Garbage In, Garbage Out

Well hello there! Long time no blog. I hope you've all been keeping well, and having lots of lovely adventures?

I have a feeling this could be a long post, so if you're here for nails, there'll be some of those coming soon, as I have more pretties to show you. 

My blog has been quiet for a couple of reasons. Let's start with the easiest. 

When I first started, nail art was not the massive beast it is now. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't in its infancy or anything, but it was still pretty experimental, and perfectly possible to come up with something not seen before. There were a few big faces, but they were quite new to their fame and usually all had time for a quick chat in their comments.

As time went gone on, things changed, as they have a habit of doing. Big business saw an opportunity to make some money, and filtered its way in. This was inevitable of course, and not entirely a bad thing. More people found the fun of nail art, and of course, the big faces got *really* big. Nail art blogging became a paying business for some, which is great.

However, with that came a down side. Suddenly there were "rules" introduced about things like sponsored posts, (where companies send you items for review) and you had to put certain wording on your blog to make sure you didn't get sued (?). Who actually devised these rules, and who on earth would police them never really seemed clear to me.

Alongside that, because so many people were enjoying doing their nails, the outpouring of creativity meant that no matter what you did on your nails, someone had usually done it before. Which is fine if everyone can accept that two people might have the same idea, but all too often I would see people getting comments on their blog accusing them of stealing other peoples designs, and I became nervous about that happening to me. 

So I got to the point where I was sticking to polish reviews, or checking Google every time I wanted to post a design I was pleased with, and usually something similar had already been done so I ended up not blogging about it. 

All these things kind of sucked the fun out of blogging for me. At the time I couldn't work out why I wasn't enjoying it any more, and I even wrote a post about it (probably to try and understand it myself) but it's only now with hindsight that I can see the bigger picture.

So that's part of the reason. I will try to write this next part without massively oversharing, which will be a challenge for me. About a year ago, i had a health scare with my breathing which resulted in lots of testing at hospital over a period of months. Everything they tested for was negative (thank God) but once they'd run out of tests to do, the doctors just shrugged their shoulders and left me to my own devices. Meanwhile I was still ill, and pretty worried. My hair and nails had turned pretty awful (another reason for not blogging), I was putting on weight relentlessly, everything ached, and I got pretty down. I put it all down to stress and just tried to get on with things the best I could.

Out of luck with the doctors, I turned to the internet for advice. I posted my problem on a respiratory health forum, and as with most of my experiences with people on the internet, everyone who replied was lovely. A couple of the replies suggested that I get my thyroid function tested, so after having read a bit about it (of course), I went to the doctor, who sent me for a blood test. Lo and behold, my thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level came back as abnormal. The doctor then ordered some more tests to see if he could see why my level was so high. However the two tests he ran came back as "within limits". My doctors words were "I see you're sick but I don't know why".  Once again I was sent away with a shrug of the shoulders. This whole thing so far had taken eight months. 

At least now I had an idea what was wrong with me I could try to work towards putting it right. My blood tests also showed I was deficient in certain vitamins and minerals (I'm convinced this is all related), so I've been taking several supplements since the beginning of the year to try to balance all these levels out. I am feeling better in myself, and the weight has stopped piling on, so something must be happening. I will book myself in for some more blood tests (if they'll do them) in the summer to check that I'm not doing myself more harm than good. 

So this brings us to the current day. I'm not cured by any stretch of the imagination, but I am feeling better than I was. Thyroid problems can make you lethargic and can suck out your motivation, so coupled with the other blogging issues, the whole thing came to a stop. I did manage to mess up all the posting dates on my past posts though, clever me, doh!

My new found interest in my health has led me to start paying attention in what I'm actually eating. Hence the title of this post. As I work full time, when I get home all I really want to do is feed myself as quickly as possible with the minimum of time and effort taken. Therefore I'm very much a convenience food cooker. If it doesn't come in a jar or a packet, I don't give it much of a second look, apart from potatoes. My Irish roots will not allow me to disrespect the spuds haha.

But although the convenience foods are quick and easy, they don't taste wonderful. They're not disgusting either, they're just "there", doing a job without being particularly inspiring. I also suspect that most of them are not that healthy, despite some claiming otherwise. 

So I have been experimenting with flavours. The picture in this post is my bacon and egg salad, which is okay, but was much improved with the addition of cherry tomatoes. Plus the leaves were a bit dry and could have used some kind of dressing, but I have no idea what type of dressing. Cheese maybe? More experimenting to do there.

I think all of this relates to my blog, as Making A Silk Purse Out Of A Sows Ear relates to improving yourself not only through beauty products, but also making yourself a more rounded person by improving skills and feeding your interests. And now I've got a bit more fire in my belly I intend to give it a good old go. I do have some beauty stuff I've been meaning to review for ages, so will get on to that soon too. 

If you're still reading, thanks for ploughing through my ramble! I have to say the Blogger mobile app is a hundred times improved since I last used it, the ease of being able to quickly write a post on my phone may also inspire me to do more. Anyway, I had better go before this post gets completely out of hand!

Until next time...

~Wendy~

MASPOOASE x x x