Shrinking bladder, hidden youth

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Gracefully getting older has its down side.  I used to enjoy interruption-free nights of unadulterated sleep but all of that has changed.  I have tried to reset my internal alarm clock but I still find myself waking, usually around 3:30 each morning, and playing the familiar game of find the bathroom in the dark.  If I have to be awake at that insane hour, I’m not going to assault my senses by turning the lights on.

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And it doesn’t matter if I have made the preemptive strike and visited the loo just before I crawl into bed for the night, the gentle reminder that I am no longer in my 20’s drags me from my slumber.  I generally lie in bed hoping the call of  nature will stop but there is no answering machine and that call just keeps ringing incessantly until I answer it.  When I finally return to bed I become a victim of my brain while my bladder falls back into its own deep sleep.

I have yet to find the switch that activates every functioning neuron in my head as soon as I wake up.  Those neurons jump into hyper-drive and begin to organize my thoughts into categories.  The first is usually work.  I go through what I expect to accomplish the next day at my job.  Those thoughts become more creative and morph into ideas for blog posts.  Thankfully I have a voice recorder on my phone so I can trap those ideas before they dissipate into the still air that I should be inhaling gently as I sleep!

I’m not sure when it happened.  I didn’t get the memo that my body was ready to start playing tricks on me.  I wasn’t prepared and had no way to defend myself from the attack.

I am going to construct a heart-felt letter to my bladder in the hope that it will rethink its nightly call and read it out loud tomorrow morning at 3:30 when I am lying in bed, wide awake, with nothing better to do!

 

 

It’s all about choosing the right club

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“Many people only talk about that perfect drive they had on the 14th hole, but you rarely hear about the other 17 holes.” ~ M.S.

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Life is very much like a game of golf.  The scenery is stunning, the fresh air is vital but the course can be very unfavorable.  There are moments when you feel like you should just give up.  And then it happens.  For one brief, shining moment, the Gods smile on you and you drive it straight down the middle of the fairway about 300 yards.

At that moment the rest of the world ceases to exist.  All of the bad shots that happened in the past disappear and are replaced with the vision of that perfect drive.  You are only able to focus on that dimpled ball in the distance surrounded by nothing but the manicured path of greatness.

But those other seventeen holes are the lessons that keep us humble.  Those muffed shots and missed putts are the fuel that keeps our fire burning.  Those missed opportunities are what keep us coming back again and again to try to be better than we were the last time.  If life wasn’t remotely challenging, it would hardly be worth living.  Like the game of golf, you never know what to expect in life.  Some days you should be playing at the Masters and some days you are stuck at the mini-putt.

Golf is a great analogy for life.  In golf, unless you are a professional player, the only real competition you have is yourself.  Life is the same way.  You can only try to be better than the person you were yesterday.  You can never compare your life to anyone else’s life because your approach is different and the winds can change the trajectory of your reality in the blink of an eye.  You most likely play the game of life with different clubs and your follow through will never be the same as your competitors.

Life or golf – it’s all about picking the right club to help you get the distance you need.  Keep your head down, focus, follow through and always go for it.  Life, like golf, always gives you a second chance and that Mulligan could be the second chance that will change the outcome of your game – of golf, or of life.

To bake, or not to bake? That is the question.

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Once upon a time I had a cake decorating business that I ran from my home.  I made wedding cakes and novelty cakes and I really loved the creative escape….not to mention the fantastic smell in my house.

I slowly phased myself out of that cake business because “real life” didn’t want to make room for the enjoyable moments of,  not only creating extra income but, embracing another journey of artistic freedom.  But I’ve missed it.  And I knew I missed it but I didn’t realize how much until I agreed to make a cake for a 50th birthday party this weekend.  The birthday girl loves sailing and this was the cake I made for her surprise party.

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Just spending the last two days in the kitchen reminded me how one avenue of imagination can create a wider road of happiness.  This is one of my true passions and I made the mistake of ignoring it.  I put obligation and responsibility ahead of creativity and contentment.  And if the picture of the cake above wasn’t enough to make me rethink my decision…..

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….the photograph of the rapidly disappearing remains of the cake certainly solidified my decision to put up my sign that I am back in the cake business.

Sometimes having to make a choice is difficult.  Sometimes we think we are doing what is best but maybe the best thing is to hang on to the things we really love and throw the rules out the window.  Life it too short to make decisions based on what we think we should do instead of making decisions based on what we really want.

Rekindling your first love

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There are not enough hours in a day to do all of the things I love to do.  I have always had a talent for artistic things and have dabbled in many different genres of craft since my early days.  I have painted, sketched, enjoyed calligraphy, I have carved wooden signs, done needlepoint, sewn clothing, holiday gifts and teddy bears, decorated birthday and wedding cakes.  I have even reinvented some pieces of furniture.

This world of creativity is my happy place.  It allows me to play by my rules and recreate the world I see in my head.  Sometimes that world is edible and sometimes it merely hangs on a wall but that portal of imagination opens and allows me the freedom to choose how I portray my vision and the medium transforms as time goes on.  But the one outlet I seem to consistently rekindle a relationship with is writing.

I may cycle through my repertoire of inventiveness and hastily spend my time with one art form or another but I always come back to the written word.  It has been my staple.  It has been my constant.  And it has been my comfort zone because it was my first real love.

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I know words will always be there for me.  I learned at a very early age that I could freely express myself through my writing.  I could vent frustrations, express buried emotion and free the feelings that yearned to be expelled from my head and my heart through composition or poetry.  Words permeated my brain.  Words soothed me.  Words helped me escape.  Words encouraged me to love more deeply than I ever imagined I could.  And even if those words did not come from my brain, words still connected me to a world beyond the world I live in every day.

There will always be moments I cheat on my true love with other avenues of creativity but I will always come back to the truest art that knows me better than any brush stroke or any jagged seam.   Words reassure me and always have the ability to welcome me back into their world.   Words will always be the embrace in which I find the most comfort.  Words will always be my first love.

 

Starting the morning on the right four feet

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I wake up the same way each morning.  In the lighter moments of my sleep, when dawn pours its light into my curtain-free windows to caress my eyelids, four paws stealthily creep up to the side of my bed.  A long furry nose rests itself on the bed and two large brown stare at me until I crack open one eye to acknowledge her presence.   The tail wags and the rest of the body jumps up onto the bed to assume her spot in the window.

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She is intelligent enough to know that seeing only one eyeball means there are still snooze buttons to be utilized and she will participate in the morning naps as well.  This morning she curled into a ball at the end of the bed and, like a good dog, quickly fell into slumber.

I awoke to the sound of her tail hitting the bed.  I opened that single eyelid again, for fear of beginning our morning too early, to find that she was still sound asleep and apparently having a very happy dream.  I am a morning person and usually begin my day in a good mood.  It’s nice to know my puppy does the same thing.

 

The me that is me

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The sun peeks into my room at dawn,

and I greet it with a smile.

The morning brings the songs of life

and I do nothing but listen for a while.

I smile knowing that all is right

as I prepare to greet the day.

I feel like I am where I should be,

sadness and happiness equally weigh.

Every part of my life right now

is exactly what it should be.

I wouldn’t change a single thing

for these moments have brought me to me.

I have loved and lost and cried my tears,

my heart has been broken before.

But mending those breaks only fueled my fire,

left me stronger and wanting more.

 I know what I want, I know what I deserve,

and that I will never second guess.

It may be elusive and difficult to get

but I will never settle for less.

 The sun peeks into my room at dawn,

never knowing what it will see.

But I greet it every day with strength

and the confidence to believe in the me that is me.

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Screw it, Ray Bradbury….something GOOD this way comes

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For the first time in my life, I feel like I am in the right place at the right time.  Something good is about to happen.  It may not be news-worthy to the world but it will affect me immensely.  I feel it.  I feel it like the Earth feels the tidal pull.  I feel it like the horizon feels the sun rise being birthed from its shores.  I feel it like the night sky feels the first star burning its light into the blackness.  It’s there…..and I can almost reach out and touch it.  I just don’t know what it is.

Many things have happened to me throughout my lifetime.  Some of those things have been wonderful and some have been stored in the vault of memories titled ‘lessons’.  The culmination of all of those events has brought me to where I am now.  Because of those situations, I have gained confidence where I used to wallow in self-doubt.  I have achieved a level of comfort in who I am as a person.  And I have grasped the definition of what I want in my life.  It took me 46 years to get here but the journey was worth it.  I have finally allowed myself to be the person who was hiding in my own shadow.

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Sure, there are moments I fall back into the secluded darkness of that shadow but those moments are fleeting.  Those junctures of time only serve to remind me of who I once was and who I have since become.  I feed on the strength I have gained.  I thrive on being the person I was meant to be and I hold fast to the lessons that each of those bumps has etched into the road that is my life.

There will always be moments that I shall forget the tenacity that has brought me to my now.   There will forever be junctures in my life that I may lose sight of the higher roads that I have taken.  But I can only take comfort in the fact that the skin I am cloaked in now fits me as it should.  I can take solace in the conviction that I have learned from each lesson I was taught.  And I can count on the feeling that I am where I need to be and that something good IS going to happen…..and it’s going to happen to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If I could see the hand gestures, I would know the Italians are angry…..

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I love pizza.  Once upon a time, pizza used to love me as well.  But as the decades have marched on, my relationship with pizza has become a mere shadow of its former self.  There is a feeling more akin to a contractual obligation than the heartfelt love we once used to share.  And as much as I continue to love pizza, its feelings for me still leave my heart (and my abdomen) feeling enlarged, but in a bad way.

In my quest to become healthy, I have been scouring the internet for recipes that omit the culprits responsible for wreaking havoc in my over-forty year old body.  Contrary to my belief twenty years ago, bread is not my friend.  That knowledge, combined with my love for pizza, nearly brought me to my knees.

And then I heard something in the distance.  I put my hand to my ear.  It was quiet at first, almost non-existent, but then it became louder and more distinct.  It was the angels singing….and they were holding pizza!  It was like coming home…only to no home I had ever known.  I was just taking a slice out of my oven and I knew.  I was like….magic.  Okay, so the last couple of lines slightly resemble dialogue from Sleepless in Seattle, but you get the idea…..

This “pizza” recipe is brilliant.  It has no yeast, no flour and no way of making someone avoiding bread be anything less than ecstatic.  And the taste was delicious.  For those who have not experimented with cauliflower in any way, now is your chance.  Had I not made this pizza myself, I would never have guessed it was made with cauliflower.  Here is a photo of the result and below is the recipe I found on Pinterest, with a few modifications.

cauliflower pizza

 1 cup riced cauliflower, 3 cups mozzarella, divided, 1 teaspoon dried oregano, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt, 1 teaspoon crushed garlic, 1 egg, olive oil, mushrooms, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes.

Preparation:

Pulse one head of chopped cauliflower into chunks in a food processor until it looks like grain. Microwave the cauliflower for 8 minutes.  (I don’t own a microwave so I heated some olive oil in a pan, heated the cauliflower to medium heat, covered the pan and reduced the heat until cooked.)

In a medium bowl, stir together 1 cup riced cauliflower, 1 1/2 cups mozzarella, oregano, garlic salt, garlic, and egg. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Pat mixture out into a 9-inch circle. Brush with olive oil. Bake the crust at 450° for 15 minutes.

Top the pizza with 1 1/2 cups mozzarella, mushrooms, artichokes, and sun-dried tomatoes. (I also added parmesan cheese) Broil 3-4 minutes or until cheese melts.  I’m sure there are a multitude of toppings….including bacon….that you can add to this pizza and be completely happy with the result.

Pizza and I have rekindled our romance, on my terms, and love each other once again.  Mangia…. and enjoy.