This weekend I attended a Japanese Summer Festival in New Jersey and as I wandered around, initially grumpy at my inability to partake in any of the Japanese delights that used to please me to the bone, I couldn’t help but come to the realization that we all need someone to keep us focused and redirected when needed.

I know I’ve said I would speak about our relationship more but there is so much more to share on this blog, the relationship is just a positive force behind everything! Mike as been amazing when it comes to assisting me with my gluten free un-madness. I tend to far over analyze and contemplate every minute detail as well as focusing too much on the negative. Far in advance I will get upset that I don’t have my next meals prepared (cooking in advance is something I need to get the knack of) or I don’t have ‘insert ingredient a here’. If it weren’t for him I would get stuck in that rut and not realize what I do have. He uses his whit to make fun of the situation in a typically heart felt manner (silly songs are his strong point) while using very creative distraction maneuvers (vanishing and returning with gluten free products I wouldn’t have even noticed on my own) to make me forget what I was annoyed at in the first place. There is just genuine sincerity and loving behind what he does; from being able to pin point when I am about to suffer from celiac frustration and immediately helping me redirect, buying me an overabundance of gluten free snacks for trips, showing me ways to be creative with the ingredients I do have and opting to eat gluten free meals when we eat together.

I think that his Manager skills help in the situation. As he’s put it he ‘knows how to treat a person the way they need to be treated to make them happy’ and he deals with people who have restrictions on a daily basis. His job and this disease do have an impact on our relationship but while I cannot kiss him when he eats 70% of what he eats, need to ask that he changes his shirt almost immediately after work for fear of bakery contamination and can’t visit him at work for fear of tears from my past love of Panera I wouldn’t change the influence it has had on the way he deals with my troubles. I think CD is really drawing us closer.

DINOSAUR EGG PLUM!

As for the Japanese festival, we searched the entire isle of Miso Soup to find me one sans gluten (!) and I found a fruit I’ve been searching for for two years, the Dinosaur Egg Plum (a fruit with an inside that is blood red and tastes like a cross between a plum and an apple). I also purchased a travel chop stick kit that I plan on also storing gluten free silverwear in! It’s a cloth envelope, complete with dragon flies, that ties and you store items in it! So cool! All and all a success complete with love. I am slowly but surely going to beat the grumpiness and Celiac frustration with the help of my Baker Man.