Bar ready and in a backpack to shoot them back into happy perfect fit people Wonderland. #tiredjustdescribingit

Well y'all- I. Was. WRONG. There were as many different body types, ages and personalities in that group as I have pairs of flip flops and that ain't a small number to say the least. My beloved Cason walked along side me - even though I KNOW he was dying to take off running. He is a special brand of Man :) What surprised me even MORE was that my body did not balk at this action I was forcing upon it pre-coffee at 9am in the morning. It did exactly as I requested with minimal difficulty and maximum efficiency.
My inni-me(which is my inner cheerleader dressed in a pink tee, polka dot shorts, pink ribbon in my hair and barefoot) was rocking out to Billie Jean and cheering me on as I walked. I broke a pre-conceived thought!
I can do this activity stuff! And I got grabbed up and kissed by my Prince Charming after we passed under the finish line arch. It was an awesome moment y'all! Here's to changing my mind one experience at a time. xoxo- The GFG