How Do You Make A Hormone?

Please excuse the title. It’s a really bad joke, and I can’t even remember the correct punchline. If you can think of a good one, let me know!

I’m on a bit of a rollercoaster at the moment. Suddenly work has picked up through the roof – you’d think that was good but it’s a bit of a minimum-wage pity effort from my dear old Dad. Going from working part-time and with complete flexibility, to having to juggle clients is really quite overwhelming. Taking the financial weight off is a wonderful gift, though.

I don’t know if it’s pregnancy hormone stuff, but I’ve been really easily upset by things. Bloggers who giggle as their commenters gloat and shriek; pretty much anything I learn about Christine O’Donnell; the new McDonalds advert where all those people seek respite from their horrible journeys; the way some people have never used punctuation in their lives until they hyphenate their child’s name, Mollee-Faiye-Boo.

I’m at – as they say in the online pregnancy world – 5+1, five weeks and one day. Last time, the trouble began at 5+3. I know that once I pass that imaginary hurdle, there are still another 40 days or so until I’m out of the high-risk zone. I envy mothers-to-be who don’t even let this cross their minds and spend these first few months in giddiness, but don’t begrudge it remotely. Staying positive, cuddling beautiful Meg a lot and just taking good care of myself!

I’ve embarked on a pregnancy-friendly weight loss regime, inspired by the great success of Claire at Cakes and Bunting. Slimming World works on the principle of eating foods that are low in calorie density until you are full, ensuring that you eat nutrient-rich foods every day, and allowing room for treats. I don’t know why I’ve been ignoring it this long – I know several people who have been seriously successful with the diet, and I’m not talking about the “OMG! My size 6 jeans are a little tight!” types, but people who have actually improved their health and their life through weight loss.

I’m questioning whether or not the denial may be attributable to the same-old self-sabotage, but the navel-gaziness of it all seems a little pointless when considering the real goal – to start dejiggling.

For accountability’s sake, this is what I’ve been tucking into the past few days –

Tuesday: Lentil-rice casserole with Mulligatawny cup-soup for flavour; brussels sprouts with a whole roasted butternut squash stuffed with rice, parmesan, tomato sauce, olive oil and fat-free fromage frais.

Wednesday: Mushroom omelette; grapes; borlotti beans stir-fried with asparagus; salmon with lentil-rice casserole and roasted broccoli; fried bananas with sugar.

I’ve been delighted to eat such tasty stuff, and I’ve been inspired to eat more veggies. My big flaw when it comes to calorie counting is not being bothered to eat vegetables. I become so focussed upon calories and hunger that everything else goes out the window.

You may have noticed my new-found love of this lentil-rice casserole. I discovered the recipe via Frugal n Fit, and have become addicted – it’s just so creamy and filling and comforting. Essential in this godforsaken weather. The original recipe is here, a fantastic resource for recipes, but I’ve generally been going with (by volume) one part lentils, one part arborio risotto rice, six parts water, and whatever herbs or spices I think will be suitable with whatever it’s accompanying.

Questions –

Do you recognise habitual hurdles in your efforts to keep healthy?

Is there a dish that you could just cook day in and day out and never tire of?

Jesse’s Irritations

Remember this guy?

(source)

Well, this week, I ‘ave been mostly irritated by…

Jeremy Hardy. Frankly, he is ruining the usually wonderful and hilarious News Quiz on Radio 4 with his irrelevant socialist BS. Start being funny or shut up, old man of squeaky voice.

Engagement shoots with that eyes closed, “we’re so in love” shot. I’m sure you are, but photos are either candid, or they’re posed. There is no “we hired you for an hour and you just happened to come across us during a really tender, intimate moment”.

Really, truly awful spelling and grammar. I could care less about loosing weight, but that’s a whole nother topic.

The fact that every once-in-a-while, ITV shows something brilliant, but not often enough that you might catch an advert for the next wonderful thing while watching the current one. As an aside, my friend Ciara and her sister used to use “ITV watcher” as an insult while fighting. Hilarious!

X Factor. Everybody loves it. Apparently there are four of us in the world who think that it’s actually contributing to the decline in society.

Clearly toasted cheese and Marmite sandwiches are the only answer.

What A Tangled Web

There is a lot of meanness on the web. I’m not talking about the random trolling I used to encounter on the Facebook feminist groups (weird guys who would respond to your every argument with “well, that’s because you’ve been brainwashed to think that way”), I’m talking about the gathering together of like-minded people. “Huh?”, you say? Let me explain.

 

There’s an old adage that bullies were usually bullied themselves, and while this is easy to see in the school playground, it’s not as obvious in real, grown-up life, until you start spending time on the internet. The web’s ability to demarginalise those on the fringes of popular culture has created fun places to hang out and discover that you’re not alone, whatever those people at school tried to tell you.

 

In the early days, those who spent time socialising online were a rare breed. You’d start to tell someone a funny story that you’d heard in a forum but stop yourself so you could quickly fabricate a non-geeky source so that they’d laugh at your story and not you. It made for an atmosphere I can only liken to the Gorgonites in Small Soldiers – a rag-tag bunch of slightly odd-looking people, but always friendly and welcoming.

 

Then, as online socialising exploded, cliques began to form. Now that you can find people who share your love of anything from West African philately to obscure Swedish electropop, anyone who has felt marginalised is able to pass on that lovely feeling to someone else. A new type of snobbery seems to be raising its ugly head as people fall over themselves to have a life that’s “more unique” than anyone else’s. FYI – I am aware that there is no more or less unique. There is unique or not. Unfortunately, this means that uniqueness takes you back to solitude, so people turn it into a sliding scale.

 

The wedding world is one of the worst. I’ve encountered – and quickly unsubscribed from – a number of wedding blogs that repeatedly sneer at the decision to wear a traditional wedding dress, get married in church, have a wedding cake –  the sort of thing that normo-type people might have at their weddings. A great way to let people know exactly who is not welcome. When a fabulously talented photographer’s work was trolled recently, readers took the opportunity to reinforce the “we’re such outsiders” label with such comments as “they probably just want a nice dollop of blandness and a side dish of same old same old”. What kind of world do we live in where quality is not permitted to be commonplace?

 

Even if a blog is positive, it can occasionally attract a cliquey bride, whose description of her Big Day entails “we didn’t want this… we didn’t want that…”, referring to all sorts of things that you can guarantee someone reading really wanted for their wedding day. There are practically competitions to see who can have the smallest wedding with the fewest attendants and the lowest budget, because clearly if you invite lots of people you’re just trying to make up numbers and… the worst thing of all… “be something you’re not”.

 

In two weeks time, I plan to brush my hair, put on a frickin’ gorgeous dress and tell everybody in church just how much I love my man. That’s not “me” – I’m a scruff; I’m such a nervous public speaker that I’m actually developing a stutter, and I never wear pale colours because I miss my mouth constantly. If someone is the same every other day as they are on their wedding day, then they’re either a really exciting person, or it’s a really boring wedding. I can just picture it – and now, Mr and Mrs C are now going to sit and watch Sons of Anarchy, while simultaneously IMDBing all the actors they sort-of recognise from somewhere else. (As an aside… Don’t do that. Jackson is so hot until you realise he’s actually English and that irritating boy with the mockney accent in Green Street. He has now left my fantasies forever).

 

Then there are the healthy/ethical foodies – the bloggers are the sweetest girls you will ever meet, but there are commenters who compete to be the most puritanical about their food. It conjures up in my mind the Two Ronnies and John Cleese sketch, only where John Cleese is the fruitarian, looking down on Ronnie Barker’s vegan, who looks down on Ronnie Corbett’s vegetarian.

 

Ever act like a bit of a slob when you’re on holiday? One chap pipes up with “what a shame about your friends who eat dinner at 10pm, wake at noon, and eat pizza for breakfast… I feel sorry for them.” No, really, don’t. We love it.

 

I realise that I’m going to have to change my title to Becca Rants if I carry on down this vein much further, so I promise to perk up and live up to my original positivity purpose a bit better. In the meantime – I have resurrected my Twitter account! Please stop by and say hello – I am @littleacceb. Alternatively, leave your Twitter name below and I shall follow you!

 

Finally – I thought I’d share an old snap from Christmas 2004, of the place where my Dad currently is… Moraira, Spain. Lucky sod.