Daily Constitutional

We live the next street over from school so for the last year I have been walking the kids to and from school (much to their dismay).  I am choosing to believe that the dismay is due to the walking rather than their walking companion but I can practically hear the clock ticking away the seconds until we hit teenage strops so I fear my days of arm in arm walking are numbered.

It's not a long walk.  If we're cutting it fine we can make it in 7 and a half minutes but even at a leisurely pace it barely takes 10.  Twice a day, 5 days a week, I walk to and from school.  When the kids are with me there are questions and stories and sometimes a bit of grumbling.  When I'm on my own there is thinking and planning and sometimes a bit of grumbling.  

Walking the same route where not much changes from day to day gives me the freedom to switch to auto-pilot.  The equivalent of those days when you drive home from work and don't even remember the journey.  I have tried to use my walk to engage in some active mindfulness but the nagging ever present mental load at the back of my mind always seems to butt in and take over.  

Maybe this is why women need more sleep than men.  We are tired from always having to remember.  Remember what?  Everything.  The stuff that needs to be added to the shopping list, the optician's appointment that needs to be booked, the birthday card that needs to be written.  The French graphic artist Emma wrote a piece which sums up the mental load up really well.

I have given up trying to be present and zen while I am walking and have allocated this as my getting organised time.  I figure if I can think about this time more positively then I might just be able to claim back some time later in the day for getting my mental house in order.  

Thinking I can do on the move, mindfulness I need to be sitting still for.    

I know what you did last summer

The other day I was looking for an address in town so this being 2019 I googled it.  "You visited here on 6 May" popped up on my screen.  "Eh, what?".  I had never been to the place before, hence my needing to google where it was.  After clicking on the message I discovered there is this thing called Location History in Google where if you have it switched on (and apparently I did), it tracks all the places you have been.  If I clicked on a certain date, Google could show me where I had been at any given time on that date.  

This could be seen as a bit stalkery if I hadn't inadvertently already agreed to it.  It might come in handy some day I suppose.  You know those police dramas where they ask "where were you at 1.17 pm on June 24th?", well at least now I would be able to provide myself with an alibi.  

Even on the rare occasions when I click on the Terms & Conditions section with the intention of reading through it, there are so many conditions and clauses and subsections that I never end up finishing them and just click accept regardless.  Which is ultimately what they hope you will do.  

If we ever stopped and really thought about the access we give to apps and companies, we would probably never touch another piece of technology again. Instead we blithely choose to disregard this aspect of our interaction with our devices.  It is "the price we pay" to stay connected.

On a recent trip to Christchurch I spent the first day walking round the city centre.  As I didn't know where I was going, the map looks like a spider dipped her bum in some ink, had a couple of vodka shots and then wove a crazy web.

#everystepyoutake
#enoughwiththetsandcs
#allovertheplace

The wheels on ...

There is a bus stop 100m from my front door but I have never used it to catch a bus.  In the 6 and a half years I have been living in New Zealand, I caught the bus for the first time last month and it wasn't even my local bus, it was in Christchurch.  I had no access to a car and the bus was the easiest way to get into town so on I hopped.  

What struck me first was the silence.  Here I was on a bus travelling with maybe 20 other people and it was eerily quiet.  No-one was speaking, there was no interaction, most people had their heads down looking at phones.  Having spent my youth on buses going to secondary school and then to college, the quiet made me sad.  My memory of past bus journeys feels like there was always the background noise of people talking.  The students debating where the cheapest pints could be found, the aul' ones discussing who had died, friends dissecting the night before and who said what to whom.  "She didn't!  She did!!!".  A wealth of entertainment for the casual eavesdropper.   

Now don't get me wrong, there were journeys where talking was the last thing on my mind.  I vividly remember a Russian Roulette trip home after the night before's double tequila shots threatened to make a reappearance.  Interesting side note, double shots do not go down all in one go and tequila is evil.  I'm sure as a student there were also many times I put my headphones on and passed the journey home in anti-social silence.  

If I was travelling by bus every day, chances are I would switch off from the outside world too.  It's probably just rose tinted nostalgia that has me fondly remembering the bus journeys of 25 years ago.  On my last day in Christchurch, I caught the bus back to the hotel.  I had been walking round all day, I was tired and hungry and not entirely sure which stop was mine.  Two teenage schoolgirls got on and proceeded to chat the entire journey about school, which teachers they liked, what they were going to do at the weekend and just like that, I was back on the bus to Kill with my faith in the bus going citizens of the world restored.  

    

Tightrope

It feels like I should make an announcement in the style of the start of a support group meeting.  "My name is Denise and I have only just joined Instagram". 

With the Blog and Facebook, I figured I had enough social media going on, so had thus far managed to avoid the lure of Instagram.  I'm trying to reduce the amount of time I spend on a screen not increase it.  All good, valid reasons to not venture any further into the myriad of social media options available.  

Alright, I will admit that laziness also played a factor.  I just couldn't be faffed with having to take loads of pictures and put filters on them and then think up witty hashtags whilst simultaneously fighting the urge to punctuate them properly.  It all seemed a bit like hard work when most of the time I spend my days doing things that are not even remotely Instagrammable.  Here's a photo of me doing the laundry.  Here I am trying to figure out what to have for dinner.  Not exactly influencer gold is it?    

The reason I joined Instagram was because I had the fear.  Not the fear of missing out. It was the fear of being an utterly clueless parent to two teenagers that did it.  I watched two programmes recently that scared the bejesus out of me.  The first one was called Spying on my Family.  It was about a family who gave each other open access to all their phones, devices and social media accounts.  The Dad of the family was appalled when he saw what his 14 and 11 year old sons were following on Instagram.  Scantily clad women featured heavily.  There were admissions that nudes had been asked for and received.  This guy wasn't your average clueless parent either, he was an ex-cop.  If he had no idea what his kids were doing online what the hell hope did I have.

The next programme I watched was called The Hunting.  It was an Australian drama about the ramifications of a nude teen photo scandal.  For me, this was the more terrifying of the two.  The sending and receiving of naked pictures was just accepted as being commonplace, an everyday occurrence, no big deal.  Seriously?  WTF?  Luckily I had recorded both programmes as I had to keep pausing them so I could vent and shout at the screen.  "Don't do it" I yelled at the teenage girl sending a naked photo to the boy she liked, "the internet is forever".  The cavalier sharing of the photo, then the cold calculation of distributing it to her peers and beyond.  The horror of it all.

There are some days when I bemoan getting older but I am truly grateful that I was a teenager well before social media was around.  It is hard enough for teenagers dealing with zig-zagging emotions, hormones and a body that seems to be working against them.  Now they are expected to be able to think about the potential future ramifications of their actions every time they take a picture or post something online.  When your brain is still developing and all your friends are doing it, how the hell are you supposed to say no?    
My kids are 11 and 9 so I only have a year or two to get up to speed.  To try to be able to adequately parent them through the shit storm of their teenage years and get them out the other side without having a digital footprint that will haunt them forever.  So I am starting with Instagram and even though the app they will end up using has probably not even been created yet, when it is, I will gamely join that too.  Because I don't want to be that parent who has no idea what their kid is up to.  I don't want to have to pick up the pieces when social media eats them alive.  I'm going to learn as much as I can so that when the time comes, I can teach them to walk the tightrope between being involved online and being safe.  Wish me luck. 

Same old same old

I had a rubbish sleep last night so when I woke up this morning I was tired and cranky and took forever to drag myself out of bed.  A shower woke me up somewhat but generally the going was slow.  When I started to make the kids' lunches I happened to look at the clock and noticed that I wasn't that much later than normal, especially considering my slow start.  Maybe I wasn't as late getting out of bed as I thought.  Maybe my slow, is actually quite quick.  

I thought back to mornings when I was still going out to work and always seemed to be rushing.  Then it hit me.  I wear a uniform now.  Yeah it's an unofficial one but looking in the wash basket, the evidence speaks for itself.  I wear the same thing every day - jeans, top, hoodie.  I don't even think about it anymore, it's automatic.  There's no "does this top go with those trousers and have I got a cardigan and necklace that will match".  When I think back to how much time I wasted figuring out what to wear in the mornings.  

I can see how people with limited time on their hands or a lot on their minds would gravitate to wearing the same clothes every day.  You can get a lot more done when you are not wasting brain space thinking about what you are going to wear.

Netflixin'

There hasn't been much in the way of comedy on TV here lately.  Well not decent comedy anyway, so I have been turning to Netflix when I need a laugh.  Here's what's been tickling my funny bone of late.  

Workin' Moms - I am loving the new series, have laughed out loud multiple times.  This show makes doing the ironing bearable.

Derry Girls - The mix of nostalgia, teenage shenanigans and blatant swearing never fails to crack me up.

Atypical - More laugh out loud moments from this quirky comedy. 


This quote has nothing to do with Netflix, it just makes me smile every time I read it.

The little annoyances

When you're not a dress person but you see a dress you like and you go to the effort of taking your clothes off to try it on and the dress actually looks quite good on you but you think to yourself "when would I even wear it?", so you hum and hah in the changing room and finally decide you will sleep on it and if you still like it tomorrow you will come back and buy it.  

So tomorrow comes and you're still thinking about the dress and working out ways to justify spending money on it when you don't have a job but when you think about it, it's not even really that expensive but then again Christmas is coming and new school uniforms need to be bought in January.  Then you remember that you have been meaning to have a clear out so if you sell some stuff online then that will pay for the not even very expensive dress and will also reduce the clutter in your house.  Bonus!  

Happy with your sound reasoning and thorough thought process you skip back to the shop to reunite yourself with the dress which has by now acquired "already planning what shoes to wear with it" status, only to find someone else has bought it and there are no more in your size...

Curious Company

On my blog Facebook page there is a suggested groups section.  These are groups that Facebook has decided might be worth joining as my page to "reach more people who may be interested in your page".  

The suggested groups include - Survivors of Emotional Abuse, Loving Someone with BPD, Brain Injury Survivors, Making Ostomies Cool and somewhat bizarrely, Casefile True Crime Podcast Discussion Group.  

I think I may need to focus on writing some more cheery upbeat posts...

Enough

I did a two hour restorative yoga class a while back.  It was a great way to wrap up one month and head into another.  The poses are supported taking all the effort out so you get a really good stretch without having to do very much work.  Just what you want on a Sunday afternoon.

Along with the extended holding of poses, there was loads of extra time for relaxation and meditation at the end.  Despite my best intentions, my mind started to wander.  Amongst the random thoughts and things to add to my to do list, came the wishes.  I wish I was more like her, she seems to enjoy being a SAHM, hosting elaborate birthday parties for her kids and posting weekly Insta-worthy #preciousmemories.  I wish I was more like her, she never seems to lack ambition or goals.  I wish I had her ability to chat to people and make friends.  I wish I had her openness and trusting nature.  I wish, I wish, I wish.

Maybe it's time to stop with the wishing.  Maybe it's ok to not have figured out what I want to be when I grow up yet.  Maybe this is what I am supposed to be doing right now.  Comparing myself with other people only ends badly for me so maybe I need to focus on being good enough for me.

Stress

Things that are guaranteed to raise my heart rate.

• Arriving late for an appointment.
• Driving somewhere new.
• Cooking a new recipe with lots of ingredients.
• Going into a shop 5 minutes before they are due to close.
• Baking with children.
• Overtaking.
• Fitting everything into the case at the end of a long haul holiday.
• Walking into an unfamiliar bar trying to find the friends I am meeting.
• Parallel parking when it's raining.
• Catering for large groups of people.
• Going to a new hairdresser for the first time.

Close to the Edge

When my kids were babies, crying was the only way they had to communicate.  I learned to tell their different cries - the tired cry, the hungry cry, the I'm having a complete and utter meltdown cry.  When they learned to talk, interpreting their needs became a lot easier.  There was still crying but not as often.  

As parents, how well we deal with crying kids can be relative to how much sleep/food/caffeine we have had and also who is within earshot.  We have all been that mother with a clenched jaw and a fixed smile telling our kid "come on now, you're alright" when really we want to screech at them to "stop that crying or there'll be no screens till you're 25".  

It's Friday today.  The last day of the kids' two weeks holidays and I think it's fair to say that I have reached saturation point when it comes to "quality time" with my darling children.  You know you are close to the edge when you hear one of them crying downstairs and rather than wondering if they are ok, you think to yourself "Really? You had to wait till I was in the loo to start crying?  Can I seriously not even have a wee in peace? FFS".  

Roll on Monday morning school drop off.....

Death Row Dining

If it was your last day on earth what would you eat?  

I think they only get to choose their dinner on death row but I'm going for the full day.  Also, I'm not gluten free on death row and I can eat garlic without feeling the need to curl up into a ball of cramps.

Breakfast
Eggs Benedict with spinach and bacon and some Superquinn sausages on the side.
Toast with marmalade with no bits in it.
A never ending pot of tea.

Lunch
Chicken soup with my Granny's wheaten bread and loads of butter.
A giant chocolate eclair from Avoca.
Another never ending pot of tea.

Dinner
Mussels in a white wine & garlic sauce with fresh crusty bread.
Linguine with prawns & clams in a garlic & chilli sauce.
Tarte au Citron with whipped cream.


Whatever I cook for dinner tonight is going to be a disappointment isn't it...

I would be more productive if I stopped...

• Aimlessly scrolling through Facebook when there are 50 million better things I could be doing.
• Checking notifications as soon as my phone beeps (see above).
• Doing laundry so frequently.  (Our washing machine broke recently and when it came back 10 days later we were still nowhere near running out of clothes.  Definitely time for a wardrobe cull).
• Cooking every night.  Leftovers are the way of the future.
• Checking Pinterest for the perfect picture to go with these posts and then realising half an hour has passed and I still need to finish the damn thing.
• Channel surfing when the programme I was watching has finished and it's time for bed anyway.
• Going to bed late but then still reading for way too long.  Morning me curses night time me on a semi-regular basis.

Book of the Year (so far)

I find it hard to remember what books I have read in a month, never mind a year and then to have to narrow down which were my favourites?  Goodreads to the rescue.  What should have been a quick scroll back through this year's books went on a few tangents so I could click on various books to jog my memory.  Usually an indication that it's not going to make the short list for best book if I can't even remember what it was about.

These were the ones that stood out for me this year*.  

Fiction
Normal People by Sally Rooney
You know when your friend is seeing someone that doesn't treat them well?  This is like awkwardly eavesdropping on their entire messed up relationship.  You feel like you shouldn't be listening but you can't help yourself.  I've just read another of her books, Conversations with Friends and really enjoyed it too. 


Non-Fiction
2040 by Damon Gameau
I liked how this book gave practical examples of how we can all do something to help slow down climate change.  He doesn't gloss over how bad things are but when I finished this book I felt hopeful rather than depressed.

  * These books weren't necessarily published in 2019, I just happened to read them this year.

Fun & Games

When I was growing up there were 4 houses beside each other with kids of similar ages.  There were 11 of us in total, 4 girls and 7 boys.  This was before play dates were invented.  There was no working around after school activity schedules in those days.  Everyone just went out the front and played with whoever was around.  If we needed more people to make up teams we knocked on the door and asked if they were coming out to play.  

Supervision consisted of an open window and a parent who was vaguely within earshot.  We played on the road or in the various gardens.  The road wasn't a busy one, it ended in a cul-de-sac so shouting "car" was usually enough to ensure no-one was mowed down.  The worst injury I sustained as a child was when I fell off the wall I was walking along in the back garden into a thorny bush while wearing very short shorts.  My thighs have rarely seen daylight since.    

We played games like Kerbs (where you have to bounce a football off the opposite kerb from various distances), Sticks (where you jumped between 3 sticks which were moved further and further apart) and Tip the Can (a cross between Chasing, Hide & Seek and Survivor).  The games ended when dinner was ready or it got dark outside.  The rules were fluid and oft-debated.     

I was reminded of those childhood games recently when my own kids were out playing football on the reserve (sort of a mini-park) beside our house.  They were joined by a couple of kids from up the road, then a few more from down the road came along and before they knew it, there were 9 kids milling about playing happily together.  It started out as football, then merged into touch rugby before it descended into a complete free for all.  The game ended when I called them in for dinner.  In they came, sweaty and ravenous and full of chat about the games they had played and the goals they had scored, the winners and the losers, the kids with the mad skills and the ones who weren't very good but tried their hardest.  History is repeating itself in the best possible way.

The 4 Seasons

Not the Vivaldi hold music or the hotel chain, I'm talking nature, weather, traditions.  

So here goes, my 3 favourite things about each of the seasons. 

Spring
Walking on a windy day - nothing like a stroll on a blustery day to blow away the cobwebs and make you feel alive.

Downgrading the layers - the joy of being able to go outside without needing a jacket/thermal vest on.

Flowers - seeing flowers bloom in the garden and realising how much a pop of colour can brighten my day when I open the curtains.


Summer
Skirts - wearing skirts without having to think about tights which everyone knows are evil.

Salad - just wash a bit of veg, throw a few potatoes on and some leftover chicken and hey presto dinner is ready.

A cold drink on a hot day - is there anything better?


Autumn
Cosy clothes - I get to dig out my boots and my hoarder like stash of scarves.

Colourful leafy trees - much more interesting than plain old green leaves.

Goodbye suncream - No more having to smother suncream on my extremities every time I want to leave the house for longer than 5 minutes.  Did I mention that I burn easily?


Winter
Frosty mornings - walking on crunchy grass and breathing out in big puffs so it looks like I am smoking (or vaping if it's a really big breath) never gets old.

Soup - makes me warm from the inside out and uses up that dodgy looking veg in the bottom of the fridge, it's a win, win.

Afternoon Escapes - those days when it's horrible out and the only place to be is on the couch with a good book, a large cup of tea and a cosy blanket.  It should go without saying that this experience would benefit greatly from being child free, with the addition of chocolate only serving to enhance.

Unexpected item in the bagging area

One of the many things I miss from Ireland is newspapers, or more specifically the weekend newspapers.  I never had the time or inclination to read a daily paper but I did like the weekend papers, even if it usually took me the full week to finish them.  Newspapers here just don't compare and reading the Irish papers online doesn't have the same appeal.  I especially like the Review section of the Saturday Independent.  It covers a good range of topics and introduces things I would not otherwise stumble upon in my everyday life.  

My parents kept a stash of Reviews for me to read when I was home in July but a combination of jet lag and late nights meant that I didn't have the brain capacity to read them then.  I brought them back with me and put them in my to read box.  I used to put my to read stash on the bookshelf in the sitting room but the pile would look at me reproachfully when I was in the throes of a Netflix binge so I moved it to a box under the side table where it was out of sight but close at hand.  

Yesterday I was dusting (a rare enough occurrence) and whilst giving the lid a wipe, I opened the box to see how much was in there.  The excitement!  I had totally forgotten about the Reviews.  So what if some of the stuff is old and the events have already happened.  There are book reviews galore, recommendations for shows that will hopefully make it to Netflix here and articles that help paint a picture of what Ireland is like beyond the front page headlines.  I am beside myself with the unexpectedness of it all.    

The Fear

You know that feeling when you have to do something that you really don't want to do and it's not even that you don't want to do it, it's that you're scared.  Stomach churning, heart thumping, s**t scared.  It may defy all logic and make sense to no-one but you but still it persists.  The fear.  

Last week I faced a fear that I have been avoiding for quite some time.  I could have dodged it again but I thought "No. I need to get over myself.  How bad could it be?".  You're probably thinking "Well done you, good woman yourself".  Well before you get carried away, you should probably know that even though I did the thing that scared me, it only served to confirm that it was definitely as scary as I thought it would be and I should never do it again.

Let's just say that me and steep driveways where you feel like you are plummeting to your death on the way down and all you can see is sky when you are driving back up, are not ever going to see eye to eye.

Doppelganger

A while back I was in a shop I had never been in before, in a shopping centre I had never been in before, in a city three hours from where I live.  A woman came up to me and started chatting to me.  Like full on chatting as if she knew me.  After a moment's blind panic thinking, wait do I actually know this woman and I've just lost my mind, I realised that no, she was a complete stranger.  

I interrupted her gently and suggested that maybe she was mistaking me for someone else.  I figured my accent would quickly tip her off to the fact that I wasn't who she thought I was.  Apparently not.  She was adamant that we had met previously and my two daughters went to the same school as hers.  I explained that I only had one daughter and I lived in Rotorua not Auckland.  She didn't seem convinced.  

So if you are an Irish woman who lives in Auckland, has two daughters and looks like me and now the school gate Mums think you are rude because you won't talk to them in Sylvia Park, I do apologise.    

Like Inktober but sort of not

So there is this cool thing called Inktober which is a month long art challenge where artists are given prompts and are challenged to produce ink drawings based on their interpretation of the prompts.  I thought this was an interesting way to encourage people to be creative whilst exploring subjects they possibly wouldn't normally consider.  

All very inspiring but other than stick people, I can't actually draw so that could be a slight issue.  Never fear, Pinterest has thrown up a writing prompts version of Inktober so I'm going to give that a go.  This is really just a heads up that there may be some random posts coming your way in October but don't worry, I haven't completely lost the plot.

Read Me

I'm a great woman for lists.  My favourite being my to read list.  I used to write it in my diary/notebook but a couple of years ago I started using www.goodreads.com as not only can I add in the books I would like to read, I also now have a list of books that I have already read.  Especially helpful when publishers decide to change the cover of a book and thus trick me into thinking that I haven't read it.  

When I head to the library I usually have a quick check of my to read list to see if  anything is available.  Today was the perfect storm - 5 of my to read books were available.  Considering I am already in the middle of a book, I should probably have opted for moderation and just taken one or maybe two, but moderation is overrated so I took the lot!  

For the foreseeable future my catchphrase is going to be "I'll just finish this page....".

Anchor Me

As a child I remember getting a diary one year for Christmas.  Full of eagerness, I cracked it open and busied myself filling in all the birthdays of my family and friends.  The first week or two were filled with thoughts and happenings of the day.  Then as time wore on the entries became more sparse.

"Ate breakfast.  Went to school. Swimming lesson after school.  Had chicken for dinner".

Rather than a reflection on how my day had felt, it became a list of things I had done.  I was reminded of my childhood diary today when I wrote a list.  This was not like my normal list of things to do, this was a list of things that I had already done.  None of the things I did were on a to do list so I didn't even have the satisfaction of crossing them off.  So why bother?

The why stems partially from a need to justify my existence, partially from the hope that on days when the list is lacking, it will spur me on to get off my ass and do things.  It's also a way to give some sort of definition to my days.  You know on police dramas when they ask the suspect "Where were you on the morning of April 23?".  I would scoff to myself, "like any normal person would have a clue how to answer that question!".  Then I realised that I couldn't remember what I had done on Monday.  And it was only Thursday.  Of the same week.  And I literally hadn't a clue.  

Eventually I pieced together some memories and sort of remembered how Monday had gone.  Now I don't think I am in danger of early onset dementia just yet, it's more a case that my days lack a huge amount of structure so they tend to blend together.  If nothing significant happens then there are very little distinguishing features to identify one day from the next.  

When you go out to work you normally have a routine.  A rough schedule that may differ slightly from day to day but ultimately forms a framework to how your week looks.  When you are at home without any little ones to take care of, the possibilities are vast and endless (as long as they can be done by school pick up time).  But vast is an overwhelming thing to face down every morning.  Especially when you are also trying to figure what the hell you want to do with your life. 

Some days it would be easier to just bury myself in cleaning because it appears there is always something in this house that needs to be cleaned.  If only I didn't detest cleaning so much this could make for a fulfilling day.  Remember when you were supposed to be studying for an exam but instead you would make your bed and tidy your room and do literally anything you could find to do rather than study?  Well that's me with cleaning.  The only reason I ever iron is because then I can justify watching Netflix in the middle of the day.

Much as I like structure and order, I don't want to become the sort of person who always bakes on Monday and does the grocery shopping on Tuesday and has a set task for every day of the week.  I do like the flexibility that I have at the moment but some days I feel like I need to rein it in a bit.  There's a fine line between planning a project and losing 3 hours to Pinterest in the name of "research".  

  

The Little Things

There has been a whiff of the martyr about me of late.  A faint hint of "woe is me" in the air.  When offered dessert, I politely decline with a rueful shake of the head.  Bakeries are swiftly passed with only the occasional wistful backward glance.  Restaurant menus have become a minefield of delicious downfalls.

Bread rolls warm from the oven, wheaten bread with lashings of butter and jam, chewy sourdough, spongy focaccia, oozy garlic bread - you are a fond but distant memory.

But why?  Why would I intentionally deprive myself of such tasty treats?  Why would I choose to avoid so many things I like to eat?  Because dear friends, I have been betrayed by what I love the most.  Damn you gluten and your delicious elastic proteins.

When your belly is so bloated after eating that you look like you are 5 months pregnant and the noise your stomach makes while trying to process your food sounds like that creature from Alien is about to burst forth, something has to change.

After about a year of feeling not quite right and having ruled out anything sinister, I went to see a dietitian to see if we could figure out what was going on.  I kept a food diary for a couple of weeks before I went in and as she read through it there was a lot of head nodding and aha-ing.  At last I thought, an answer to the question of what was causing the problems.  Well everything apparently.

Ok that's probably a slight exaggeration but it definitely felt like it at the time.  The dietitian suspected that Irritable Bowel Syndrome might be the culprit and yes it is exactly as much fun as it sounds.  I had to do a four week elimination diet where I ate a very limited range of foods to try to reset my system.  Imagine the most boring bland things you can eat - no bread, no pasta, no fruit.  The first week was spent in a hangry haze.  The second week felt like I ate rice for every meal.  The last two weeks were more of the same.

After the four weeks were up I started reintroducing various foods to see how I reacted to them.  Badly seemed to be the general consensus.  So goodbye gluten, onions, garlic, apples, pears and cherries.  Farewell bread, pasta, noodles, couscous, wraps, crackers and greasy food.  Hello to the weird "free from" aisle in the supermarket.

I was not a happy camper.  Most evenings when cooking dinner, onions and garlic were the first things into the pot.  Not any more.  Staring into the cupboards all I could see where things I couldn't eat but really, really wanted to.  Breakfast was fine, I just ate the muesli I usually ate.  For lunch on the go I could grab some sushi.  Dinner and snacks were where I really struggled.  No more grabbing an apple and a quick sandwich.  Sure you can get gluten free bread and it is fine when toasted but it's stodge city if you use it for a sandwich.  Plus the slices are tiny and it costs three times the price of normal bread.

So began months of trial and error, a bit like moving to a new country and trying out different brands and foods you've never seen before.  Some things worked, some not so much.  Quinoa was better than I thought it would be, once I figured out it needs to be made with stock to have any semblance of flavour.  I found a nice gluten free pizza base and a ready mixed chocolate brownie pack.  I have officially given up on GF wraps as they taste how I imagine soggy cardboard would and as for konjac noodles, they had the consistency of an elastic band and were binned after the first mouthful.

I have tried to minimise the impact of my change in diet on my family.  Dinner now involves a lot more washing up as my pasta or sauce is cooked in a separate pot.  We eat way more rice and potatoes than we used to.  Mostly I have accepted the changes with good grace as I do definitely feel better but sometimes I still feel a bit hard done by.

Last week taught me to get over myself and appreciate the little things.  I had a stomach bug so had  nothing for three days apart from 7 up and re-hydration sachets.  Once I was over the worst of it and starting to feel hungry again, I decided to chance some toast.  The unbridled joy of a piece of warm toast (even GF toast) dripping with melted butter.  It was a gastronomic delight after three days of a gurgling empty stomach.

Maybe it's time to leave behind what I can't have and start focusing on being grateful for what I do have.

When is a Blog not a Blog?

In amongst the timber varnishing and the school field trips and the myriad of other random jobs I have been keeping myself busy with lately, I found the time to do something that most definitely forced me out of my comfort zone.  I made a piece of art and submitted it to a local exhibition. 

When I first saw the call for artists for the exhibition I thought "hmm maybe" but dismissed the idea because I've never done anything like this before.  Then I thought about it some more and bounced a few ideas around but I couldn't figure out how I could make it work so I gave up.  But it kept niggling away at the back of my mind so I had a word with myself about how 2019 is supposed to be the year of opportunities and if that was really the case then how could I let this one pass me by.  The hardest part, other than figuring out what I was going to make, was believing that just possibly I might be good enough. 

So I starting working on it, still thinking that I was just doing it for myself, to see if I could and that I probably wouldn't go as far as submitting it.  The submission deadline loomed closer which gave me the incentive to get it finished but even then I wasn't sure I was going to enter it.  I mean this was an exhibition that proper, real artists were going to have pieces in and here was I, so clueless I had to ask the organisers what I should put for "medium" on my registration form.  Talk about imposter syndrome!

In the end, I decided that if I didn't at least submit it, I would always wonder so I took a leaf out of Eleanor Roosevelt's book and did something that day that scared me.  I was so nervous dropping it off that it was only on the way home that I realised I hadn't even taken a picture of it!  

To my great excitement (and enormous relief), it was accepted and has been on display this month as part of the Words exhibition.  I am a little bit proud of myself. 

  

Teenage Kicks

Mary's got a new job, she's working in the bank.....

If you know the next line to this song then chances are you were a teenager in Ireland in the early nineties.  I came across a box of old tapes recently and as luck would have it I still have an old boom box that can play tapes, which practically classifies it as an antique these days.  Teenage memories abounded as I cleaned bathrooms accompanied by the soundtrack to my youth.

In this modern world of skipping ahead to the song you want, I had forgotten how long it takes to rewind and fast forward.  The guess work of how long to let it run before checking if you were in the right spot.  How is it that I can't remember things that happened last week but I can remember the words to songs I haven't heard in literally decades?  Memories of nights out and concerts and road trips came flooding back.  Today I was physically in New Zealand but mentally I was back in Nijinsky's, The Ambassador, the road to Killarney before the motorway was built, summer time in Germany.  

This isn't a cassette tape, it's a time machine.

  

Nothing changes if nothing changes

We often linger for years in spaces that are too small and shabby for the grandeur of our spirit - John O'Donohue.

After three and a half years in a negative, unpleasant working environment doing a job that offered little challenge and no scope for growth, I finally decided enough was enough and quit my job.  I figured that nothing changes if nothing changes and the end of the year seemed like a good time to draw a line and move on.  My month's notice was spent veering from freaking out that I had made a huge mistake and wouldn't find another job to feeling like a huge weight had been lifted.  Life's too short and all that.  

What am I moving on to?  Well the short answer is I have no idea.  Maybe I will stay in events, maybe I will try my hand at something completely new.  I have decided to look at 2019 as the year of opportunities.  Bring it on!