Naturally Sweet

Sometimes a sweet treat is called for.  I found this recipe here.  If you scroll down to desserts it is the recipe called Fudge Snowballs.  They are mainly made of ground almonds with added coconut, banana and maple syrup.  I need to chill them for 5 hours before they are ready to eat!

This year is flying past already!  There is so much I want to do and organize.  I need to food prep on Sunday's so that I know what I am going to be eating for the week ahead; arrange for an architect to plan and carry out a kitchen extension and have my first holiday in about 9 years!!!

The year is starting out as I planned.  I am continuing to eat healthily and attend a weekly exercise class.  I walk one hour daily and would like to increase my activity maybe even becoming a sporty kinda gal which is not a natural state of being for me!

Today I need to start to tidy and reorganize my craft space.  It has got so out of hand that I don't even know what supplies I have anymore.  I am still striving for a work life balance but when I concentrate on certain areas i.e. health and well-being and work, something else has to give.  If I can keep on track with keeping myself fit and well I will hopefully have the energy to sort out other areas of my life.  The house needs a complete overhaul and I need to carve out a portion of time for my creative pursuits and hobbies.  I'll get 'there' in the end!

Finding a Pathway

Nineteen years ago I became a Mum.  I was reluctant with this new found status but decided there and then that I would be the best Mum I could be.  My son was breech so I was forced to have a planned caesarean section.  I even got to choose if I wanted my son born on a Wednesday or the Thursday!  I have always felt like a 'plastic' Mum as I never got to experience childbirth.  After my operation, and being wired up to various drips I remember my helplessness at not being able to reach the crying baby in the cot next to me.  After 6 days in the hospital I was 'let' home.  There was no welcome home party or instruction book.  I suppose at 35 you're expected to know what to do.

The first couple of years were hard.  I tried to keep my post natal depression under wraps.  I did some research and found out the name of an anti depressant I could take that wouldn't be addictive. In the mean time I took various Bach Flower Remedies to alleviate my mood.  To say I lost myself for a couple of years is an understatement.

As my son grew older I gradually had more time for myself.  I began to take up various creative pursuits and in 2008 started this blog.  Writing the blog was my saviour.  In order to have something to write about I had to 'do' something worth writing about.  The fun part was then taking photos and putting a blog post together.

Last year I knew that my life was going to go through a big change again with my son leaving home to go to University.  I wondered what would become of me now I no longer had to be the stay at home Mum.  I had saved up some money and went in secret to see a life coach in the hope that she could put me on a new pathway.  It turned out to be more of a counselling session as I wept at no longer knowing who I was anymore.  She gave me some constructive advice but really it was just affirmations to me of what I already knew.  She said to create a mood board of anything I liked the look of and just keep adding to it, taking images from magazine or words of inspiration etc.  I think she believed in the power of attraction and that by putting up images of what you liked those things would come to you.  In speaking to her I realised that I wanted to have a 'good enough' job so that I could bring in an income.  I left her house feeling that I had a plan to move forward and that I would focus on getting a job.  Without money life pretty much comes to a standstill.

Within 6 months I had a job.  Six months on - I have a new streamlined physique and a positive frame of mind.  I can understand why there are so many books, magazines, blogs and websites about mindfulness now.  The mind is SO powerful.

To return to the beginning of this post - for nineteen years I feel like I was lost in a forest.  I was being Mum (not so much of a wife, if I am honest) but I had lost all sense of who I was at the core.  Each day I would start out in the forest, going around and around in circles or going over places I had already been desperately searching for me.  Once I stopped and stood still and let go trying to find myself anymore, things started to reveal themselves to me.

My pathway has been as follows:

• Get into the correct mindset (without this I wouldn't have had the confidence to apply for a job)
• Get a job (a 'good enough' one)
• Start to eat a healthier diet (for me, 3 meals a day, plant based diet, no snacking) 
• Self care and nurturing (Epsom salt baths and body pampering)
• Exercise (daily walking to work and VIPR fitness lesson once a week) 

I still need to make time for my hobbies and crafts but at the moment my 'hobby' is very much about personal development.

I hope that my story will give hope to anyone stuck in a rut.  Decide what you want from your life and then make small steps towards achieving it and above all be your own best friend.

*picture above from issue 8 of Breathe magazine

Woodwose and Blocked Nose

I am looking very much like my lovely woodwose ornament at the moment with his heavily bagged eyes and tired expression.  I succumbed to a rotten cold on Tuesday and after much sneezing and nose blowing it escalated to a full on nose bleed.  My sinuses are completely seized up and I feel like I am breathing under water.  Why do these things always happen when there is so much to do?

Anyway, I really wanted to blog today and hastily decorated my mantel piece just so that I would have a photograph to accompany this post!  Whilst I have been convalescing I have been doing a little jewellery making with next year in mind and practising various techniques.  I really should be out Christmas shopping but cannot face it just now as health wise I do feel at rock bottom.  Thankfully I have done a bit of shopping in advance and if I conserve my energy for now I will be raring to go by Monday!

Must go now.  Just realised that I haven't even dragged a comb through my hair today!  I can be so sloven at times!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Small Changes

I have been trying to live a healthier lifestyle for quite some time now.  Little by little I have made small changes that have become routine:

Every morning I drink a glass of water first thing.

From Monday to Thursday I eat a small bowl of dried fruit and nuts instead of having biscuits or cake with a cup of tea.

I don't add sugar to my coffee

These three simple things  I feel are already having a positive impact on my physical health and well being.  As it is now second nature to do them I will be gradually adding more changes such as:

Applying hand cream before bedtime

Doing a Sunday night pedicure

Drinking more herbal tea and less black tea

........and also those that enhance my mind and spirit too including;

Creative photography

Walks in local parks

Focusing on and mastering one particular craft

Preparing blog posts in advance

Keeping a clutter free home
 
I read somewhere that it takes three weeks to make or break a habit.  It is my mission to have a happy, healthy and fulfilled life and by making these tiny accumulative changes in habits, I feel as though I am on my way there.

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Misdiagnosed

This super soft teddy bear throw has been a great source of comfort to me over the last couple of weeks. When my bones and muscles felt as though they were on fire, the gentle cushioning fibres have helped to induce me into a deep sleep.  This is a daytime sleep because nights are fitful; aching bones fighting with a suffocating duvet and a quenching thirst.

I've not been feeling well for quite a long time, perhaps 2-3 years - maybe longer.  I have put down the aches and pains and overwhelming tiredness down to hormones and my age.  I have self diagnosed and been inaccurate in my conclusion.

On visiting the GP I was expecting to be told that all the symptoms I was experiencing was an 'age thing' but instead have been referred to the rheumatology department at the hospital.  I now have to wait for an appointment before I can solve this 'mystery' illness.

I am stunned at how incapacitated I have become in just a week.  Reaching for a cup in a cupboard or pulling on a jacket have become feats in themselves.  I now have to find new ways of doing things and moving much more slowly than I am used to to prevent a flare up of achy joints.

I am hopeful that my health can be restored to normal and I can once again have freedom of movement which I took so much for granted.

Testing Times

January has been a testing month for me.  The Gizmo saga was just one of many unhappy events that have occurred since Christmas.  Today I had a dental appointment.  Regular readers of this blog will know how traumatic a visit to the dentist is for me (and for many of you too).  I started to shake uncontrollably when the dentist hit a nerve and when I saw the contraption he was going to put in my mouth for an x-ray I almost went into meltdown!  Today was just a scale and polish and a check up but I know that there is a ticking time bomb in my mouth that I need to monitor over the coming months.  It seems that the back root (under a crown) has broken away and come up exposed through my gum.  I have no idea how much this will be to 'fix' (I couldn't face discussing this today) but I would imagine it will mean losing  the crown and tooth.  I am told that unless it is causing me problems to return in six months.  Today's visit was £50.00.  I went home with a pounding headache and backache from tensing myself in the chair.  Shortly after the receptionist from the surgery phoned me to say that the dentist had detected a filling I need to have done on another x-ray.  She said to return in about a month to have it done - it will be £50.00. 

Gizmo is healing nicely now but the blue bandage around his back leg (to prevent him from scratching out his stitches) lasted precisely two days.  We found the bandage intact behind the sofa like a discarded sock!  I just need to monitor him now to make sure that the neck wound doesn't open up again.  On Monday he needs to have half the stitches removed and then we need a further visit to have the remaining stitches removed.

The photo above was taken 9 days ago.  Pretty ice that had formed on a glass table outside in the garden.  I liked the way it was shimmering in the sunlight.  I am having to dig deep to look for 'happy' things at the moment.  Let's try:

• my Amaryllis plant has two buds on it
• I have the ingredients to make chocolate chip muffins 
• I have books to read
• January is nearly over!  Hooray!!!

I hope that February gives me some slack and time to process what has gone on in this whirlwind month. 

Where are You?

A lone bird flits across the camera as I search for the morning sun.  I remember the sun from long ago.  The sun was a golden orb in the sky that lifted my mood and fed my bones.  Yes, I am being melodramatic here but there is some truth in what I say.

Recent blood tests showed that I am deficient in Vitamin D.  Vitamin D is the sunshine vitamin.  We need to expose our bodies to the sun for our skin to absorb the vitamin which is vital for healthy bones and teeth.  I have been prescribed 6 months worth of the supplement and need to take it weekly to build up my reserves.

For years, on the advice of health professionals, I have judiciously applied sunscreen and covered up in the sun and yesterday my GP told me to (in the Summer months) expose my face, legs and arms to the sun every morning between 8.00 and 10.00am and every evening after 6.00pm.  I guess I was over cautious in the past?

So, now I need to make amends with my old sunshine.  After all, he is the life force of nature.

Nil Desperandum

For 13 days I have been noting 10 Latin words, phrases or sayings as part of my 30 day November challenge.  It has been a brief respite from worrying about my husband who has been suffering from Labyrinthitis for the last 10 days.  In the 24 years that we have been married I have never seen him so ill.  I want to say to him 'do not despair' but at the moment he can't see any light at the end of the tunnel and wonders when he will be able to function normally again. Please keep him in your thoughts and I will pass on any words of encouragement to him.

*By the way I had my last scheduled dental appointment a week ago.  Regular readers will know that I have a phobia of visiting the dentist and am prone to panic attacks.  Knowing that my husband was in such a poor state of health, I knew that I couldn't feel worse than he was feeling.  With a deep breath I closed my eyes and let the dentist complete the work, whilst silently thinking the mantra 'you are strong'.  Let's hope I am strong when the next course of treatment begins!