All things Scottish Archives - Page 2 of 4

Operation-Unclutter has commenced

My 3 part To Do list has been a work in progress lately. While it was listed as #3 on my list, it’s certainly the most important one for me right now: restoring balance and health.

Earlier this week I had another one of my bathtub epiphanies when I considered an old saying ‘As within, so without. As above, so below.’ This is one of the seven principal of Hermes Trismegistus.

I guess it’s similar to the principal of what you think, you become. What goes on in your head manifests in the details of your life. Well, lately my head has been complete chaos with my carefully laid plans being shot to pieces; this has definitely shown up in the details of my life. Everything around me feels cluttered. My body is off the reservation with no note on when it’s expected back. No matter how much I clear away the clutter, it comes back and brings all its buddies with it. It has felt like the clutter is just oozing out the walls while I sleep.

If I want to bring order to my life, I need to restore order within. So that has been the work-in-progress over the past few days. It means looking for wisdom in those who have done this before. Why reinvent the wheel when there are so many others who’ve already figured it out? An article I read recently suggested moving books out of the bedroom because the energy in words keeps your brain active, making it harder to sleep.

While that sounds like New Age malarky to many, I figured why not? So the bookshelf got moved to the living room. I slept like the dead the night I did that and every night since.

Cooking needs to be part of the road to balance for me. I love food and I need to find a way to include it in my life in a way that benefits rather than harms me. That means the kitchen needs to be a haven for me, not a war on clutter. I have a tiny kitchen but a LOT of cooking stuff and all the spices to go with that.

A trip to IKEA for spice bottles, office supplies, a label maker, hanging baskets and a bigger bookshelf solved pretty much every kitchen storage issue I had. The bigger bookshelf meant I could put all my regular books in one place. That freed up the little bookshelf in front of my kitchen to be used for all the recipe books stashed in the kitchen cupboard. Freeing up an extra cupboard in the kitchen means clutter on the counters finally found a new home out of sight.

All my recipe books and a shelf at the front door for my shoes. That way I don't trek dirt over my carpets. — All my recipe books and a shelf at the front door for my shoes. That way I don’t trek dirt over my carpets.

Getting hanging baskets that fit onto my pantry shelves doubled up the pantry space, making it look tidier instead of disorganised clutter. Everything is now neatly grouped, stacked and easily accessible. I even made space for a new cast iron Dutch oven for stove to oven cooking.

Finally! Everything grouped together instead of shoved wherever there was space!

For less than $100 I have doubled my kitchen storage and restored order in a small space. Not to mention my living room looks more pulled together and the turquoise bookshelf goes really well with the sand-coloured sofa. I’ve always loved a beach/ocean colour scheme of blues, creams and browns. There might not be an ocean within 800 miles of this place but I can have the colour scheme!

Living room: After. Very chuffed I managed to assemble the shelf unsupervised!

I’ve lived in this apartment for almost 2 years and I’ve always treated it as a temporary stopping point. I’ve never put effort into making it a haven for myself and then wondered why I never felt home here. There’s no way of knowing if I’ll ever get back to Scotland; I haven’t given up. In the meantime I am here so it’s time I ‘lived’ here.

To Do List: Part 3

I read a quote a while back to the effect of ‘if you have more than 3 priorities, then you don’t have any.’ Legit. So health & well-being are item 3 on the list of shit to take care of.

Current situation is 17 lbs. to lose and zero motivation to get it done.

Tools available:

Eating plans from a holistic nutritionist – I have the info, I just need to pull my finger out my arse and follow her advice! Especially given that I’ve paid for it.

4 miles of walking a day as part of my commute so I am exercising to some extent.

Self-inflicted roadblocks:

Lack of willpower to follow an eating plan. I’m easily distracted.

Falling into old habits instead of making new ones.

Allowing myself to wallow in my misery instead of going outside and walking off the stress of a crappy day.

Turning to food/alcohol when I have a bad day.

Constantly telling myself that ‘I’ll eat better tomorrow so it’s OK if I eat crap today.’ Tomorrow hasn’t come yet.

Working through lunch and buying food downtown instead of prioritizing my sanity and taking a break away from my desk.

Not effectively managing my stress levels at work so I’m not getting restful sleep. This leaves me constantly tired, which means coffee.

Buying healthy food only to waste it by not eating it, instead wasting money on buying food at work.

Not planning my meals in advance and eating on the go.

God, I’m a mess.

Things I would do if I had balls and willpower:

Yoga. Always wanted to try it, never had the balls because ugg…. I’d have to meet people, be a beginner and have no idea what I’m doing. That terrifies me.

Cut out meat/alcohol/sugar/bread. Sugar has a tight leash on my willpower. The rest I can live without if I put a modicum of effort into trying.

Cut out coffee. Yep, just as soon as I start getting enough sleep.

Walk every day. Meh, Netflix on the sofa is easier.

Use all the superfoods and spices that apparently fix everything. Lack of imagination and being too tired to make the effort.

Meditate every day. I can keep this up for like a week, tops. Then I’m off the wagon again, doing something useless like Facebook.

I have a week off work coming up so time to pull myself together and start working on this list. Whether I do or don’t, the time will pass anyway.

If any of you have some useful tips on how to tackle willpower issues, that would be great! In the meantime, I have a huge stack of recipe books taking up an entire cupboard in the kitchen, so there’s no excuse for having no imagination on what to cook for dinner.

To Do List: Part 2

Relocation is another goal on the TO DO list and it’s time for that to go under the microscope to see what’s fueling the need to move.

The weather is right up there, probably taking the top 3 spots of reasons why! Humans aren’t meant to function at -40. Or 100F for that matter. How about a nice, middle of the road 50 – 80F? Shoveling is the bane of my existence and commuting in a blizzard feels a bit like having razor blades taped to the inside of your eyelids.

Medical expenses are ridiculous, not to mention the cost of living in Illinois.

I hate big cities. The honking. Yelling. Road rage. Pedestrians. Cabs. General mayhem. Constant bloody noise!

Would the weather be doable if I wasn’t commuting 2 hours a day, rain or shine? Maybe. I’ve never not had to commute since living here so currently I have no frame of reference for what not commuting would look like.

How about finding a job in the burbs instead of the city? That would probably make a huge difference to commuting, not to mention the cost savings of not taking the train twice a day.

Cost of living will be the same if I stay in IL, as will medical expenses if I stay in the US. To change either of those, I’d need to relocate out of state or out of the country and we’ve already had a huge NO on the out of the country option. For now. I’m not conceding defeat on that point just yet. So it takes me another year to get it done. Fine. The time will pass anyway.

Changing the weather will mean getting out of IL, plain and simple.

An immediate solution would be finding a job out of the city and removing my commute/big city irritations out of the equation then reassessing before moving out of state lock, stock and barrel.

Relocating isn’t a cheap hobby so if I can still pull off a move to Scotland, then I won’t waste money relocating stateside. If, heaven forbid, a year from now Scotland is still a no, then I’ll have a doable Location B picked out with a pile of research to back it up.

Next!

When plans go tits up…

2 weeks ago I wrote about pulling the trigger and trusting. After weeks of looking for signs and not seeing any, I took matters into my own hands and flung my application into the void. It was hit the ground or fly.

Tragically, the signs were right and instead of trusting them, I pushed ahead. They said no. I don’t know why yet; I need to wait for their ‘official explanation letter’ which will find its way to me next week hopefully.

To say I’m completely crushed and devastated is an understatement of note. I never anticipated not being allowed to return, given that I still meet the criteria for that kind of visa. Maybe it’s something simple that can be fixed; maybe it’s something I can’t get around. I guess I’ll know next week when my documents are returned to me.

I didn’t learn to fly this time around and hit the ground at record speed. It’s left me feeling broken and depressed. I know this is temporary and things happen as they should. Maybe I should have trusted the signs the way I used to. Patience is not something I’ve mastered in this incarnation and this is certainly a lesson in how not to force your will on a situation that isn’t ready for it.

Despite this rather substantial kick in the balls I don’t have, I’m not ready to run up the white flag on my dream yet. It might just take some creative problem solving to find a way. Whether that is taking a long holiday there every year, or finding a way to split my time between locations. That would obviously involve working for a part of the year stateside to fund a few months away. There might be a limit on living there full time but there’s no limit on being a tourist for 6 months a year.

To have a lifestyle that allows me to do that is going to require a level of bravery I haven’t mustered yet. Using my creativity to create income streams and taking a leap of faith that maybe, just maybe, I am good enough. Creative folk are their own harshest critics and it’s easy to find reasons why we’ll never make it out there, believing we can’t make our own way when faced with the superior competition other people bring to the table. It’s easier to find the beauty in someone else’s offerings than finding the positives in our own.

Maybe life isn’t the competition we make it out to be. Maybe there’s space for all the dreams we bring to the table. Maybe hitting the ground was necessary to force me to fly in the direction I’ve been too scared to go.

Until I know what reason I’m up against, all that’s left to do is dust off the devastation and soldier on. After all, that’s the Scottish solution to everything from a small disappointment to a marauding invasion, along with a decent Scotch.

Sometimes you need to just pull the trigger and trust

A little over a year ago I was sitting in my bathtub, writing a blurb about synchonicity and the piece ended with the lyrics from the Nickelback song, what are you waiting for?

I’ve been looking for signs, anything to clutch at that makes me 100% sure moving is the right thing and there haven’t been any. Sitting on the train this morning, nauseous at the idea of another day as a cog in the profit machine of corporate America, my playlist flipped to that song. I haven’t listened to it in months. And there it was.

Are you waiting for the right excuse?
Are you waiting for a sign to choose
While you’re waiting it’s the time you lose
What are you waiting for?
Don’t you wanna spread your wings and fly?
Don’t you wanna really live your life?
Don’t you wanna love before you die?
What are you waiting for?

Exactly that. Losing time waiting for a sign so I know it’s safe to choose.

So I walked to work, sat down and chose. I clicked submit on my visa app and have a biometric appointment on Friday. So now it’s down to:

Everybody’s gonna make mistakes
But everybody’s got a choice to make
Everybody needs a leap of faith
When are you taking yours?

So true to my usual gypsy style of decision-making, I’ve taken a step off a cliff into the void, trusting it to take me home. I’ll hit the ground or fly.

Let the games begin…

Scottish meatloaf in a slow cooker

It’s been too long since I spent a day cooking. It’s been a shite week and in the interest of everyone else’s safety and my sanity, my phone is off for the weekend. I’ll deal with the world on Monday.

A few weeks back I mentioned I was seeing a nutritionist and for the most part, I’ve been able to stick to her food guidelines. Bonus is 12 lbs. have found a loving home elsewhere and 15 to go! The challenge is keeping the food interesting and not defaulting to comfort foods that are ‘off-menu.’

Although it’s the middle of summer and the air outside feels suspiciously like Satan’s sauna, I need comfort food. It seems to be where the road leads when I’m stressed beyond reason. The challenge is making it taste like comfort food but without the inevitable calorie bomb that comes with the deliciousness.

My mom makes a kickass meatloaf in the slow cooker so I’ve found a traditional Scottish meatloaf recipe cooked in the oven that I’m going to attempt to tweak to fit both my eating plan and morph into a slow cooker recipe. Basically, I’m winging it and hoping for the best. The bonus with meatloaf is that it can be served hot or cold so with a salad, it is a great dish for a scorching summer.

Ingredients:

2.5 lbs Angus beef mince (ground beef)

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 tbsp mixed herbs (Italian seasoning for me)

1 tsp each of Cumin seeds & Oregano

2 eggs

2/3 cup of seasoned breadcrumbs

2 gloves of garlic, finely chopped (I use more which is probably why I’m still single….)

Ground black pepper and salt to taste.

(I tossed in a 1/3 cup of grated Parmesan cheese because why not, oh and 1 tbsp of crushed red chili flakes because I eat that with everything, but both are completely optional.)

Toss all the above ingredients into a mixing bowl and mush them together with your hands, (or a wooden spoon if you’re squeamish but seriously, driving a spoon through that consistency will take more elbow grease.)

Time to get your hands dirty mixing up the ingredients

I’m a weirdo and eat raw ground beef so I taste to make sure I like the flavour and tweak if needed. Most people would put this in the ‘you’re going to die of salmonella’ category so taste or not, it’s up to you.

Take a fair sized piece of aluminum foil and fold in half lengthwise. (Pictures included to show what I mean). This goes into the slow cooker lengthwise and slightly up the sides. It makes it dead simple lifting the meatloaf out of the cooker without having to dismantle it. Because of the weight of the meatloaf, you need to fold it double or it will just tear and you’ll lose your mind. It also traps most of the juice so clean-up is a breeze!

Fold in half lengthwise, doesn't matter whether shiny side up or down. — Fold in half lengthwise, doesn’t matter whether shiny side up or down.

I shape the mixture into a loaf shape in the mixing bowl so I can get one hand under it to move it to the slow cooker.

Roll it up into a loaf shape in the bowl to make moving it to the slow cooker a bit easier

Pop it in the slow cooker, 6-8 hrs on low or 3-4 on high.

Instead of putting the liquids into the meatloaf, like you would for a traditional oven loaf one, I keep it aside and use as a glaze for the last 30 mins of cooking time.

Glaze ingredients:

1/3 cup of ketchup (I use jalapeno ketchup/tomato sauce)

1/3 cup Dijon mustard (or whatever mustard floats your boat.)

1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce (Lea & Perrins of course, because the Empire runs on this stuff)

Mix together in a bowl and pop in the fridge while the slow cooker does its thing.

You can add 2 tsp of brown sugar to the glaze but because this is Murica, the ketchup already has a metric ton of sugar in it so I leave that out. But again, taste and see if you would prefer it sweeter and toss some in if you need to. Dijon mustard has a vinegary tang to it so you might prefer a slightly sweeter taste. Cooking is more intuitive rather than strictly to a recipe so wing it. You’ll be fine.

Spoon the glaze over the meatloaf about 30 mins before the end so it can warm through. It makes it look delicious because meat in a slow cooker can look very pale. The glaze fixes that right up.

Final product after the glaze is spooned on

Meatloaf is great on mashed potato but because it’s 8 billion degrees outside (and my eating plan frowns on potato) it’s going to be salad for me.

DSCN7567

You’d think that cooking a meatloaf in a slow cooker without adding in liquid would make it dry but it comes out surprisingly tender without that sometimes sawdust texture that meatloaf has. Give it a go. Who knows? Maybe it will become a simple family favourite.

Lazy Sunday trying something new

There’s a Vietnamese food place a block from the office and the last 2 weeks have seen me inhale copious amounts of beef pho. It’s heaven in a bowl with just the right amount of spicy to make my tummy do a happy dance. The problem is the cost of buying lunch downtown tends to add up after a while.

In an attempt to solve this problem I found a YouTube tutorial by Mrs Nguyen on how to make beef pho from scratch. It’s a somewhat lengthy process if you’re doing the stock from scratch but it’s Sunday so all I have today is time.

The quick trip to the store ended with me drenched and running through the car park barefoot because during the 10 minutes I was shopping, Thor lost his mind and unleashed hell and 2 inches of rain in that general area. So slapped my shoes in my bag and hoofed it barefoot in ankle-deep water to my car. Probably not the smartest thing to do in a thunderstorm but hey ho, those little rubber soles weren’t going to save my arse if lightening struck anyway so why ruin a good pair of shoes?

As ridiculous as this sounds, it felt great running through puddles barefoot while everyone else was standing in the doors of the store waiting for the mayhem to pass. Sometimes you have to be the weirdo because this stock isn’t going to cook itself and Thor doesn’t exactly publish timetables for his mood swings. I haven’t got all day.

Looking at Mrs Nguyen’s stock pot, I needed one and thankfully my store is just the place for a cheap one of those so I’m now the proud owner of a monster pot that won’t fit in any of my cupboards. I’ll also be the proud owner of about 1.5 gallons of beef broth in 6 short hours.

Oh man, I wish you could smell how good this is! The star anise, cinnamon and ginger smell incredible and I cannot WAIT to stick that pho in my face for dinner! I’ll be sure to provide a delicious rating later.

Mrs Nguyen's beef pho - delicious! — Mrs Nguyen’s beef pho – delicious!

In the meantime my OCD is in the mood to spring clean so I’d best go and work that out of my system.

The key lies within

Humans are weird. We want change yet we resist it. We want improvement yet we make the same choices day in, day out. We want our dream lives yet we laugh it off as nothing more than that; a dream. A phantom wish flung out into the void that likely won’t be granted.

We tend to fear what we don’t know. Some people can get comfortable being uncomfortable. Those are the entrepreneurs and risk-takers. They feel fear but aren’t paralysed by it. Those are the people who have the epic before/after pics showing a complete transformation; be it body or lifestyle.

How did they push past it and do it anyway? What was the catalyst that woke them up from their Groundhog Day stupor and had them deciding: ENOUGH. I’m done. No more of this?

In the quest to restore my 4 rooms (physical, emotional, mental & spiritual), I’ve come to a realization. It starts in the spiritual room, however that looks for you. Do not confuse religion and spirituality; they are not the same thing. Spirituality is living in a way that aligns with what matters to you and brings you inner peace. Religion can bring you the same thing but not everyone is religious. I’m certainly not.

The room that needs the biggest overhaul is the physical one. With 30 lbs. to lose, it’s a sizeable challenge when viewed from the starting line. Yet, despite having a wealth of information at my fingertips, access to good food at a reasonable price and living in a place that is safe enough to exercise outdoors, I’ve made no progress. The barrier to transformation is not external; it’s internal. The key is in the spiritual room if you want to change the other 3.

I haven’t made peace with myself as I am now and by point-blank denying the state of affairs, change will not come. You wouldn’t fix something if you didn’t think it was broken, would you? Therein lies the problem. By denying I need to change, I haven’t.

There are several blogs that I subscribe to, mostly centered on better living and health. One of them sent me a link to a webinar on embracing the feminine and living authentically. I’m not a webinar fan because let’s be real, the first acronym has me mentally hitting the snooze button but I felt drawn to this one so had a listen.

Transforming! The blogger once had a life similar to mine now: finance job, stress, mentally exhausted and no passion or purpose. Granted, she earned a punt-load more than I currently do but that’s irrelevant. It’s still relatable.

She consciously chose to change and find her passion and live authentically. Ok, she had more moola in the bank from her job than I do, but again, relatable.

By putting her spiritual/inner needs first, she found her niche. She listed her daily rituals and well, what’s to lose by trying that? So I have. Meditating before going to bed; visualizing the peace I want in my life and actually seeing myself in the life I want; making time during the day to just reflect & be still; moving my body; journaling; checking in with my intuition. She uses Tarot cards, I have Runes.

Well….. let’s just say HOLY CRAP! The question I asked last night was: what is blocking me from the life I want? The answer:

Outmoded thinking. Old habits that no longer serve me. Not willing to be honest about what needs to change. Refusing to let right action flow through me. Ignoring my intuition. Need to be mindful of my health and the people I surround myself with. Unwillingness to let go.

Basically, the universe kneed me in the nuts. Hard. Every one of those things hits the mark. I drew 3 stones: 2 were inverted which indicates a blockage and one is the same in both directions. I am my biggest blockage.

The idea that I can’t make a living doing what I love; that I have nothing meaningful to contribute; that I need to work for a boss to support myself; that I’m genetically predisposed to being overweight because my family are; all of these things are what I’ve believed my whole life. I’ve believed because that’s what my parents and grandparents have believed. Look, learn, do.

Logically it’s a crock of shite. There are many people who are extremely successful doing things that I love; writing, photography, art. They are self-employed so no boss required. My family is overweight because of what they put onto their plates, not because they’re genetically meant to be. If they ate right, that reality would change. Their reality is not mine unless I choose it.

So I’ve made an appointment with a holistic nutritionist to address my diet and the changes that I need to make. I need to write, even if no-one is reading it & time to take my camera out for a jaunt again because I’ve barely taken photos this year. Spring came and went without a single picture.

There’s nothing to fear other than having a closet full of options in the morning of pretty dresses that actually fit.

The end of me

Tomorrow is my Oath Ceremony and my name change will be official. A name I’ve carried for 39 years will formally become something else tomorrow.

It’s bittersweet in a way. It was a name chosen with love but sadly one I’ve never identified with. So I’ve gone against the grain and will be formally changing it tomorrow.

What that will feel like at 12 noon, I cannot say. I’m hoping there will be something to mark the passing of one identity into another. Maybe the burden of sadness I’ve carried around will be left at the door of the court room and I’ll emerge myself at the end of it.

Maybe it will all be the same and all that will be different is that I now have to change my name in 100 different places because my life is meshed into the grid.

18 months ago I decided I would change my name and I test-drove one for a while. Isabella. After a few months I decided it didn’t quite fit so it morphed into the Celtic version, Isobeil.

Maybe I’ll be more me for the first time in a lifetime and finally carve out an identity of my own choosing. Maybe I’ve had that power all along….

1 more night and I’ll have something resembling an answer to this.

Sharon, it’s been real but we have to part ways here. You were the first half of my life, Isobeil will be the last half. You can finally rest and put the baggage to bed. You carried it well and I thank you for that.

Calling all angels

A complication from a routine medical procedure landed my brother in hospital with life-threatening viral meningitis last week Sunday. It’s been a crazy week.

That life can change so drastically in an instant is terrifying. One minute you break a tooth on a piece of pizza, the next you’ve got a tooth infection and the medication has such a severe effect on you that it lands you in hospital hooked up to enough medication to floor a whale.

To the doctors and nurses at Rush Copley hospital, THANK YOU! You are truly angels; the same angels who took care of me last year.

To his boss who generously set up a Go Fund Me account to help out, you’re amazing!

To the friends and complete strangers who have made donations, I have no words. That complete strangers have cared enough to help in any way restores my faith in humanity and every penny has been gratefully received. You are all angels in this world.

Make time for the ones you love, cherish the time you spend with them, make family time a priority because at the end of it, it can change in a heartbeat and the chance could be lost.

He’s home now with a few more weeks ahead of recovery. My sister has once again been the rock in the storm, taking care of him and spending virtually every hour at his side to bring him through. He chose the best woman in you, Sis, and I love you to death.

The vow in sickness and in health holds true for them and it’s something I hope I find in my lifetime.