A reflection of 2012

Looking over this last year brings me to tears.
I look over the last year, and like everyone it’s had its ups and downs.
I’ve received bad news, and celebrated good news.
Had my highs and my lows.
I’ve had many tears, and much laughter.
Married my best friend, gained family, and am closer to mine on unexpected levels.
I’ve struggled and I’ve persevered.
I have made it through one of the hardest years I’ve had yet, and I’m proud to say I’m still here.
I am interested and looking forward to living the future.
And honestly it’s nothing I’ve ever said before.
For me it’s always be so unknown that looking forward to it isn’t exactly exciting.
Yes sometimes the good and the bad can outweigh each other,
But this time I decide not to let that get in the way.
I have a future worth looking forward to.
I have answers.
I have an amazing friend and companion standing beside me,
I have family,
Helping me through everything that is good and bad in the world.
I get to look forward to my husband,
Kids, having my own family.
Which if you know me is the most exciting thing for me.
I have enough answers that I’m at the point I get to look forward to a ‘normal’ life.
And this is the best thing I could have of all.
This year has been hard.
Yes.
But it has been the best gift I could have been given.
I hope to remember it as such in my future.

Quinoa Tebbouleh

So because of my recent diagnosis, I have been on extremely strict diet. The thing I find the most frustrating is there are so many contradicting methods out there and I can’t seem to find many recipes that I can follow. Which means I’m eating the same thing. Over, and over, and over again. I’m one of those people who need something new all the time. Otherwise I’ll just forget to eat. There’s nothing worth looking forward to.
So I’m going to try to start posting more, writing up some of the recipes, and meals that I’ve used in hopes that it will help other people out there besides me.
Today we’re starting with Quinoa Tebbouleh.
When I started looking at Tebbouleh it was one of those Hmmm. This just sounds wrong. But I was so wrong it’s like a glorious explosion of flavor in your mouth. And after plain quinoa, and plain salad, and plain turnips, this was such an abnormal treat. Here’s what I used.
1-2 cups uncooked quinoa (use according to your quinoa preferences).
4 cups fresh parsley (chopped)
3/4 cups fresh mint leaves (chopped without the stems, I mean you could use them if you want to add chewiness).
2 cups (about) chopped cherry tomatoes (or if you prefer I think adding some sun-dried tomatoes would go great)
1 cucumber (cubed)
1 red onion (chopped)
1/2 – 1 cup lemon juice
4 Tablespoons (roughly) oil (veggie, olive, coconut).
Salt and Pepper to taste.

Cook quinoa as directed (and if you want you can use sprouted quinoa or regular I preferred regular in this one), if you haven’t already chop all the goods up now would be the time (while you’re cooking the quinoa that is) and mix together in a nice big bowl. I let my quinoa cool for a little while just because (I prepped my salad a good four hours before I was even going eat it).
And that’s it. How easy could it get? And the combination of flavors! Yum.
A few other things you can add that I can’t eat would be goat cheese, mozzarella, bacon, hard-boiled eggs, sun-dried tomatoes, sunflower seeds, the one thing you wont need is any kind of dressing.
This is a new personal favorite. Enjoy!

Lost in thought

I find myself getting lost in my own thoughts more, and more these days.
And not in the typical daydream sort of way, but more like Inception or lost in a Matrix of my making. I know that sounds nerdy but it is what it is. And now I’m not up to sharing my thoughts, mainly because I am still forming them. But lets just say ‘Life inside my head is interesting at the current moment’.
I know as far as blogging goes I’ve been really hit and miss.
And I have lots of excuses for not writing much lately.
But the truth is, I’ve lost my Inspiration. I need to find it again.
Maybe now that Dr.’s are on the right path (cause I haven’t said that before), I will relax, start feeling better, and have the motivation to work on some projects, or even write about the ones I’ve done this last summer. I may not have written about my DIY projects but I have still been doing them. I have just failed in posting about it.
It will happen I promise.
From my Button wedding bouquet, to my homemade Rake wineglass rack. I’ll show you what and how I’ve done it in due time.

If you don’t feel letting getting a load of TMI don’t read the rest of this post.

The Doc thinks he found out what has gone on deep, deep inside. There are a few ‘phases’ we’re going through for ‘treatment’. Basically he found that I have Fibromyalgia (which we already sort of knew), and an autoimmune disorder (which has been left nameless), which has caused a jumble up of problems. Currently (phase one) we are taking care of Candida (mainly because The Good Doc says the Candida is leaking into my bloodstream {which doesn’t sound good to me} so that is first on our list of ‘To Dos). Next (phase two) we are going to take care of Crohns (which from my understanding and I could be totally wrong, caused the hole the Candida is getting through), hopefully not through surgery, but we’ll see, and then maintaining it (since you’re never really cured from Crohns). Then (phase three) we will address the cause of these problems, figuring out how to keep them from recurring, finding a balance in life and making sure this disorder doesn’t go after something else.
So if I post recipes they are more than likely going to be all crunchy and green organicness. Super Duper Healthy.
Whoopy.
And there you have it folks. I’m done for the day.
Hopefully soon to follow a nice handy-dandy DIY project.

You never know what you’ve got till it’s gone…

A common saying, yes.
It’s so hard to step back and look at your life in a different perspective.
I like to watch my life as a movie.
We are all starring in our own show,
Whether it be a sitcom, comedy, drama, tragedy, action.
It is all a mystery, up till the end.
What do you want to leave behind?
A go to favorite, worth watching over and over,
Or a dud, worth only a one time view?
I know I’ve written about taking time to enjoy what we have.
Living in the moment.
How often do we really listen to words of wisdom,
Following through on well-meant actions?How often do you sit and just remember?
Not in the dwelling on your past fashion,
But in the looking at a picture album fashion.
Life.

Genius!

So here’s the great thing about my family.
We love playing pranks on each other.
And this post is going to be no different.
I had a little help from my twelve-year-old sister Eva.
And all the credit for writing here goes to her (No joke. Such talent).
In our family we are serious players of ‘The Game’.
This ones for you guys!

When Jenn loses the game,
She screams at the top of her lungs.
I hope she doesn’t hate me,
Just because I’ve won.
She says I don’t belong here,
She says I’ve got to go.
But she has never pushed me out the door,
And never said ‘goodbye’ forevermore.
I think she likes loosing.
I think it’s her favorite game.
I’ll just continue making her loose the infamous Game.
~ Eva

My cure for a bad mood

This is going to be short,
But short and sweet can be good.

Sometimes I have bad moods.
And today’s was one of those nothing was going right so I was in a crappy mood.
The weather has changed like five times a day and I haven’t been on pain meds which means my daily pain levels are through the roof, which makes me not a fun person to be around, and it seemed like rude customer day to top things off.
As the day kept going the mood was getting worse in leaps and bounds.
And all I could think was ‘I need to shake out of this as soon as possible’.
How does one shake a mood in the middle of the day when you  have to keep going? Besides the obvious answers? (prayer, Bible, coffee, laughter…)
The one thing I have found that works best for me, almost without failure is Dundundun….
Planning and doing something nice for someone else.
There is nothing like the incredible feeling of making another persons day better.
Do something nice for someone. It’ll make you feel better.
End of story.

Down the trail with the rabbits

Sometimes I ask myself these questions that start me on a rabbit trial of thoughts.
Tonight’s question that started my mind wandering (and I felt I for some reason I should share) was;

Do I Anna McCarthy take myself seriously as a writer?

And the rabbit trail began.
Of course I don’t.
Well then why don’t I?
Ummm Gee maybe because I don’t take myself seriously?
Maybe I don’t take my talents seriously?
Why don’t I take my talents seriously?
Why don’t I take myself seriously?
Is it because I’m young?
Or view myself as too young?
Well maybe because there’s too much talent out there?
And no way to really measure how large your talents is.
Well man what do you do to find out?
How can one ever tell?
What causes insecurity?
Why do we let it control us so much?
Why do we let insecurities create fear in ourselves?
Yammer yammer yammer goes my brain as I try to wind it down so I can sleep…

There is just too much dang talent out there for our own good, is the conclusion.

Overcome By Laziness

It’s a long weekend.
Yippee!
Right?
Totally. I get to relax and wind down. Which I have looked forward to a lot the last week or two.
And the perfect part was it was raining! I couldn’t have been more excited to curl up with tea, popcorn, and movies galore.
I rush home from work and clean the entire apartment so I can just enjoy myself.
No stress over the weekend. Just relaxing.
Today comes (day one) sleep in, and am delivered breakfast in bed, I take my time getting up.
I finally work my way out of my dungeon of a bedroom.
And once again the weather forecast was horribly wrong.
Sunny and nice?
Not fair.
Now I am overcome with the feeling of utter laziness. So now instead of being cozy all bundled up, I feel guilty.
I can’t decide what to do with my nice long weekend…
Waste the sunshine and relax, or go out and be active no longer feeling guilty.

And this was my frustrated ramblings at the weather.

I’m no Superman

As I sit here just trying to wind down from a long week I keep hearing these lyrics floating around my head:

‘Well, I know what I’ve been told
You’ve got to work to feed the soul
But I can’t do this all on my own
No, I know
I’m no Superman’

And that pretty much sums up how I feel half the time,
Yes there are days I feel accomplished, and on top of my world.
But most days I feel like I can’t keep up.
Can’t keep my head above water with everything that comes at me.
We all have our own struggles in life,
And we all have our ups and downs (some more than others).
Right now I feel like I’m in that stalled out stage.
Just waiting.
I’ve taken big steps in my life to carry out my goals.
But now I’m waiting for the light to turn green so I can start plugging along to the next phase in my life.

Getting personal.
My Dr.’s have been at a stalled out point on my medical treatment, which was extremely discouraging.
You aren’t supposed to be tired and in pain, not wanting to do anything all summer. Lame.
So I had to go and make some changes.
Needless to say sometimes I feel like I’m supposed to get more done in a day, do better at being a wife,
try harder at being productive in day-to-day activities.
I have to remind myself,
I’m not of the superhuman type.
There are limitations in life that keep you from being your perfect self.

You aren’t required to be Superman.

 

 

 

When?

One can see the desperation all around.
Those hoping for a new start,
And those hoping for the old to return.
Those desperate for a change.
At what point do we stop sitting around,
Waiting for the changes to be made for us?
When will we realize that we alone can decide on making those changes we are looking for?
Be it through reconnection, or overall bettering ourselves and what is around us.
Are we always going to just follow what is dictated?
We must learn to look towards the light.