Does it help to know that other people struggle, too?\u00a0 Just in case you thought I was advising you from the lofty heights of super-human ability, I decided to post this blog, which was not originally for publication.<\/p>\n
Note:\u00a0 Those who don\u2019t know me personally will need to know that my husband Paul and I rented out our house and are living in a 34 ft. travel trailer parked in back of the property our church recently purchased.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be here while the new building is being built — and our temporary home has given us a challenge or two! <\/em><\/p>\n I look with satisfaction at the finished post which will appear on my blog. It\u2019s my favorite low-glycemic recipe and I\u2019ve made it a zillion times. It\u2019s easy and always tastes great.<\/p>\n But then my conscience troubles me.\u00a0 It calls for a complicated method of whipping evaporated milk.\u00a0 I always cheated and used Cool Whip. Should I encourage my blog followers to cheat, too?\u00a0 I look up Cool Whip and see that it contains the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, and a bunch of unpronounceable chemicals. I will use the complicated version.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve never actually made the complicated version. I dare not run the recipe until I try it. I do not have evaporated milk so I go to Walmart.\u00a0 I park at the back of the parking lot and get lots of extra steps because it is busy and there is no place else to park.\u00a0 I hoof it to the store and then spend the next hour hunting for evaporated milk. At last I run it to earth on the baking aisle which I have traversed at least 15 times before.\u00a0 I gain some more steps shuffling back and forth in line, which is unusually long. Back across the parking lot and home. Then I load the wagon with the evaporated milk and the $69 worth of other groceries I collected while looking for the milk. I haul them back to our trailer and unload.\u00a0 Then I start the actual recipe.<\/p>\n First I take the milk and the mixing bowl and put it in the freezer — out in Paul\u2019s office, because the trailer freezer does not work.\u00a0 Then I come back and make the Jello and take it out to Paul\u2019s office, because the refrigerator doesn\u2019t work either.\u00a0 I go back and prepare to mix up the cream cheese and sugar substitute and cannot find my mixer.\u00a0 I take everything out of every cabinet and put it back. (bend and stretch and bend and stretch).\u00a0 I alternate this exercise with sprints out to Paul\u2019s office to check on the Jello, which I must catch when it is the consistency of egg whites.\u00a0 Find the mixer and mix up the cream cheese with the sugar substitute.\u00a0 Take it out to Paul\u2019s office.<\/p>\n I talk on the phone until the Jello is hard as a rock, I repeat the above steps and haul everything back into the kitchen.\u00a0 I run the mixer in the milk for a long time.\u00a0 It overruns my bowl and down the side of the cabinet, but does it form stiff peaks?\u00a0 I lift the mixer to see. \u00a0Forgot to turn off the mixer first and whipped cream flies all over the trailer.\u00a0 I cannot tell if the peaks are stiff, so I just mix up the whole thing as is.\u00a0 I discover I no longer own dessert dishes so I put the mixture in coffee cups.\u00a0 Paul may ask about his cup \u00a0when he makes coffee after while, but I will worry about that later.\u00a0 I make one last trip out to the refrigerator to stow the finished product.\u00a0 I come in and survey my wrecked kitchen and dining room.\u00a0 And living room.\u00a0 Every surface is covered with dirty bowls, spoons, and whipped cream. \u00a0 I clean up the mess (bend and stretch and reach and bend).<\/p>\n My Lemon Cloud has truly become a diet dessert. I have burned off a days worth of calories just in preparing the stuff! However, I decide I will give my readers the option of using Cool Whip. I secretly plan to do so in the future.<\/p>\n By the way — it still tasted pretty good — even with chewy clumps of Jello and a slightly frothier texture.\u00a0 And, of course, for people who have real kitchens with working appliances, even the \u201ccomplicated version\u201d won\u2019t be that hard.<\/p>\n The lesson for this slump time?\u00a0 Don\u2019t allow yourselves to be discouraged when life gets complicated.\u00a0 Keep things in perspective — and smile every chance you get.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Does it help to know that other people struggle, too?\u00a0 Just in case you thought I was advising you from the lofty heights of super-human ability, I decided to post this blog, which was not originally for publication. Note:\u00a0 Those who don\u2019t know me personally will need to know that my husband Paul and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n