Living in Fiber Hell

Last year, one of my more brighter ideas was to cleanse my body of all toxins. I, after all was said done, quite successful in my, let’s say, cleaning house endeavours. My body, by all accounts, was feeling quite chipper. In fact, I would even go so far as to say elated with joy. Inflammation had dramatically dropped, poundage on my body melted off, my energy level soared, I could run up and down the stairs with narry an ache, and above all, my happiness quotient over the situation peaked me into an orgasmic state.

However, the downside was that I nearly gave myself an aneurysm half a dozen times whilst I struggled with the delicate topic of expelling my lady like bowels. Yes, I was painfully constipated and constantly concerned, as I said in a previous post, that my better half would find me on the floor of our bathroom with half a poop sticking out.

Somewhere during this process, I had made a dramatic discovery between the correlation of the pain in my body and the food that laid within the confines of my colon. When my colon was so clean that it was whistling dixie, my pain was virtually non existent. However, should my engine get a bit of a back up or plugged with sludge, well, let’s put it this way, the little engine that could, would start to suffer some serious internal combustion problems!

I knew that wheat had become my enemy, or better yet the little protein gluten contained within the wheat was a major contributing factor, and still is, to the pain that I suffered. I was at a quandary, or impasse to say the least. Without gluten, I felt wonderful, but plugged up. Without eating gluten, I was seeing stars on my toilet.

In order to save myself any further harm or brain damage, I spent the greater part of December and a bit of this month, traversing the aisles at the different local grocery stores on my quest to fill my fibre need sans gluten.

Surprising, it really has not been such a difficult transition from gluten to rice flour or almond flour. I have enjoyed my excursion to the sprouted wheat bread section of the local grocery store and have thoroughly enjoyed it instead of the genetically modified ground version. I have found the most gawd awful rice crackers and the best raspberry cookies ever, I have eaten bread that tastes like cardboard, and then ahhhed and ooohed over amazing pizza crust and tortillas shells, all in the name of living a gluten free lifestyle. What I can tell you is that living without gluten has forced me to try and enjoy the offerings of other grains, ancient grains, grains I have never heard of, grains that are impacting my life.

What I have also learned is that those grains work like a hot damn. No longer singing the constipated blues in the toilette, there are days that those bloody grains work a little too well. Now the food in my body is squealing in high delight as it exits my nether region like water on a slide.

In any event, I am definitely prepared to do what it takes to make my body happier, and well, let's face it, anything is better than living in fiber hell.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Ink to Paper: An Uncommited Story

As long as I can remember, I have always carried some sort of calendar with me, pocket sized, day planner sized or hang on your wall size. And within the pages and small daily squares, contained the abridged version of my life at a twelve month glance.

In my twenties, I prided myself on recording pretty much my every moment, much like facebook, with the exception that it was only for my eyes, my review and a reminder of my memories. Come the end of the year, I would flip thru those pages and re-read the highlights, often smiling and giggling and saying things out loud to myself like “oh yea, I forgot I did that” or “wow, that was such a blast, gotta do that again” or quite often “gawd what was I thinking, so embarrassing!” Whatever the moment was, it was recorded there on the pages of my free Hallmark Calendar in bright bold blue ink. Yes, there were many big gashes and slashes thru things that I actually didn’t get to do, but the fact remained that I did so many wonderfully, soul and heart enriching things and that I committed to those moments using ink to permanently mark my time in history. And sometimes if the moment was so amazing, it would be highlighted in a rainbow of colours followed by several exclamation marks. They were the joyful, memory making moments of my youth.

Sometime during this time frame, my parents went thru a very nasty and devastating divorce, one which lasted for many years, one which would have made a Lifetime movie on some sorry network, one which should have put me into counselling for years and one that scarred me immensely. The details are not mine to share, as they are my parents story. I was only a side player with an emotional outcome that would have been a best selling novel, had I written for all to see. And it was during this emotional and stressful time that my once committed pen strokes started to disappear only to be replaced with a more subtle version of what would eventually become my uncommited pencil scribblings.

The word “yes” was no longer in my vocab as it was replaced with words like “perhaps”, “I’ll have to see”, “ummm... I think I have something already that night” and my very favourite and over used phrase “I am pretty tired and sore, maybe next time.” My pencil notations in my calendar were often marked with question marks, like “hang out with Charmaine?”, “go to Cathy and David’s for the weekend?”, “Melrose night with Deanna?” I could no longer commit and what is worse is that I didn’t really want too. I played everything by ear, used my parents divorce as an avoidance, missed dinners and parties, clubs and outing. I had in fact excused myself from life. I had in actuality stepped out of my life.

Year after year, my calendar entries became more sparse, less exciting, virtually uninteresting till finally the only thing that marked my calendars were birthdays, my semi monthly massages and waxing treatments and the numerous doctors appointments for the never ending chronic pain.

So sad and pathetic my calendar had become that I no longer reviewed my previous year, I just quietly tucked it away into my filing system never to be seen again by the light of day. That was until this past year when I sat quietly down and flipped the pages over and over and over again. I sighed long and hard as the flipped pages revealed a year devoid of anything interesting with one exception. I could only account for one meager highlight. One moment to remember when I knew I must have had more moments than that, that I should have had more moments than that, when I should have celebrated more, remembered more, smiled more, giggled more and shrugged more. But I didn’t. I had only one moment in that entire calendar year that I thought was worthy enough to jot down in ink.

I sat for sometime thinking that day. I reviewed moments I passed up, moments I sat with ice packs, moments I watched the same tv show week after week, moments going to bed early, unexciting, brain numbing, emotionless moments.

And I knew that it was enough, life was passing me by. I could no longer use the excuse that I would do all I wanted to do when my pain became more manageable, because the fact is the pain was not going to get any better, and my parents divorce was far behind me and I had risen past the emotional times and I had grown significantly stronger as person. And that mostly, I just needed to live.

So with pen in hand I wrote the following into my calendar:

Three weeks of art classes; and

18 Days in Italy.

Yes, they are there in bold blue ink surrounded with happy faces. What’s more is they are not just pipe dreams, they are dreams that have been bought and paid for and dreams that are about to be fulfilled, and I sense, that they are just two of the many highlights I foresee for myself in 2012.

And you know what? All it took was:

Ink to Paper.

Who knew?


Until Next Time.

Tracy

GOODBYE DIGNITY!!!

I have the Public Washroom woes.

Horrified by the site of a public piddling station since I was wee tall, I have done my best over the years to visit as few as possible.

Not in anyway designed for comfort, the effort to maintain any sense of dignity is all but non existent for me the moment I enter one of these torture contraptions.

To wit: last evening, my better half and I had taken my lovely sister in law and her hubby out for a pre-birthday dinner in her honour. Knowing my distaste for the public washroom, I usually refrain from drinking anything of an abundance in order to take the pressure off my bladder until I can safely use my own bathroom at home. However, with it being a cold night, the bistro we were at had upped their heating bill by cranking it to an almost uncomfortable temperature. Hot and parched, I removed clothing piece upon clothing piece to the point where I was one more clothing piece away from being charged with indecent exposure. With my throat parched and dry and my body as clothes free as humanly decent, my last resort was to suck back copious amounts of liquid to assist in my rather dry and soon to be hoarse voice.

It didn’t take long for my wee wee to be quite full of potential pee pee! In my stubbornness, I sat there fidgeting and wiggling and crossing my rather short stubby legs in order to avoid a potential catastrophe. Thirty agonizing minutes later, and trying to eat my salad in a calm collective manner, I started moving my butt around whilst I did my own version of a happy pee dance.

Mental telepathy and willing my faithful entourage who were blindly enjoying their meals to suck back their food quickly in order for me to get home to my faithful bathroom companion, was to no avail. The only process that was speeding up was the pressure that was pushing upon my rather weak bladder.

Finally, I gave up the fight and myself and my dignity trotted our way off to the despicable door that would ultimately lead to my relief.

It was only then as I entered into that dubious room, that I realized that they had squished in three very petite bathrooms stalls into what was obviously a two bathroom stall square footage.

Squeezing my big old butt around, I twisted and turned and cranked into position, steadied myself up onto my tip toes and precariously squatted several inches above the toilet in what could be described as an acrobatic pose. With my pants around my knees and slowly slipping towards my ankles, I did my business and reached for the rather large, space consuming toilet paper dispenser and yanked out nothing but a inch by inch square of single ply paper. Knowing that this would not be sufficient, I desperately grabbed and ripped and ripped and ripped one teeny piece after another teeny piece of toilet paper that would not have even wiped a mouse’s butt, let alone mine! Frustrated by the fact that the single sheeted toilet paper was not strong enough to pull around the enormous roll of toilet paper, I continued to rock back and fourth trying to maintain my acrobatic pose when, with one great big tug on the toilet paper, I found myself losing my balance and heading straight towards the bathroom stall door!

And with what could only be described as the most gawd awful sight known too man, I fell head first into the door stall, forcing the door stall right open, straight into the vanity, with my pants now around my ankles, my ass to the wind, still clutching nothing but a single sheet of single ply stinking toilet paper!!!

And there I stood, and there she stood, the older lady who just came threw the door.

And all I could say whilst she stared horrified at my exposed bottom half was: “Yup, goodbye Dignity!”

Until Next Time.

Tracy

A Splinter of a different kind...

I have always been on the fence in my life fighting a battle between happiness and unhappiness, positive and negative, joy and sorrow.

Cursed with equal parts of my mother's optimism and my father's pessimism, life has been a bit of a challenge for me in my efforts to remain more closely linked to the rose coloured glasses version of the world.  And it gets tiring I have to tell you.

Why is it that being negative seems so much easier than being positive?  Why can't you be optimistic every day with little to no effort?

I have found throughout the years that my father's pessimism wins far too frequently in my every day life. Of course, things like the world news, my local news, facebook links of abuse to animals, abuse to people, abuse to children seem to run rampant and fuel this part of my soul. 

I often wished I lived on an island surrounded only by the ones that I love, beautiful music and art, animals that wouldn't eat me, nature in general and all the colours of the rainbow.  Of course, somewhere in my perfect version of life, I would be the proverbial Dorothy living with the munchkins in munchkin land sucking on lollipops until my teeth fell out, without the wicked witch who would still be stuck flying around in Kansas giving some other poor soul a run for their money. In other words, I would be happiest with my head crammed up my ass.

But really, how dreadful is my life (*que violin music please)...  Well let's see, even though I work in a dead-end, uncreative job, I do make a fairly decent wage, have benefits and receive four weeks paid holidays every year.  And though this dead end job is not what I dreamed I would be doing, financially it allows me to have a pretty decent personal life. And even though my better half and my relationship was not the passionate love affairs that movies are made from (damn those stinking movies), it was a love affair that grew over time and now has established into an amazing relationship filled with kindness, thoughtfulness and consideration. And even though I live in a fairly unattractive city, it seems to sit in the middle of a beautiful landscape of rolling hills, mountains, trees as far as the eyes can see, with lakes and the pounding lyrical song of the ocean's crashing waves.

So what's my problem?

And why do I spend a ridiculous amount of time trying to find that elusive happiness?  

And why do I have moments throughout my life where I feel unfilled?

I think that somewhere in my brain, I have short circuited and told myself that life is always about being happy, with no turbulence, no strife, no effort. And, if I was truthful with myself, I would have to admit that it is a mindset that needs to be corrected. The question is how...

The question has always been how.

And whilst I sit on this proverbial fence trying to figure out what will make my heart tick in happiness, I can tell you that sitting here for too long not only leaves a fence railing imprint on your big old butt, but also overtime, your ass gets full of splinters. Yup, painful annoying splinters that keep reminding me that at some point, I must step down from that fence and get on with life because if I don't, that splinter will become permanent. And as the years go by, I fear it will fester into a splinter of a different kind. And I can tell you, that is one splinter I could do without.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Lost in a cluttered soul...

As I was lounging like the lump of lard I can be on New Years day with my eyes bulging out of their sockets from the hours of mindless television I was punishing myself with, I over-exerted my toneless arm and reached for my plush new copy of a girly magazine. I told my less than desirable body that I was just pampering myself with a lazy day and taking advantage of the fact that the man and the pooch had left me alone for several hours to wallow in chocolate leftovers and slovenly behaviour.  What's worse, is that I sadly told myself I deserved it.  And as I flipped from page to page in what could be described as sheer boredom, I halted at an article that caught my eye when it started off by stating that a new year, so they say, was the time to start fresh with a clean slate and a new perspective.

I sat there for what felt like an eternity staring at that line and trying to comprehend what that meant for me.  What was I bringing into the new year? I still had the intense chronic pain from last year, I still preferred to enhance the chubby bum print on my couch, my hair was still fuzzy and unmanageable, I had a few more new nose hairs and chin hairs that I was more than happy to leave behind in 2011 and I was sporting a rather large pimple on my chin that I swear was not only talking back at me but was giving me attitude to boot.

My drawers were still full of panties with saggy asses or gawd forbid holes in them.  My socks and pants were faded due to the multiple times they had been washed, and my bras were no longer holding the girls in place.  In fact my poor bras, once brave and strong, that had forced my girls into permanent saluting submission, had now weakened so much that my girls were now happily hanging their heads cross-eyed whilst they surveyed the distance between themselves and my knee caps.

I stood up determined to find the positive in what was increasingly becoming a negative situation.  I opened this door and that door, this drawer and that drawer, and all that stared back at me were piles, piles of old clothes, receipts, shoes, mismatched dishes, old spices, canned food from gawd knows when, stale crackers and expired salad dressings.  My heart started to beat wildly in my chest as I saw half made crafts, and half written journals, half assed photographs in half assed matting, pickles jars with only brine, ketchup bottles with no ketchup, what was I doing to myself?

Was I unable to let go of my past years, was I holding onto something I feared I would loose, something so intangible that I had to hang onto the tangible?  Was I lost, lost deep within my cluttered soul?

My breath became shallower, my chest tighter, sweat was pouring from my temples, my hands were clammy and I swear I was ready to pass out by the enormity of the situation!

It was then, as I spent the next two hours trying to calm myself down and figure out what was haunting me, that I realized that while my soul was cluttered, it was actually cluttered with good things, with soon to be done art projects, and almost completed written posts, articles that were almost perfect and ready to be submitted to the newspaper, photographs that only needed to be developed, and projects that I could not wait to start.  Oh yes, my soul was actually happily cluttered.

Sadly, what I really was, was just a lazy slob.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

SO EXCITING.....!!!!

Yesterday, I got up all stuffy in my nose and an achy stomach (most likely from all the cabbage I put in my homemade chicken chowmein the night before) and thought to myself "Oh great!!! Here's how I am entering into a new year with a runny nose and a runny butt!  Yikes!"

And then I opened my email and......

I was nominated in three categories for Best Written, Humour and Life for the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards!

And I was doing a happy dance all over the place, well specifically I did a happy dance straight to the bathroom, apparently cabbage could not hold back it's excitement either!

In any event, there are a gazillion amazing blogs that have been nominated, so quite frankly I am betting the buck stops here especially with the fantastic competition out there.  But in the meantime, I have to say that I do not know who or whom nominated me and I wanted you to know how utterly humbled I am that you would take the time to actually think of me!  Thank you very much.  How you touched my heart.

And thank you for making me smile whilst I spent the entire day yesterday leaking from all my orifices!

Your kindness has overwhelmed me!!! 

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Letting go....

2011 left me like the softness of a lover's caress and 2012 entered just as sweetly and gently, making me wonder what this year will hold.

My Christmas was a typical happy disaster created by the likes of me and my channelling of Lucille Ball.  From almost food poisoning my family with raw poultry, to loosing my turkey skewers and having to truss up the turkey with galvanized nails, to my family finding out about the galvanized nails, to sending them into the garage to eat their dinner where I transformed it into a sorry-ful makeshift dining room, to unthawing my Christmas dessert and having it collapse into mush and offering my family the alternative of whip cream shots from the can, to finally capping it off with laughter so hard that I nearly peed my pants, not once but twice, all over the fact that I was definitely the hostess without the mostess!

I spent the rest of this week either utterly exhausted laying on the couch moping to myself or had crazy like moments of being a furious tasmanian devil whilst I ripped down all the decorations before entering into the New Year. I blame the latter on the fact that I consumed copious amounts of chocolate dipped goodies.  

In all seriousness tho, I have always had this weird sense of wanting to leave the past behind when the New Year begins and open into the future for all that is new, fresh and mistake free.  Of course, eating a bag of chocolate covered almonds and six slices of bacon was not the best way to start the new year, although my stomach begs to differ!

However, for me, I have realized that it is time to let go of those things that are holding me back.

It's time for me to say goodbye to my insecurities, my sadness, my lack of confidence and my failures.

It's time to properly say goodbye to those relationships that are no longer in my life, but to which I hold onto in my heart, though strongly I know that they are gone.

It's time to let go of the past so that I can be open to the here and now.

It's time to close doors and open windows and feel the fresh air upon my face.

It's definitely time to smile and banish my self imposed frown.

It's time to sparkle in my eyes rather than squint (although I have a sneaky suspicious that sunglasses might help this infliction!) 

But mostly, it's time to let go of my fears.

This year, will be the year about growing...  And as I say that, I wish to clarify with the fates above, that I would like to grow metaphorically as a human and not my ever expanding waist line! However, I am open to growing in my height.  Just putting that out there in case you can do something about that! 

This year will be the year to believe in myself and realize that I am worth more than I have ever thought.

This year will be the year to reclaim my creativity and enthusiasm.

This year will be the year I fight thru and conquer those chains that hold me back.

And this year, really this entire year, will finally be the year I let go....

And I will... How do I know that, you say?  Well, I have already started...

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Gone in a blink...

The morning alarm went off as usual and I found myself sitting on the edge of my bed scratching my head and catching my fingers in that matted mass I call my hair. Another day of work, I thought.  Time to get going and stop putting off the inevitable. And with an old heave ho, I launched my rather large bottom off my rather high bed and landed on the floor with a thunderous thump as I started what would be the last eleven days of 2011.  

Stumbling into the wall, tripping over my slippers, I lethargically dragged myself to the glaring light coming from my bathroom. I stood staring in the bathroom vanity mirror for several moments surveying the rather large pimple that was flashing it's white neon head at me from the inside of one of my flaring nostrils.  With tweezers in hand I tried to get at the little bugger, but eventually gave up when I realized it was on an angle in my nose that I and the tweezers could not quite comprehend.

With a resounding sigh, I jumped into the shower and turned on the soft warm heat of the soothing water and closed my eyes and thought.... "where did this year go?"

Moments of this year flashed furiously by like a movie in fast motion. And there, in a blink, it seemed to me that the year had disappeared as quickly as it came.  Things had changed drastically in my life in twelve short months.  I have watched my mother's little pooch go from being spry to being geriatric, I have seen my older niece turn into a vivacious confident woman, my younger niece turn into an Audrey Hepburn beauty with the lady-like manners to match, my grandmother revert back to child-like senses and my sister-in-law struggle over the possibility of not living till the end of the year.  I have put my house up for sale, and have taken it down, I have struggled with my own health, bad news and moments of despair.  I have shut down my blog, opened it back up and taken time to reflect on the things that became important.  I have cleansed my poor body and learned to work with it as oppose to against it. I have put some things into play and sat idly by while I let more important things pass me by.

All in all, it's been a year of learning. 

Ironically, I can remember that 2011 was to be the year about me.  And while a small part of it was, mostly it wasn't. Part of it became about the battle between myself and my all encompassing nemesis of my daily life, pain.  

But mostly, it was about the connection with others thru social media and what it brought to me.

It was about finding joy in small places, simple ideas and everyday situations.  It prompted me to start my 500 days of Happiness Page on Facebook.  Funnily enough, I never thought I would make it past day 50, and here I am at day 243, with a small but loyal group of followers who regularly contribute and do wonderful things by posting pictures, and writing songs and creating art, all in the name of Happiness.  It still makes me smile.

I found out thru the year who I could rely on and who I couldn't, I experienced joy in the reconnection of an old friendships, I found joy in the connection with new friendships, I found joy just sitting at my bistro table watching the birds in my yard.  Who knew?

I realized it wasn't about the big things in life, it was about the simple joys of living.  It was about those every day moments like reading, singing, twirling in the yard, listening to music, digging in the earth and walking hand in hand with my better half.  Sometimes it was even more simplistic than that.  Sometimes, the joy was sitting in a lawn chair watching the clouds go by.

This year wasn't the Year about Me, as I so boldly tooted in January.  This year was the Year in finding joy.  And I did.

And as 2011 starts to wrap itself up, I am excited about what 2012 will bring.  I have found that over the past year nothing is better than working together in harmony with others. It has been far more enriching than I ever expected.

And as 2012 creeps quietly upon me, I feel a creative journey ahead of me.  And it makes my toes tingle, my heart flutter and my soul aching in anticipation.

And even if I head into 2012 with a pimple in my nose, a rash on my bum and pain in my neck, I can honestly say "so what", because this year really gave me what is important in life.  It gave me YOU!  And how lucky am I! 

Happy Holidays my friends.  

Thank you for your continued loyalty, support and friendship.

You all touch my heart.

Cheers

Tracy

Giving back with a Christmas Party, just for you here on my little old blog!!!

Tis the season to give back, wouldn't you agree?

And you know, it's my turn to give something back to bloggy land. It's been awhile.  Last year, I featured 4 to 5 blogs every Monday for three months, and then in January, a wildly enthusiastic, unbelievably successful blog party happened right here on my little ole blog.  I did a crazy thing then, I just handed over the keys to my digs for 48 hours and said to my fellow bloggers to just run with it and have fun!  And they did!!!

They met new people, discovered new blogs, found new interests and new things to rev up their mojos and keep the excitement ALIVE within blogland! 

I don't know about you, but my blogging interest has waned a tad and I would sure love someone (like you), too light a great big old fire under my rather large ass and get me all worked up!

So, here I go again, handing the keys over to you!!!  

And you know what? The Rules are totally simple:

For the next 48 to 72 hours, I am handing over the keys to my digs! Yup, that's right! This party is for EVERYONE. And I mean everyone. From beginner bloggers to seasoned ones, from those without followers to those with thousands. Everyone is invited whether you follow my blog or not, take this opportunity to PIMP YOURSELVES OUT!!!!

Here's the house rules:

• Leave a comment to this post with a small description of what your blog is about along with your blog address;
• Be kind and come back periodically and check out other blogs and their addresses: and
• Meet and greet and support each other.

And when you're said and done, make sure you do your own dirty dishes, turn off the lights and lock the doors!  What?  I'm not your mother for gawdsakes! Pick up after yourselves! :)

And just so you know, I so can't wait to come and meet you all too!

Oh, and by the way, stay out of my underwear drawer while you are here! I don't want to hear about any of you running thru my place with my delicates on your heads!

And for gawd sakes, don't be shy!  Now go... meet.... mingle.... be merry! Well not too merry. Oh what the hell, be SUPER MERRY!

Average Girl vs. The Man Cold

Tis that time of season that I dread the most.  Yes, that's right, it's Man Cold Season!

Every time this year, my better half ventures out into the germ infested world of retail and comes back at some point sporting the dreaded man cold.

Nurturing by nature, my "once struck down by the dreaded influenza" better half goes from this:

TO THIS:

Now I am not one to not return the favour when it comes to handing out my fair share of tender loving care to those in need, but during cold season, I am running at a full throttle to escape the ever needy spaghetti arms of my 44-year-old-turned-5-year-old man!

Stuffed up, sneezing, coughing, wheezing, the molecule of puss I currently live with has made it his mission to try and hug and kiss and smother me during his time of plague infection.

Uttered words of "I love you" followed by his long arms stretching out to grab me and to hug me in his clutches whilst he rubs his ooey gooey snot-filled nose in my hair are regular occurrences during the man cold stage.

Cold clammy hands seem to come out of the darkness in the middle of the night and find themselves planted firmly on my back all in the pretense of providing me with a "back rub" when in fact they are heat seeking missile devices looking for a way to suck my warmth out!

Moments of "honey can you make me a tea" or "can you grab me a kleenex" all seem to happen while I am sitting on the toilet or whimpers of "what I wouldn't do for your chicken soup right now" seem to be uttered all too frequently.  

Moving like a target, I run from room to room to avoid the shower of spit that seems to evaporate from his phlegm-filled lungs.  In an effort to avoid the man cold, I don my arsenal of Tylenol for cold and hide out in my den, waiting for that moment in time when he gives that last large mucus incrusted cough that frees him from the clutches of the dreaded needy five year old to the great 44 year old I know!

Oh well, I suppose its a small price to pay when you live with such an amazing guy, but in the meantime, don't be surprised if you knock on my door and find this Average Girl sporting a surgical mask.  I may love my better half, but my momma didn't raise no fool!

Until Next Time.

Tracy