To Blog or Not to Blog:

That is the question. It seems that the blogging bug has bitten, left the building and the bite mark is no where to be seen. For now I think I'll give the blogging a rest and concentrate on growing this baby that has taken up residence. Thank you all for your kind words and support over the last year, creating this space to rant and rave has exceeded my wildest dreams. No doubt I'll see you here again in the future when it's time to hitch up the weight loss wagon and get going again.

Cravings and Aversions.

Image: norwichnuts

So in my mind I thought, being newly up the duff and all, that I'd be begging Kenj to get up at some ungodly hour and make me something like the picture above. That I wouldn't be able to carry on without my crazy food fetish. I've seen the movies, watched the TV shows, read the magazines. Preggo chicks like eating weird shit right?

Well it seems not so with me. I've been hungrier than ever before but not really craved anything in the tear down the walls give me my coco pops and tomato sauce kind of way. This is mildly disappointing. I was totally ready for it, I have a pretty varied diet, I was imagining combos that would make even Andrew Zimmern squeamish.

So no cravings, what about aversions? Yes, and this has been strange.... chicken is off the cards, even looking at it in the butcher makes me feel wrong. Sadly, and much to my shock and horror vegetables are no longer the love of my life...... bland, boring and cardboard like they seem. I push them round my plate, stick them on and off my fork and generally do anything to not eat them.... eeeeek.

So here I am, imagining my unborn child starving of nutrients in the womb..... I know, I know, don't worry everything will be alright, but I am of the family way, it is my right to freak out, freaking out is right up there with wanting pickles and ice cream at 4am, I'm just allowed to do it.

I'm trying different things... vege juices are OK, although sometimes even a mouthful makes me want to yerlch all over the kitchen. Today I had success, I hid the veges. There they were lurking in a tomato base with lots of cheese, pour that over some brown rice and I'm more densely nutritious than Gillian McKeith as she screams at some poor woman about fish 'n' chips with mushy peas.

As I was chopping the veges as small as I could, so as to get them sliding straight down my throat without nary a blip on the boring foods radar, I had a thought. Maybe this is preparation, maybe this is my body's way of saying "look lady you better work out how to make veges taste good, because no kid worth their weight in rusk sticks is going to be interested in your steamed vege garbage, it ain't gunna happen".

Who knows, but whatever it is, I hope I can put cheese on it, because cheese fixes everything.

Where have I been?

Image: Marco Bellucci

Well, that's a very good question... I've been off inhabiting a place inside my head, roaming around, wondering. Oh yeah, I was also in Japan.... but only for 3 weeks so not much of an excuse.

The real reason for my absence? I am up the duff bun in the oven the stalk is in a holding pattern pregnant. Yes you read that right, of the family way. This came as quite a surprise, especially to me..... aren't I the overweight, over 30, hypothyroid, borderline PCOS type that is bound to have difficulties? 8 pregnancy tests later I finally believed those two blue lines. This is really happening.

I'm still here, hungry, needing to pee and dreaming the most crazily profound dreams ever.

Progress pic, some goals and a pumpkin pie

OK, I know. You can't really SEE much of what's going on under all of my layers here, dontchya love layers :) But for me this is progress. If you look at the detail, I'm wearing a skirt, Yay! And said skirt is technically above the knee, double Yay! This is progress, people, outfits are getting more colorful, the smile is getting wider and that's how things are getting measured around here these days.

So the whole not having a job thing kinda sucks. I seem to be over my curl up on the couch and block out the sun phase and have moved on to..... hmmmmm now what? Last year I gave up my career as a cardiac nurse to pursue some stress free happiness, the art school job came along and was a perfect fit, I stopped searching aimlessly, and settled into a sort of routine. I felt like I had got somewhere, made some progress, but now it doesn't really feel like that because here I am back at square one.

I'm taking this as a hippy dippy sign from the universe that I wasn't quite on the right path, that I needed to have a little wander along to see if I was headed in the right direction, and while it was nice and sunny, it was not leading me to where I am destined to go, wherever that is!

No doubt something will happen, it always does. Meanwhile I thought I'd just focus a bit more on healthy living while I wait for that gold nugget to drop out of the sky and into my bank account.

The gorgeous Hanlie who is always such an inspiration, is extra so this month. Embarking on a month of raw foods, Hanlie's green smoothies and sprouting bonanzas have got me thinking more and more about about my diet, and I've decided it's time to cut the crap and ditch the sweeties.

I work really well with goals, but I also don't work too well with total restriction, so I've set myself some goals this week, that aren't too obsessive, have some planned exceptions but are still a challenge. In case you were wondering, here they are:

• No processed sugar (except for two slices of pumpkin pie today, as part of the best pumpkin pie in the world competition, more on that later)
• No processed foods (except for one bowl of ramen noodles)
  
• Exercise daily
• One Yoga class

So there you have it. I've been working on the no sugar, no processed foods, exercise daily goals for a while now, years in fact, and it feels good to be working on them all at the same time. For me I think it's important to keep in mind my long term food/life/fitness goals and keep chipping away at them consistently. I may not be a clean eating, yoga doing, muscle bearing machine as yet, but I'm taking steps towards the idea, and that is a start.

The Pumpkin Pie thing is a long story, one I plan to elaborate on further over at NinjaEats, but I'll tell you this, my dear friend Chicorolls and I have had a lot of trash talking going between us about who can bake the best pumpkin pie. Today we are going head to head in an attempt to out bake each other, the oven mitts are off and the spoons are out!

Happy weekend lovelies :)

New Beginings.....

Image: d'n'c

Today I lost my job. My little job, the job that I had loved, the job that had taught me that work isn't all bad. It sucked. I cried, ate some ice cream as well as my beloved o sembei and watched my favorite movie.

They didn't want to let me go, offered me a few hours a week to keep me around. But my heart just wasn't in it, the delivery was abrupt, no hint of thanks for the hard work I have done getting their business off the ground, treated a bit like an anonymous factory worker rather than a friend working in a creative venture to bring the wonder of art to children. So I declined and wandered back to the drawing board staring at the blank page.

I'm old enough and tough enough to know that as one door closes another opens, but I'm kinda left thinking maybe it's time to build my own door, one with a kooky knocker and a peep hole so that I can see exactly who is out there before I let them in.

Tomorrow IS another day.