Dating Sites

I have issues with dating sites. More specifically dating site advertising. I will admit from the start that I have used dating sites, and have had substantial (by my standards which aren't great) relationships from them. But I still profess that data doesn't predict love. I don't see why choosing someone that has the same interests, personality, temperament as yourself makes it more likely that you will fall in love. Are people really that narcissistic that they are just looking for another version of themselves? It is chance that two people meet and what causes spearks to fly is indefinable. Personally I like someone with a different view on things, who challenges me and shows me things. I don't disagree that it is an easy way to meet people and you have as much chance of meeting someone online as you do in the supermarket or the pub frankly but I dont believe any of them have a questionnaire or algorhythm which can match you with someone you will fall in love with.

But really parting hopeful romantics with their money is not really a terrible thing. Even the odd bit of mine. What really annoys me is their advertising. Patronising, incorrect, frankly not fit for purpose, illogical .... take your pick. Lets look at them individually (without naming names coz I'm not stupid):

1. Advertising something by showing people achieving the aim without it is stupid.
2. Advertising something by suggesting it all starts the step after the something is stupid.
3. Suggesting that you will have better dates because you both like and think the same things seems odd. I imagine the date would go something like this;
• so you like x then?
• yes. so you like y too?
• yes.nice isn't it?
• yes. 
• mmmm.
• *long pause*
• so, it's been raining a lot lately.
4. Telling us we'll find out who we really are by using your site suggests you think we are all quite stupid and not very self aware.
5. Do we really all still just want to get married?
6. Adverts comparing your sites to other sites is silly. You all do the same thing, just with a few differences in your questionnaire,

I think I've made bad matches (we won't explore the issues here coz this blog post would take up all of the internet) and I think their programmes have made bad choices (certifiabally mental and still living with his wife come to mind. Damn he was cute though)  If you think a computer programme will make better choices than you then you really need to have a word with yourself and have a think why you make the choices you make. 

Eating paleo with a touch of wahls

The whole eating healthy thing started when I discovered the Best Bet Diet* at the beginning of my MS journey. I decided to give it a go, figuring it probably wouldn't work anyway and I would be back on the Ben & Jerrys in no time. To my surprise though it had an amazing effect ~ loads of symptoms disappeared and I lost a good few pounds. I really came to believe 'you are what you eat'. I still miss Ben & Jerrys fish food though I do make pretty good coconut milk icecream.

A few years later and I put those few pounds back on as it's far too easy to bake cakes without gluten and I still have a sugar addiction. I have also had a slightly controversial treatment in Scotland to help my MS which turned the clock back physically and made me more determined than ever to slow any progression, lose a bit of weight and generally feel better. 

So, I thought I would take my diet to the next logical level and give paleo a try, If you're not familiar this pyramid should give you a clue:

It seems a little against general healthy eating advice but with the reading I have done around diet and MS, and dementia and diabetes for my dad as well as what I know makes me feel better it made total sense. If you think about what is recommended and the whole 'low fat' industry you soon realise that mostly the whole food and diet industry is about making money.I have always cooked stuff from scratch, eschewing the processed stuff that is generally full of mystifying ingredients, and am definitely a carnivore. I have reintroduced a teeny bit of hard cheese back into my diet - my system seems to deal with it and I have always listened to my body first and foremost.

Giving up sugar has been revolutionary - I have always had a sweet tooth and my BFF used to say that sugar was my crack do I didn't honestly think I'd do it but I did and it has been great. I feel great.No sugars and very low carbs keep the munchies away and keep your blood sugar stable it seems. I sweeten my baking with coconut nectar (and use coconut flour and coconut oil which I think is miraculous stuff) and choose dark high % chocolate.

The first week paleo was difficult but after that is was easier, my hunger and cravings didn't rule me and I started to lose weight and my body fat seemed to redistribute. Now I cant imagine why I ever felt I needed bread or potatoes at meals. I eat less but a lot more  nutritious and I feel good about what I eat.

The Wahls I am admittedly only dabbling in. It has very strict rules that I would need to be sicker to have to motivation to follow. I have picked a few of the points and am trying to eat more;

• green leafy things
• mushooms
• onions
• berries 
• lots of colour

I already erred on the side of eating seasonally and local. I have lessened the supplements I am taking - they are so expensive and tedious! I still take friendly bacteria, fish oil. vitamin D and a calcium based one as well as extra magnesium when I have any crampy type pains coz I find it helps.

On the negative side I drink too much and eat way too much (albeit dark) chocolate but I never said I was a paragon of virtue.I indulge in the occasional bit of rice too coz I do love sushi.

*based on the paleo diet, it's a diet and supplement plan designed to help those with MS

Not getting your meat from the supermarket

I feel that if I had completed this post when I had thought of it it would have have an air of prediction and I could have been adding a 'told you so foot note' now. My butcher is loving the horsemeat scandal - new customers and a lot of material for his jokes. When I was in Derby I bought my meat from the market and when I moved back "home" to look after my dad I was very pleased to find there was a great butchers a few minutes walk away. I've never been a big fan of supermarket meat: bland fatless flesh from half a world away.

So I make a trip to the butchers a couple of times a week and its great.Big bits of what are still recognizably animal that are expertly butchered for you as you wish, Nothing is too much trouble and he happily indulges my foibles while telling me jokes. They have moved with the times and make things like moroccan meatballs (really good) and their own sausages as well as selling set price 'weekend' and 'midweek' packs that let you budget.

He knows where all the meat comes from, local farmers on the whole and all free range. They sell a lot more than meat too, slowly stealing more and more of my budget away from the supermarkets (though he doesn't sell gin and chocolate so they will always get some) and supporting more local small businesses: cheese, bread, pies, curry sauces, pickles and chutneys... Oh and frozen fish.

I like knowing a chunk of my albeit small budget goes to local family businesses, I like knowing what I am eating and I like good tasty food. I also like that food sold to me with a cheeky joke and some cooking advice!

Human Contact

"lonelee I am so lonelee, and i do not knoooow the words to this soooooong"

I probably could have googled that but 'well researched' is not really something you'd say about my blog. I suspect you also wouldn't say 'clever' 'witty' or 'widely read'.

As you already know I am caring for my dad who has dementia so I don't get out much. To look after him I moved back to my childhood town, where I had just one friend left. It is one of the poorest cities in England, most people move away as soon as they have the opportunity (as I did!). The one friend has two kids, one of them since I've been back, which makes her as inflexible as I am. 

I have never had any trouble making new friends; I'll chat to anyone and have a freakish amount of self confidence. However it turns out it's quite difficult to make friends when you don't meet any people. With no work or classes its hard to get chatting, I can't really grab people in the street and say "will you be my friend?". Many friends said they'd come visit me, most haven't .... they have lives and boyfriends and jobs and things. I (vaguely) remember what that's like. My BFF has, of course - she is the bestest BFF ever and has organised a fabulous treat for my birthday. One other friend has visited but he was a friend / bf crossover.. 

To illustrate, the people I have spoken to ..

Today:        My parents

Yesterday:   My dad and the butcher (who always has a joke at least. "in the     

                 wake of the horsemeat scandal B&Q have had to withdraw their 

                 flooring coz it had laminate (lamb-in-it)

Day Before: My dad, the lady in the post office and the lady in the veg shop.

And Before: My dad, a nurse and the taxi driver.

You get the idea.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly if you know the disastrous tale that is my love life) I am not bothered about not having a boyfriend. I'd rather have a puppy for cuddles and I can sort myself out for, you know. Its my birthday next week if anyone wants to buy me a puppy. I miss friends, drinking buddies, weekend lunches, trips to nandos and the cinema on a Wed, wine on the sofa with my bestie. 

However I really don't know how I'd be surviving on the laughable benefits you get for caring if I actually had a social life, the only reason I get to occasionally buy something on eBay (which doesn't get worn anyway coz I never go anywhere) is because I rarely leave the house!

To summarise: buy me a puppy or take me for a drink!

Chizza

So pizza is a nice thing but it's not paleo.  I've seen loads of recipes for meatza but they are big slabs of meatloaf with a few toppings - nothing like the pizza I used to have. Having discovered that my system doesn't go mental when I have a small amount of hard cheese I was very keen to have some thing to sprinkle it on. I came up with the idea of using a flattened chicken breast* as the base. The butcher butterflied and smacked the hell out of the chicken breast for me and I laid out in the baking tray then spread it with harissa - I would have used tomato paste but I didn't have any!  I topped it with sliced mushrooms and halved baby plum tomatoes and a grating of Cheddar. It looked more like a rustic thin crust pizza or flatbread pizza than meatloaf so I was happy. I cooked it for 20 mins at 200c, it's cut in half coz I wanted to check the chicken was done. Very tasty and the chicken doesn't overwhelm the toppings

*I'm sure someone else has but I thought of it on my own.

Timber! (on falling over)

I fall over A LOT. So much I don't even tweet most of them and I tweet everything. I wait for noteworthy ones; impressive injuries. a funny story or some major destruction. I have always been clumsy; as a child my legs were a traffic light of bruises and mum was constantly concerned that social services would investigate! However I think it has got worse thanks to the MS gremlins - my balance is shot and I've had to give up heels, I'm just too wobbly!  I don't swoon like a lady I obviously am, I fall like a great tree felling everything in my path. Usually on to my knees which are bruised 90 percent of the time I reckon. It's a pity is not onto my arse coz I have padding there and quite a lot too.

Notable falls in recent times include (It's OK if you laugh, they're funny);

• Falling over whilst walking in front of the stand at rugby and being caught by a fan with excellent reflexes.
• Falling off my then boyfriend while we switch positions and cracking my cheekbone on the corner of the bedside table resulting in four hours waiting at A&E the next day and a cracking black eye that I had to make up explanations for.
• Falling over and grazing my foot outside a job centre and giving myself an infection that was nearly blood poisoning apparently meaning I was on antibiotics for my BFF's hen and couldn't laze in the jacuzzi at the spa.
• Falling onto my knees and somehow tangling my heel in my cardigan effectively meaning I have hog tied my self and having a guy pull over in his car and pick me up. And then having to walk to the station with bleeding knees. And then getting followed round the station by some management person who obviously saw me as a threat to her perfect health and safety record.
• Falling over in my bedroom and landing on a half open drawer and breaking it and its fixings. 

I am a disaster area. There should be a safety cordon around me. Or a circle of handsome men poised to catch me. Definitely not glass. Or stairs, I don't like stairs; I think the reasons are fairly obvious.

Why I don't get anything done

I have a lot of blog ideas and half started posts. I have a lot of ideas and half started projects full stop. I have ideas way more often than i complete something. At the moment I am getting fuck all done. There are many reasons for this:

1. Caring for someone with dementia  takes up a lot of time. And a lot of patience but that is a different post.
2. I sleep a lot. Sometimes in the middle of doing something. Which is a little inconvenient.
3. I spend a lot of time on my arse:
• because I am inherently lazy
• because i fall over A LOT (more on that in another post soon)
4. My thought process is all tangents and shattered shards of ideas. This is not conducive to completing projects.
5. I have next to no motivation. If you could buy it in bottles my life would be changed.
6. I start a new project before finishing the previous one. Or previous five. Once I've got a few on the go the likelihood of me focusing on and completing anyof them are next to none.

I am certainly not a completer-finisher. I suspect I will continue to bumble through life leaving sparkling sequin ideas scattered behind me, to be collected and completed by industrious pixies. A time table might be good. Except that will be something else I start and don't finish. And then I'll just feel bad coz I haven't done it.