What we have learned

...is that no matter how extensively you plan or obsessively read ingredients, the system only works if the company accurately labels all the ingredients they actually used on a product.  In our case, this includes the cornmeal used to keep the the gluten free pizza from sticking to the pan.  Apparently no one thought that it counted as food.  Sasha's digestive tract agreed, and only after about 24 hours of a stomach ache and diarrhea did she really try eating again.  And didn't I feel amazing, since I was the one who extensively planned the pizza, obsessively read (and re-read, and re, re-read several more times) everything in every ingredient and watched the informational video and calculated the risk of the microscopic bits of gluten flying through the same oven used as the glutenous pizzas, and then wasn't home to catch the crumbly bits of corn meal on the friggin bottom of the lovely gluten and supposedly corn free crust, since I was out with a friend I hadn't seen in over 10 years.  But at least her skin didn't fall off, and her bald spot is still filling back in.  It could have been way worse.  However, Domino's is going to get informed of the importance of properly labeling ALL the effing food ingredients (mechanical or otherwise) from an upset 7-winged, flying orange zebra unicorn Mother.  Lord help them.  Lesson Learned: You seriously, can't trust anybody when you have food allergies.  And it's stressful as hell.

...is that Guar Gum is powerful stuff!  It turned some home made shampoo of mine into a semisolid gel, that I managed to re-liquify into hand soap.  I just guessed and dumped maybe half a teaspoon of guar gum into shampoo that I had made, thinking maybe you could substitute it straight across for xanthan gum (a corn product), trying to remember proportions I had read in a blog somewhere.  Turns out, I made pretty decent handsoap!  But boy did I have to strain the crap out of it.  I'm going to have to research how to use that stuff for things other than baking.  Lesson Learned: Sophomore high school chemistry (the last time I used guar gum) was longer ago than I thought.  Ouch.

...is that botox progress is maddeningly slow, frustratingly, infuriatingly slow.  But when I think back to last year, I am so much better off.  I still hate this feeling of just making it, having just enough energy to do what needs to be done and nothing else.  I watched Marvel's Avengers last weekend, (I got out of the house and watched a movie!!!) and one of the parts that sticks out to me the most is a scene with a string group in it.  There is this beautiful string music playing and the camera pans over a small ensamble of string players and my heart stopped for just a moment.  I am a string player.  I was a string teacher.  And for now music sits in my closet, waiting.  But slow though it is, botox progress is still progress.  So I wait...I pound out laundry and as much safe food as is reasonably possible and dishes and More laundry and sometimes I write so I can remember in what the hell order everything happened, and I dream and I pray and I wait some more.
Lesson Reaffirmed: Waiting sucks, but progress is good.