A fake mustache

The kids, Jess and I are currently in the midst of making a family film. It's full of intrigue and entertainment, and only 4 minutes long. We do this once a year to share our film at a family film festival and watch what everyone else comes up with. This year, for my costume I donned a magic marker mustache.

After a day of filming, I cleaned off the 'stache but after scrubbing quite a bit, there was some residual ink. "I'll scrub it hard in the shower tomorrow morning," I thought. It had been a long day and I was tired. The next day, I showered, and went about my business.  Out to breakfast with family.  A stop at Target. Dropping a meal off at a friend's. And finished it off with the customary bath for the kids. While they were playing in the bubbles, I noticed that the residual mustache was very residual but still there! It kinda looked like a very faint hint of a preteen boy mustache. What was I to do? Nothing but laugh and scrub that thing off like crazy no matter how red my skin got or how tired I was. And a very important lesson I learned: when getting ready in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror CLOSELY. 

"Discover Science Here"

Lately, Oliver is really into Rube Goldberg machines. In fact, that's what he wants for Christmas. We'll see what Santa can do... Hmmm. He's also into making signs and likes looking through the magnifying glass. The other day he put the magnifier on top of a cup to look closely at it's liquid contents. Then he wrote this sign:

Gotta love it. 

Gluten free brownies

These are way better than the muffins I posted a while back. I found the recipe online (link forthcoming) and then added chocolate chips to it. "Yummmmm-eeee!" as Ansel would say.

1/2 cup coconut flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 eggs

3/4 cup honey

2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Mix coconut flour, cocoa powder, and salt. 

2. Mix eggs, vanilla, honey, and melted butter.

3. Mix dry and wet ingredients. Stir with a whisk to get desired consistency.  

4. Mix in chocolate chips. 

5. Pour in a foil- or parchment paper-lined 8x8 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20-28 minutes. Check with toothpick to see if done. 

Christmas DIY glass ornament

Very cool result with little effort. I'll be making a few more of these in different variations this year. 

Gluten free, can it be?

For the last six months I have not had three consecutive days without a headache. I've suffered headaches before, but these are different, nauseating, and very sadly consistent. I've tried all sorts of things ranging from doctor visits to physical therapy plus peppermint oil and exercise. Headaches are puzzles that can be difficult to solve, and my case is definitely one of them.

Now last month, I had 11 days without having to take painkiller. Six of those days were headache free while the others were only slight headache days. It was amazing. I thought maybe I had kicked it. 

Then they came back. I tried to think of what I had done those 11 days that would have helped my headaches. It just so happens that during those days I didn't eat much due to the fear of catching a stomach bug Ollie had. Was it not eating sugar? Gluten? Dairy? 

My guess is as good as anyone's, so I am running a series of experiments to see if going off of anything helps. This week is gluten. And it is surprisingly hard to do. I mean I love doughnuts for pete's sake! But it would be well worth it if it cured my headache issue. 

All this explanation to say, I used coconut flour to make some blueberry muffins today. Amazingly good. Not the same. But still good.