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I find I am getting increasingly more introverted. I don't mean as I get older because I know that's a given. Our personalities age like fine wines, Cantankerous old woman were not all sweetness and light as young girls, age just sharpens these traits. What I am talking about though is how over the last few months I am withdrawing socially to a noticeable extent. In the last few weeks I have found a number of pages dedicated to all things introvert on Facebook and in a way it's been a bit of an eye opener. A lot of the things I have always felt weird for feeling are not in fact unique to me. In some ways this has helped me to accept who I am as a person. On some level though I feel learning more about what it means to be an introvert has not exactly been beneficial to me. It's a bit like when you're feeling ill and you type your symptoms into google and it turns out that headache you had is actually something far more serious and by the time you have read all of t

The title of this blog has no basis in truth but its something I like to repeat to myself when feeling bad about my attempts to squeeze into jeans that used to fit me. It's a shame we are celebrating muffin tops because mine is actually quite impressive. Admittedly I am doing my best to lose mine so it would be a rather short celebration ( I hope). I've only recently become alarmed at my weight gain over the last few months. Before that my stance was to ignore and eat some chocolate when I started to feel really bad which is a lot of what has gotten me into my current predicament. I am here now though and I staying strong on my path be healthier. The trouble with all of this is there is no quick fix. I know because I spend a lot of time on pinterest and I have looked. Even then I knew deep down that a healthy diet and exercise is the only way to a better body shape but I have been living in hope there's some secret way to get there faster that no one has told me about.

I am all for celebrating the fact that I am an introvert , I don't think there should be any shame in admitting this. Introverts unite ! separately, in our own homes and all that. The thing I feel confuses people is that because I work very hard at being sociable in certain situations (like work), I don't fit into their idea of what an introvert is. I shouldn't be chatty or sarcastic or friendly and so on. What people don't happen to realise is I find this all be exhausting. It takes a lot out of me to be putting myself out there and engaging with people. Plus I find interacting with others to be complicated emotionally. I often find, even with those close to me, that what they say and what they mean can be very different things and I can come away with a whole bag full of churning emotions because sometimes I have my own crap to deal with and selfish as it may sound I just don't have the emotional energy to dig deeper and get to the real issues behind the meanin

Before I begin, here's a quick disclaimer. The bread is not magic and the recipe is probably not a secret. For all I know it or some version of it has been shared multiple times on healthy eating blogs and I just haven't seen it but it's new to me and I for one am very very excited by it. I like bread, I like it a whole lot but bread unfortunately doesn't appear to like me a lot. This is something I've wrestled with a lot since discovering I'm gluten intolerant. By wrestled with I mean I have resisted the lure of regular bread but occasionally indulged in spelt and sourdough, over the years, and then suffered the consequences. I've also tried many a gluten free bread but they are usually over processed and some what tasteless.  I have also tried to plan my meals without bread but I do end up missing it after a few days.  Then recently in work someone was passing around this lovely brown bread that I just had to try for myself. So here goes. The ingred

I don't brag often but I can confidently say that I have self depreciation down to a fine art. I am witty and sharp and I can make a room laugh as I put myself down. This is something I have been doing ever since I can remember and it's almost a reflex at this point. When it comes complimenting myself, it's not common for me to do it outright, I'd prefer to downplay any talents/likeable parts of myself. Behind every quip lies a nugget of truth, something I, on some level, believe to be true about myself. I am just getting in with the joke before someone else does. I remember being younger and easily upset. Even now I struggle to not take everything personally but I have learned along the way that it's better and it hurts a lot less when everyone laughs with you rather than at you. But today, as I think back on the last blog post I have written in which I picked  apart my flaws for the amusement of others. I started to think about our culture and how it encou

You could say I have a love/hate relationship with fitness or maybe I am just really lazy when left to my own devices. I had reached the point with working out where I was actually scared to go back to it. I had been eating a lot of chocolate (and anything else with sugar in it) and feeling bad about it but then smothering those feelings in more chocolate so as you can imagine my weight has been creeping up. I am currently at the age (over 10) where my pot belly is getting increasingly less adorable as the days go by and there's only so much magic those hold you in garments can work. Plus I think there's a limit to how many of them you can wear at the same time without dying. I have been spending the week mentally preparing myself for the possibility of re-entering the gym and I am aware this sounds ridiculous but I find after a long hiatus it's actually quite difficult to get in for the first class and I have a wonderful ability to talk myself out of it when the notion

It feels like this until it doesn't There is no reasoning with the whirring of the mind like a clock ticking in the dark reminding you should be asleep but you are not . yet another thing you can't get right. No comparison that soothes my woes I read the news and know of many in worse circumstances but I am too consumed with my own to see beyond them. the shadow of the black dog still looms in empty spaces where my happiness falls. It's okay not to feel okay or so I've read on the internet so it must be true. There are times where I could not feel less okay and there lies the fear of something inside you being broken. Sometimes in the dark of the night, I doubt my own existence. I worry my anxious thoughts have tinged my skin. It feels like this until it doesn't. and then I keep my anxiety in my purse for special occasions and sleepless nights.

As an introvert with anxious tendencies I spend an excessive amount of time worrying about how I come across to other people. I am not a natural socializer but my default, hanging back in conversations having many thoughts but not really sharing most of them, has been known to come across as standoffish so I make an effort to interact with others (most of the time) but I do so awkwardly with a complete lack of finesse. Have you ever had a conversation with someone and then thought about it for months? analysing what you said and how the other person appeared to react? oh me neither, I was just asking for a friend. Sometimes I get nervous and talk too much and I'm pretty sure I am making no sense just mashing sentences together to fill the silence aware that I am oversharing but can't seem to engage with my brain. I constantly put my foot in it , saying things I shouldn't. Sometimes I know I am saying the wrong thing as the words leave my mouth but by then the dam