When I Grow Up

When I was a little girl, I don't remember wanting to be anything specific when I grew up other than a mommy. I did go through a phase of wanting to be a stewardess. Do you remember the old days when they were called stewards and stewardesses? That's airline attendants for you young folk! Many of my friends had the Barbie Dream House. I had the Barbie AIRPLANE! My "Quick Curl Kelly" with red hair was the flight attendant. She was a full size Barbie before Barbie had a little sister named Kelly (back in the OLD days she had a younger sister named Skipper). In college, I really knew I wanted to be a teacher, but I also wanted to do full-time Christian work.

I got out of college, began teaching, met a man who wanted to be a missionary (I'd say that's full-time Christian work) and wanted to do that as a PILOT! He even wanted to marry me! THEN, we had a red-headed child, just like my Kelly doll. Okay, so I never had dreams of having a red-headed child, but thought I'd toss it into the story for good measure. 2 years later we had a 2nd child. Sounds like it all worked out, huh?

Except that after one year as missionaries, we weren't able to go back full-time to Africa and my husband had to find work totally outside of the mission field, but didn't have enough flight time to become a commercial pilot. The red-headed little bundle turned out to have autism and the 2nd child is ADHD/OCD with energy enough for the 4 of us! This is NOT a complaint, just how life is. And I am a MOMMY and a WIFE!

While I love being a Mommy and a Wife AND a full-time teacher (homeschool teachers never get a summer break or inservice days), and I do believe you'd call parenting this way full-time Christian work, sometimes I think of what I'd like to do if there were no boundaries. I am in the process of selling some of my crafts and about to sew some items that I think will be adorable and hopefully help with our income, plus I have some Pampered Chef catalog shows going on. But that pipe dream I have has to do with food. I love food. I really miss the ease of cooking without reading labels. I've been watching Next Food Network Star (and cheering for Melissa, the stay at home mom). I have NO desire to have my own cooking show on TV. I've been doing cooking shows for 8 years and cannot imagine doing them with a camera and lights and this & that and the other thing to deal with. I like to cook for a group of people in someone's home where it's relaxed and fun. So, no, that isn't my dream. What I'd like to do really is a list of things I'd like to do. Here goes.

1. I'd love to write a cookbook with gluten free recipes. However, I'm still learning to make things gluten free. I ESPECIALLY want to create a really good cinnamon roll, crescent roll (that is TORTURE to be a Pampered Chef and not be able to eat those!), and chocolate chip recipe. The one Alton Brown has on his website is pretty good (thanks Kathy for that!), but not Toll house. CC cookies were my specialty. They weren't special. It was the recipe off the back of the Toll House chips bag. But they were what I did often and well. Shoot, I even did that for my "how to" speech in a college class!
   
2. I'd love to have a PART-TIME gluten free bakery. I would NOT want the hours of a typical bakery. I don't do mornings, at least not well. The goods would have to TASTE GOOD. It makes me ill thinking about someone serving gluten free food that really doesn't taste good. If I can't have a bakery item that tastes good, I can just eat ice cream.
   
3. I want to take cake decorating classes. I would love to create a gluten free wedding cake for someone! Wouldn't that be just the coolest?
4. Now this one is the silliest, but it came to mind AGAIN the other day. I would love to be a chocolatier. There are chocolate companies out there using BARLEY MALT SYRUP as a sweetener. Barley is a gluten grain. How sad to not be able to eat Lindt chocolates. Godiva chocolate will not guarantee they have "safe" foods for the celiac either.
   

Of course, these things probably won't ever happen. If they did, I'd love to have my kids help me with it. Natalie loves to work in the kitchen (on the preparing end, not the cleaning part), and Bethany could whip up some cute ads for us.

Oh, yes, I would also love to write books even if they aren't food related. Not sure what kind, but I think it would be fun!

Now with all this food on my mind, I think I need some, um, sugar free chocolate. Being a food lover on a diet really stinks! LOL!