Tag Archives: Life

The 14 Day Eating Challenge (Yet Another Way to Make Me Cranky)

Posted in Misguided Musings by

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The challenge title is misleading.  It’s not challenging one to eat, which would totally be a challenge I would GLADLY take on.  It’s challenging one to eat RIGHT.  A group of us ladies have decided to follow our fearless leader into the depths of healthiness (and despair) by accepting her carefully laid out plan for healthy eating…and Gawd knows what else, because we are supportive. And awesome. And probably a little drunk from the holidays to really think this through.

Anyways, like any carefully strategic plan for world domination, there are rules…quid pro quos…stuff that’s listed that’s forbidden to eat/drink/consume… stuff I ate in large quantities over the holidays that apparently are BAD for me.  Pffft… We are to read the list, memorize the list…basically, BE ONE WITH THE LIST.  Ugh…here we go….

My thoughts are in the parentheses…

This is the list of NO’s:

  1. No chips (dat’s okay, don’t mind’em anyways)
    2. No white potatoes (don’t mind ‘dat either.)
    3. No Ice cream   (so far this is easy….)
    4. No fast food   (Okay, so no Micky D’s for a while)
    5. No fried food   (Nudding? Hmmm)
    6. No chocolate   (WHAT?!  But…not ONE BITE?! I may die)
    7. No white bread (fine.  No homemade bread )
    8. No soda or juice   (done)
    9. No cakes, cookies, donuts, etc.  (I’m thinking the “etc” part includes everything I love)
    10. No added sugar of any kind (Sweet Jesus, lady WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!…okay, I’ll need to breathe for a while…)

Sugars – Avoid all added sugars for this challenge.  (ugh…sooooo gonna die)
Substitute Sugars – Avoid all substitute sugars, including stevia. While it’s not a sugar, the idea of the challenge is not only to get sugar out of your diet, but also to get you away from the need for something sweet.  ( and away from eating stuff that tastes better than the cardboard boxes those sweet donuts from heaven came packed in)
Alcohol – Avoid alcohol because it can make your cravings worse.  (but if you’re drunk, you won’t notice the cravings, will ‘ya? )   

I started a day earlier, just because I wanted to be able to focus and ease myself into this 14 day hell ride we call HEALTHY EATING.   Whatever…

Things I discovered today, Day One:

I drank my first cup of coffee EVER with nothing in it but a bit o’milk.  Tasted like crap, but I’m willing to try it again…not sure why…I guess I can be convinced of anything.  Next I’ll be signing up for Scientology classes and Leah Remini will be trying to save me…

I like sugar.  EVERYTHING has added sugar, so I’m focusing on fresh fruit and veggies and almonds.  Boring as hell, but it gets me through my morning….but I still want to stab somebody in the throat for no sugar in my morning coffee…

By 11:30 I needed another coffee.  Usually by this time, I have had 2 or 3 cups.  I only had the one since I wasn’t relishing the taste without the sugar.  So some may say “another benefit” while I’m saying “I WANNA KILL SOMEBODY SO I’LL STAY IN MY OFFICE, THANKS”

I found I drank more water out of desperation. Desperation will make you do crazy things…who has Tom Cruise’s number?

Why does it seem to be more water exiting my body, than entering it?  Seriously.  The bathroom at work is going to get my name plate plastered on it.

Did you know that salad dressing has added sugar in it?  WORK WITH ME PEOPLE.  I’M EATING A GODDAMNED SALAD.  THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS PROVIDE A DECENT –TASTING- SAUCY- LOVELINESS TO MAKE IT TASTE BETTER THAN STALE CARROTS AND GRASS FROM LAST SPRING’S THAW!!

See?  A wee bit stabby.

DAY 2 SHOULD BE AWESOME….

koala-eating-salad

Thanks for Making Me A Better Smartass, Apple.

Posted in Misguided Musings by

I should not be allowed to have any kind of ability to message memes or GIFs to other people on my contact list.  It can easily get out of hand and I will substitute actual words for a video clip.  It’s like Apple decided I shouldn’t speak, but allow others to do the talking for me, so they give me all of these options of random celebrities doing awesome facial expressions like rolling their eyes or sticking out their tongues or giving people the finger…you know, stuff I do all of the time, only now I can get Beyonce to do it for me!  HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!  I can be Beyonce without actually being Beyonce.

Conversation has taken a back seat to Justin Timberlake dancing or a random actor rolling their eyes or even Prince looking bored and uninterested.  If my kids ask me a question, they brace themselves waiting to see if I respond with actual words, or a short vid of Honey Boo Boo dancing like a maniac.

Apple has made it so easy for me to basically dumb down any communication to a glib video response instead of a long drawn out ‘okay’  or ‘Thanks for letting me know’ or the ever popular ‘WTF?!’ Now all I need is a search term and a little patience to scroll through all the video clips, then pick the best one and voila!  My answer to the question of ‘what’s for dinner?’  ‘Did you remember to pick up Son?’  or ‘I got an A on my paper!’ is as easy as typing ‘dinner’ and I get clips of food and people eating food and sarcastic memes about food, all at my fingertips waiting for me to push send.  The possibilities are as endless as the videos and when I run out of them, I simply type in another search term and BAM, more choices to be sarcastic without even typing a single word!  APPLE FINALLY GETS ME.

There is a downside to my laziness…the written/spoken word is diminishing before my eyes and I’m unwittingly supporting it.  I’m a major contributor to the degradation of society by allowing myself to fall victim to the temptation of random video responses!  WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?!

I know what’s wrong with me.

It’s easy.  It’s fun.  It’s engaging.  It’s smartassiness at its finest and I FUCKING LOVE IT.

I enjoy the search for the videos and the reactions I get when I send them.  I like seeing the funny face or the OMG STOP IT, from my kids or my friends who I bother at work…or in the middle of the night.  You can even do it while you’re drunk, and people will just think you’re being a smartass.  Not that I’ve ever done that, before.   I think I should actually text words a little more often.  Everyone may be expecting a video response every time they message me, so they’ll stop messaging me and then they’ll stop speaking to me.  Pretty soon, they won’t even want to text or talk or anything!  I WILL LOSE ALL COMMUNICTATION WITH MY CHILDREN AND MY FRIENDS ALL BECAUSE TAYLOR SWIFT HAS A BETTER EYE ROLL THAN ME!    SOCIETY WILL COME TO SCREECHING HALT AND CONVERSATION WILL BE OBLITERATED IN THE FAVOUR OF A BEYONCE HAIR FLIP!  EVERYBODY WILL THINK I’M A WICKED SMARTASS BECAUSE OF THE FLIPPANT VIDEOS DRIPPING WITH SARCASM AND SASSINESS!

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Now, I’m not only the worst conversationalist ever, I’m the BEST smartass ever.

Way to go Apple.  YOU JUST MADE MY LIFE.

Backward is the New Forward

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I like being alone.  I crave time by myself.  Many of us introverted types usually do.  We don’t care if we have a houseful of people and we aren’t looking to be with a crowd.  We tend to want to be with ourselves.  We need time to think.  We need time to be…well, just be.  It’s not that I’m anti-social, I don’t think I’m anti-anything, it’s just I like being with me.  I have shit to think about.  Stuff to read.  Stuff to write.  Stuff to paint.  Just stuff to do that doesn’t include others.  I get in a crowd and it makes me uncomfortable.  I’m much better than I used to be, but still…it makes me edgy.  It’s better when I know everyone and they know me and aren’t expecting me to be witty, or engaging or a major conversationalist.  I suck at conversation.  I can be witty with a couple of glasses of wine and a good friend or two, but more than that and I shut down.  I get nervous.  I think they have more interesting things to say that I would like to listen to.  Not that I’m not intelligent enough to participate, on the contrary I can be a smart ass…just, I have to know that you can take it first.  I can talk about books and authors and movies and sentence structure and my dog and…other stuff.  You just have to show me that you’re interested in that stuff too.  We make you work for our time…you have to show us that you want to be in our company.  We don’t NEED somebody else to feel ‘complete’ or to feel like we matter.  We matter.  We know that.  We like our space.  Our time.

We introverts are around but we aren’t as noticeable as our extroverted counterparts.  We usually aren’t the life of the party.  We tend to watch the goings on.  Not that we don’t speak up, we just listen first.  We tend to be lurking in the shadows or watching from the sidelines.  We’re not ‘stuck up’ or think we are superior, we just wait until we feel we have something important to contribute.

I was always labelled ‘shy’…even ‘backward’.  I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean.  Backward.  Like, I walk backwards?  I talk backwards?  I don’t think I think backwards.  I behave backwards?  Who the hell made this up?  Somebody backwards…

I think we are a misunderstood species.  I think people make many assumptions about our personalities before they have the opportunity to get to know us better, but then again, that happens with anyone who is perceived as different…or even ‘backward’.  It’s assumed we don’t like people or parties or any type of social gathering, so don’t get invited.  It’s assumed we are stuck up, or have a superiority complex.  We’re just quiet.  It’s assumed we are ignorant or even stupid.  We’re just waiting for an intelligent conversation and don’t want to bore you with semantics.  It’s assumed we have nothing to contribute, but we just are waiting for the opportunity.  We don’t do small talk.  It’s uninteresting to talk about the weather and who really wants to know if it’s raining out…again.  We take our time and want to get to know someone before jumping in to anything.  Our time is valuable and so is yours.

I’m saying ‘we’ because this isn’t just a ‘me’ thing.  Introverts are nothing new and I’m not alone.  It’s like a movement of sorts, now.  There’s Quietrev   a website that has a newsletter I receive regularly in my email that talks about being an introvert and how being ‘quiet’ doesn’t mean that you are any less important, less intelligent or less anything.  It discusses how to make gains in professional circles where networking is a key component and how to maneuver in a world that tends to dismiss the quiet few and reward the noisy majority.  ‘Squeaky wheel gets the oil?’ is that the saying?  We think that’s wrong.  We can be heard, just in our own way and time.

Blogging gives me my voice.  Writing gives me the opportunity to say what I’m thinking and people get to know me who otherwise may have had the knee-jerk reaction to dismiss me as uninterested or ‘stuck-up’, or that I simply have nothing to say.  No part of that is true.

Give us our space and time and we will give you our thoughts…just don’t expect us to yell over anyone to be heard.

Moving Forward Reluctantly

Posted in Misguided Musings, Pessimistic Parenting by

I was debating how to start this one, as it’s fraught with euphemisms and ‘life is like a box of chocolate’ kind of sayings.  It’s challenging and scary and moving forward is always hard.  Children become adults without even blinking and suddenly university is over and moving out is on the horizon.  And not just moving across town.  Moving across the country.  Moving to another province, another time zone, another way of life.  Ugh.  When did I give birth to adults?  This is a lot harder than they told me.  I don’t remember anybody saying that moving on would be harder on the parents than the adult-seeming children from whom I wiped snot from their runny noses and caught their vomit in buckets and chauffeured them to dance classes and guitar lessons and Tae Kwon Do sessions and even the occasional hockey-from-hell practices.  Christmas presents are no longer dolls or toys or games, but dishes for their new apartments, or new bedding for the new beds or gas cards to get them across the province.  We don’t eat supper together every night because one is running to work then class, another is running from class to work and the third one is preparing his four thousand word essay on the bombing of Hiroshima and can I possibly let him eat in his room tonight?  Gawd, where did these people come from?

The daughters will be finishing up university in the Spring which has brought discussions of Chapter 3 into the round table.  Everybody wants to be supportive, but with applications flying from one end of the country to the other, my nerves are starting to fray.   I’ve got one with ambitions of working in Intelligence and one nursing in a warmer climate.  I’ve got the other one applying for unis in Ontario and BC and then saying ‘well, you know I have to think about Medical school down the road.’  MEDICAL SCHOOL???!!!  WHO ARE YOU?!  WHERE’S MY LITTLE BOY WHO SPILLED CHEERIOS ON THE FLOOR AND REFUSED TO SPEAK UNTIL HE WAS THREE AND SANG ‘INAPPROPRIATE’ SONGS TO HIS GRADE ONE TEACHER?!!  * As a side, they weren’t really ‘inappropriate’, but when your kid goes to school singing “Save a horse, ride a cowboy” you get a call….

I had a long discussion with co-worker who has been through this with his son and he was very good at allaying my fears.  “She’ll be fine.  She’ll land on her feet.  It will work out.”    Okay, I’ll nod and trust you are right.

In the meantime, I’ll be around the house looking at old photos and lamenting the times the children were children and asking for friends to come over to play barbies and making snow forts in the backyard and NOT looking to get as far away from me as possible…

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A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Tattoo Studio…

Posted in Misguided Musings, Pessimistic Parenting by

Apparently, when you turn fifty something inexplicable happens to your brain.  Decisions are made based on what would be fun, or what could transform a little life into something exciting.  Looking down the tunnel towards old age, it gets necessary to move in a more forward thinking direction.  What have I not done in my life that I really should do?  Like, now.  Do now.   Take a plunge.  Leap. Dance.  Get a tattoo.

A tattoo?  Yes.   With Daughter.  She asked me and in an instant I said ‘yes’.  I didn’t even hesitate or flinch.  I just jumped in. No debating, no weighing the options, just jumped.  It’s only a little ink, right?

Let’s do it.  She was so excited.  I was too…until we walked into the tattoo studio for our consultation and then I realized it was actually happening. A permanent drawing on my body.  Ready?  Hmm….

Oh, sure there was a lot of checking with me to see if I was on board.  Was I sure?  Daughter and I looked over literally hundreds of designs.  What size?  Did we want colour?  How about the image itself?  There were many I nixed based on size.  There were more she declined based on simplicity. I was going for simple.  At my age, simple was imperative.  A few weeks later and we had our first appointment.

We made our way down to the studio.  A little red door on a downtown street.  Colourful art and sketches cover the wall of an old walk-up; aged wooden floorboards creaked beneath our feet; plaster ceilings and vintage crown moldings.  There was a park bench and an old tattoo chair adorning a tiny living room complete with sofa and coffee table. Directly across from the green micro-fibre sofa hung precariously from an old nail, a shrunken pirate head with ginger beard and eye patch.  Perfect.

We sat down with the artist in that room to go over our ideas for our tattoos.  She was a young woman, grey haired and sweet.  I saw no visible tattoos, however, just peeking out from under the hiked-up sleeve of her sweater I could see a black swirl like the wispy end of a tail.  Ah, there it is.

She asked questions.  Allayed our fears.  Calmed me down a bit.  We went through our ideas and she took the time to get to know exactly what we had in mind.

We chose daisies and asked the artist to do a sketch and send it to us just so we could imagine what it would look like permanently inked on our skin.

The day of the appointment arrived and Daughter picked me up.  She was so excited, how could I not be?  She went first.  Watching the tattoo artist was like watching somebody paint a picture while doing a bit of surgery at the same time.  There’s the whir of the instrument, the chatter of voices and the wincing of Daughter’s face.  She was so determined not to move, she made herself shake.  I asked Daughter what it felt like and she said it was like somebody scratching at your skin.  Nothing painful.  Huh.  That wincing face, though.

She was done in thirty minutes.  A quick change up for the room to be disinfected and cleaned up and it was my turn.  Ugh.  My brain started going into overdrive.  Was it too big, really?  Maybe she can scale it down to one daisy…then mine would be different than Daughter’s and that would defeat the purpose.  I was back in the room with the shrunken pirate head.  I think I heard him sneer at me, “Oh, whaddya ascared of a little tattoo?!  Pfft…sure if I had arms, I’d show ya all mine!  Dey were good’uns, they were.  All done by a sailor with a hook for a hand and a needle dipped in black ink.  Hehehe…good ol’ days, dey were.  A’course I may ‘ave been a wee bit over da limit wit da rum, if ya catch me drift….”  ‘Oh, my Gawd will ya shut it, pirate!  Can’t ya see I’m panicking here?!’    “Jasus, girl it’s only a bit o’ink.  Nuttin’ to git yer panties in a knot o’er.  An daisies at dat!  Pffft…wuss.  Well, if ye were on ma boat-“      ‘YOU DON’T HAVE A BODY LET ALONE A BOAT!   TOO BAD YOU STILL HAVE A MOUTH! KEEP TALKIN’ CAPTAIN JACK AND I’LL PITCH YOU OUT INTO THE HARBOUR! ’    “Take it easy, Missy!  Where’s me rum…”  ‘ NOW, you’re talkin’…..’

She came out to get me and we were off.

She attached the design to my lower leg first to make sure the placement was accurate and straight.  Then I hopped up on the table and she set to work.  I was on my side, so I was able to have a lovely view of the harbour while she worked.  I think she did that intentionally.  Smart girl.  Captain Jack was laughing it up out in the living room, I’m sure of it.   I asked her intelligent questions like “Has anyone passed out from this before?  Ever been accidently kicked or swatted while tattooing?  What’s the biggest tattoo you’ve ever done and how long did it take you?  Anybody ever vomit on your table?”

She answered my questions with a degree of concern making sure I wasn’t going to do any of those things to her.  Nope.  All good.  Except for that annoying scratching.  “That’s the tattoo.”  Oh.  Then I’m good.

It went well.  The tattoos look great.

I wonder what my next adventure will be…hmmm.

As for Captain Jack, I don’t think we’ll be seeing each other any time soon, although I thought I could hear a verse of  ‘Yo Ho Ho and A Bottle of Rum’ as we were walking out the door….

 

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