The Glow of the Crescent Moon....

 

Holding hand and hand, we ventured out into the darkness for our nightly stroll. The evening sky was painted in the deepest midnight blue and the sparkling stars were out and about playing their twinkling games amongst themselves.

The air was fresh and I could feel my cheeks being lightly touched with the blush of rose by the freshness of the first days of Spring. She was coming, that wonderful Spring, and her lovely hands graced my face in a soft embrace.

We wandered thru our quaint little neighbourhood that was so quiet that all you could hear was the evening hush and the Robin’s lyrical song marking it's glorious territory for the next several months of mating season.

Trails here and there, left by the previous owners of this once historical property, were now improved upon by the developers creating a woodland retreat dotted with snowdrops and crocuses and the beginnings of the beautiful face of the daffodil.

Up the road, not far from my homestead, was once the ancient apple orchard, now converted in to carriage-like homes with cobblestone entrances, giving it a quaint English appeal here in the heart of my home town.

Standing for a mere moment to soak in the vast stillness, I noticed the majestic maple tree standing there alone in the twilight. Gnarled by the years of growth and outstretching it’s magnificent limbs to the moonlight above, it’s appearance was nothing short of an image from a movie based on Ole Hallow’s Eve. Thru it’s glorious branches, I caught the glimpse of a slight purple haze softening the golden hue of the crescent moon. Two rather large stars fighting for centre stage shimmered beside it giving off the most magical vision that I had ever laid my eyes upon. I stood there in awe as I witnessed before me what must have been the muse for many an artist.

With my eyes transfixed, I found that I was mesmerized by the grandness and haunting beauty of the midnight sky. I stood for what seemed like an eternity etching the image deep into my memory. And as my eyes flicked down to my better half, I saw him gazing at me with a small warm smile, and then, he reached out, stroked the hair from my face and took my hand into his, and we continued our walk under the glow of the Crescent Moon.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

It's all Black and White to me!

A long LONG time ago, when I first started my baby steps into the blogging world, I was happily switching back and fourth from posting pics to goofy writings.  It was a happy mix for me that often confused the bloggers who stopped by for a visit.  

I had ones who just came for the photos and ones who just came for the writing, and then one day, I just decided to split it down the middle by starting my other two blogs that I could post photos and girly romantic things on, and keep Average Life just as a straight account of all my life's crazier moments. I have to admit, keeping up on three blogs is near IMPOSSIBLE!  

Anywhoooo, this week I thought to myself:  I think I want to post a few wee photos here and so I am!  You see my madness don't you, I am getting you all primed and ready for when I bombard you with pics from Italy!

So, after a year of having my camera, I finally located my black and white setting (which was so important to me, as I wanted to find it before we took off to Italy, I am imagining lots of architecture pics in b & w) and after I found it, I think I did a little jig right in my living room.

So without further ado and to waste more of your valuable time, here they are:

And this is what I am calling "The Daisy Series".... 

So original huh?

And here is one colour photo for good measure!

Hope you are well!

Until Next Time

Tracy

Finding my Pretty

Years ago, I mean YEARS ago, when I was in the blossom of my youth, I was a tad fashion obsessed, well as fashion obsessed as you could be living in the 1980's in a hick town without reality shows, internet and a store where you could buy both your underwear and your fishing tackle in the same aisle.

While most of the older town women shopped at the local Woolworths store for their yearly supply of the polyester/cotton blend wardrobe, I would every year save my money from my summer job and venture out by traveling the hour and half away with my mom each August to purchase my school outfits from the City I adored.

I felt glamorous in my teens and use to love to preen in front of my mirror and was ridiculously besotted with my once perky breasts and my wrinkle free skin.

A few years later, me, my school clothes, my perky breasts and my smooth baby face would move down to that City I adored and would instantly find out that I was anything but fashion forward.

It would be during this time that my thyroid would stop working and it would be many years before it would be discovered as such and I would spend the next 10 years packing on the poundage. My parents would go through an obscenely rough divorce that would see me eating my troubles away, I would earn a mere $6.67 per hour working for lawyers and be so poor, that I would spend the next several years walking to work with holes in my shoes, tears in my clothes and eating tuna and kraft dinner from the case lots sales at the local grocery store.

I would end up hanging out with other girls my age that were gorgeous and self assured and I would feel ashamed of my looks, and would view myself as the guppy among the starfish.

My confidence would be non-existent and I would spend another decade plus hiding under dark solid colours of clothing and feeling less than desirable and losing myself to that unspeakable nagging voice that kept reminding me that I was just a lump with eyeballs.

It would take up to a few years ago for me to realize that I was so much more than that. And even then, I would only allow myself to indulge in jewelry and purses to make my dowdy clothing seem a little more prettier.

And then this year, something happened that I can't explain.  I had a moment when I realized that I didn't want to go to Italy in my dowdy sturdy clothing.  I didn't want to blend in with the crowd.  I didn't want to be just another unrecognizable woman.  I wanted to be noticed. And as I stood in the clothing store, I felt this surge take over me and within minutes, I started to grab and buy everything that I could that was both feminine and beautiful.   

And then later that evening as I laid out all my new purchases on my bed, I did something completely absurd.  I took a running leap and jumped on my bed and laid among my new clothes, and it dawned on me at that moment, I was and had always been more than I realized, it just took me 20 plus years to figure it out.  

Thankfully, I was finally just finding my pretty.

Until Next Time.

Tracy

In a furious fit......

I am always appalled when I watch these *ahem* reality shows and I see adults throw hissy fits when they are not getting their own way.  

Let me pause here, because the first thing that saddens me in the above phrase is the fact that I watch garbage like that, and secondly, I *ummm stutter* may have fallen into that hissy fittin' group.

It all started yesterday.... *cue memory inducing music*

I had been on day sixteen of what would become 17 long days of another one of my cleanses. Desperate to feel better and more desperate to loose a dress size or two before heading off to Italy, I had yet again radically changed my eating plan.

Salads, salads and more salads, followed by apples apples and more apples and I had dropped a miraculous 9 pounds in 12 days.  Still eating healthily and definitely no sign of deprivation, I was on a mission (and still am) to see some results, but as I hit lucky day number 16, I woke up craving the inevitable.  Oh gosh, there it was, in my face, huge, dark and sweet, oh yes Chocolate was calling my name.  And it was saying "come on stumpy girl, what's another cellulite dimple on yer big ole ass, come on eat me!  You know you wanna!!!"  Yes, my chocolate craving was a bit of a hillbilly.

Earlier in the week, my better half was rushed in for some dental surgery which left him with a mouth full of stitches and a prescribed penchance for soft foods, consisting of ice cream, puddings, more ice cream and more damn puddings!  

For the first few days, his eating of refined sugary and fat inducing sweets, did not, let me repeat, did not in the slightest bother me, until the sixteenth almost fatal day of my cleanse.

I had done my usual routine which is to weigh myself in the evening before I went to bed (yes I weigh myself then) only to see that I had not moved one ounce, not one bloody ounce in 4 long days.  Frustrated and exasperated at the scale, my better half snuck around me and placed his long lanky frame up on the evil device to reveal that during his sugar frenzie he had lost two pounds!  Two pounds??!!!???  TWO FREAKING POUNDS whilst I remained stagnant in my belly and ass poundage!

While that boy walked around consuming a tub of lard, I had been sprouting lettuce for hair, carrots for teeth and cauliflower for ears and still had not moved one single line on that damn scale.

In what could be described as one of the worst hissy fits of my life (although I think my family would beg to differ), I literally ran down the stairs screaming at the top of my lungs "THAT'S NOT FAIR, THAT'S NOT FAIR... YOU SUCK YOU SUCK YOU SUCK!!" And then I frantically opened each of my cupboards until I found the glorious one foot long chocolate bar I had received as a gift from my friend in Sweden.  And there it sat in my hands, beckoning me, calling me, lord it was screaming at me!  "Oh just eat my Tracy, I mean seriously, how much damage can I do, I am only half your size in height and way like 10 pounds, but what the heck, eat me girl, just eat me!!!!"  For two long hard silent minutes, I glared at that chocolate bar, I slobbered on that chocolate bar, I whimpered over that chocolate bar, I caressed it, hugged it, stroked it and lovingly kissed its wrapper.  And then with a child-like pout, I got up from the couch, and with a gentle tear rolling down my red hot face, I slammed it back into the cupboard, walked past my better half (who was now sitting there with a disturbingly amused grin on his face), flicked him in the back of the head and said "oh shut up" and then with a hearty slam of the door, off to bed I went at 8:00 p.m.!

Yup, it wasn't pretty, but I made it my friends, I made it through my first furious fit!

Until Next Time.

Tracy