In a chocolate filled bath

Feeling sore and tired and wanting a change, I took up the challenge of cleansing my poor painful body once more. Perhaps with the annihilation of all bodily toxins, I would see a significant reduction in pain.  Prepared for the after effects of sugar, wheat and dairy product withdrawals, I filled my fridge to the brim with fruits and veggies and items that were definitely nature's version of a colon cleaner combo.

By the time I was to be finished, I knew that my bowels would be whistling dixie and hopefully so would many of my painful body parts.

As I have completed many cleanses over the years, the last thing I expected was to be on day ten of the cleanse and get my first real surge of a sugar withdrawal.  Surprised by this yearning, I have to say that sugar has never been my weakness.  I am more a chip and dip type of girl. Yes that's right, fats and salts have been my weakness for as long as I can remember, and if I could dive into a bowl of spinach dip, I would most likely be the happiest girl in the world. But yesterday, I was craving something so sweet, so delectable, so gooey and yummy that I turned a slight bump in my cleanse into a day's worth of seeking and hunting and searching thru my cupboards.

Ravenous, well at least in my mind, I sucked back strawberries and raspberries, blackberries and apples, in a fruitless attempt (pun intended) to appease the God that was ruling my stomach.  As the hours ticked by, I knew that the only thing left to do was too cheat! But with the ever watchful eye of my better half, I was stumped on how to go about it. By 8:00 p.m., I was literally climbing the walls. So with some slight manipulation, I convinced my better half that our pitiful little pooch was in some serious need of exercise and guilted him to take our doodle bug for a walk.

The moment he left, I dashed to the cupboards.  I opened this drawer and that drawer, pulled this item and that item, I searched, I hunted, I tore thru my kitchen like the Tazmanian devil on speed. I was, in short, desperate for something ooey and gooey.  Sadly, I knew that I could not eat any of the Christmas treats that I had stocked our pantry with as the food police would be counting the wares and would note any corruption of packaging.  Finally, I flung open my baking cupboard, and in a moment that can almost be declared a miracle, I saw glimmering down at me, in all it's glory, from the second shelf, a box of Bakers Chocolate.  Knowing that my better half is not aware of what all my baking supplies are, I stood up on my tip toes and yanked that box down and ripped it open before you could say "Bob's your Uncle" and just as I had the dubious piece of chocolate in my hand, my better half came trotting thru the door.  I stood there like a deer caught in the headlights, slipped the piece of chocolate into the pocket of my hoody before he saw, and mumbled something about checking out my baking supplies for Christmas.

Not knowing what to do next, I sat in the chair quivering over the smell of the chocolate that was oozing up towards my nostrils.  I was so close to having my craving satisfied, yet so far away with the Cleansing Commissioner sitting beside me.  In short, I was going NUTS!

I stood up and did a fake yawn, told my better half I was going to have a soak in the tub to kick back and relax before bed and flew like a maniac down to the bathroom, only to find him hot on my tail.  Being his usual thoughtful self, he ran my bath for me and filled it to the brim with bubbles and sat on the bed to talk to me while the tub filled up with the ever so delightful fragrant scent of sweet peas.

And then with my better half retiring to the living room, I slipped into the bathroom, stepped into the tub with the chocolate in my hand, and eased my way into the steaming hot water. And as I sat there lovingly unwrapping the chocolate square from the clutches of its wrapper, and with my mouth salivating and drooling, I bent down to give that sweet rich chocolate aroma a quick smell, when..... all of a sudden, the damn thing slid off my freaking hand and kerplunked right into the bathtub!

And because I couldn't get out of the tub without risking an inquisition from my better half, there I sat for the next 45 with a great big old chocolate smudge down by my leg staring up at me and taunting me with it's bounty. 

I won't lie, there was a moment where I thought about sticking my head under the water and licking the chocolate off the bottom of the tub, but then I farted in the tub and realized that even I have my boundaries.

So much for cheating.

Until Next time.

Tracy

A Winter's Dance

Old Man Winter has finally come to visit and leaving his gentle touch wherever he goes.  From various colours of grey painted skies, to frosting on our roofs, to the bows of trees sparkling with a web of silver, to his butterfly kisses across my face in the morning air.

And while I mock and tease those who are excited about the first snow, secretly I adore winter.  This season always invokes wonderful memories of my childhood past, from snow ball fights and snow angels, to creating paper snowflakes, to being surrounded in family.  Longings deep within my soul whirl around like fall leaves caught in a gust of wind.

The white old man reminds me of Christmases past and cherished family members that have long since left this earth.  He reminds me of my adored and much loved childhood dog and warm fires, Sundays in pajamas, homemade hot chocolate and baking with my mother.

My memories are vast and large and all encompassing, and much like a scene in a snow globe, they has been frozen in time.

As I get older and our family branches from direction to direction, I can’t quite hold onto the winters of my past.  They were simple and uncomplicated and full of beauty and I miss them.

Holidays have become about spreading myself too thin from traveling here to there and seeing this person to seeing that person, and I grow weary of the changes.  This time of the year always brings me moments of regret for not having children.  And I latch onto my beautiful nieces all the more, well aware that they are growing up. And as one informed me last year, will be moving to a new country for University in one short year and my heart breaks again.  I miss her already and fear she won’t come back. I strain to see the child in her but I can’t.  And as they grow older, so begins another change to our winter traditions.  It is growth.

Why is it that we wish to hold onto those childhood moments.  I suppose it’s because as a child they seemed perfect.  I am betting however my parents would tell me that they were full of imperfection that my innocent young eyes would not have grasped.  I prefer to keep these cherished memories as untarnished highlights of my life.

Beautiful, endearing moments of my heart and I would not have it any other way.

Yes, Old Man Winter is welcome at my house along with his ice encrusted suitcase full of my memories.  In fact, I look forward to our first Winter’s dance together, under the sky while snowflake confetti lightly touches my face and sticks to my eyelashes and I twirl under the beauty of it all feeling like the enthralled five year old of my dreams.

He is my winter lover, my solace, my moment of dreams and my friend. And like all old friends, he will always have a place in my heart and in my home.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

Beware of the woman with Pooh on her hand!

Three months in and I have to say that selling a house is nothing short of exhaustifying. It never ceases to amaze me that people think that giving me 30 minutes notice during a work day is a sufficient amount of time to leave my office unattended, go home, clean and get my dog out, drive around while they look and be back at my desk within my one hour allotted lunch period.

Now, I will admit, I am a bit of a cleaning freak and have some serious ownership pride going on and prefer to have a requisite 24 hours notice to get everything in order and to find someone to dog-sit my little boy in order to accommodate strangers and allow them the opportunity to roam freely around my home and criticize their heart out. BUT, while I do everything possible to allow the potential buyers to attend my home on their time frame, I have found that even I have limits on what is pushing the proverbial envelope.

Generally in Canada, the rule of thumb for real estate is that the realtor you hire attaches somewhere on the outside of your home a lock box which contains a spare key to your house.  The buyer's agent makes an appointment to see your house at a specific date and time for a one hour viewing increment.  You gather up your brood, if you have a brood, in my case a hubby and a pooch, lock your house up and drive around aimlessly wasting one irreplaceable hour of your life whilst strangers grab the key and wander thru your life which is now on display for all to see, and then you usually have the joy of coming home to lights on, doors unlocked, and in my case, the washroom being used and furniture being moved.  All in all, it really is a self inflicted form of violation for which you pay big financial sums for.

A few weeks ago, I finally reached my boiling point.  We had the same couple attend our house three times.  Each time, they would come in and point out what they didn't like and then leave demands such as they wanted the exact measurements of our closets or the exact measurements of our bathrooms, and we would willingly provide same in the hopes that they would buy our home.  And then weeks would go by and we would receive narry a feedback nor any indication that an offer would be made. Eventually, we would forget about them, and then they would rear their ugly heads again and make yet another appointment to see our home and the process of pleasing them would begin again.  Finally, after another long period of time, they made yet a fourth appointment to see our house on a Saturday between 11:00 a.m .to noon.  With my home in order, and everything doused in summer happy febreeze air freshener and my pooch securely placed into his carrying crate in the backseat of my car, me, myself and I and my little dog were off to drive around for an hour whilst these time wasting morons went thru our home again.

After an hour passed, I drove back home looking forward to stretching out for a couple of hours before a second set of people were to come later that day.  However upon arrival, these potential buyers were still in my home. With a u-turn of my car, I took off for another 20 minutes only to come back and find them still in there.  With some cursing under my breath and with another slightly annoyed turn of my car again, I sighed heavily and left my subdivision once more to drive in the repetitive circular pattern that I had already done for the last hour and half. About two minutes down the road, I was immediately engulfed into the most gawd awful, nose hair burning, eye watering stench emanating from inside every corner of my car.  Immediately, I whipped the windows open, tried to restrain the gag reflex I was having and pulled over to the side of the road. It was then that I realized that my poor pooch had just expressed his anal glands. And if you don't know what that is, well in a nut shell, my poor baby boy sprayed out pooh juice from his teeny tiny bum and soaked the entire inside surface of his crate.  Imagine standing amongst the rot of 500 decaying fish and smelling that in.... Ah, I see recognition on your face, well now times that by 1000 and you get my drift on what my car smelled like.

Instantly, I made a turn into our local hospital that has a wooded park like setting, pulled my poor smelly pooch out of his stinky confines and walked him around in a desperate attempt to air out his little patooty.

And as we silently strolled around the tree lined parking lot, we ran into the hospital security guard. And as I was saying "hi", my beloved pooch decided that this was the perfect time to drop a bomb that was about five times his own weight right beside the foot of the ever watchful security guard. I stood there sheepishly, blushed profusely and reached into my pocket, grabbed out a bag and picked up the offending mountain of slop and walked hurriedly back to my car.

As I was reaching my vehicle, I felt a warm oozing sensation in my hand.  And wouldn't you know it, there was freaking hole in the bag!!!

Being without any form of kleenex, I single handedly picked up my pooch in my pooh free hand, secured him into his smelly crate, and drove like a one handed maniac home while I desperately tried to contain my breakfast in my stomach.

And as I approached home, some almost two hours since I left it, I came back to find those damn people were still in it! Still in it! Still in it! Did I mention that THEY WERE STILL IN IT!!!!

With a queasy stomach, a hand covered in pooh, a dog with a smelly ass and temper to match my mother's red hair, I drove up my driveway, opened up my garage, marched in my house, looked at the startled never-to-buy-my-house-but-constantly-waste-my-time potential buyers and unceremoniously escorted them out.

With open mouths and complete shock they scurried out of there faster than you could say "Bob's your Uncle".

And the moral of the story:  If you are not going to buy my damn house, than beware of the woman with a smelly pooch and pooh on her hand, because she is prepared to slap you up the side of your head with her pooh encased hand for wasting her time!

Until Next Time.

Tracy