Monday Musings: Week 7

This week's post got sidelined for a little bit thanks to the Houdini move my lovely fur baby pulled when I let him out to pee earlier this evening.  It ended with a chase scene (and an unindentified brown object flopping out of his mouth) through the woods, accompanied by expletives that I can only hope the neighbourhood children did not hear.  This was followed by an early departure on my part for my tea date and his early entry into his crate - no treat for him.  As I write this he is trying to eat the zipper on my jacket and all I can think about are the germs floating around his mouth from that unidentified brown object.

He's lucky he's cute!

So, to re-focus this post, I thought I would share a few successes and failures from my recent musings.  I tried two recipes from last week's Monday Musings - the Almond Snack Bars and the Brown Rice Cranberry Chews from The Brunette Bit.  The verdict?  I will definitely be making these again!  Of course, I had to alter them a little bit because I have a condition and cannot help but change perfectly good recipes.  I did give the Chocolate Avocado Pudding a whirl from week 2, but did not love it; however, not wanting to waste it I added it to my morning protein smoothie and it was a raging success!  

I also spray painted my Ikea Marius Stool a beautiful aqua colour - I wanted to use the hack I linked to on week 3 of this series, but could not find a round swing plate, so I just went colour crazy and am glad I did!

Gluten Free On A Shoestring - Old Fashioned Gluten Free Cornbread

This link stems from my gluten-free experience thus far.  It centers around my desire to find a suitable bread substitute.  I have tried many, but they all end in stronger longings for a baguette.  I am completely weirded out by the flour substitutions in gluten-free bread and baking recipes - I have no interest in buying several different kinds of flour and combining them into some sort of mess that somewhat resembles bread - but really doesn't.  So, any baking I have done focuses on almond meal or something completely flour-free.  In the end, I just want to be able to find a way to eat a proper piece of garlic bread.  I really need garlic bread. Not quite sure how much longer I will stay on this, I have not noticed a difference in my IBS or my possible fibromyalgia.  For this reason, if I introduce it back in and there is no terrible reaction then I will be gluten all the way - bring on lovely, fluffy white bread.  Can you tell I have a slight fixation?

Manger - Market Days

Mimi pens a beautiful blog with stunning photographs that tell the tale of her life in Médoc, France. Not only does she have delicious-looking recipes, her posts about life in Médoc transport you into her world.  Personally, this made me long for Angers, France where I studied for a year and met my husband.  We have only been back once since, but dream of owning a home there and living the life eating fresh produce, drinking wine and generally basking in the French language and French culture.  Mimi was able to bring me there, if only for a few minutes.

Lifescoop - 5 Awesome Apps to Help Revamp Your Home Decor

We are currently obsessed with trying to pull the house together - fixing things and placing furniture, trying to figure out how to make it our own without spending a small fortune.  This article definitely caught my eye; it looks like there are a few in there that even my husband will use!

Déjà vu or nostalgia?

Déjà vu is this week’s prompt for GBE2 (group blogging experience) … to be completely honest I had no idea how I was going to tackle this topic.  I was hesitant to share a moment where I can recall experiencing déjà vu; in fact, I am having trouble recalling a specific incident.  Instead, all I could think about was the word nostalgia, which is not quite the same as déjà vu.  Déjà vu expresses the sense of having seen or experienced something already – this can be related to either a positive or negative experience.  Nostalgia, however, is always associated with a positive recollection, perhaps a happier time.  

Nostalgia is often a sensory experience, triggered by smells, sounds, touch, taste or feel.  For example, the smell of someone’s home.  On a few rare occasions I have caught a fleeting whiff of something akin to the scent of my home in Angers, France with my dear French (host) mother Janine.  When I encounter this familiar scent I have a moment of pleasure and longing for that time, one of the happiest in my life.  

The smell of sunscreen is also a trigger for me, prompting memories of both my childhood and adolescence, spent, for the most part, on a beach swimming, lifeguarding, coaching and generally having a blast.  

People often associate music with certain moments or time periods in their lives.  When you hear a song on the radio that you used to listen to in high school, it generates memories from what feels like a lifetime ago.  In high school we used to listen to a lot of Dave Matthew’s Band while hanging out, participating in underage drinking and shuffleboard tournaments.  

Tonight I am headed to Citadel Hill in Halifax to catch Ben Harper in concert.  Ben Harper has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember.  I have no idea who introduced me to his music, but it was likely during a summer of lifeguarding.  I have carried his music with me for the last 10 years and await his latest albums with eager anticipation.  I am lucky enough to be taking in this concert with a dear friend from my junior high and high school days, someone who has indulged my Benny obsession for as long as I can remember, my partner in crime from my time at the beach, or maybe just my partner in crime for life.  

Nostalgia can also be the feeling you get when you return to a place from your past.  My return to Angers during my honeymoon made me nostalgic for my carefree days of pastry eating, wine drinking, French speaking and new love.  Walking through the streets of Angers with my new husband (whom I met and fell in love with in Angers) was pleasurable, eerie and regretful.  Eerie because the people we once knew were, for the most part, no longer there.  It was the exact same and at the same time very different.  It was regretful because it made us yearn for that life, where we had no responsibilities, where everything was new and exciting, where food tasted so damn good, where the lifestyle is so unlike our life in North America.  

As a final thought on nostalgia, or déjà vu, or however you would like to term it, we are having a rocking good dinner tonight of roast chicken with vegetables.  As my husband and I debated over how to prepare it, we thought of the many times Janine made roast chicken for us in France.  She had a way of injecting flavour by putting cloves of garlic, butter and thyme under the skin of the chicken. 

We briefly reminisced and engaged in friendly debate as to how to prepare it.  My final thought is on that wonderful smell, which brings back so many memories of dinners shared with loved ones.  If only I could share that with you tonight!