Cornucopia

The temperature is still over 25 degree Celsius but I am sitting here dreaming of all the yummy fall recipes we will make in the coming weeks. All the best ingredients are about to make their way in abundance to the local farmers markets and I am so excited. Some of our repertoire:

• Fresh basil Pesto
• Corn Chowder
• Bolognese sauce made with fresh san marzano tomatoes
• Harira
• Pumpkin, Sausage & Sage pasta
• Pumpkin muffins
• Dutch Apple pancakes, made with fresh apples from the local farm
• Apple Muffins
• Apple Crumble
• Chicken Vesuvio

Don't you love fall food? I can't wait to see what my little one thinks of all these flavours as this will be her first taste of most of these recipes/ingredients.

Grumpy old men

I have mellowed out in my old age. In my teens and early twenties I seemed to run on vitriol, always finding a nemesis or someone I deemed competition to my goals/desires. I'm not proud of it but at least I can see it now. Thanks to some therapy sessions in my mid to late twenties, as well as joining a running group (of really amazing women who were a positive influence) I found that I didn't need that type of 'motivation' in my life. I didn't even think that mindset was toxic until it was no longer present in my life.

Since coming back from maternity leave last December I have been confronted with someone that has re-ignited these feelings. I can't get into too much detail but suffice it to say the HE does not like me and is doing what he can to make me feel small, inadequate and unskilled. He is in a position of authority (which was not the case when I left) and it feels like he has made it his mission to watch over me and point out anything I do wrong.

I have had nothing but good reviews since I started this job many years ago, so the fact that this is documented in my review for this year really hurts me. It kills me to have someone question my work ethic and quality since I take such pride in both. I hate how much he seems to enjoy what he is doing, and how directed it is. Why has he singled me out? Doesn't he have something better to do? I have tried to smooth things over but he's an automaton with no human emotion (apart from spite) and I think he would miss having the scapegoat.

What irks me is that I think about him a lot. I see his face and I want to do mean things back to him. And I really, really wish I didn't feel this way because it's ugly. It's energy spent and wasted. It's toxic to the people in my life that have to hear about it because if I don't vent I might explode. I especially resent him for making me cry because I would never have let him get to me like that before I became a mother.

I can't do anything about it so I'm going to try and get over it. Not ignore it, but just accept it. I want to get back to a place where I don't have such anger in my life, much less every day that I walk into the office. I doubt it will be easy but I need to stop wasting my energy on something I can't change. Wish me luck and maturity, I think I'm going to need both.

Normal is as normal does

Okay, no joke, I wrote this nearly 7 months ago and never got around to posting it. I will now, with a smirk on my face knowing that not a whole lot has changed. I feel more at peace with all of it however. Also, I have less spit on my clothes now, huzzah!

* * * * 

Hello! It's me, I'm still here. I often question if I exist apart from my little one, since I truly do nothing other than take care of her, go to work and sleep in 3 hour intervals. Based on that description. it sounds like I have a newborn but alas, I do not. I have a 15 month old that does not understand the joys of sleeping for more than 3 hours in a row. She'll get there, right? This too shall pass...right? Yeah, I've heard all the thought cancelling cliches, and I know it can't last forever, but until she no longer holds us as sleep hostages, my life will not start going back to 'normal'.

I say "normal" with the clear understanding that my normal has change irrevocably. Bit by bit I am starting to feel better and more comfortable in my skin but I realize that I will probably never feel like my old self again. It's just taking so long to get myself to a state of normalcy that I question if it's taking place at all. It's glacial movement kind of slow. But, just like people told me, eventually I was able to sit down again after giving birth. Eventually the scar tissue lessened its rage and allowed me to shower and perform other hygiene based activities without cringing/wincing. My abdominal strength even started to slowly reappeared, even if it was hidden under a lovely sheath of belly jelly. I even had 20 odd skin tags removed from my neck - bet you didn't know that those were a fugly side effect of pregnancy, did you? So, what's left? What strange bodily changes have remained? Let's see....I have a double chin that looks like it's hear to stay. A new skin condition that appears to be rosacea on my cheeks. There is the high likelihood of snizzing if my bladder is full when I sneeze. My feet never returned to their old size and now my feet are too big to fit into most of my oh-so-pretty pre-pregnancy shoes. There's the undeniable deterioration in my vision, which will be confirmed shortly at the optometrist. Then there's the obvious, goes without saying weight gain that is taking so damn long to address.

I'm not stupid; I know that weight loss is simple math. Reduce calories in (less fatty intake) and increase calories out (through exercise) to achieve weight loss. I know my body (or at least I did before the baby), I need to exercise to increase calories out because I like to eat way too much. My adult body was comfy at 140 without much exercise or 130 if I was working out like a fiend (i.e. training for a marathon). I also knew my body type could have been described as "athletic"; never thigh gap skinny. I will never be 120 pounds again like in my high school days and I am SO okay with that. But I don't want to be 165 pounds. I need to move my ass. But with Olivia, winter weather, traffic, chores, daycare and work hours hemming me in, I can't even fit in 30 minutes at my work gym. Every day I wake up thinking 'it's not hard, don't eat all that extra stuff and you will fit in your nice clothes again'. But there is always something extra I want to eat. Eating makes me happy. Food makes me happy. Cooking makes me happy. To make matters worse, I consider myself a stress eater, so basically the last 15 months of stressful (I mean blissful ) motherhood has translated to an abundance of stress eating.

But here I am. Let me paint you a picture; I go to work in clothes that are too tight and often covered in dry spit , with sallow eyes ringed in dark circles, and the same old shoes that I bought to fit my pregnant feet. My beautiful jewelry that I scoured for on eBay doesn't fit my swollen fingers and I am lucky if I get to brush my teeth before I leave the house, much less put on makeup or style my hair. I never thought I needed to wear makeup before; now I feel like I must hide behind it.

Ouuf, sounds like someone needs a sit down with a therapist and a massage, hun?

Brace face no more

I can't believe that I posted so many updates on my progress with orthodontic braces and never bothered to report on the results. Check out these choppers: 

The braces came off in December during new baby craziness, so it was a bit of a non event after so much build up. In January after holiday madness, I had my top two front teeth built up with new bottom edges. I really underestimated what a difference this would make to my smile, even more than the actual straightening with braces. At first I was upset with how different it looked but within a week I barely noticed the difference. I recently saw a photo of how short my two front teeth were and I'm glad we adjusted this because braces alone would not have had the best impact.

At this point I'm still supposed to wear my retainer 24/7, but this proves difficult, mostly because I am busy with Olivia and I often forget to put it back on after a meal. I'm trying to be good, I really am. So was it all worth it? Ehhhh, I'm still on the fence. At this age, a lot of wear and tear has already changed my teeth to a point where even braces didn't amount to this mind blowing result that I expected. I'm happy with the results but I'm not sure that at this stage of my life it was worth the hassle. In any case, the saga of braceface is over at last. Hoohaa!

Shopping: sephora lip balm

I don't get out much these days, so I usually end up with a long list of supplies that I need to buy whenever I do get out. I'm not one of these (talented) mommys that head out dressed up nice and stroll around with their baby, acting like it's nothing to lug around a 40 pound carrier and change poo diapers in filthy mall settings; I tend to wait until my mom babysits and then I do a marathon shopping trip to do everything at once. Usually with dirty hair and the least dirty pair of pants that fit, praying that I won't run into anyone I know. Oh how my standards have changed... Jebus help me. It doesn't help that I'm super picky and don't want other people helping out by picking things up for me. Let's just call me choosy and leave it there. 

Along with a million baby supplies, my mega shopping list included lip balm, which I needed desperately because I haven't worn anything but lip balm since last October when I went on Mat leave. I searched a few pharmacies during my shopping binges to no avail, since the one I liked (soft lips) could not be found. I just wanted a balm that had no colour and no flavour, which is oddly a difficult feat. I nearly gave in a bought Fresh sugar lip treatment at Sephora, which has a whopping 26$ price tag, but cooler heads prevailed when I spotted this in house Sephora product for 6$. I am living off a mat leave salary after all!! After a week of use I gotta say that I love it. I noticed it's a limited edition So I may need to stock up. I highly recommend this one if you are in the market for a subtle scent and nourishing texture without being tacky/sticky, and overly flavoured or scented

Stay at home mama

Little miss Olivia has been keeping me busy. I went missing from this blog a couple months prior to her birth and since then, updating a blog has been the furthest thing from my mind. I seem to have little capacity to take on anything above and beyond baby care, preparing food, and minimal hygiene. Pretty picture, hun? But this little 6 month old is (as predicted by all parents everywhere) the best thing in my life.



In between naps and bottle sterilizing, i have been visiting facebook and posting/sharing things i like and i must admit that I'm probably driving my friends nuts with all my rabbit and baby related posts. But facebook posts are bite sized and just the 5-minutes-at-a-time amount of leisure reading i have available these days. Anyhow, i figure i should come back here with all my "likes" and "shares" since they are more for me than for others anyhow. So here i am. And I'm armed with many, many photos of my baby (and fur baby)...

Craving

Of all the odd pregnancy cravings out there, my specific compulsion is Hamburger helper. I have not eaten HH since my teens, but I've conned Marc into making it for me on numerous occasions during this pregnancy. Strangely satisfying stuff, I wonder if I will continue to like it afterwards...