Home is Where the Heart Is

For the last two weeks, I have been confusedly referring to both my house in Moose Jaw and the place I'm staying in Saskatoon as home.

After a couple of days at "home" in Moose Jaw, I drove "home" to Saskatoon, and was trying to figure out why it's not bothering me that I think of both as home.

Well, home is where the heart is.

So, where is my heart?

Half of my heart is here in Saskatoon, in the big city, filled with people I care about, places I want to go, events I want to attend. I feel at home here, because my heart is here.

But half of my heart is still in Moose Jaw, because my husband is there.

And sure, the house he's still living in feels like home because it's filled with our furniture, boxes of our stuff, and our pets, but mostly it's home because that's where the other half of my heart is.

I'm not going to feel complete until he is here.

I'm not going to feel truly at home anywhere for another two weeks.

My Life, Lately

I'm not going to apologize for not blogging lately, and I'm mostly just here to tell you I can't imagine I'll be blogging much for the next few weeks.

I already told you that we're moving to Saskatoon, but now all the little details are finalized. I start my job two weeks from today, and I'll be staying in a friend's guest room for four weeks, until we move into our new place on September 5th. My husband will be staying at home for those four weeks, and I'll be living out of a couple plastic totes.

I found out a week ago, and I have spent every single day since then packing, cleaning and sorting. With an hour or so of downtime to play The Sims. (The Sims 4 comes out in September, so I have to play lots of The Sims 3 now, right?)

So here's my life, lately:

Packing. So. Much. Packing. I'm trying to pack up as much of the house as I can now so that my husband doesn't have to do it all after I leave. I'm also doing it all alone, because he'll have to do everything else once I'm gone. It's kind of tricky to pack all the stuff that won't be needed in the next month and a half (or rather two months to play it safe - who knows when we'll finish unpacking). Lola (above) loves how all these cardboard boxes are sitting around.

The other tricky thing is packing my clothes. I've sorted through my wardrobe and put everything in one of four piles:

1. Get rid of. I don't care if it's donate or garbage, but I'm trying to really purge my clothes.
2. Pack into a cardboard box. If I don't think I'll wear it in the next two months, it's going in a labelled cardboard box, to be opened sometime in September.
3. Keep out. I still have two weeks of work left here, so I have to make sure to keep some work clothes, some comfy clothes, and some regular clothes out.
4. Plastic totes. If I'm not going to wear it in two weeks, but will wear it in two months, it goes into a plastic bin to go to Saskatoon with me.

As I'm sure you can imagine, category 3 & 4 got a little tricky later on, so I made it simpler. I decided to wear all of my favourite things during the last nine days of work at my current job. All the weirder stuff (super vintage, a little risque, a little difficult to pull off) needs to be worn before I start a new job and have to figure out a new "dress code". So I went through and pulled out twelve of my favourite/weirdest dresses or skirts. I then put together whole outfits, including tank tops, tights and sweaters, and put one full outfit on a hanger in the closet. When I had twelve of these hangers (nine work days, plus a little wiggle room to allot for mood and weather) I packed all of my other work clothes, including all of my dress pants. This means that for two weeks, I can't wear pants to work! No matter how lazy I feel. Yay!

So what you're looking at a above is a snapshot of my side of the closet, in the terrible lighting that is my house. I know it just looks like a normal closet, but right next to the green dress is a blue dress with a cream-coloured bolero. And the mint dress next to that has a tank top underneath. My closet is so impressive right now, and I feel so organized!

I'm done with all the clothes from my dresser and my closet. I still have some dirty laundry that I need to wash and sort, and I'll have to do laundry the day or so before I leave and pack all these lovely dresses that I have left out.

So... There's my life. I guess I'm finishing that binge of cleaning I started months ago. Although, you know, all of this would be a lot easier if I'd finished purging and cleaning back then. Ugh.

My 200th Post!

Hey guys! This is my 200th post!

When I started this blog, I thought I'd hit 200 in the first year, but I was being silly when I thought I could blog every day. Well, sort of silly. I did blog every day for a while, and it really helped me in the beginning. Eventually, I stopped needing the daily vent and I stopped having new gluten-free adventures every day.

I've been thinking for a couple of weeks of what to do for my post #200. It seems like kind of a big deal. Maybe I'd make a new recipe? Maybe I'd do a round-up?

Well, I have big news to share instead!

I am moving to Saskatoon! This small town girl is about to live in the big city!

I start a new job up there on August 11th, and my husband will move up when we have a place, which hopefully will be September 1st. Things might get a little weird in the interim, so bear with me.

My Brother's Wedding

My older brother and my older sister are twins. They spent most of their life sharing things. They haven't shared clothes much, but they shared photos, attention, friends, and every single birthday. They also decided they would share the summer they both got married! My brother was married six weeks ago, and my sister was married just this past Saturday. I've been meaning to share photos from my brother's wedding, but I've been putting it off. Before I have photos of my sister's wedding, I guess I'll show you photos of my brother's.

Gluten-Grumpy

I think I lost it a little this morning.

My coworker noticed I was feeling pretty sick and asked if it was gluten. When I nodded, he said, "Why would you do that to yourself?"

I shot him a dirty look, an "Excuse me?" look if you will. And he said, "Well what did you eat?" as if I was a small child who got my finger stuck in the cookie jar.

I snapped. I lost it. "Why do people always seem to think I do this to myself? I would never purposefully eat gluten. I'm not so stupid as to do this to myself." And then I stopped to breathe. I realized that I was in my gluten-grumpy mode and needed to calm down.

So he said, "Well I don't know, maybe you were craving something."

I gritted my teeth and kept from ripping him a new one.

No. No, I would never eat gluten on purpose. No, I would never crave something and eat it. Never. Not once.

Damaging my body is not worth a donut. Being sick for five days will never be worth a slice of pizza. Nothing I could crave or desire would ever be worth knowingly making myself sick.

Yes, sometimes I engage in risky behaviour. Usually when I get sick, I know exactly what it was that made me sick because at one point during the day, I remember being paranoid and worried about something. And if there was only one moment I was paranoid, it was more than likely that moment that got me.

So yes, I guess I do this to myself. But usually the risky behavior goes hand in hand with being normal. If I want to continue functioning just like everybody else, I occasionally have to take risks. But the risks are never out of the ordinary, and often the risks are things I have done multiple times and been fine most of the time. But it only takes once.

Fifties Housewife Bridal Shower

Well, I'm still here. I survived the weekend, and I still have all my hair! I will admit that I am exhausted and I was late for work this morning because I'm just so exhausted.

However, the bridal shower went off perfectly, everything was amazing, and my sister was super happy with everything. I did manage to finish cleaning, and make and do everything before people showed up, and everyone was completely impressed with everything I did.

Every time someone walked in, they apologized for not dressing up. I was dressed to the nines, with an original 1950's housedress, my hair curled and my makeup done. Although I wasn't actually the only one dressed up. I have a friend who loves vintage as much as I do, and although she's never met my sister, I invited her, and she was thrilled to dress up and come! So the two of us were very housewife-y, as was the house and party.

I spent awhile collecting vintage melamine dishes, real napkins, napkin rings, vintage flatware, and some old wooden spoons, which you can see here. I had a million napkins, which went hardly used, although I loved having the old dishes and flatware, because I wasn't worried if anything broke, or even worried about washing it after. I planned to throw most of it out right after the party. You can also see some of my World War II era posters above the table, and a couple of dishes, because a few people had shown up before I got these photos in.

The doorway between my dining room and living room had some lovely bunting that spelled out my sister's name.

The only thing I didn't spend a ton of time on - my little bride and groom clothespins which I reused my sister-in-law's shower a month ago. (Also, funny timing on this one, but on Saturday, that post was featured on another blog, Pinstrosity.) I had these on a small vintage table and doily right by the door.

My main dining table, which didn't come close to seating everybody, but was set with 12 tea cups, each with a Werther's and Riesen candy inside.

I had this cute little game set up - there were six little bowls with a different spice in each one, and people had to smell them and guess what each spice was.

I made up a bunch of little printables for the games. There was, of course, a little square with six number and some picture of spices for the spice game, and another little square to fill in advice for the bride (the guests don't write their name, and the bride has to guess who said what) and then some blank bridal bingo cards. Before opening presents, each guest fills in what they think the bride will receive, and then as she opens presents, they mark off and compete to get a bingo. I like this game because it keeps the guests entertained while the bride is opening presents.

As for the potluck aspect, there was quite a bit of food that people brought, and it all looked delicious. A few people specifically cooked with me in mind - there was a gluten-free soup, and a cheese ball with gluten-free crackers - and then a couple other dishes I could eat like devilled eggs, fruit, veggies, taco salad and my chocolate covered strawberries & raspberries.

For the prizes for the games, I found some pink and blue oven mitts and some wooden spoons at the dollar store. I put three wooden spoons of different sizes in each set of oven mitts, and then tied a bow around it (I had blue bows on pink oven mitts and pink bows on blue oven mitts). It had a vintage feel, while still being unused items, and in a very cute presentation.

Overall, everything look spectacular. A couple of details that you probably can't see... I put candies in each cup so that people would know which cup had not been used, and everyone got a little candy. I also designed and printed little place cards for each dish so everyone would know what was what and who made what. I had a binder with page protectors on hand, and as everyone handed me their recipe, I slid it into a page protector.

It went off amazingly, everyone had fun, and everyone had lots to eat. I love bridal showers, and I'm excited to go to the next couple that I don't have to host. Yay!

Day at the Beach

Oh. My. Goodness.

How is it June already? Where on earth did spring go??

Well, technically it's still spring for another three weeks, but I don't think anyone considers early June to be spring.

I spent yet another weekend in Saskatoon the last couple of days, and this one might have been my favourite.

I started spending weekends there in October, while M was at school, and when he left in December, I'd made enough friends and hobbies to have reasons to go back about once a month. This time, I got Friday off work and I drove up Thursday, with plans to come home on Saturday morning, with plenty of time to still spend a weekend with my husband.

My life, lately

I haven't been doing much that's blog-worthy, but I have been doing lots of things lately, so here's a quick summary of my current obsessions, hair colour and foods I've been buying.

My sister and I dyed our hair from the same box of dye, so now we have the exact same colour of hair. No one will notice, though, because we're sisters, and they expect us to look alike. (PS, we both dyed our hair as close to natural as possible, because we both have grays coming in. What is up with that?)

On my slow journey towards cutting all dairy out, I bought some dairy-free coffee creamer. I've tried a few kinds, and this is my favourite! I honestly can't tell it's not dairy, and I feel just a little bit better throughout my day.

Two-Speed Bicycle

I only have two speeds.

Mode #1: No-Go
I will spend days, sometimes weeks in this "No-Go" mode where I just don't want to do anything. I'm exhausted, I spend a lot of time on the couch, watching Netflix, or in bed with my DS. I stare around at the house, watching it accumulate mess, but never doing anything about it. I eat quick, lazy meals for lunch and dinner and I don't want to go grocery shopping.

Eventually, I guess I get sick of this because I just kick myself into the next mode.

Mode #2: Go-Go-Go
Suddenly, I want the entire house to be clean, my fridge to be full of fresh groceries, and my stomach full of meals I cooked. Typically, this mode starts when other things are going on too. Situations I can't control that demand extra out of me tend to kick me into this mode. Maybe because I realize I simply can't lay around and do nothing anymore, so I kick into overdrive and try to do everything.

Eventually, this burns me out, and I slip back into mode #1.

Hence, I only have two speeds. Like a bicycle, hehe.

I've been pretty slow-moving for a few weeks now, but with my brother's wedding on Sunday (!) I really have to get my butt into gear. I volunteered to help with a lot of it.

Oh, and finally getting spring weather is helping too. My grass is turning green, can you believe it?! Warmer weather makes everyone a little more productive.

Spring Cleaning - Sewing Room, Part One

Personally, I wanted to finish off the kitchen next. I didn't have time to clean out the fridge and freezer or under the sink when I did the rest of the kitchen. On top of that, two of the later projects are both in my kitchen (pantry and laundry room). So I wanted to get those things finished so that my whole kitchen would just be done, but hubby had other plans. He has been itching to clean out his office for awhile, so I  agreed to help him, on one condition: I wanted my "office" cleaned too. I should have just finished off my kitchen.

However, he got called in to work a couple extra shifts over the weekend (a week ago), so I just started on my office alone.

It's really more of a sewing room, but because of it's prime location right off the dining room, it collects all of the clutter. I have a couple of clear organizing drawers, that I try to sort things in to, but that only works for so long. There's also a giant dresser in there, but it's only about half full. I keep my clothes drying rack there because the laundry is in the kitchen. So this is my catch-all room and I hate it. This is what it looked like when I started, Sunday morning (after making muffins):

Spring Cleaning - Kitchen

After my first ever spring cleaning burst, I have been seriously enjoying how clean my bathroom is. It made me happy every single time I walked in there, and I wanted the rest of the house to feel the same. But I knew that on my own, I would fizzle out and stop cleaning pretty quickly, so I went looking for some help.

I found the amazing blog A Bowl Full of Lemons and they are here to save the day! The whole blog is all about cleaning, organizing, planning and prepping. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. At first, I was a little overwhelmed, but at the top of the page is a lovely little button titled Where to Begin. She says before you start organizing, you need a clean house, and she gives you a one week plan to a cleaner home. Each task is small, simple and quick, but if you do them all every day, your house will stay cleaner.

M was a little concerned that I was going to try to clean the whole house in a week, but these are all surface tasks, like cleaning off the kitchen counters, doing a load of laundry, and wiping down the bathroom sink. If you keep up with them, you don't have to do a major overhaul of cleaning, and you have a clean house. So my goal is to keep up with these for as long as possible.

The next step is 14 weeks to a completely organized house. It's a little intense, I know, but I'm really excited to start. Each week is a different room, and the blog walks you through steps to completely clean and organize each room. At the end of 14 week (3 months!) your entire house will be organized! How rewarding is that?

Week 1 is the kitchen, which is daunting, but necessary. Also, I find that when my kitchen is clean, I feel better and want other rooms to be clean. So I'm glad to start here, in the hub of the home.

Spring Cleaning - Bathroom

I've never really understood the concept of spring cleaning. Growing up, the house always got cleaned over the summer while all the kids were home and bored. As an adult in the last few years, I've never had the drive to suddenly clean my house just because it's spring. Possibly because every spring has come with a huge change. Three years ago, I got engaged and moved between winter and summer. Two years ago, we moved into our house in April, so we did lots of cleaning of our apartment, but not because it was spring. Last year, I was diagnosed in February, and had a huge job change coming in May, so I didn't really ever find the time to clean.

This year, I've spent the last few weeks looking around our house and making a mental list of everything I want cleaned. We got news about a month ago that my husband would be laid off, and I started hoping he would organize, sort, and scrub the house while he was home. He started a new job Monday, and none of my hopeful cleaning happened. (He did do a few projects in the garage and catch up on dishes, though.)

I just kept walking through the house and hating how every inch of it looked. I felt the need to purge. I wanted to take a giant garbage bag to every room, and spend a solid week finding every flat surface again. I was itching to be surrounded by clean, well-lit spaces. And you know what? It might be spring that did this to me! I might be, for the first time ever, filled with spring cleaning! I think I get it!

Hi, I'm a Spoonie

Hi, I'm a spoonie*.

I suffer from a chronic illness that affects me every single day. It changes how I approach tasks in my life, people in my life, and most of all, myself.

I can't explain why I'm sick so I try not to let on that I am.

I have a hard time explaining exactly how I feel, because feeling this way has become so common that I forget that most people don't feel this way.

I don't look sick, so I insist that I'm not.

There is nothing you can do to make less sick, so I don't want you to know how sick I am.

And, most importantly, my energy is a very tangible thing that comes and goes. Tasks cost a certain amount of energy, and I am sometimes forced to pick and choose what I can get done. I'm always a spoonie; my energy is always a tangible thing that I must ration out. Tasks always cost energy. However, some days I have more than enough. I don't even think about it. On good days, I wake up, get stuff done, and go non-stop. Other days, I sleep in my clothes because climbing the stairs to go to bed took the last of what energy I had. There are mornings that I wake up and I just know right away, that it is going to be a "low spoons day"; That I quite simply do not and will not have enough energy to get through everything the day is going to throw at me.

A Day In The Life

I haven't really told you about my daily activities in months, mostly because my life got really boring, and my meals got really repetitive, but I had quite the exciting weekend, so I'll share!

Saturday - I worked at my retail job from 10am-6pm, selling lots of clothes and catching up with my coworkers, who I hardly see.

6pm - I left work and drove straight to Saskatoon. Ate "dinner" on the road. I had a pudding cup and a couple chocolate peanut butter cups.

One Year

Well, we've arrived, I guess. It's been one year.

I have been eating gluten-free for one year.

I have known that I have a life-long incurable disease for one year.

I started this blog one year ago.

But what does that mean? It's not like a birthday, I can't celebrate with (gluten-free) cake. It's not like the anniversary of a death, I'm not sad and melancholy. One year ago, I got some very hard-to-hear news, and it started me on the best path of my life. It is sad, happy, and strange. I don't know how to feel.

It's crazy to think that one year ago, I thought I was physically normal, I never would have guessed that I had any sort of disease, nevermind an autoimmune disorder. It's crazy to think that one year ago, I was so sick, I couldn't walk from the couch to the fridge without sitting down halfway. It's crazy.

Battling Dragons

We all battle dragons. Every single one of us has fought a battle, risked life and limb, and slayed a dragon. Some of our dragons may be scarier than others, or perhaps more avoidable. For some of us, our dragons were a little more removed from our lives, or we weren't battling alone. No matter the circumstances, we have all slayed a dragon or two.

When I was younger, I was friends with several girls who cut themselves. Amongst my circle, it was super trendy to wear big chunky bracelets. I wore them lots. And then those fingerless gloves were in, and both trends easily masked what these girls didn't want anyone to know. One of my friends lost or broke her bracelet one day, and tied a bandanna around her wrist instead. That's when I clued in. I didn't know how to help her, or how to make her stop hurting herself, but suddenly her dragon was very real to me. She didn't think she was beautiful, loved or important. Perhaps she felt hated and turned that into self-hatred. Perhaps she felt empty and couldn't feel anything. There were reasons she didn't want to kill herself, but she wanted to feel pain. She wanted to feel real, physical pain. As messed up as it is, she took a blade to the soft, sensitive skin on her inner wrist to make her heart feel better.

My Last First

The other night, M and I were laying in bed, ready to go to sleep, and this conversation happened.

R: "This is my last first."

M: "What?"

R: "Valentine's day. It's my last first."

M: "That's crazy. You have lots of firsts left. First pregnancy, first kid, first --"

R: "You know what I mean. It's my last first gluten-free thing."

I don't know how to explain what I'm feeling, but I'm coming up on my one-year anniversary of this whole thing. I've handled every major holiday (Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas), every season, every birthday, and minor things like weddings, baby showers, and banquets. Sure, there are things I haven't handled, but they're things I didn't handle before being gluten-free, so it's not quite the same. There's only one annual thing left that I haven't faced - Valentine's Day. The big V day. Singles Awareness Day.

Gluten in Cosmetics?

A lot of people have asked me about gluten-free cosmetics. I only buy gluten-free shampoo and conditioner, because my reaction to those is immediate, but I'm a little flaky when it comes to anything else. If I can find a gluten-free anything, I'll probably buy it. Eyeliner, eyeshadow, especially lipstick. I don't exclusively buy gluten-free products, but I make sure not to buy things that are specifically gluten-ized. You know, oatmeal-infused hand lotion and things like that.

So my January Ipsy bag came in the mail, and I wasn't as blown away as I was last time. There was a moisturizer, a three-in-one moisturizer-serum-toner, a stick of eyeshadow, a tinted lip gloss and a leave-in conditioner.

Battling the Beast

Truthfully, I haven't felt like I've been in control for quite some time now. There is this thing hanging over my head that determines what I can eat, where I can go out to eat, how much energy I have, and how I feel about food. I've tried to own this disease of mine, making the eating restrictions just another part of who I am. The one thing I will never have control over, though, is getting sick. I have no say as to when, how bad or why I get sick. I can't make it go away faster, I can't even silence the symptoms. I am helpless to the angry beast that is my stomach.

This last weekend, I went out with a group of friends. We went to a restaurant I've been to several times and never had a problem with, but something went wrong. Before I'd even finished eating my food I started to feel it. Two of the people I was out with have watched me get sick before; they know the symptoms and they know how fast they set in. They started to pick up on how I was feeling right away and asked if I wanted to go home. I insisted on staying, but eventually everyone else started to notice too.

Happy New Year!!

Happy new year.

I guess the arbitrary calendar this culture adheres to has flipped a page and we must celebrate.

Numbers only have as much meaning as we assign to them, and New Year's is all about numbers. I honestly find it all really arbitrary and meaningless. I'm not one to make a whole list of resolutions and feel all heartbroken when they only last for two weeks. I don't really think that the calendar turning one page will help me become a better person.

However, in the same way that I celebrate Valentine's day and mother's day, I will celebrate New Year's. I appreciate holidays like this, because although we should honour our mothers every day, and remember to love our SO's all the time, it helps to have one day a year where the world reminds us to. So in the spirit of remembering what we should always be doing, I'll take the time to look back and look forward.