Another year, Another crossroads...but which path do I take?

Here I am again, standing at another crossroads; a crossroads at which I am faced with that inevitable, hugely overwhelming question, one which has been hanging on my mind ever since that fateful day back in November 2014 when I walked out through the Front Arch of Trinity, wintry gusts fingering their way into the hood of my coat aand drying the few remaining droplets of moisture upon my eyelashes and cheeks, so that nothing remained but the tear marks in my make up and the bitter, hard lump in my throat as I turned my face toward the sky. It felt like, a farewell. It felt like the very last time.

But...was it the last time? 

here I am now, physically, if not mentally recovered from anorexia: and I know that my time is now well and truly up. I can no longer put off this decision which has been haunting me, ever since I was signed off from Trinity on that difficult, painful day when my tears fell like rain and my heart felt like it was being cut open with a razor-sharp blade. I need to decide where my path is going to take me from here: I need to decide whether or not I will return to Trinity, to complete my English degree - and, if my time at Trinity is well and truly over, I will also need to figure out what exactly I am going to do, instead. 

There is a little Voice inside my head, telling me that yes, of course I should go back to Trinity. It would be the sensible thing to do, the most logical. And I agree, in a way. After all, I was two and a half years through that degree, before I was eventually forced to withdraw. To this day, how I managed to pull myself through two and a half years of a top-ranking university course with an eating disorder is beyond me, as I honestly cannot even hazard a guess at how I survived it. It was incredibly, enormously difficult: I remember all too well the pain, the tears, the isolation, the hunger, the fear, the anxiety; the sheer exhaustion. All I am saying is this: I think I was on borrowed time. I dont think there could ever have been a a chance of me passing third year. 

And I hated it. I hated every single moment of it. This degree which I had set my heart upon obtaining, this university for which I had spent hour upon hour pouring over notes and burying my head behind mountains of textbooks in order to gain entry into - it was nothing, nothing like what I had ever imagined it to be; what I wanted it to be. I felt like a ragdoll, dropped over from the safe harbour into the sparkling, glistening depths of the sea below - a sea full of nimble, able-bodied marine creatures which were able to stay afloat without effort or difficulty; but I, however, could feel myself drowning, slipping down under, down and down and down, into the fathomless depths below.

But are things different now...? In terms of concentration, ability to study, maturity, self-confidence; motivation levels, memory, independence..? Things that I am sure, come so naturally to other young students of my age. But not to me. 

I have changed, I have made many positive changes, and I know that if I were to return to Trinity, then that girl walking through the front Arch will not be quite the same as the Emmy who passed under that very grand gate, all those months ago, back in late 2014. She is different, but...alot still remains the same...

                              2014

                                            2015

It's true, I have changed, alot, in the space of a year. My body has changed. The way I see the world, the way I see myself. But yet, i am not recovered from my eating disorder; the Voice is far from silent, whispering instructions in my head, instructions which I am forced to use every ounce of strength within me to defy and go against. Every day, a raging battle takes place deep within me, a bbattle which no other person can see, or hear, or sense: it is just me and ED, locked in this seemingly endless battle of wills...

And I certainly do not feel like a young woman of 21 years of age. And I still don't believe in myself, that I am good enough for what I really want to do. But I know, I have to make this decision. I know I have to choose a path, and that, once I do, that there will be no turning back...

Dappled cupcakes!!:)

Yes!!! Yet MORE cupcakes were made in the kitchen of Ganache-Elf today!! And you know, the best thing about these is, that they look ever so exquisite, with a delightful, dainty prettiness to them which makes them all but irresistible to anyone who you might consider lucky enough to ask to sample one of your heavenly delights - well, despite all of that, they are remarkably simple to make, and don't need any pricey ingredients. Just check to see if you have some little choccies in the house for decorating!! ;) I used cadbury dairy milk buttons, but it is, of course, entirely up to you which ones you use - as is the way which you choose to apply the most heavenly concocoction ever created by humankind, surely (that being GANACHE of courese. ;) to your buns. Swirls? Smiley faces? A polka dot or chessboard patterns? The possibilities are as endless as your imagination!! Ganache in itself, once mastered, is never really any hardship to make - don't let the fancy-sounding name fool you if you are unfamiliar with the delights of ganache-making. But anyway, never fear - the recipe is included below complete with Ganache-making instructions!! ;)

• 125 g butter/margarine, softened
• 150 g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 150 g self-raising flour
• About 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence/extract
• 2 tsp milk 

For the ganaches...

• 4 tbsp single cream
• 100g white chocolate, chopped
• 100 ml single cream
• 100g plain chocolate, chopped
• a few chocolate dairy milk buttons (or whatever small chocolates you prefer )

Method:)

• Preheat the oven to 180c/fan 160. Line a muffin pan with 12 muffin cases.
• Beat the butter or margarine in a bowl until really soft, then add the sugar, the eggs, and the flour. beat well for about 2 minutes until smooth and well blended.
• Transfer half the mixture to a clean bowl and add the vanilla essence to one of them.
• 
  
• Distribute alternative spoonfuls of the different coloured batters amongst the 12 paper cases, filling them about three quarters full. When you're done, take a little thin skewer and swirl it round in each case to get that gorgeous, swirly marbled effect.
• Bake the cupcakes for about 17-20 minutes, until well-risen and springy to the touch - if you press the top of one gently with a fingertip, it should spring back. If an indention is left bake for a few more minutes and then test again.
• Leave in the muffin pan for about two or three minutes, and then move to a wire rack to cool. While they are cooling make the ganaches, starting with the dark chocolate ganache. ;)
• Make the dark choc ganache by melting the 100g plain chocolate with 100 ml single cream, on a very low heat in a small saucepan. Stir until smooth and then refrigerate for about 1 ½ - 2 hours, checking after 1 ½ hours…you don’t want it very hard, just a nice spreadable consistency.
• Next make the white choc ganache: in a small heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water, melt the white choc with the 4 tbsp single cream. Stir now and again and watch it very closely – the white choc will temper easily if it is overheated. As soon as the choc has melted remove from the heat and stir until nice and smooth. Refrigerate for about 1 hour – 1 ½ hours, checking after an hour, until the ganache is thicker and more spreadable.
• When the cupcakes are completely cold, decorate them with the two ganaches...in whatever way you heart desires. To get swirls or rosettes of course, you will need an icing bag or small piping bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle. I created flowerheads and circular patterns upon my own batch, and then added a few buttons to some of them. Very pretty, very cute, and very, very yummy, of course. <3 xxx

The courage to be Me...

It was the day which I thought might never, ever come...

But here I am, sitting at home with my hot choc and laptop, a real, true smile upon my face as I write to you, a smile that reaches my eyes and makes dimples in my cheeks as I feel as if I could literally burst with happiness, excitement, and joy, at this precise moment in time.

Because yesterday, the 16th of July, 2015, I left the hospital for the last time..I am no longer a patient. I am free.

It took alot of courage for me to go in yesterday and tell the staff - the dedicated team on the ward who have cared for me, supported me, and essentially managed my recovery for the past six months - that I felt that the time had come for me to move on.

I know that my journey to recovery continues on from here, and that i am not fully recovered from my eating disorder. But today, for what feels like the first time in an age, I experienced a sense of freedom. I am no longer a patient. I no longer have to travel up and down to a hospital several times a week. I no longer have to go into the environment where I was first received professional treatment for my eating disorder. I am now free to move forward, leave the past behind, and forge myself a new future without an ed...

And I made it, I got through it all, despite all the odds, the uncertainties, the tears and the fear and the constant anxiety. I spent the first half of 2015 being in and out of a mental services hospital, both as an inpatient and an daypatient. And I survived; it didn't kill me, it only made me stronger. And though it was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do in my whole life - both mentally, and physically - I am glad that I did it, that I forced myself into that strange, unfamiliar environment, an environment which might as well have been a prison to me, despite the gaily coloured walls, the posters and pictures with their smiley faces and motivational quotes, the softness of the carpets and the warmth of the dormitories. I am glad that I went to the doctor that day, all those month ago, now, back in October, over the foot injury which would change my life forever; the injury which I now see as representing so much more than a normal, ordinary injury. No..I now see that that very foot sprain as being my body's cry for help. It was a message from my body to myself, that it could no longer keep up this battle, and that, if I did not act now,

And so, I am no longer a patient. I am free from the restrictions, the responsibilities, the obligations that I was forced to observe, being a patient of an eating disorder ward...

Now, all I have to do, is free myself, wholly and completely, from my greatest ever nemesis...the demon which placed its hand upon my shoulder all those years ago when I was only a young girl of thirteen. I was as helpless as the butterfly which has flown into a spider's web. Tricked into thinking that what I had just found - and this thing, this "friend" who had suddenly caught hold of me with a gentle, but vice-like grip - was something which would keep me safe, which would help me, which would give me everything I had ever wanted, which would make everything perfect, for me. But ED continued to spin its endless web of lies and deceit, continued to enmesh me tighter and tighter in its trap from which there appeared to be no escape. And from that day on, I was no longer free...ever since that day when I first felt its touch: so gentle, or so it seemed; almost like silk...but as cold and as heartless as death itself. No longer free to fly, I became a shadow of the girl that I once was, an empty, hollow shell.

But that was the past. Now is the time we take courage and break though those snares, spread our wings - our beautiful, free wings - and fly again...

I have began to find the courage to be me...not to be someone else...not to be the girl with the ED...

I know now, though, that with my new found freedom from the hospital ward, there is a new onus on me. I know, I have tofight harder than ever against ED, and take care of myself, so that I become the person that I want to be. Emmy. A baker, dog-walker, hiker, animal-fanatic, nature-enthusiast, cook, writer, blogger, medievalist, scarf-knitter,self-confessed chocaholic (or should that be...HOT chocoaholic?? Or maybe even both! ;) ). A girl who struggled, but survived, and RECOVERED, from her ED, and went on to help and inspire others to do the same!! <3 xxx

Love Your Body! :) Part 2

The second part of Love Your Body (I actually made this one up myself for a change, me being pretty unimaginative at the best of times...but I am really, really glad that I did don my thinking cap and conjure this one up!!) involves me listing the things that I like about my natural body; ie. the way my body is now that I have physically (there's a huge difference!!) recovered from anorexia. Compared to part 1, this was alot more difficult. Because my anorectic mindset is constantly trying to convince me, on a daily basis, of course, that now that I have gained weight, I am ugly, dumpy, chubby and unattractive. And that there is absolutely nothing to like anymore about myself, now that I have lost my "precious" skinniness. That I hate every single inch, every single fibre of my own body now. Yes. That;s what the Voice in my Head tries to tell me, every day.

But I know that is is all lies. Deep down, I know it is. I know now what I didn't know before: skinny is not beautiful. Being unnaturally skinny, I know, equates nothing but unhappiness, bad health, exhaustion, suffering. In my case, it meant weak, brittle, fragile bones, appalling concentration, liver problems, weakness and fatigue, dry skin, no energy or interest in anything, depression, isolation...to name but a few.

And so today I am going to defy the Voice in my Head, and all the lies and obscenities that it throws at me from the moment I awake in the morning, till when I go to sleep at night. I am going to list the things that I do like about my natural body. Because they are there, the positives; I just always tend to let them be outweighed and overruled by the things that I dislike. But this is where you begin, by focusing on those parts which you like, which make you, you. There might always be something which you will never be able to like, exactly, or which you will always be critical over - and that's okay, as long as you don't let it consume you and spend so much time focusing solely on them and hating yourself, your body, for it!!!

So here is my own template, a list of things I like about myself. I hope that you will all join in too - it's another crucial step to self acceptance and moving towards a more positive, confident and happier you:)

What I like about my natural body...

• My eyes - big and blue and sincere:)
• My dark blonde hair with the fair streaks, which is long, thick and lustrous. I have taken good care of my hair. I don't use straighteners or hairdriers and don't overwash it either. It's the one part of my body which I can safely say I really do like, and wouldn't ever even consider changing. 
  
• My sallow complexion - My skin colour is naturally quite tanned, and in the summer I go even browner. I think I get this from my Mam! ;)
• My eyelashes (they are kind of long!:) 

Of course, gaining weight meant that my body underwent many significant changes, and I now look alot different to the way I was before.But are these changes bad, ugly, and altogether, awful? No, of course they are not - it's just the voice of Ed who makes them seem like they are. All of the people who love and care about me tell me I look so much better now than I did when I was underweight. And I know that they would not lie to me. <3

And I am beginning to see for myself, that these changes are good, and that I do, look better. For example...

• When I was underweight, I had very bony, skinny arms. I hated them, biut of course I was way too afraid at the time to go and do something about it. But after weight restoration my arms are looking much, much better.
• And one of the best things about gaining weight..? I can actually say this with conviction - seriously. I've got boobs! Yes! I NEVER had them when I was skinny. But now, well, I guess you can see for yourself! :p
• I used to have really dry, cracked skin on my hands and on other parts of my body, too. My hands were espeially bad and could be very painful. i remember one of the first things my consultant ever said to me, having shook my hands on out first meeting at the clinic, was to comment on the dryness of my hands. But now it's a completely different story. I wil probably always have a worker's hands - a little worn from lots of washing up and cleaning (it comes withbeing a baker and I do like to cleran up as I go along ;) ), but thanks to the wonders of good nutrution, my hands lok and feel much better than they did when I was very underweight.
• My chest and ribcage were also very bony, and I hated them, but the way I felt about that was identical to the way I felt about my arms - hated them, loathed them - but too afraid to make that change. But now, they look so much better. I stil have my issies about this part of my body, but I know it is going to take time. I know now what I didn't know then...that skinny is NOT, and never will be, beautiful: happy and healthy are, and always will be. It doesn't matter what size, shape, weight or height you are: everyone is different, everyone is unique. There is only one YOU and YOU are beautiful. Take the time to love and respect your body for the way it is, instead of actively trying to change it, modify it, in order to look like someone else!<3xxx 

Day 2: 20 random facts about me!!! ;)

I loveeee doing these!! So fun to do and a brilliant distraction..please feel free to join in the blog challenge or comment below :)

1. My middle name is Jade, I think this is because if I was a boy it would have been James, or maybe Mam just liked that name? I don't really know to be honest. :p My first name literally means "industrious" in some old language which I think sums me up quite well! :p
2. ducks have always been my favourite animal of all. I just love these cute, comical, dumpy waterbirds with their webbed feet, beautiful plumage, and beaks which always seem to be perked up in a smile. I wonder if a prize for the most soft ducks gathered into one bedroom exists anywhere in the world, because I think if there was I would certainly qualify for a runner's up prize. You should SEE my room!!! ;)
   
3. I am an avid nature lover and have always been what you would call a bit "green-fingered". I adore being outside in nature, whether that be a windswept beach, a leafy forest, a grassy meadow or a sunlit riverbank. Another one of my peculiarities is that I am absolutely fanatical about the different branches of the natural world. Going out into the woods or up the mountains or whatever, I would usually be constantly peering around me at the trees and the wild flowers and trying to identify them, or gazing at the sky in the hope of catching a glimpse of some kind of bird. As a girl I spent many an hour pouring over nature identification guides and thus committed many of the names and descriptions to memory. 
4. I love medieval stuff, and love books about medieval people, or poking around old castle ruins with my head full of images of the knights on their white steeds and damsels in distress fluttering their pretty dresses and staring mournfully out of arrow slits for hours upon end. Morokia is a reflection I suppose of my love of medieval history (amongst other things!!!)
5. I am really superstitious and eagerly buy into the existence of ghosts, witches, faeries and goblins. At the house we were staying in in Mallorca(which was quite old may I add) I got really freaked out one night as I was sitting in the twilight with only one lamp on and I was convinced I saw a large, flickering shadow flit across the wall. Yes, of course it might have been a filament of my imagination, as my family all agreed that it was. But. I saw what I saw and Im standing by that..and I did NOT sit in that room again for the remainder of the holiday.
6. I still have the little toy duck, Ducky, that I was given as a baby and she and her teddy friends are the heroes and heroines of many of the childhood stories I wrote. 
7. I have had three rabbits and three guinea pigs in the past. Snuffles was my first rabbit. He was a beautiful grey and white Dutch rabbit and looked as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. But then there came the day that he got out of his pen, went down to the bottom of the garden, and there we found him playing with another rabbit, a wild one. A few months later, and he gave birth to five adorable baby rabbits. Hence the discovery that my little boy was not a boy after all, but a beautiful doe with a bit of a wild streak in her.
   
8. I did horseriding before Lizzy did, believe it or not...I went along with my sister to the riding school to watch her have her first ever lesson. But Lizzy was too afraid to get on the big, bulky chestnut the riding school had picked out for her. Daddy turned to me, standing meekly at the edge of the arena in my wellies and crop trousers, and asked me would I like to ride the horse, instead!! I still love horses and would love to be able to ride one :'( I still love horses alot; I think they are the most beautiful animals. I don't think there is a sight more stirring then seeing a horse in full gallop, mane and tail streaming, nostrils flaring. 
9. My favourite places in the world are West Cork, Sligo, Kilkenny, and Snowdonia in Wales...all such beautiful, spectacular places which I have such happy, sweet memories of <3
10. As a little girl I adored animal biscuits, Mr Kipling French Fancies and whole galaxy bars..as you probably have guessed at this stage I have a bit of a sweet tooth. ;)
11. I nearly got carried away by a wave when I wasfour years old, building sandcastles upon a beach at Brittany. The waves took away my favourite green bucket and I was absolutely traumatised!! But one of my biggest fears to this day are huge waves an deep water. There's not alot that frightens me but those two things really do make my spine tingle at the very thought.
12. I am a terrible hoarder and am also very untidy when it comes to my own stuff. My various different piles of "junk" which are scattered hilly-knilly about the house are enough to drive my poor Mammy mad. 
13. Don't laugh, but i actually dont know how to plait :'( yep, despite the fact that up till I was 18, my hair tumbled to my waist, and even now it's not exactly short, as you can see. it's on my to do list, to learn how to plait. 
14. I only started wearing makeup when I was 17, when I went on a trip to the Gaeltacht with my friends. And yes of course I had to ask Mammy how to put it on properly and what exactly I needed to get!!!!
15. I love folklore and am very interested in culture, myths, legends, you name it. Do I believe in the Loch Ness Monster? Of course!!! Would I step into a rath - those earthen enclosures of earth where the fairies were supposed to have lived in Celtic times? Of course not!!
16. As a girl my favourite toys were Sylvanian Families, those cute little animals in adorable little clothes which resided in a combination of colorful dollhouses. And of course as already mentioned I did love my teddies. Barbie dolls I liked as well. And Lego. Lego men often attacked the Barbies in the games I used to play with Matt.
17. I love Irish as a language and am really keen to learn more of this wonderful, ancient language . I do have my cupla focail but I would really love to expand and develop my Gaeilge further.  
18. My favourite kind of chocolate is Milka Oreo or Cadbury Golden Biscuit Crunch. Oh. And Malt Easter. Ever heard of it? Think Maltesers. And then think of a solid, thick chocolate bar with squares of the same kind of chunkiness as those found in a Yorkie Bar. Malt Easter is basically a collaboration of that, 
19. I wouldnt cal myself a thrill-seeker exactly, but I love nothing more than frightening the life out of myself on scary rollercoasters (the scarier the better!!), and riding downhill on a bike is pretty awesome right :p
20. I love art though I dont really think I'm that great, haha! I love painting by numbers or just drawing stuff free hand. And as a little girl, a rainy afternoon could never be spent in a better way then sitting at the big playroom table drawing maps for my teddies. :p 
    

One of my painting by numbers; my favourite one "A Scottish Glen"

The perfect dream...and the perfect fall...

And so, my holiday to Mallorca came, and went, like a fleeting image of a kingfisher gliding over the still, crystal-clear waters of a reed-shrouded pond, the reflection of its turquoise blue plumage sparkling in the moonlight. A moment of beauty and transcendance: but so fleeting, so short-lived. Beads of moisture catch the light on the kingfisher's feathers, twinkling like diamonds scattered upon a nest of blue velvet. But amongst the light and the beauty there is darkness, too. The silvery fish held tightly between the two needle-like projections of the predator's beak, its lifeless eyes staring up at the heavens . The milk-white disc of the full moon, ghostly and sisnister as it hangs like a bpale, silvery coin dropped down a well, suspended forever in interpenetrable darkness. Altogether, all of these things make a beautiful, haunting image. Almost perfect, I suppose one could say. Almost.

But you know, one thing I was thinking, as I stood in the porch of my home yesterday evening, that there is no such thing as perfection. The search for perfection is one which is inevitably both fruitless and futile. If anything, as I have learnt to my cost, the strive for perfection is just setting you up, for the most perfect, perfect fall...

You see, at the beginning of it all, when that thirteen year old girl who was me, all those years ago, suddenly and without any apparent reason, developed an eating disorder...that was what that girl wanted, really; she wanted every single aspect of her life, and herself, to be perfect.

I didn't suddenly wake up one day, and decide to go on a diet, to drive my loved ones sick with worry and concern, to restrict what I ate and forbid myself to eat many of the foods which I loved. No; the reasons behind my eating disorder lay much, much deeper than that, and this, I recognise now, was probably one of the most fundamental of them all.

I believed that I would only ever be truly happy, if I had that perfection; if I created a perfect world for myself...if I moulded my own body, into a form which I saw as being perfect. And hence began, at the age of thirteen, this relentless striving for everything to be what I saw as being unarguably flawless, corerect, perfect. I became obessessed about getting perfect grades; I would weep my heart out if I got anything less than a B in a class test, or did less favouraly than my peers. I wanted to be the perfect student; I wanted to be the Trinity graduate with the perfect degree, who went onto get the perfect career. I wanted everything in my life to be perfect: lots of friends, a spectacular social life, knowing that I was liked and respected by everyone;the security that noone would look down on me, judge me, think negatively of me. And so it was with my body, too. I believed with all my heart that if I did not change myself and the way I looked, and alter my body into an image of what I regarded as nearest to perfect as I ever would be, that noone would ever like me; noone would ever want to be my friend. Why would they, I thought, want to be friends with a short, slow-witted, dumpy girl with the round face and stubby legs? All I have to do, is reach that perfect weight, that perfect shape, have a perfect body, in the eyes of society. And then, everything will be perfect. everything will be as I want it to be.

Today, as I sit here writing to you, I clearly see just how distorted, how wrong, how destructive this mindset really is.And looking back now...do I see what this relentless striving for "perfection" really rought me? Did it bring me contentment or satisfaction, a sense of fulfilment, purpose...complete and unbroken happiness?

No, of course it did not. My strive for perfection was, inevitably, the thing that so, so close to nearly destroying me..it made me depressed, isolated, obsessive, bitter, anxious, extremely self-critical, lonely, and very, very unhappy. I became almost devoid of all hope.

So please, when you find yourself restricitng, or overexercising, or purging or whatever, or even if you aren;t physically engaging in any behaviours, but are just making yourself feel down or depressed with your negative thoughts, wishing that you were at a size x or that you could have a body shape like y...that you were at the shape or weight that you see or regard as perfect...just stop and take a deep breath, and think...what exactly will you achieve by doing just that? Will it bring you everything you have ever dreamed of, everything you ever really wanted, in life?

I still realy struggle with applying my own advice to myself, as the holiday really did testify. More than anything else in the world, I wanted it to be absolutely, flawlessly perfect - in every single possible way.But of course, it was unrealistic of me to feel this way - in reality, things never work out quite as perfectly as we would like them to be; and thinking like this can be problematical. Setting my hopes so high meant that I was bound to be disappointed. Hence why as I snuggled under the duvet in my own bed at home, my body still but my mind anything but, as thoughts and memories circulating around the holiday chased eachother round and around in my head - hence why I felt a sharp, bittersweet sensation tug at my heart right then. because it had been a lovely, lovely holiday; but, unsurprisingly, it was't absolutely prefect in every way. And is the often case with me, all the negative things, all the imperfections, I allow to swallow and submerge everything else which is bbeauitul, I hope that, in the future, I will learn how to see my world, and my life, in a more positive and healthy way; and accept that both I, and my life as a whole, do not have to be perfect to be happy. <3 xxxx

A reflective moment for me by the sea yesterday, before we headed for the airport to go home.

Day 1: The name of my Blog?:)

Over the next couple of weeks or so (or, knowing me, it will probably take alot longer than that..;) , i am taking part in a blog challenge alongside my fellow blogger and dear friend Karly. It's only really a bit of fun, but also it might help you to get to know me just a wee bit better; to see beyond the girl with an eating disorder with her weak bones and uncountable regrets and difficult, stormy past. Rather, through this wee blog challenge, I hope you will come to know the real Emmy - a twenty-one year old girl who is fanatical about animals, who is super-superstitious, who is always, always hot and who absolutely adores chocolate, in its various forms. ;) I do think that there is much, much more to every single individual out there then meets the eye; we all have as many layers as an onion, if not more. So please feel free to join in, on any or all of the different days of the blog challenge -I would love to hear from you! :)

Your blog's name?:)

I clearly remember the day when I decided I was going to start blogging; the tingling sense of nervousness and anticipation when I wrote my first ever blog post. When it was completed, however, I had another more pressing dilemma; one which was much more tricky to solve than the question of what exactly I was going to write in my first blog post. That question being, of course...what should I name my blog?

And then a dear friend of mine suggested something to do with my apron, no doubt referring to the gaily coloured little apron I would always wear when baking: something which I had become famous for amongst my own circle of friends. I loved to bake, and even when I was very sick with my eating disorder, baking was one of the few interests that I managed to keep alive.

And so that's how it came into being, I suppose. My Cocoa Stained Apron - my blog. I wanted my blog to be a combination of posts which related to both recovery and, of course, baking. But the title has a few other connotations which I thought I'd share with you today. The first isn't quite so explicit as the first (let's say it's alot more metaphorical!! ;) ). An apron is worn to protect oneself from stains and marks when in the kitchen. It might undergo alot of abuse. It might be torn, holes might appear in the fragile fabric. however, the dedicated owner will patch it up and determinedly carry on.

And now I'm going to say something which might not make much sense at all, but here goes. Recovery is like that faithful, stained apron. The journey of recovery is never perfect - there will be marks and stains, spillages, tears, holes; just like those made upon the apron.

But if we, the person who essentially OWNS our own recovery - noone else can do it for you - persevere and don't give up, and keep on fixing those tears and holes, and keep on going despite all the marks and imperfections...for recovery is, and never will, be perfect, or without some flaws.

Okay, yeah...I guess my metaphor isn't very good, I get that. But hopefully you get the general idea. ;)

And now, of course, the title of my blog has a more obvious meaning as well. ;) As you probably already know by now, I absolutely love chocolate, of both the drinkable and edible kind. Hence the reason why my actual real-life apron, currently stuffed in an untidy drawer in the kitchen at home, awaiting my return - does in fact have many a chocolatey stain upon it! ;)

My love affair with chocolate continues on!!! :p