Simple Gluten-Free: Pretty Pink Strawberry Icing Cupcakes

I know that there are people who get all kinds of anxious when they know I'm coming to their home. Why? Because they don't know what to feed me. Where I am hospitality is a big part of life but for some the thought of creating a gluten-free meal or snack is overwhelming. People are afraid that they'll inadvertently contaminate something, or that it won't taste good, or that it's just too difficult. I try to give these people a few simple guidelines.

1. I come for the company; not for the food: Seriously, food is not high on the list of things that excite me. I am one of those people that will literally forget to eat. I am more interested in good conversation and laughs than what's being served.

2. You will not kill me: I am usually the one that inadvertently poisons myself because I'm being lazy. If I get contaminated it's my own fault for not asking more questions or checking labels. And even if I'm contaminated it does not always necessarily equal physical illness and if it does, oh well, I'll have to be more careful next time. 

3. Gfree can be simple. Meat, vegetables, fruits and most dairy are gluten free. Simple, old-fashioned meals are usually gluten free meals or can be made to be easily. 

4. I don't expect any extra effort to be made on my behalf and I am very appreciative of any effort that is.

On that note - this is not really a food blog. However, I thought I might post a few things that I make gluten-free that are as simple as it can get. 

Golden Cupcakes with 

Homemade Strawberry Cream Cheese Icing

These are simple because I am going to tell you to bypass all those recipes that require three different kinds of exotic flours and go to a grocery store and get some Betty Crocker Gluten-Free Golden Cake mix. Exotic flour recipes are good; but they can be unpredictable sometimes and require a few tries to get it right. I think if you want to make something yummy for your gluten-free friend or family member, Betty Crocker is the way to go. 

This particular mix will require three large eggs, two teaspoons of vanilla extract (make sure it's g-free, the common Club House brand is as off 2012 at least), 1/2 cup of butter and 2/3 cup of water. That's all on the back of the box.

This is probably the best gluten-free cake mix I have come across. They come out of the oven after 20 mins a beautiful colour and a nicely rounded top. 

Once the cupcakes are cool it's time for the icing. You will need:

250 g of cream cheese (softened)

1/4 cup of butter (softened)

Half cup of cut up fresh strawberries

3 or more cups of icing sugar

1. Wash and cut up your strawberries. It's not an exact science. You need about a half cup or a bit more of strawberries that have been cut up into a size that your electric hand mixer can manage to beat to a pulp. Put them aside.

2. Soften up your butter and cream cheese together in the microwave (40 seconds) throw into a mixing bowl and cream it together with the mixer. 

3. Gradually add a cup of icing sugar at a time. I usually add in the strawberries before the third cup of icing sugar. This turns the icing to the pretty pink colour! No food dyes necessary.

4. You can add in icing sugar to get the consistency you desire. I'm not a huge fan of gritty, stiff icings so I tend to leave mine more on the pudding-like side of the spectrum. But add your sugar as you see fit. Then you can either pipe the icing on each adorable little cupcake or take a knife and slather it on. 

These simple cupcakes took less than an hour to make and they are stress and gluten-free. I hope yours taste as good as mine! 

How is Your Courage?

"How is your courage?"

Since coming to my community and church I have learned a number of new words, phrases and terms that now grace my vocabulary. Out of all of them this my favourite.

To break it down even further I would say that the words "discouragement" and "courage" have changed my perspective on life. A strong statement for two words I realize, but I'm an English major - I'm allowed to have these kind of epiphanies.

I believe that discouragement is a positive word. We tend to use dramatic words with such finality when we're dissatisfied with our life circumstances. Sad, upset, depressed, angry, mad, hurt, resentful. Not that these feelings aren't warranted at times but I wonder if maybe we give these negative feelings far too much power by defining them all the time. After all, they are just feelings. Feelings come and go and are very biased to the situation or person they relate to.

To me, "discouraged" describes a state where you have demonstrated that you have courage, but something has happened that has made you forget that courage, suppress your courage or lose your courage. I think "discouragement" is a positive word because if you can acknowledge that you're simply feeling discouraged then the solution is easy! Go get more courage!

I don't know where to get "happy" or where to get "satisfaction" or "justification" but I know where to go to get courage.

First, you can find courage in the core of your being. It is something you can make a habit of self-producing. It can never be fully taken away away from you - you can just make more. You utilize your core courage by making conscious decisions about how you want to handle your discouraging circumstance. Each little decision to press forward, despite the circumstances increases your courage.

Secondly, courage can be given to you by your friends and family. It's a gift. Sometimes it's a few words, or a long talk, a hug or just their support. You might need this first before you can even find your intrinsic core courage factory. Having friends and family that can give you this gift is invaluable.

However, the most valuable place to go find yourself some new courage is in the Bible. Seriously! If you're not inclined to believe me then I don't know what else to tell you. . .good luck I guess? Did you know that God tells us to be strong and of good courage about 25 times in the Old Testament alone?And most of those times he is making a promise to see us through and lead us.


"Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the LORD thy God go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee." Deuteronomy 31:5-7


God spends a lot of time throughout the whole book trying to reassure us that He is with us, will never leave us, and has a plan for us. He is the cure for discouragement. By ourselves we may not have enough courage to get through but God can give us what we need if we ask. 


That's why I think the words "discouraged" and "courage" are powerful. They prompt you to take action. When I received "bad" news the other night, my friend noticed that I was upset and she hugged me and said that she knew it was discouraging. The little light in my head went on and I realized that the news was nothing but discouraging. I'm quite used to discouragement and I know how to handle it! My friend gave me courage, then I read my Bible and was encouraged enough that my personal little courage factory moved into gear. There's no need to wallow in discouragement if you know what you need to do. 


How is your courage?

Awesome Stuff #6: Help from Strangers

I’m not going to lie. It was a bit of a rough night. After working a busy day shift with only three hours of sleep in me and in very icy and snowy road conditions I headed home, prepared for the fact that due to the amount of snow that fell out of the sky I would likely have to park my car on a plowed street and walk the rest of the way home. This did not deter me as I knew that my baby Jack was at home waiting for me. But it was worse than I had expected. Much, much worse. The west side of the highway probably got more than double the snow than the east where I was traveling from. This in its self is not a shocker. Living in relative proximity to the mountains - actually living in Alberta at all makes a massive snowfall an expected occurrence. HOWEVER, it becomes a bit more of an issue when your municipality decides that plowing the roads (any of the roads) is simply not on its list of things to do.

I needed to get milk from the store where I proceeded to get stuck in the parking lot. A wonderful man saw my plight and began rocking my car until I was free from what our slightly oddball news meterologist calls “grippy snow”. Grateful for the help I proceeded to head home and turned onto what is not a primary road but the largest north/south running street on the west side of town only to find a foot of snow spread across it. I kid you not! In the wisdom of my “many” years of winter driving experience I decided to take a high-speed run at it, figuring that it surely couldn’t be like that the whole way through. I made it about halfway before I lost control and 360’d it to the buried curb. Miraculously I managed to rock out of that one myself and continued the chaotic path to my street. I went to turn into the street I planned to park my car on and was dead stuck. Actually, that’s not even true. I was completely high centered. Spinning in the air. 


First I was given the blessing of two young men who began trying to push me out. After about 15 minutes of pushing another two gentlemen joined the efforts until I was free for a whole 5 metres before another two guys pushed me again until I was well away from my home where Jack waited. I could not stop. There was no where I could stop the car without getting stuck and I needed to still get out for work in the morning. I was so frustrated! What did the town expect us commuters to do? I finally decided that the best option over all was to head back the direction I came - back to work and ask for the hospitality of friends for the evening. They gracefully accommodated me. On top of that my dad offered to go and get Jack just as soon as the streets were plowed (he also ended up shoveling my driveway {thanks dad} ). 

You might think that this is where the story stops and I end with an AWESOME. But it gets better!

It is definitely awesome that I have friends and a dad that would go out of their way to help me out. It is especially heart warming when you have a total of seven strangers that stop what they are doing to push you out of a rut. 

But you know what else is awesome? Getting to be one of those strangers! I came home tonight and got stuck again trying to turn onto my road. Another stranger jumped out of his truck and pushed me out. I yelled my thanks as I struggled to get control on the road and began thinking how I wished I could somehow give back - I mean I just had a platoon of strangers help me out in the past 24 hours, I should be contributing something back in the way of blessings. 

I finally made it to my beautiful home and quickly jumped out and shoveled the remains of the plow so I could pull into my snow-free garage. Suddenly a car came by and stopped and three women around my age grabbed shovels out of the trunk and began shoveling one of the driveways a few houses down from me. I could tell from the conversation that this house belonged to someone they knew didn’t have anyone to help shovel their driveway. I was being given a chance to give back! I brought my shovel and together the four of us shoveled a truck load of snow out of that driveway. 

What a great feeling.

So! Having strangers help you out and being able to help a stranger out. . .

AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Special and Loved

I wasn't going to write today. After all, it's Valentine's Day - why would I want to write about a day that encourages 24 hours or less of warm-fuzzy lovey-dovey feelings at its best and feelings of self-pity, jealousy, greed, unrealistic expectations, anger, rejection and self-loathing at its worst? Hmmm, not so inspiring.

And I'm not all that bitter really. Sure, as a person of the dreaded lack of marital status I get a bit tired of Vday being shoved down my throat in all forms of advertising and being disqualified from some awesome contest opportunities because of my lack of a significant other. However, over all, I'm for a day that makes someone feel special and loved. 

But my heart definitely goes out to those who don't feel special and loved. I get that too. After all, there were no flowers for me today, no card, no chocolates, no special supper, no hugs and kisses and no "I love you"s. And as pathetic as that sentence looks, it's not a pity party, it's just fact. There are more facts though - I also didn't have a "significant other" hit me or verbally abuse me, I wasn't forgotten about or stood up. Seems like a fair trade off I suppose.

And it gets better. Sure, maybe I don't get to feel special and loved on this particular day of the year. But I KNOW that I am and its not constrained to a specific day. My friend sewed me a beautiful dress the other day, an older woman in the community phoned just to check up on me this week. Another lady shared her heart with me on Sunday in the hopes of encouraging me. A family reiterated to me that I am always welcome at their house anytime. My parents came out to a function to support me. My best friend is going to study with me this week and lend me their truck. Some flowers and a card can hardly compete with that, right?

On top of all that - God loves me and knows the desires of my heart and He has a plan. All I have to do is trust that He's working in my best interests and delight in His presence. Each day is a new adventure.

I'm just devoting my time to a particular project this month. Come March I'll be back with more posts.

Happy Valentine's Day. I hope that even though you might not FEEL like you're special and loved - you still KNOW that you're special and loved.

Happy Birthday to Me

Soooooo it’s my birthday. It doesn’t matter how old I am. Not. important. at. all. Let’s just say that I’m old enough to look back and realize how young I was when I thought I was old and young enough to still think that I’m old.

I know I must be old because for the first time I am very thankful that I’ve always looked a whole lot younger than my actual age. People now assume that I’m 20 years old and I am more than happy to let them think that. 

This is also the first time that I’ve felt that I’ve accomplished “enough”. Not that I’m finished by any means, but that I’ve done pretty much everything I’ve ever wanted to do with two notable exceptions. Now I’m in the position where I actually have to think up more stuff to do.

In all defensible birthday vanity see below a list of some of the bestest stuff I’ve been blessed enough to do.

In no particular order:

1. Traveled to: Japan, Italy, Austria, Lichtenstein, France, England, Scotland, Australia, El Salvador, Hawaii, other parts of the U.S and most of Canada.
2. Bungee jumped. . .twice
3. Jumped out of an airplane
4. Scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef
5. Got lost in Paris (awesome)
6. Used my French in Paris and my Japanese in Osaka.
7. Was a weekly newspaper reporter
8. Was a weekly newspaper Editor
9. Had my poetry published in an anthology
10. Had a photograph sell for $450.00
11. Had a photograph in a calendar
12. Photographed weddings
13. Swam out to an out-of-bounds tropical waterfall with Jenn
14. Bought a house when I was 20 and sold it for double what I payed :)
15. Built my second house where I can see the mountains!
16. Got my darling little Jack, who brightens my world every day
17. Got over my fear of horses
18. Watched the sunrise from the top of a volcano and then biked down it.
19. Had the best practicum ever with 1 Platoon, complete with BA and rockets.
20. Had surgery allowing me to breathe properly and lessen my allergies
21. EMT school - so much fun!
22. Saved a life
23. Organized a big mock accident with Tara
24. Did a few shifts with Halton Region EMS in Ontario
25. Got to rock a lot of calls with one of my best friends.
26. Paramedic school
27. Delivered lots of cute little babies
28. Learned to snowboard
29. Saw fireworks at Disneyland
30. Medical mission in impoverished villages around San Salvador
31. Sang on stage with Tim Hughes
32. Drove down the Oregon Coast
33. Surfing!

Yup. Done lots of fun stuff. I’m a lucky girl.

Cute baby me.

A Baby's Smile

Merry Christmas everyone!

I just wanted to share a quick thought I've been pondering. It's about babies. It's fitting since today is the day we celebrate in honour of our Saviour's entry into the world as a little baby.

I'm fortunate enough to spend a fair amount of time with my favourite little boy. He's a happy one-year-old with a full head of dark curls and the sweetest smile. He's the son of two of my very good friends. Anyhoo, the other day I was lucky enough to be the first one to hear him wake-up from his afternoon nap. I walked into the room and leaned over the crib and this little guy with his eyes still squinty from sleep blessed me with a big beautiful sleepy smile when he saw me. It was such a heart-warming feeling to have this little person look at me like that. I lifted him out of the crib and he let his head rest on my shoulder as I carried him out to his mom. That warm-fuzzy feeling stayed with me the rest of the day and has stayed with me in the weeks following. It got me to thinking about Jesus' birth.

After all, I was overtaken with the warm-fuzzies by a baby that is not even my own. Imagine how Mary felt holding her miracle first-born who she has been told will change the world. If my favourite little boy could make my heart melt with a single sleepy smile imagine how the shepherds and wisemen felt when they were blessed in the presence of a Holy child. If the baby Jesus smiled at them, I would imagine that their hearts would feel like they could burst. Perhaps that, along with a bright star and a multitude of angels made their belief so big that they could have moved mountains at that moment if they had so desired.

So I was just thinking if you want the warm-fuzzies when you think of the meaning of Christmas, try thinking of your favourite little one and how they make you feel and then multiply that feeling to suit the power and glory of our Lord and Saviour born in the form of a little child.

Merry Christmas and God Bless.

~Lexi

EMS Taught Me This: Part 1

Mock accident. No one is actually hurt.

I want to tell you something and I want you to put away any doubt and any fear. I want you to just give in and believe that what I am about to tell you is the absolute truth and that there is no circumstance that changes this truth. Truth cannot be defeated or destroyed but it can be ignored. I need you to know that the only thing that can push away this truth that I am about to tell you is your own doubt and fear. Are you ready? Feeling all warm and fuzzy and ready to wholeheartedly accept what I’m about to tell you? Alright, here it is:

You are always capable of more than you think.

Always, always, always, every single time. Nice and simple eh? The truth always is. EMS has taught me this. Not the truth part - Jesus taught me that. I mean EMS has taught me this specific truth that you are undoubtedly always more capable than you give yourself credit for. I am an example of this, my patients are an example of this, my patient’s families are an example of this. 

You know what the most common thing is I hear from my patients when we are discussing what it is like to work on the ambulance? It’s this:

“I could never do what you do.”

What I do? Really? It’s flattering I suppose to some degree when people think you’re amazing because you turned the pillow to the cool side for them. However, I know there are some of my peers in the industry who would believe that most people couldn’t do what we do, but I’m not inclined to agree. 

Writing comes easily to me. It has always been the next best thing to effortless for me. But EMS? Nope. I can’t think of anything in EMS that came particularly easy to me when I was first learning. I remember when I quite literally could not lift the stretcher if there had even been the weight of a bunny on it. I remember being nervous about cracking open an oxygen tank, fumbling with nasal cannulas, awkward about doing physical assessments on people, wondering what crackles in the lungs really sounded like, the list goes on. And now, all of that and more comes as easily to me as putting my hair in a pony tail. It’s all stuff I learned. Anyone could learn it if they wanted to. But that’s the thing, you have to have some driving force. “Want” was mine (I guess the more literary pleasing word would be ‘desire’ but I’m gonna go with ‘want’). I didn’t know the difference between a BVM, BGL, NRB, NC, KCL, D50 etc, but I wanted to learn. I didn’t know what it was like to crawl into an overturned car to check on a trapped patient, or to be the first person to initiate CPR or to hold a stranger’s hand while they cried but I wanted to learn how to have the privilege of being there in someone’s time of need. It was something I wanted to do. That’s how I was able to do it, not because of some innate ability. There will be other medics who will argue that you have to have a certain mindset (a mixture of eery calm under fire and sense of black humour perhaps) to survive in this job. I think that if you didn’t have or possess the potential for that “mindset” you wouldn’t want to learn the EMS skill set. That is not the same as capability. This is what I’m trying to establish. All of those people who tell me, 

“I could never do what you do” I want to tell them (and sometimes I do) “Yes, you could. We are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. The thing is, would you want to do what I do?”

I can hear some of you now. Blood? No thanks. Germs? Ugh. Needles? Not likely! Sure, that’s fine if you know without a doubt that EMS is something you have no interest in. But if you do have an inkling that you might like to try it, then don’t let yourself think that you are not capable. I can assure you that you are.

Now that is just me applying this truth in medicalanese. That’s the great thing about truth though, it is always applicable regardless of the circumstance. So, if you have a bit of a ho-hum job and you would like to do something else but you’re not sure whether you can handle a pay cut, or having to go back to school or putting the kids in daycare, you can! You will always be able to do more than you think. The question is do you want to?

You are capable of jumping out of a plane, you are capable of starting your own business, you are capable of raising another kid, you are capable of going into the mission field, you are capable of leaving your abusive boyfriend, you are capable of kicking that bad habit. Even though you will feel that you can’t do it, you need to know that the truth is that you can. The question is really whether or not you have enough of a driving force to make you want to do it. 

You are always more capable than you think. The only thing that can make you ignore this truth is your own doubt and fear. So I’m asking you once more to put away your doubt and fear. Imagine that thing you’ve wished you could do but don’t feel that you’re capable of. 

Do you want to do it? Because if want to do it, rest assured you are capable. It is the truth. 

EMS taught me this.