The GF sugar cookies were such a hit that they're already gone. Of course, if your family is anything like mine, baked goods of any sort don't last long in most households, I'm sure. My family is always eagerly awaiting my recipe tests, which is nice. No matter what I feel like making, someone is happy to have it. So far, I've got bread perfected, lots of cookie varieties, muffins of all sorts, cakes, cupcakes, scones, biscuits, lots of stuff I didn't eat for a while after I stopped eating wheat because the alternative GF foods were just not worth eating. That was my inspiration to relearn how to cook and bake without wheat, the GF foods that were like eating cardboard, and the anticipation of my family.

It was unnerving how much I had to give up in my diet, so many things to miss. Oh, for a bagel! One of the Costco parmesan ones, toasted with butter! But no more bagels, at least until I learn how to make them, and no butter when I do, everyone in my house is allergic to milk and all things milk anyway. Oh, for a Hostess Chocolate Cupcake... but I make some awesome GF Chocolate Muffins, which come in as better than a Hostess Cupcake, just a different texture and whole grain, without preservatives! And no mystery white goo in the middle, either, though that may be the best part of the cupcake. What else do I miss... Twix. But those, I'm not even going to try to replicate. Fresh hot Sourdough bread at the store, I miss the convenience of just picking up things at the store. But now, I go grocery shopping and if they're baking in the bakery, I indulge in the smell but try to make it as quick as possible, because my gluten sensitivity is so great that I have reactions simply from sharing the air with the particles of wheat flour from the bakery! And I can live without the pain of a reaction, thanks very much.

My kids are both gluten sensitive, too. I'm not going to list off the tests done to determine this, there were none. I figured it out by trial and error. But at least I figured it out quicker than my mom did, she didn't find out about her Celiac Disease until she was near 50, and I was 24, almost 25. I've been sick my whole life, my mom was, too. My kids will not have to go through what I did, that's the good news. No one needs the stomach pain involved in a wheat reaction, no one needs the emotional unrest of not knowing what's wrong with them for years and years, the depression, withdrawal from life, anxiety, even just the heartburn! I'm finally at a point where I am truly happy to be gluten free. Of course, I don't think I was ever happy before going GF, anyway. There was too much in the way of me being happy.

I've never felt this good in my whole life.