Hard Choices

Current dieting wisdom seems to be 80% good 20% bad. I could handle this. Mostly good but still allowed my chocolate and caramel etc etc. Nice. Not so likely to fall off that sot of diet.

But there is a reason I have not ever managed it. IBS. I also think IBS is what has made me fat as well. Just a little diet change like healthy snacks at work has really improved things for me. But also made them much, much worse. Now things I was eating just fine last month cause me immense discomfort. A bit of mayo in my sandwich is now a huge problem. A bar of chocolate makes my feet hurt. And on it goes.

i always forget why my diets fail in between times.

Simply put. If I innoculate my body everyday with bad foods, it deals with them well enough that I am only a little bit ill, but I am little ill everyday. As soon as I start being passibly good, then I am no longer innoculating my body with the bad foods and it forgets how to deal with them, then I am really, really ill.

Being good is very time consuming and I have never gotten it right enough that I could survive on it long term. The new snacking regime is really helping though and is definitely another brick in the wall.

Learning how to exclude dairy products from my diet is another very large brick....

I guess I just have to focus on the good points - my body is better from this small change. My ankles are less swoolen. I have lost a little weight. My digestive system is functioning better (even if it's temper tantrums are much bigger).

Keep going.... I have a brain, surely I can figure this all out?

Small Changes

I have struggled with diet for a long time. New thinking on diets seems to be that you should eat natural, unprocessed foods and never let yourself get hungry. Easier said than done....

I was a bad snacker. The effort of preparing healthy meals often meant I had run out of steam for snacks as I tried to make everything too fancy. Snacks for me were crisps, chocolate, cake, sweets and biscuits. My fancy efforts were always doomed to failure die to a lack of time anc convenience. When you work, it just isn't possible to do everything!

So my diets were always doomed and I was a yoyo dieter in effect, because I had not found a way to make it work for me.

So when someone suggested graze.com I was more than happy to give it a go. And it was good. The foods were healthy but nice. I realised that variety is essential in snacks. Buying a bag of nuts and leaving it in your desk is not going to work. You need different snacks for throughout the day and different snacks for different days.

Not cheap to have that much variety. Not cheap to buy daily snack boxes by post either. In fact much more expensive in the long run.

F also realised that this was something that would be good for him as well, particularly as he has a job now where he can be on the go a lot with unpredictable breaks.

It made sense to invest in tupperware and a selection of stuff for the pair of us and for me to put together a few little boxes of stuff each evening for the following day. It only takes a few minutes. So we have nuts and dried fruit and seeds and crackers and all sorts of nice things and we mix 'em up.

Shortly after starting this, I also started listening to Paul mcKenna's, I Can Make You Thin again and the two have been working well together.

All of a sudden my IBS is a problem again though. As soon as I start being good and everything gets better, I have to start being careful with what I eat again. Mayo is now a problem as is chocolate......

But yesterday I had to do up my belt an extra notch. Never used that notch before. And all this with very little effort. My jeans feel looser around the legs as well. It won't be long before I need to buy a smaller size. And how great is that?

Beat the Drums

I went to a my first ever drumming and journeying circle and it was really good. It feels 'right' where other pagan gatherings have not been a perfect fit. It was fun as well, with people having a laugh and being genuine and nice. Although there was darker sides to it, that was more about where some of the journeys took us....

F really surprised me when I told him about by saying he would come to. I was really, really surprised. And a little concerned. I didn't think he had very much idea of what he was going to. Reading the odd paragraph here and there in books I leave lying around..... But he was quietly firm.

This morning he told me that a work colleague, suddenly and out of the blue asked him what he knew about shamanism. At this point I took it a quiet little sign that he was definitely supposed to come with me.

He surprised me some more by showing natural skill at identifying peoples illnesses. And surprised me further by wanting to come again.

I like having a partner, who, even after all these years, still has the power to surprise me.....

My soul dislikes.....

I wasn't going to air any petty greivances from my wedding, but well, there was only two, my Mum not being very nice to a member of the reception venue and having a piece of glass I liked thrown out because she thought it looked like a jam jar.... That all got sorted and I got it back and my Mum has since upped her diabetes medication. It was all too much for her by the end of the day...

But well, the other one, I have a reason for wanting to drag this one out as you shall see, if you stick with what will enevitably be a fairly long post....

I have an Aunt, sort of. She was married to my Uncle but they divorced before I was old enough to remember them being together. She somehow became a regular part of my family anyway. There was always christmas and birthday presents, even though she was always poor. She had strong ideals of who she would and would not work for and couldn't drive so work options were always limited and we have such a good benefits system in this country....

She would often come to stay and was a good friend to me, once I was an adult, we disliked each other when I was a kid. My Dad always disliked her, called her a scrounger. Anyway, she was good to me. She was there when I had missed periods. She took me away house sitting for friends when she knew I was too poor for a holiday (but she did get free transport out of that). She was there for moral support when I needed someone who understood my family to talk to to.

The last few years though I have drifted away. I had started to feel a little narked if she was staying at my parents house for the entire duration of a visit of mine with them. She probably sees them way more than I do, as she lives so much closer.

She has siblings, who have families of their own. She has increasingly found herself on the outside oh her family. I think families are like onions with their layes and they may have more than one heart in there all wrapped up together. Families grow from the middle. So my onion once had my parents, my sis and me at it's heart, but I got F and S and she got her little darlings and now there are two new hearts within the centre of my family onion. Eventually our offspring will find that our onions are entirely separate.... She calls my family, her other family.

So with the wedding. I knew she would not be able to afford somewhere to stay so I said she could stay here, even though I knew it would be a squeeze and she probably would not get a bed.... Even though she can't stand dogs and her dislike and pushing away and fussing about them is a little trying. She then said that she would come down with my parents, I suggested this might not be a very viable idea as Dad finds the drive particularly tiring these days and they would have a pretty full car. I knew very well that Dad would not want to spend that long trapped in a car with her... So she suggested she might come down with my Sis to which I pointed out that there was more of them and they were staying self-catered so there definitely would be no room. I also pointed out that as all of them would be staying at mine that first night, there really would be no room at all....

She agreed to come down two days before the wedding by train.

But then she wanted to stay until three days after the wedding, I was horrifed and so was F. She went quiet on the phone when I said it would not be a good idea as we would be very tired and everyone else was leaving the day before.... I looked to F for help and he pointed out his job start... My Aunt backed down and agreed on two days after the wedding. But I was more than a little irritated, it isn't our duty to get her to and from and provide her with bed and board, not really, and it was all a little too pushy.... I wanted time with my parents without a ghost tagging along. It is the first time I have seen them in a year.

So she came down, realised that reports on the state of my house were not exaggerated. Decided the sofa looked uncomfortable, the damp was too much, who knows.... She had S's room that night but I refused to turf him out for her, he has had quite a summer and this is the only place he has had room tohimself, I was not about to take it away. She announced before bed that night that she would see if she could stay in a hotel in town for the rest of the stay. Which she did. I was very, very annoyed. Firstly it felt like an insult of my hospitality. Secondly, if she could afford to do so, why had she been so pushy about staying here in the first place? Couldn't she see that as the epicentre of my big day, there was only going to be chaos here - particularly with only one bathroom!

She still came over for every waking moment and all her meals. She was just there, a person to tuck in the car. A person to feed. She would offer to pay for herself, knowing that when one person is paying for a meal say, that for one person to have to pay for themselves is not really done. Every one else would take it in turns to pay or get a round of drinks.... The offer of paying was enough as far as she was concerned...

We said good bye the night before she was due to go and I did not expect to see her the following morning before her train. But there she appeared. Me in my PJs sorting bits of glass having just found out how my Mum's diabetes can affect her mood and very unhappy.... My parents packing their car.... Maybe she expected us to find the time to take her to the station and go to the hotel to pick up her luggage (a short walk from the station). She soon realised that my parents car was too full and we were too not dressed and up.... I don't know if she even realised she had walked in to a tricky situation.... Not sure she cared either.

So I am still cross... And for the first time I can very much see my Dad's point of view on this. I expect my distance with her will continue.

So why have I decided that I have to air all this now? I had a dream last night. I was back in my old school....

So I was in the building, near the school hall and there was a load of us young vital ladies there. I was talking with one who had decided to dye her hair red and green. As we were talking a shadow fell and we realised a bad man was after her, maybe her Dad, maybe not, I have no idea. I decided to help her hide as I knew the building.

We set off at a run and instead of going upstairs by the big, grand public staircase, we took the closer, servants staircase, hidden behind a door. It bought us some time. We rushed through the dorms to get to the one I wanted. One with a secret room. It was used as a dorm as well in my time but it had previously been a priest's hole to hide a priest during the reformation. Although it had reverted back to it's old form, I struggled to find the door and when I did, I only found it by it's keyhole. And it was locked.

My dream jumped forward and I was talking to my Mum. She was excited to tell me some things she had found out. Firstly, all the girls that had vanished had had five year old children. Secondly, the last person to stay in that room had been my Aunt and she had been the one who locked it.

I had this one worked out before I even got out of bed. When I was a kid, my Aunt came to stay and there was not enough room, so I had to go and share with my Sister while my Aunt slept in my bedroom. One morning she woke to find me stood at the end of her bed and I said, when are you going home. She found this hilarious, she stilldoes. She put this down as her interesting fact for the wedding to share with all the guests.... That irritated me very much.

I was quite probably five when this happened. I think the dream has to do with this story and I think it is also to do with the loss of pieces of soul. I reckon you can join the dots from here. Maybe my regaining of that piece of soul is why my relationship with her has changed back to that of my childhood one.... The piece of soul I lost was one that meant I didn't like her too much. Maybe these events were involved with my loss of this soul piece. I think so. I lost many pieces of my soul growing up but I have been working hard to welcome them back and many of them have come back I feel.....

Another knot untugged a little to see what is within

Health & Beauty

So yesterday F and I floated around, sorting our wedding money out mostly. We set up a joint account, which felt very grown up. And then we spent some of our vouchers on some cutlery before driving off to the pottery to get the mugs that had been gifted us.

The mugs are beautiful. Hand made. To the casual glance you would think they are all the same, but look closer.... The ridges vary, the thickness of the lip, the crackling of the varnish, the colour.... We are going to keep slowly buying... a plate or two one month, a bowl the next.... Life should be beautiful and individual.

We also brought food.... Mostly nibbles. The grazing continues. I have bought several boxes from graze.com but the price means I can not afford to do this everyday, which is what I really need to stop me snacking on dreadful foods! So I have spent a fair bit this week on snacky bits from the supermarket and also our local health food shop so we have quite a variety now. Nuts of all sorts with honey with salt and black pepper and yougurt. Dried fruit of all sorts some in yogurt. Crackers and seeds. We can mix up a treat now and although it is more expensive in the long run, this stuff will last us a while. And F and I have been enjoying it all as well. And I have noticed a beneficial effect on my health already.

There is always a downside though. The second I start being good, my body seems to lose it's tolerance for me being bad. I was so ill last night. I am not entirely sure what sparked it off either. It might have been the pasty, the fudge or the caramel coated peanuts. All of those things did not produce the same affect a couple of weeks back when I was being bad with food. Still I like the grazing and I am beginning to wonder if I might be having health problems with chocolate....

I had been thinking about doing Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Thin again. I have a copy of the books, with the disk and the 90 day journal all ready to go. I think it might be a couple of years it has been ready... I knew the book had gotten muddled up with all my hundreds of books upstairs. I was looking for some paperwork yesterday and just looked at the books. My eyes landed on a book amongst a stack the wrong way round and when I pulled it out, it was there. I guess I am supposed to get going with this. It would do me good....

Circle Closing

I am in an odd place with regards to this blog right now. I have not left it, but I am in flux. I have had a single focus for so long that I feel a little focus-less right now. Normally my multiple interests wax and wane independently and there is always something. And there is things, but there is only so much I can write about my ancestors right now.

The infuriating search to try and discover more of my forebear who left some random part of Scotland, became a soldier, married a woman from East Anglia while in Ireland before maybe (a huge maybe based on dates) fighting in the Crimean, who may have then gotten his wife pregnant the second he returned to her in Ireland, staying there long enough to have that child born in Ireland before touring the country with kids being born all over the place.

*sigh* There was a fire in Ireland many years ago which destroyed most of their records including all their censuses. I only know about the marriage through others work and have no proof of even that. And junior was apparently born in some random part of ireland he wishes to make no reference to. I can't even work out what part of the forces my ancestor was in......

Anyway, so yes I have stuff going on. I am also planning and formulating things. I intend to spend a lot more time honouring my health and my body and I will have a lot more to say on that. I am still intending to attend my first ever shamanic drumming circle. I still have all the wedding stuff to finalise and to post here as well as post to individuals (including my family). I have a lot I will be writing about, just not much I feel the urge to write about now....

Also, this is the end of the year for me.... My own personal year. My birthday approaches and this always seems to be a time of gentle closure / rapid new growth. So yes lots going on and this blog will surely see it......

Digging in the Dirt (and planting seeds)

Life moves on and the wheel keeps turning whether I am here or not. Often, my absence here means something has grabbed my interest and this is definitely true right now....

I signed up to Ancestry and started tracing my family tree. Oh how fascinating!

My Dad's Dad's side is not too tricky, an unusual surname and a helping had in the form of a pretty good idea of first names as my Dad has already put in a lot of work on this. Eventually I will get his tree in the post and that will help even more. I have already found things he didn't know though - finding where a lady has gotten married can be tricky without national searches...

My Dad's Mum's side has not even gotten a look in yet.... but it wil...

My Mum's Mum's side is what I have been looking at most recently and is proving to be fascinating but tricky. My Great great great Grandfather was from Scotland and he suddenly appears in the part of the country the family then stuck to through generations. Unfortunately he has not put which part of Scotland on any census. To add to the difficulties but also to make him more interesting, he appears to have been a soldier and it looks as if he was posted to Ireland where he married my great great great Grandma, then a few years later had my Great great grandfather in Ireland before touring all over the place. They eventually settled in the family location, which is where his wife was from originally. So how did they meet? Why did she go to Ireland as an unmarried person and then stay there? I believe the sudden marriage and then delay before the first child is down to the Crimean War, they married just before he left but she did not get pregnant until he returned. I feel an urge to start an interest in military history of the time..... Maybe I can deduce some stuff.....

My Mum's Dad's side has been fascinating but tricky. The paternal branch is just impossible! They moved around and have a common name and some things appear to have happened so they just jump and then they can not be plucked out from all the others of the same name.... but the maternal branch.... very fascinating! My great great grandfather was a commercial traveller / manager / office speciality, whatever that all adds up to, but he did travel, he even went to Chicago, but I have no idea why.... My great great great Grandma was it seems of mixed English and French descent and hails from Guernsey....

So you never know what you are going to find for sure and it is addictive.....

As well as all this, i came down with a cold. Last night I was craving hot comfort food so I stewed pork belly with tomatoes, onions and corn, flavoured with sun dried tomatoes, porcini mushrooms and chipototles. It was lovely and it burned and i feel better for it.

A friend found this great idea called Graze.com where they send you four punnets of natural foods to graze on, randomly selected from their range according to certain options and likes and dislikes etc. I love this idea and hope it might help me little... I have ordered my first box and sent a gift one to my Mum as well. Anyone else in the UK wanting to try, let me know, I have a promo code I can email....

The magpies are doing well. befor ethe wedding they had been looking scraggly and their feathers were a mess, with a great ring of them missig round the neck. I was even worried they might not survive the winter! I returned though to find their moulting complete and they are resplendent in their winter plummage now and happy to wait by my car for the odd snack as normal.

The wedding seems to have seen the last of the Summer warmth. Autumn has come crashing in with a chill in the air. My bug has left me feeling cold and right now I feel out of sync. My body too tired from the wedding to keep up with the sudden change. I shall catch up.

Oh and I found a website entitled Society for Shamanic Practitioners. It only lists seven drumming circles for the whole of the UK. There is one in Cornwall and I am really hoping it is my end.... I have enquired... I think this would be a very good thing for me....

Also thinking of setting up a blog just for my dreams....

After the Storm

So here I am. I am not in a place where I can describe my wedding. I am in that time after an event that you worked hard on, that you looked forward to, that was so enjoyable, so very tiring, that you put hear5t and soul into, where you are too drained to really comment on all the greatness.

I am, for the moment, worn out. Today has been a day of departing family and tiredness. I know this is a natural reaction though, and I am not fighting it, I am going with it. I have too much to look forward to to stay like this. In a couple of days time my hard drive is going to fill up with lovely pictures. That will do the trick and will be the right time to start reliving it. Not now.

I also have so many things still to do, to preserve the event and keep all those lovely keepsakes safe. And then I have the thank yous to do. More paint and stencils.

But also I have discovered that weddings have a bittersweet / dark side. Some of the oldsters will never meet again as a group like this. One will never travel so far again. The other could go any time, indeed they thought their time had come last week. Seeing them together and knowing this, knowing that they know too.... And others, realising suddenly, how old they are getting and how ill health is beginning to impact on the people I love as they grow older too. Weddings are a time, when you may not even realise it, but the baton of adulthood is passed on and the crone comes to visit and welcome some new members to her domain. I can no longer consider myself a Maiden, I have definitely moved into the realm of the Mother.

So yes, I shall not write of the joys of my wedding yet, I am not in the right place. But I shall. And do not worry, I am not sad, all is good and wonderful!