Rediscovering the interesting me

I'd forgotten how to get into this blog. I only ever managed a meagre number of posts owing to a busy life and an awful computer (which I still have, actually - my brave Thelma who has powered on through despite the onslaught of tablets, clever phones and the handicap of taking half an hour to boot up).

Recently, I discovered some new headspace in the form of swapping my crazy-busy and stressful job for a baby. I'm still crazy-busy but in a bizarrely calm way that lets my head do thinking stuff at the same time. So I decided to start blogging again.

Unable to find this one, I set up a new blog and wrote a post. I thought it was ok; not groundbreaking literature or anything, but entertaining and amusing enough. Then my husband read it while I was sleeping. The next day, he told me he read it. I asked for his verdict.
'It was... ok. Not as good as your old ones.'

I clearly had to find my old ones right then and there (it took a while) and that's why I'm writing here, because I managed to, but that's beside the point for this post... The question that plagued me from the moment I heard his comment is: 'Why aren't I interesting anymore?'

I'm slightly scared that I've inadvertently become one of those people whose only real topics of conversation or strong opinions relate to their children. I think this is an irrational fear. I think. I was never going to be that gal. Granted, two years ago, I wasn't thrilled with the idea of children, and stay-at-home-breastfeeding&babywearing-mum had never even crossed my mind, but surely these unprecedented choices don't have to mean they're the only things I can think of to discuss, right? I'm telling you now, if I'm not right, I'm going to make seriously sure that I will be.

Something that I loved - love - is cake. Isn't cake a wonder? Toss a bad day in my direction and I can show you the cake that could fix it. I looked at my last post on here before writing this. And I can now tell you two things:
1. I now know why I was getting every cold that came along,
2. Cake is no longer a viable answer to problems.

Turns out I have coeliac disease and before diagnosis my immune system was shot, my iron levels were non-existent and my stomach - which is meant to resemble a kind of sea anemone turned inside out - was shiny flat (I'm talking internals here or bikinis would look very, very wrong on healthy people).

Coeliac disease means no gluten. Not even a sneaky bit when no one's looking. And no gluten means no cake. No carrot cake with cream cheese topping according to St Delia; no squishy, squoochy chocolate brownies lovingly perfected by my husband; no giant slab of coffee cake from the Bell coffee shop down Bashful Alley in Lancaster. (Even though I haven't been there for years, it will remain the best cake place ever. If you and gluten are still friends, go there, now, and skip lunch. You know it makes sense.)

When my husband told me my blog was, essentially, boring, it made me feel like maybe I'm a bit gluten free these days. Well, I am completely gluten free, but I mean in the metaphorical, lacking exciting interest and fabulousness to vanquish a bad day kind of way. That made me feel sad. And sort of bleugh, like a really nothing grey.

However, last weekend, I made some berry and white chocolate muffins. I modified a recipe, changing my proportions, swapping out ingredients - I was a true domestic goddess, fit for a Bake Off final. (Ok, maybe not the final.) They were - to coin Ron - 'bloody brilliant'. I have also discovered Nigella's lemon polenta cake and created it to increasing degrees of success, (not that the first disaster didn't taste pretty epic - once I carefully removed all the burned outside sections).

These happy moments of cakey bliss, where I have eaten far more then my fair share on each baking occasion, have given me hope. Cake doesn't have to be off limits. In fact, it can still taste amazing, it just has to be different to the cake of my past. I have to look to the cake of cakeness present.

This hope, I have decided, can be transferred to my boring blog. Just because I am different to the Me of yesteryear doesn't mean the present Me need be dull. In the case of the berry and white chocolate muffins, I think they may even be better than the muffins of my past (which is saying something given that once upon a time I baked those scrumptious blobs of calories for a living).

These amazing gluten free muffins have inspired me. And so, from now on, I will attempt to channel said muffins, (by which I don't just mean bake and eat copious quantities - though I clearly mean that too), and will become an awesome version of myself. Because if cake can be scrummy and all-round fabulous in gluten-free world, I can be too, in Mummyland.

Hopefully I can do it without becoming muffin-shaped in the process, but I won't hold my breath.

A cold time of year...

Head pounding, eyes watering and nose operating a leaky-tap mentality, I'm feeling relatively sorry for myself. What is it about a cold that can so easily knock us for six?

I know that 'tis the season to be sniffling, but why must we - actually sod the thoughtful bit - why must I, repeatedly be bashed around, deflated and ultimately lose my brain to liquidation on such a regular basis at this time of the year? No matter how much orange juice I drink, echinacea I force down, or manueka I suck off a spoon, I still catch them. Vitamin tablets, increased iron and bowing to the 'kill it dead with paracetamol' capsules don't seem to do it either.

My other half, annoyingly, doesn't seem to ever catch anything, regardless of the fact that he does nothing whatsoever to strengthen his immune system, better his diet, or wrap up warmer. When I'm tucked up with a hot toddy, unlike most people, who keep their distance for fear of catching it, he'll happily breath my olbassy air and drink from my water glass, and has no qualms about stealing kisses from me (often leading to life or death situations as my only air outlet is taken away). It's becoming more than a little annoying.

However, I am all to aware that I'm not alone. There are many people out there sniffing and sneezing their way through meetings, mixing lemsip with party champers, carting around potions and pills to try to retain control of their symptoms, and often to no avail.

I read recently that most of the symptoms of colds are actually self-induced. Our bodies fight the cold vius by raising our temperature to try and kill it, by creating unprecedented levels of mucus to wash it from our noses, then trip themselves up by triggering sinus inflamation, causing watering eyes and a pounding headache. Essentially, we do a lot of this to ourselves. Colds could be seen, if you think about it, as the world's most common autoimmune disease. (I did say 'could'.)

To begin with, I attempted to welcome this news. I lauded it over my husband, whose lack of colds I took to mean the ultimate in lazy immune systems. His body simply can't be bothered to mount a counter-attack to the virus. Ha! My immune system is super-efficient in the extreme - I win!

However, as I type, my forehead clammy, my eyes threatening to pop from my head, and a cough'n'splutter interupting my thoughts ever couple of setences, I'm feeling less smug. I don't want a great immune system if all it means is that I feel wretched when others just carry an extra hankie for a day or two.

As with most other cold sufferers out there - or should I say, 'people living with colds', I try to retain as much independance as possible when hit by the bug. I continue working - in fact, I work harder to prove that I'm ok (and also becuase , with a headache like this, everything takes twice as long anyway). I retain social engagements (unless there may be vulnerable immune systems there) and I insist on still doing the chores. Except, if I'm honest, I do all of it with a clear 'woe is me' expression on my face. I wish I didn't. And it's not on purpose - I'm really not seeking sympathy (it annoys me when people do the 'oh, poor you' thing) - but I seem to be unable to get through a cold without clearly highlighting that I'm a real trooper. I also, when out of sight of the people who don't know many of my little quirks (ie whn amongst either family or very close friends), I dissolve into a pile of pathetic. Gone is the brisk, efficient girl who ignores her cold in a dismissive and disdaining way. In her place is a mushy ball of self-pity who insists on making her own honey and lemon, trails blankets across the kitchen leaving a wake of discarded tissues, then collapses on the sofa with it with reproachful eyes, insinuating that my husband (who will have offered at least twice) should have insisted on making it for me. A delightful creature.

Today I came across something that made me feel a little better about the whole thing, though. A boy version of that creature. Leaving my hotel this morning, the porter came up to help me with my bag (in my pathetic state I couldn't face carting it down the 3 flights myself with no sign of a lift). I recognised him from the previous day, when a nice chap had brought me some soup up to the room for lunch whilst I typed and sniffed away. It didn't take long for us to be comisserating with each other on our respective colds, both with the jovial martyrish expressions expected, both pretending to be soldiering on through.

As I left, I saw him turn to the girl at the front desk - clearly a friend as well as a colleague - and let the real feelings out, something I have done to my husband so many times before. Pathetic, melodramatic and honest, out came a muted wail: 'I feel so illlllllll!'

Silly as it is, watching the bravado slip from a strapping chap like that made me feel a lot better. Not only had he not seen me slip into a wailing mess, but I had proof that I wasn't a wuss. Here was a young man, healthy looking and muscular, who was every bit as pathetic as me when struck by the dreaded garden variety cold.

I'm not sure that I'll ever make my peace with the cold, or that I'll manage to ward it off successfully in the future, but I can rest easy in the knowledge that, just as everyone will present the same strong face to the world when in its grip, they will also cry like a baby over it when they think no-one's watching.

A new year... time for resolve?

I have never been one for new year's resolutions. It seems to me that people make them for the sheer joy of gleefully breaking them again. But this year, I've felt a little differently.

Whether for the slim chance that it might incentivise a genuine health kick (read weight loss) or the fact that having given up smoking two weeks before the new year seems somehow odd and something not to be admitted to, I feel as if the year has come to give it a go. 2011. 'Ah, 2011', I'll say when I'm old and grey, 'that was the year that I gave the new year's resolution a go'. Because I am confident that whether it is a monumental failure, or a life-changing moment, it wil be one of those two. I don't want a half-hearted, 'meh, it was ok...' response. I'm bored of lukewarm.

Maybe that's what really prompted the resolution kick. Being bored of my own lukewarm attempts to better myself. For example, I have given up smoking a total of 6 times in my life. And yet, what did I do last month? Give up smoking. It's not even as if I just can't manage it. I get through the hard bit: the jittery, edgy tone, the unreasonable moodswings, even the gaining of a few extra pounds. Then, 6 months later, I'll start again. No real reason, I'll just 'feel like one'. And off I go again.

I had to get a new passport recently, and I think that may have sealed the deal. Looking at my old passport photo was like dying a little bit inside. I am 17 in it. I am slim, with a clear complexion, over-kohled eyes, and a serious 'I'm not a bitch, I'm just not allowed to smile in this picture - oh, ok, you got me' attitude. Flick to the new passport, and I look like the defeated mother of a chaotic toddler. Given that I am neither defeated or a mother, this is rather distressing. I look older, yes, and I can deal with that. Looking older is ok, but looking uglier? That's not.

I want to get back to the 17 year old. However, realising that such a thing can never be achieved, I'll settle for bounding back down to a reasonable dress-size, toning up some unecessarily squishy bits, and investing in a better make-up kit.

Sorted. The only teensy bit that worries me is my lack of will power... but one quick passport comparitor should set me straight again.

Striving for more, or happy with enough?

Approaching a first anniversary, I find myself wondering if I should have accomplished something more than a year of marriage. Which is ridiculous when I consider that l have - a year of marriage, still very much happy and in love; an accomplishment indeed by today's standards. So what does it say about me - or about society in general - that this doesn't seem to be a success enough?

Today, we expect every year to have achieved something big, to have outdone the previous year somehow, and not even just from year to year. 'Make every second count' is a positive version of today's ethos, but the uglier version of the message constantly thrust at us these days is: 'More'. A better job, a higher salary, a bigger house or flat, a more fulfilling relationship. But in the pursuit of an ever extending social life, an ever increasing wardrobe, and a life crammed to the brim with 'More', are we happier? Or are we hot on the tail of an endlessly tall order, and a potential nervous breakdown?

Ask anyone how they are these days and the response will usually be 'Busy'. Said with a smile and a helpless shrug, our level of busyness seems to be a measure of how well we're doing. But when 'busy' feels synonymous with 'stressed', why are we doing it to ourselves?

Having just spent the weekend helping friends in the throes of planning their own wedding, I thought back to this time last year, as we frantically juggled full time work, and daily life with copious phone calls back and forth to family, suppliers, caterers and family again, arranging a long-distance wedding and reception from London to Cornwall, where everything will be done 'dreckly' and a sense of urgency has yet to cross the border. I thought across the manic two days decorating the venue, hastily putting together a seating plan the night before in my now-husband's B&B room. 

Then I thought of the feeling a sheer happiness as I walked down the aisle, said 'I do', flitted through the reception in a grinning blur, and eventually flumped onto the sofa in our hotel room with the man I love, ready to start our lives together.

The beautiful, surprise honeymoon to Skye, our first Christmas together, creating our home, and every day since then that we have spent building the foundations of our marriage. Marriage may have lost it's flavour for a lot of people today, but for some of us, it's a safe place, a haven from the rest of the world - a place to be yourself. As with all long-term relationships, it's a combination of friendship, domestic living, and daily monotony with splashes of humour, adventure, romance and excitement. It has days where the groceries and an early night are the extent of its riches, and other days where the butterflies of first kisses and a warm fuzzy feeling fill the spaces in us. 

It may not bring 'More' on a daily basis, but it definitely brings a sense of happiness, of fulfillment. It is enough. And for me, I think 'enough' is a far more attainable, sustainable thing to strive for. More than that - it's an accomplishment in itself. To feel that you have enough, or a near-constant basis, is a positive that we've lost today, I think. It's a positive that's not looked on so positively.

Well, I've come to look on it positively. 'Enough' is exactly where I'm at, and whilst I'll continue to look to 'more' (no-one wants to stagnate), it will hopefully be in a way that doesn't demand a certificate of achievement or a sticky star every other day.

For now, I feel that I - we - have achieved something. Something spectacular. We have made it to the end of a whole year, and whilst marriage may have lost its cherry-on-top, or even it's frosting for much of society today, for those of us who still choose it, that remains something to be proud of.

Happy thanksgiving!

Having well and truly missed the boat of blogging cool, I've decided to adopt it as my latest outdated means of kick-starting the writing process.

But what does a girl write on one of these thingies?!

Well, I thought I'd start with the next exciting holiday that many people anticipate. 

'Thanksgiving? I didn't know that you were American!' Is often expelled in my direction when I announce that the time has come to plan the epic Thanksgiving Menu. I greet them with a blank stare and a short 'I'm not.' Because for me, the Thanksgiving Tradition is a tenuous link through a father who spent his childhood in the States, and a fulfillment of the need that most people manage through Christmas and call quits thereafter.

A family get-together. Well, a chunk-of-the-family get-together.

Since the age of 13 when our family went through the all-too-common divorce process, we have been vying for ever more loosely connected celebrations to fill the gap left by the Family Christmas (my mother recently attempted to hijack Bonfire Night). We feel the need to come up with an occasion to gather en masse without putting pressure on all and sundry to commit to the evermore sought after Christmas period, which, with the onset of long-term relationships and marriages amongst us, is more coveted by adopted family members than ever.

This year then, having made the miscommunication faux pas of assuming my father was too busy to join in (grovelling was needed), my husband and I, with my brother and his fiancee, began the loving process of devising the menu, digging out the awful but comical plastic turkey, 'Trev' (which my mother, after a trip to Florida, lovingly bestowed on us in an effort to join in), and planning of a beautiful weekend revolving around food, wine, and a few obligatory walks.

This year sees a new member of the family, Poppy the Labrador pup, venturing into the chaos. It also sees my attempt to bake a pumpkin cheesecake, never before attempted. To be honest, it can't be any worse than last years' shameful foray into Pumpkin Pie, which had to have the sugar hastily applied post-cooking...

Excitement ensues... and we prepare for this weekend.

Sorry? Did you mishear? This weekend? But thanksgiving isn't until the last weekend of November...

You're right of course. But in the spirit of true traditonalism, we only embrace the bits that mean the most to us.

Happy thanksgiving!