i love pancakes (and the people who make them)

out of all the meals in the day, breakfast is absolutely my favorite. there is no contest. breakfast wins without even trying. breakfast could stay in bed all day while lunch and dinner are out saving the world and finding cures for cancer, and i would still love breakfast more. i would eat it all day, every day if it was nutritionally (and financially) sensible.

needless to say, my love affair with the most important (and delicious) meal of the day took a hard hit when i was diagnosed with celiac disease. "gluten free" and "breakfast" don't usually go hand in hand.

the first time i tried to make pancakes using a g-free mix, they tasted more like warm cardboard cakes with syrup resolutely floating on top instead of soaking in. there was no fluffy, buttery, oh-my-god-i-want-to-eat-these-till-i-die first bite (the way my grandmother used to make them). instead, there were a lot of tears and swear words coupled with some batter flung in places that proved difficult to remove once my anger at the celiac gods subsided. there was also a bewildered husband (fiance at the time) who wasn't sure if he should start cleaning just to avoid his rampaging wife, or continue to plow away at his own sad stack of "breakfast" in a failed attempt to soothe my broken, breakfast loving heart.

and then, my blessed mother saved the day. after diving head first into celiac research and g-free grocery shopping with more enthusiasm than even richard simmons could ever muster, my wonderful mommala appeared one day with bags and bags of food that i thought i'd never enjoy again (maybe eat, but not enjoy). buried deep in one of the bags full of freezer section goodies were two boxes with the brand name "Van's" in the upper left hand corner. one was waffles, the other was pancakes. both may as well have been labeled "disaster waiting to happen" for all the optimism i felt towards them. but, after all the effort my mom went to, the least i could do was try them- they could hardly be worse than the pancakes of my own creation. so the next morning, i hitched on a grin and popped them in my brand new toaster and tapped my nails on the counter with skeptic anticipation. as i poured the syrup on and i saw it slowly absorb, however, my opinion began to change. and then i tried them.

they. were. good?

really? a frozen, pre-packaged, gluten free food stuff that didn't crumble at my slightest touch, and had flavor to boot? they may not have been IHOP's best, but i was in heaven. breakfast was back. and even though i've since learned how to make my own pancakes that fool even my picky hubby, my freezer is always, always stocked with at least 1 box of van's. just in case.

which brings me to my point.

today i learned that van's is the kind of company i want to support with my patronage.

not just because their products saved breakfast for me, but because of this: http://www.vansfoods.com/home/voluntary-product-recall (sorry, i still don't know how to make things clicky. that's another post). van's didn't have to recall those many, many boxes of pancakes. they didn't have to let us know they made a mistake. they could have ignored the whole thing and let hundreds of people get (potentially) seriously ill.

but they didn't. and i appreciate that. so thank you van's, for running your business with admirable ethics and sturdy morals. and, of course, with delicious g-free pancakes.

copier: 1, liz: 0

today, i learned that when the copier at work says "check document", what it actually means is "someone didn't notice that their original got sucked in to be scanned but was never spit back out and is now jammed in the mechanicals and i won't copy till you take it out".

but it took several minutes for me to figure that out. or, i should say, for someone else to figure it out for me.

10 increasingly irritated button mashing minutes, to be exact.

let's face it, when i have a raging head cold and am attempting to get my lesson plans done so i can go home and sleep, the last thing i want to do is try to fix a copier for someone else. but, when i heard my name ringing out from the hallway of our tiny preschool center in a cry for help, i hauled myself off of my tiny foot high chair anyway to see what the issue was. all it said was "check document", and my not-so-tech-savvy co-worker in need of copies had already exhausted all her own ideas. so, i tried all the normal, easy stuff (cycle the power, check the settings, and so on). when none of that worked, my under-the-influence-of-cold-meds, sleep deprived, lesson-plan-focused brain shut down, and i began randomly pushing whatever buttons my fingers found, with another co-worker watching intently over my shoulder. i think she could sense a melt down approaching. (she wasn't wrong). as i neared the end of my rope, my hands were dramatically thrown in the air and i announced to my small but concerned audience that someone would have to call a tech. and i left my bewildered colleague in the hall to return to my lessons. but, just as i'm settling my feverish tush back into it's child sized pink chair, i hear a little voice behind me say to itself "maybe it's jammed".

yeah, okay. then it would have said "paper jam". or something like that.

then i hear something open, something ripped, something pulled on, and something pushed shut again. and then i hear her say "i got it!".

on any other day, i would have been annoyed with myself for not figuring that out. could it have been more obvious? but it appears that having a head full of mucous gives me a touch of humility (that i'm going to try to sustain, by the way), so i shouted in triumph for her win over the copier, then thanked her for doing what i couldn't seem to manage. i spent the rest of my time avoiding the copier, and any other technology that may have sent me over the edge.

but now i know. and if the copier ever says "check document" again, i'll be ready. or, at least, my co-worker will.

learning how to blog

in case you hadn't guessed, i believe everyone learns something new everyday. and if you don't, i think you should at least try to teach yourself something new everyday. it's probably why i became a teacher, and certainly why i so badly want to go back to grad school. and it's a seriously good indication that i am, in fact, turning into my father. but more on that later.

today, i learned how to make a blog.

i did it for no particular reason, except that i've noticed that i've been spending an increasing amount of time online, and figured that i may as well make it worthwhile (or at least, make it feel worthwhile). i've enjoyed reading others' blogs for some time now, and i've always enjoyed getting my thoughts out of my head somehow. so, instead of talking my poor husband's ear off every night while he tries to study for his SQL certification, i'll make my jumble of thoughts and opinions available to a mass of strangers i've never met. nice to meet you, by the way.

i'm liz. i'm a preschool teacher, i'm married to an incredible man, and we have a deaf dog and a house we're trying to get up to snuff. i also have celiac disease, and have been gluten free for almost a year. i cook a lot more now that i used to before my diagnosis, mostly so that i can prove to my more cynical friends that just because food is gluten free doesn't mean it's gross, but also because it's turned into an incredibly rewarding hobby. i've always been a die-hard foodie; i would pretty much try anything you put in front of me, so when i found out such a large part of my food world had to be tossed out the window, i was a little crestfallen (to put it gently). i was never careful about what i ate- if it looked good i ate it, and if it tasted good, i probably ate it again. and again. not that being raised by a deeply rooted southern mother and grandmother helped my cause. i think these two women have a shared goal of wanting to feed their loved ones until they literally keel over at the dinner table. but with their support and never ending gusto for cooking and feeding and cooking and feeding, my life has not been ruined, as i expected, but changed. improved. renewed. forever. (hallelujah!)

my point?

the things above are what help me to learn something new everyday. dogs, husbands, homeownership, gluten free foods, gluten free recipes, preschoolers... they're all infinite sources of little tidbits of knowledge that i never knew were out there. and i'd like to share them.

learn away.