I Interrupt this Regularly Scheduled Blogging Break...

I'm not generally a gal who gets herself attached to name brands. For one thing, I think half the time you pay a lot extra for the pretty picture on the can, and for another thing, it seems that as soon as I discover some really great product, "they" up and discontinue it on me. (And I don't know who "they" really are, but whomever they are, "they" are bastards.)

Yup, I'm pretty much a No Name woman in a name brand world. Check out my shopping cart and you'll find a sea of generic labels. With one new, notable exception:

Charmin toilet paper.

I fist encountered Charmin last Christmas, when we dropped in on the in-laws unexpectedly. When I made a trip to the little girl's room, I knew as soon as I went to tear a square that something was different here...this TP ROCKED!! It was soft as kitten's fur, yet tough as a brillo pad when it came to getting a messy job done. When I inquired about the name of this fabulous product, my Mother-in-Law looked discomfited, and stated that she normally saves the Charmin for when no guests are expected. Weekends with houseguests they bring out the store brand crap wrap, but she hadn't had the chance to make the switch. (And I actually believe that she was telling me the truth!)

I've been treating the Fam to this lush and opulent butt-wipe ever since that day. It caresses your lady-curtains like the kiss of a butterfly, and floats over your pucker like you're being nuzzled by a cashmere goat. Not only that, even the most explosive diarrhea can be tended to with no more than three squares. The only hard part of our transition to this bathroom pleasure has been teaching the children to stop at three...they were used to needing a whole handful to get the job done. And frankly, considering the ridiculous price of Charmin compared to our old brand, I can't afford to have them go through a roll that fast.

So, if you love your nether regions as much as I do, I highly recommend that you dig into your savings and treat yourself to a four-pack this holiday season. If you find that the price makes your jaw drop and your fingers tremble, just take a moment and think about all the things your pink parts do for you, and then maybe you won't mind shelling out the extra dough. If you plan on drinking whiskey this New Year's eve, and if you find, (much like myself), that it makes your bowels boil and enables you to shit through the eye of a needle at twenty paces, you'll be awfully glad you did.

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm off to fight the crowds at the mall this morning and buy things no one wants or needs at greatly reduced prices.

Peace!

A Christmas Message from the Queen of Fuckin' Everything!

Hi everyone, and here's hoping that you're all still alive and still somewhat sane as the big day approaches. I've been mightly scarce around these parts lately, and I want to tell you why.

I've now been blogging for two full years, and I must admit, it's starting to feel a little stale to me. In the last few weeks, I've had the feeling that perhaps it might be time for this blog to come to an end. I feel like I've said everything I needed to say, done everything I needed to do. I don't know right now if this is a temporary malaise brought on by simply having too much on my mind, or just a temporary hiccup in the creative process. Or maybe, just maybe, it's a signal that it's time to move on down the road.

I want to be brutally honest with you all; I simply don't feel I have anything valuable to contribute any longer.

The fact of the matter is, most of what I do here on this little blog of mine is being done much better by other folks in the blogosphere; in some cases, folks that weren't around two years ago when I started. In the last two years, there's been an explosion of vegan/vegetarian food blogs, and while I welcome them all and read many regularly, I can't help myself from feeling a need to compete with them too, and it's exhausting me.

In the beginning, I didn't start blogging to impress anyone; I simply did it to show folks what an average family ate for dinner every night and to motivate myself to put more variety in our diets. And it worked, for a time. But then the pressure to have something new and different to share every single day started to get to me. I started spending many of my waking hours thinking about food; what could I make that would really knock people's socks off, what would really be impressive, neat, interesting or off the wall. I obessed about lighting and presentation, bought special dishes, ate my food cold, actually ruined some recipes trying to take pictures of them when I should have been stirring. It started to feel ridiculous.

The end result of all this thinking about food and trying to be better than the other guy has not made me happy with myself. The food blogging, combined with the knee injury I suffered in August, has packed an extra ten pounds of fat on my body and I feel just awful. I shouldn't be baking elaborate cupcakes none of us need and then sitting around for an hour a day writing about it. I should be spending that hour on my exercise bike, and although a salad isn't really blog-worthy, it shouldn't matter, because that's what I should be eating, whether anyone really wants to read about it or not. That's what it's come down too: I live my life and make many lifestyle choices based on whether or not perfect strangers will find it interesting.

In the last few weeks, my mind has been endlessly churning about the fact that I don't feel like blogging, but oh! I really should or I'll lose all my readers, but I really haven't cooked anything interesting, so get my ass in the kitchen already!, but I don't feel like it, I'm too busy, well you need to make the time, but all I want tonight for supper is veggie burgers and I've already talked about that, and Who cares? I'll eat veggie burgers whether they're interesting or not, and then, Oh Tracy, you're so lazy, what's wrong with you?

So, I'm hereby announcing that I'm taking a break from blogging. I'm not saying it's the end for sure. but I need a few weeks without thinking about posting to figure out what direction my life is going to take in 2009. Maybe I'll come back with renewed zeal and get right back at it; maybe I'll decide to take the blog in a whole new direction, maybe I'll begin a whole new blog with a new focus. Or maybe, just maybe, I'll kiss this blog goodbye forever. I'll get back to you around January 3rd (My birthday!) with my answer.

In the meantime, I still blog for two different Nova Scotian newspapers about basic vegetarian issues and recipes. For many of you, it won't be interesting because I'm preaching to the choir. For some others though, people just starting out on the veggie path, you might find it interesting. You can find me at the Chronicle-Herald's website here ... (I'm in the list as "Veggie Mom"..

...and also at South Shore Now. ("This Crazy Veg*n Life")

For now, to all of you out there who read this message, my wish for you at this special time of year is as always...

Peace.

Update: Whoa! I was surprised to be flooded with so darn many wonderful comments, and I have to admit, they made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, (much the same feeling I get after one too many martinis.) Thank you ALL so much for your sweet words, that's the best Christmas gift a gal can get, and it certainly will affect my decisions in a few weeks time.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!

Bits 'n Pieces

Why hello there! What brings you my way? Long time no see. Life has still been kicking my ass all over the ring this week.

It started last Sunday with a bad bout of some intestinal ailment that's been going around. I spent the entire day running back and forth to the toilet, puking and pooping to beat the band. My visions of all the Christmas goodies I was going to bake and blog about just went right out the window as I lay moaning on the sofa.

With lots of help from my husband the hottie, we did get the tree up, though. I had a couple of bucks in my pocket this year so I actually bought some new lights and ornaments and went with a royal purple and gold theme. I thought it was beautiful....

My daughter proclaimed it to have "no soul" and said she would have rather had all our funky ornaments on it from years past. Ah well, you can't please everyone (somedays, you can't please ANYONE) and the normal ornaments will be up next year.

In other news, me and Bob spent last Saturday night making an ENORMOUS pan of cabbage rolls..

As he is the only person in the household who likes them, he's been eating a big scoff of cabbage rolls just about every day this week, and you know what that means; toxic, noxious clouds of gas so offensive that it makes me want to stuff his ass full of fabric softener sheets.

And finally, the weather. Here in Nova Scotia December weather is notoriously changeable, due to our proximity to the ocean. So one day we'll have a snowstorm.....

...and the next day it will be mild and raining buckets, like today. This changeable weather is causing lots of folks to come down with colds and flus, although thankfully, but for my 24 hours encounter with the throne, everyone in this house is hale and hearty.

And what's going on at YOUR house??

Peace...

Busy Days and Hectic Nights

Hellllloooooo....! Anybody out there? Sorry to be MIA this last ten days or so, everyone, but life this last ten days has hurtled along like a roller coaster, and I was just tryin' to hold on.

See, this is the season I love the most, and I always manage to throw myself into it headfirst, leaving little time for things like, say, blogging. Unlike lots of folks I know who rail against the commercialism of the season, and hate the shopping, the wrapping, the baking, the parties, I love ALL OF IT. I love fighting the crowds at the mall, churning out batch after batch of cookies, and breaking my back wrapping a hundred gifts.

(There's one thing I do hate about the Christmas season, though: The fact that the stores start playing Christmas carols mid-November and keep ramping up the volume the closer it gets to the big day. It's only December 5th, but already my ears are bleeding. I'm so sick of hearing "Do You Hear What I Hear" sung by a hundred different bands in a hundred different ways, that I think if I hear it one more time I might just launch myself at the Wal-Mart greeter and scratch her eyes out, just because.)

I've also been busy in other ways, too. I recently spent an entire Saturday coaching my son and two other young gentlemen in the Army Cadet summer biathalon. They did OK, but it was a really long, long day.

The cherry on the top of my sundae this last week is that the flash on my camera has decided to die, clearly evident in this picture my hubby took of me holding my Christmas present to myself.

In case you can't make it out, it states "Queen of Fucking Everything" and I figured that phrase just about described me perfectly. So until I get that issue resolved, (and it will likely be a while) the only pictures of food you'll see are ones that I can take in the middle of the day outside on the lawn. It sure will make the neighbours do a double take when they see my son or daughter out there with me holding up a plate of Christmas cookies.

In other news, I actually had a lovely gentleman come to my house earlier this week and do a video interview with me for South Shore Now, all about my cookbook, veganism, and meatless cooking. It has to be edited (likely to try and make me look like less of a drooling, stammering idiot) but when I get the word that it's done and posted on the web, I'll let y'all know! (It's amazing how having a camera pointed at you can make you forget your own name...)

So that's my excitemement for this week. Hopefully I'll have some tasty yummies to share by the end of the weekend. Until then, hope your holiday preparations are truckin' along and not making you crazy.

Peace!