I once did a radio show on Dubai Eye. Me and two others were interviewed and got to talk about gluten free. It was GREAT. Apart from a bit where I got very very over exited about chickpeas. My friends still tease me about my childish exitement for this little legume. Little did I know at the time, how much more Id come to love them. But something out there is even better than chickpeas….. CHICKPEA EGG!

Im not even kidding. Once you learn how to make it you will fall in love with it too. I started off googling, chickpea bread, chickpea fritata, eggfree chickpea quiche, anything you normally make with eggs, just google it with the word chickpea, and yes, you can make it!

You can even make…… gamer changer here, drumroll…. SCRAMBLED EGG! Without egg!!

If you arent letting out an exited little squeal right now Im not actually sure if we can still be friends.

So ALL my old eggy recipes, all my fast omelette dinners, all the french toast and little lunchbox frittatas, I can make them again! And you don’t even need to google. I’ll give you the base recipe right here.

You need:

Thats it. Thats actually it!!!!! Is your mind blown yet? Ive been using this now for over a year and my mind is still blown every time I use it.

So, basically, you need equal amounts chickpea flour and water. You whisk it together and let it sit a bit to thicken. 30 mins is good, overnight even better, but you can give it a go after 10 minutes too if you feel impatient. For the french toast 1dl water and 1 dl flour is plenty. Around the same as 2-3 eggs.

Add your flavours same as you would with any egg recipe. Salt, pepper, I add a small bit of tumeric for colour and its divine.

Please let me know how you get on. Possibilities are endless. You can even make a super fast egg bread!

I use doves farm chickpea flour as its certified gluten free.

When a little zebra was 3 she started school in Dubai. Since then, I think I can count on my fingers how many weeks she did full weeks of. There was always something. Random fevers. Endless pneumonias (as my facebook “on this day” thing constantly reminds me), ear infections, horrendous fatigue and so on. Almost 2 years ago Dr’s finally put their feet down and my zebra stayed home.

I can not even begin to tell you all how difficult it is to have one child at school and one at home, especially when the one at home has to wear a mask in public and not be exposed to anyone or anything.

The 1st of September my baby girl went back to school!

My baby girl did. not. have. pneumonia. in. September! This has never happened before. My baby girl went back to school and apart from one day last week she has been there every day!!!!

And I became a good person again! I haven’t shouted at my kids once! I have been in the supermarket alone! I have had glorious naps without someone whinging at me for sleeping! I have watched TV, in the middle of the day! I have been alone!!!! I know this is supposed to be about her but oh my gosh it is so much about me too! And its about my awesome son, who has a mum who can be nice again, like every day and not just occasionally.

I didn’t realise the strain Ive been putting myself through until finally I had that first day on my own. Wow.

I get to write a blog post without people screaming and fighting about who should get to go to the bathroom first. I mean, I love my kids, more then anything in the world. But 1 and a half year of never once being alone makes you a bit edgy (read absolutely flippin psychotic).

Now every morning I drop 2 happy kids to school, and a happy mum picks up two happy kids.

These new lung meds….. thank you!

One day at a time, October, be good to us!

I went to the doctor about 2 weeks ago.

I went to the doctor about two weeks ago and I was absolutely fine.

I went to the doctor about two weeks ago and I was absolutely fine before I went and now everything seems to be wrong with me.

So yeah… I went to the doctor. Bad move Linda. Bad move. There is a reason I haven’t been in years…. It appears this mum here is a bit broken. I am also out of the closet. For the first time ever in my life I told a health professional I have celiac (I also told her Im in denial and haven’t accepted it, but I did tell her I have it).

A few days after my doctors visit and having done about 5 pages worth of blood tests I went for a scan, and guess what?

I AM NOT FAT!

I do however have two rather large cysts in my uterus that need removing. Nice huh?

So you can all shout at me now, about how I need to see a dr more often and how I cant look after 2 kids if Im not well myself and I need to look after myself and bladibladibla. I know. I know! After this I will go more often, I promise.

I have an appointment with my surgeon on Monday and then hopefully shortly after they will remove my invaders. Am I worried? No, because Ive had this same surgery before and always knew it would happen again.

Now all I need is a cleaning lady, a driver, a nurse, a chef, etc. A wife basically? Any takers? 😛

Oh well. Its official. I am a celiac. And also a tad broken.

Oh well. As you were…..

Oh gosh… did I really not write since MAY? Sorry. And… ehm… not sorry.

Summer holidays started. We went to Krakow Rheumatology hospital (again). Got a few things (temporarily?) dismissed and a new diagnosis. Then we went to Crete and spent a blissful 12 days doing pretty much nothing other then chill, sunbathe and swim. Now we are back and yeah….. we go to Rabka and the lung hospital in a few days.

I try not to think about these visits to much because Im not really ready for this to be our life, although obviously it already is….

I think I have been burning the candle not just from both ends, but every angle imaginable for so long, so long now that I cant really remember a time where that candle burning thing wasn’t consuming me, for so long now that its normal and I don’t really know what it feels like to not have it (the candle burning) anymore. I mean, its a flippin inferno going on with this candle!

Then… 2 seconds after typing that I feel immense guilt, because we are the lucky ones, we are the ones, that even though we have all this crap, we have each other, we have a roof over our heads, we have a kid who battles on with stuff that is liveable, we have life, and 4, 5, 6 hospital stays a year….. there are others who have it way worse. I don’t get to have a pity party or feel sorry for myself, for us. Because we are ok.

But yeah, I didnt write since May. Because I couldnt, and I cant right now either I think, but at the same time I have to. My head right now is buried in the sand. Im playing ipad games that take my concentration so I cant think, Im watching crap on tv, Im doing everything I can not to think, because Im not ready to be alone with my own thoughts.

I am pretending everything is ok, because it is. And yet it is not.

There is no Lupus (right now). There is no Rheumathoid Arthritis (right now). There is the high ANA still, there is the lump on her finger (probably benign) there is the millions of rashes and weird things going on (MCAD?), there is the EDS, the new thing which I suspected since her Celiac diagnosis – low bone density (Osteopenia).

Still, the above is all good, its good news, it could be worse right? So why cant I think about it? Why am I paralysed on my sofa some days almost unable to move? Why have we yet again had to go buy more underwear and t shirts because I cant pull it together enough to do laundry most weeks.

The puzzle pieces are coming together and we have more and more answers, I should be happy, I should get on with whatever needs doing and face facts, none of it is new, we lived with it for years already. But I just cant allow myself to think…. let alone write.

I want to go back on holiday and stay forever and bury my head in the sand and not have to worry that soon she wont fit in the push chair. I want to keep my head in the sand and not listen to the niggling voice thats in my head asking why she’s not gaining weight again, I want to keep my head in the sand and keep it there forever and ever and just sunbathe and lie around on the beach and play UNO and not have to set the alarm clock.

I dont want to have to deal with trying her back in school again in September and living with the let down that comes when she has to be taken out again. I am hopeful….. I was hopeful, until 2 weeks before the summer holidays started she had another pneumonia. I want to be hopeful… but I have to be realistic. The realist in me is hopeful and happy and an optimist, but the realist in me knows, and the realist in me also knows that its going to hurt oh so bad if it doesn’t work. I feel like I am a hundred years old.

So I smile, I laugh, I carry on, I make no plans whatsoever and carry on and try not to think about the hospital stay thats happening in a few days. Maybe after we will go buy more new underwear.

Leaving you all with some happy holiday snaps incase I depressed you to much.