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I have a passion for creating delicious food, pretty things, and efficient systems in my world. After sharing my passion with my personal community on Instagram and Facebook, and continually being asked for my recipes, tips & tricks, and style ideas, I decided, why not share them with the world?

So, here I am. Me, being completely vulnerable and putting myself out there on this journey of sharing ideas and inspiration that I hope will inspire you to eat well, live beautifully, find efficiency and enjoy yourself along the way.

What will this blog entail, you ask?

Growing up in a very frugal household, I’ve learned how to make something from nothing, how to add beauty on a budget, and also how to find immense joy in doing so. I always wanted to have the homes I saw in magazines and that I admired from afar. Becoming a mom at 19 and a single mom at 27, I had to find ways to do all of that on an immensely tight budget. I learned ways to DIY the simplest to the most complex things. I learned to fix dishwashers, paint everything to make it look in style or new, all with an eye for design and color.

Having a natural knack for design, I ended up taking advertising and art classes from the Art Institute (all at night as a single mom of 3 kids, working a full-time marketing job!) and fell in love with color theory and layout.

I’ve taken that passion to my home, my style and my life.

But Why Gluten-Free?

In 2011, I had a series of life-altering moments. After having some serious stomach and gastric issues (I’ll spare you the fine details here), I was in enough pain and scared enough to make an appointment to see my doctor. My doctor, who I love in a very platonic way, referred me to a GI doctor. On that initial visit with my doctor, he found a large lump in my thyroid that he hadn’t noticed the last time I was in. Enter the whirlwind of doctors and tests of early 2011. I had a colonoscopy, endoscopy, and thyroid sonogram all within a week. They found some polyps in the yucky scan and sent those off for testing to check for cancer. In the meantime, the thyroid scan came back as having irregular cells. This was a lot of “news” to get in a week. My father died of pancreatic cancer in 2004, so hearing the “C” word was terrifying and threw my world for a loop. I was sent me for a biopsy of my thyroid, and then I had to wait. Wait for the results. The waiting can, at times, be worse than the actual news because I find myself telling myself all kinds of terrible stories about what the results are going to be. Can anyone else relate?
I’ll never forget that phone call. The one where I answered the phone and the woman said, “Oh, we’re so glad we got you” (I was in work meetings all day and missed the original call). “The surgeon would like to talk with you personally. Can you hold?” That was the moment my head started to spin. Why would the surgeon want to talk with me personally? Surgeons are usually too busy to tell you you’re fine. Well… there was a reason the surgeon wanted to talk with me personally. They identified the cells in my thyroid as cancer cells, and they needed me in for surgery asap to get the tumor out. They don’t know a lot about thyroid cancer cells through biopsy alone. Once they remove the tumor and send it off to pathology is when you’ll know what the true diagnosis is. I was scheduled for surgery quickly. I had a choice to make: Option 1: Remove the entire thyroid, which would guarantee that I would be on a synthetic thyroid hormone alternative for my entire life. Or… Option 2: Keep half of the thyroid, and hope that the nodules on the other side don’t turn to cancer, and potentially have to have a second surgery. I opted for option 2. I’m not a fan of pills or anything called “synthetic.”
It turned out that there were two types of cancer cells growing in my “big neck,” as my 8-year-old said at the time: follicular and hurthle cancer cells. Both are the more aggressive type, but overall, thyroid cancer has a pretty high survival rate, so when I was in my right mind, I felt lucky. Compared to most cancers, thyroid cancer has a pretty high survival rate, so I kept telling myself it was all going to be ok. The odds are in my favor. However, I would be a liar if I didn’t say that using the “C” word over and over during those weeks didn’t send me into a tail-spin because it did. I spent many a moment curled up in a ball on my kitchen floor, crying, thinking about all the “what-ifs”. What if this has spread throughout my body? What if I have to tell my kids worse news? What if I end up leaving my kids in this world alone? What if I die of cancer as my dad did? What if, What if. What if.

Wait… you were talking about gluten-free. What does Thyroid Cancer have to do with gluten-free?

I had been on and off a low-carb diet since 2006 and started to really notice that when I ate carbs, I just felt terrible. I assumed that all of the symptoms had to do with my thyroid, as many of them are interchangeable. I experienced massive brain fog, fatigue, bloating, irregularity (sorry), wicked headaches, migraines, and skin problems. But, I had those symptoms all my life. So what was different now? As a teen and into my early 20s, I had many brain scans and doctor visits, figuring out why I was having such bad migraines. The solution was to put me on a pill that made me go to sleep. Although I was appreciative of good sleep, it didn’t cure the problem. Having three young kids, just going to sleep wasn’t an option I could tolerate. So I got off the medication and just tried to suffer through.

Well, fast forward a few years, and a light bulb goes off. Something in my head said, “Is it the carbs that are making you sick?” Always listen to that little voice in your head. The one telling you that something isn’t right. So I started researching. I found that my symptoms could be not only my thyroid but also could be gluten. Gluten? What? Oh, but I love pasta. I grew up on Mac and cheese and Top Ramen. I love a loaf of good crusty bread and butter. Oh, and a grilled cheese… Don’t even get me started. Gluten? Sure enough, the research I did was compelling enough to get me back to my doctor. I shared with him that I believed that I had a gluten issue. He said, “Let’s send you for a colonoscopy and an endoscopy.” Now… having been only 38 at the time, I was not excited about having this test a second time, when most people I know aren’t having this test until their 50s! I reminded him that we did this in 2011. He looked through the records, and sure enough… dumbfounded… he said “Huh, it says on the scan records “Celiac.”” Celiac? It had been 7 years since that test, and with all the commotion of thyroid cancer, this finding got lost in the shuffle. Celiac. Wow. It all makes sense now. The migraines. The digestive issues. The bloating. The skin bumps and “chicken skin.” The brain fog. I had all the Celiac Disease symptoms my entire life, but it was the only life I knew, so I thought it was all normal. Celiac. Yes, that is the longest answer ever to ‘Why Gluten-Free”, but that is how I discovered that I had Celiac Disease and became Gluten-free.

Becuase of this finding, I learned to adjust my lifestyle to a gluten-free lifestyle. My husband has come on board because he also notices that not eating gluten makes him feel so much better (and I think he likes my cooking) 🙂 My entire family isn’t 100% on board, but 95% of everything I cook is now gluten-free. I will never willingly eat anything with gluten because of the pain and issues that follow. Still, sometimes my kids get regular bread or tortillas, and that is the 5% of our meals that aren’t gluten-free. My guests and my picky-eating family don’t complain or really notice that I’m not cooking with wheat.

That was my journey. A seven-year, long journey. With living through cancer and the gluten finding combined, I have found my way into a new lifestyle that is one of health and wellness, of eating great food that is not only nutritious and full of natural vitamins and minerals, but a lifestyle that beautifully enhances all of it. I like to think that I encompass that certain Je Ne Sais Quoi and always look to add a little something extra to everything I do to make my guests or myself feel noticed, cared for, and welcome. So I’m here to share my tips and tricks to keep gluten-free fun, easy, and delicious. To make life simpler by sharing some of the ways I’ve found efficiency through it all. And to create beautiful spaces all around us to enjoy the journey.