You to thank

Yep, I'm completely on a Ben Folds roll at the moment. Things are good, I have no idea why. Some things have changed but nothing I can put my finger on and go aha! That was the moment/thing/person/place where it all changed. All I know is I remain in a happy place. My boy makes me happier than anyone I have ever known. Makes me want to kill him more than anyone I have ever known and loves me more than anyone except a blood relative. But that's unconditional so a little different. :)

I'm counting down the days until Denmark. Maybe see this little lady again, maybe not. See if anyone fancies that trek this time. A whole week with family is going to be amazing. For those who don't know my family are a little global. Me here in the land of cheese, brother in Germany, another in Denmark, sister in England another brother in Scotland and folks in England too. I guess we like being cosmopolitan!

It's about four weeks until we head for Denmark and I have far too much to do before then. I agreed to make a messenger/courier style bag for my mum and decided to be a little eco and upcycle an old bag and also use some new fabric with it that I bought from Ikea. Great idea except I need to somehow design this thing myself and make it pretty yet functional. Within this time scale. Hmmmm, this is gonna be a challenge. Well, fingers crossed I can put something together I am happy enough to give my mum. That's always the problem, everyone else is happy but I look at my creations most of the time and think, 'it could be better'.

I guess a big part of the issue is I spend far too much time on Etsy. I am slowly amassing a large hearts list of the many shops I love. Like this ring, I want this ring so bad but I just can't justify the cost to myself.

These shoes on the other hand are amazingly beautiful and not so expensive except they would be coming from the other side of the world so the shipping ruins the idea and rhe cost. Bah humbug!
What I do love about the amount of time I spending druelling at everything one there, is the amount of inspiration it gives me. I have tons of clothes I don't wear and with seeing how wonderful people's upcycling creations are I'm motivated to recreate my wardrobe. Now if only my newly acquired sewing skills and machine matched the ideas in my head!

I think I may have broken the dog today. I decided to finally pull my finger out, bought a decent pair of running shoes and went on my first run today. I decided as my own conditioning is dire and so is the dog's, we'll improve together. It would seem I recover faster! I am currently waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can hop in the shower and the dog is lying spread eagled on the floor zzzzzing his little head off. Bless! Me thinks he won't be up for fetching daddy at the station tonight. Be interesting to see if he really fancies walking with me tomorrow morning as well! Especially if the clothes get changed. He learns pretty quickly what different attire means. Like my walking boots, he knows that means we're in for a long one or the weather is crap but he loves both so the boots are exciting. Same as an old pair of black cords, he knows these are dedicated walking trousers. I think he may run and hide from the white trainers and cropped leggings in the future! :P

Right, I think the washing machine may have stopped. Excellent!

I forgot to mention, 15 days without a cigarette . I'm very pleased with myself. Fingers crossed I can keep it up this time!

Landed

Another great Ben Folds title, kind of how I feel this week.

I've spent the majority of the week feeling tired for no real reason. My diet's good and balanced so not a B 12 deficiency as everyone panics about because I don't eat meat. It's not stress as at the moment eiether as even though work is busy it's in a good way rather than a panic struck, on the verge of another anxiety attack kinda way. I'm sleeping well except for my brain still trying to get it's head round the fact that earlier sun up does not mean earlier Belle up. I'm also not grumpy in the mornings despite feeling tired? What the??

I decided as there was enough vacancy that I'd take the Friday off with the boy and sleep. Sleep eluded me but the boy and I had a lovely day. Didn't do much special, just routine weekly type stuff but always nice when we can actually do it together.

So following my contemplation last week on whether I am a contradiction of myself I have taken measures to stop this internal argument and decide where my choices lie. I stopped smoking. Well, I should say I'm trying to stop smoking. On my second day now and oddly enough haven't missed them. The real trial will be work.

I dyed my hair with Henna for the first time ever today, and I love it. So no more chemical crapola near my head again!

I bought soya milk again. It sucks in tea but little steps, ya know?

Right now I'm making a sweet potato and butternet squash pie for the firt time too. Fingers crossed it works! I can smell the cinnamon in the computer room and can't wait to stuff my face with pie later!

Dear lord, it is as people have accused me this week and as I feared, I am a hippy. A tattooed, skinny jean wearing hippy, and funnily, I love it!

I do the best imitation of myself

Ben Folds always says it in the best way.

Lately I feel like a walking contradiction of myself. There's this dyed haired, tattooed, pierced, skinny jeaned, studded belted, smoking portrayal of me that everyone sees every day.  Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike these physical characteristics of me. I embrace them. I have calmed them, alcohol is no longer my crutch and I'm happy with that.

Where I feel the contradictory part creeping in is that lately there's this hidden depth of mother earth 'hippyness' in me fighting to get out but it's tough getting through these life long habits of mine.

I had a bad case of eczema a few years back and used the creams and oils and crap the doc suggested, which made it ten fold worse. So I looked into things myself, cut out sulfates and parabens from my skin care and hair care regime and lo and behold, reduction in eczema with very few outbreaks. Great! BUT, I still colour my hair with ridiculous chemical crap every 6-8 weeks thereby wrecking all the balance my scalp has achieved in the weeks before. Why? Vanity, simple vanity. If there's anything I can't cope with, it's my hair looking like crapola.

Back to the smoking as well, I cut chemicals from my products yet still I puff on the cancer sticks as if they will somehow lengthen my time in this world. Unfortunately vanity in't the culprit here, or may be it is. Despite knowing how evil and socially unacceptable smoking is, I still like it, I like how it can look, I guess there's the rebel teenager in me that won't quit despite the fact that I'm going to be 32 this year and I swore when I started that I'd quit before I hit 30. :(

Another contradiction I'm struggling with, I stopped eating meat just over two years ago. I feel better for it, health wise and morally too. It's not the eating of animals that I disagree with on this one, it's how they die to feed us. If they were slaughtered humanely then although I don't think I could bring myself to eat meat again, I wouldn't have such a issue with it. Yet, I drink milk.
Now, unless you are into animal rights etc then you may ask what drinking milk has got to do with animals dieing. Well, the majority of calves are slaughtered or left to starve to death as they affect the milk produced. A cow can't give as much milk if there's a little one feeding off of it. Plus, the type of cows that produce milk aren't bred for their meat, so the calves serve no purpose except in the womb and the occassional female calf which will be allowed to live and join the herd. Yet still I have milk in the house and use it every day.

I know I can't live up to every ideal I would like. I don't have the money to buy organic and fair trade foods, clothing etc. I do the best I can with these things but there's a lot of things I could do like go back to drinking soya or rice milk, stop smoking, calm the teen rebel punk inside me and just embrace the fact that I am now a grown up with responsibilities in the word that are larger than me and those in my immediacy, yet there's part of me that's scared of turning into a self righteous sopabox type person. Almost as if my flaws keep me normal.

But is that reason enough?