New Years Resolutions

I didn't make any New Years resolutions last year, I knew with a new baby on the way I would have enough challenges to face in 2012.  As we begin a new year, I have to say I am really glad that I didn't make any resolutions, but now I am feeling ready to make some changes in my life for the better, I have got lazy over the last year, lazy with eating, drinking, reading, TV watching and surfing the net, I want to clean up these areas of my life a bit and make my life more like I want it to be.  Also it's not just about me this year, it is me and Orren and our family generally.  So after much thought and editing, here is my list of New Years Resolutions.

I often wish that we didn't have a TV, I envy others who are able to go without watching it at all.  I want the space in my head and life, I also don't want Orren watching the TV and he has been recently, which is totally against my philosophy and I can't even believe I have allowed it, so my first resolution is no TV during the day, the TV only goes on in the evening.   I know this is going to be hard for me because I do enjoy watching the TV while eating my breakfast and lunch, and when breastfeeding, but I really want this change in my and Orren's life. If any one has any tips on giving up TV I would love to hear them.

Having a baby changed me, no doubt about it, mostly it made me a stronger more passionate, empathetic person, but there have also been some negative changes.  I am far more insecure than I ever was and find myself feeling bad about so many things and worrying about upsetting people, getting upset about being left out and worrying that everyone else is having more fun than me. One of the causes of me feeling bad is b**dy Facebook.  Seriously, I hate the thing, and yet I don't seem to be able to stop myself going on a seeing what everyone else is up to.  The result, "X, Y and Z seem to be so happy and having so much fun, my life is s**t".  So, my next resolution is not to avoid Facebook altogether but to only go on to add photos for my family a friends to see and to arrange get togethers with friends and groups etc.  No more scrolling through other people's activities and making myself feel bad, Facebook doesn't control me, I control it, I will use it only on my own terms.

This year we have been pretty lazy when it comes to food, not planning in advance and eating a lot from the freezer. I can forgive myself this since we were getting to grips with a new baby, but I think now is the time to improve our diet, not just for our sake but because Orren now joins us for three meals a day and I want him to develop healthy eating habits. I also think making more food from scratch is beneficial in terms of self-sufficient, it will also challenge me to think more and be more creative with meals.  So basically this resolution is about avoiding processed food, planning all our meals much more carefully and being more creative with what we are eating (i.e. not just variations of beans on toast for lunch every day).  To add to this I also want to dramatically reduce the amount of sugar I am eating.  I usually have a tablespoon of golden syrup on my porridge every day and I think it is making me feel bad, itchy and runny nose bad.  Oh and caffeine.  I should probably try to reduce the amount of that I have too.  Green tea from now on. The ultimate aim of all these diet changes is that I will be able to get back to the weight I was at my wedding, and I will be able to stop taking anti-histamines for allergies and using steroid creams for my skin.  I also want to make more of my own natural remedies and home remedies for minor ailments.

Although I am planning on not watching TV during the day, I do enjoy some down time in the evening where I can stop thinking and zone out for a bit, however I do feel like this is wasted time, especially as this is the only time during the day that I get alone without a small child to look after (who by the way is into everything), so my next resolution is to do a craft project in the evenings while I am watching TV.  To help me with this resolution I am going to get the craft activity ready during the day because if I leave it till the evening then it's too late to get craft supplies out of the cupboard in the bedroom next to the cot where Orren sleeps.

Two years ago I started reading "The Bible in a year"  This year I will finish it!

On top of theses main resolutions I have a little list of other changes I want to make:

Do you make New Years Reolutions?  What are they this year?

A very merry Christmas

Hi everyone,

I hope you have all had a peaceful and cheery Christmas.  I had a lovely time with my husband and my family in beautiful Wales.  The snow was still sparkling on the ground and the log burning fire was crackling away in the living room, we had a real giggle for the three days we were there.  Here are some photos to take you through our Christmas weekend:

My sister and I had the absolute privilege of decorating the Christmas tree.  For our family this is really something because in the past my mum has ALWAYS put the lights and the tinsel on the tree before letting us kids hand the decoration, but this year we had full responsibility of both tree lights and tinsel and I think we did an excellent job even if I do say so myself.

Paul took this one:

Vintage glass baubles n everything

We opened our Christmas presents after going to Church.  I got this lovely scarf knitted by my sister. 

I also got a lovely woolly brown cardigan from mum and dad, a vampire weekend and Mumford and Sons album from my sister. My lovely husband was the best, he got me the fabulous Lisa Stickley ceramic cottage bread bin that I have been drooling over for months and a keep calm and carry on poster that I have been wanting.  I will take some photos of them at some point to show you.

After opening presents and eating out pot noodles (family tradition) we all went off my my Grandpa's house.

It was mightily, beautifully snowy, just like Christmas should be,

At my Grandpa's we completed a Christmas quiz in the newspaper and looked through old photos, here is one of my Grandma looking so glamorous, yes this was MY grandma!!  Hoe beautiful was she?!

Then it was back home for Christmas dinner, turkey with all the trimmings, crackers, hats, and bubbly:

After stuffing our faces with Christmas dinner, we played the board game that I bought for Paul, it's called Go Green and is a self-sufficiency and green living board game!! What could be better? Who knew that such a game had been invented, absolutely worth every penny of the extortionate price of £25.00 that I paid for it!?  Anyway it was highly amusing, especially when Paul and I had to miss a go because we were constipated!

We enjoyed a mug of mulled wine whilst we were playing made by my brother and his lovely new German girlfriend,

I found the whole thing highly amusing, made even more so by the bubbly and mulled wine, a very very enjoyable day for all.

Sorry for the mass of photos, there was more!!  Will share some more photos in the next couple of days of presents etc, right now I am stuffing myself with chocolate and generally revelling in the full up-ness of post Christmas gorging, plus enjoying reading the books I got.  I made and Amazon wish list this year, and it was the best thing I ever did, I have been bought so many of the things that i really wanted, which is excellent. I hope you are all happy and having a wonderful Christmas, I am already planning new years resolutions, lists and schemes for the new year which I will share with you all soon.

Love, love, love

xxx

Allotment update

Take a look at this letter I received from the council last week:

Uncultivated and weedy indeed?!?  Pah, what a cheek!

Hmm well maybe they were right, it is pretty weedy.  (Even though I did plant two beds of broad beans and onions two weeks ago!)

So the hubby and I spent an hour in the rain, I put my fork through my welly and hubby pulled a muscle in his leg, but we ended up with this:

I think you will agree it is much better, still a bit of digging to go though.  Needless to say afterwards we were wet and exhausted.

Re-fashioned sweater tutorial

Time for another unscheduled tutorial.  We stayed in all day today because it was cold outside, I had a headache and we felt lazy, however I did manage to make a cushion, decorated with some doilies that my wonderful husband bought me from Oxford's Gloucester Green Market, (I am so lucky to have a husband who doesn't mind indulging my bizarre fetishes!). 
Here is a rather dodgy photo of the cushion:

I also made this bag out of some old fabric I had:

(another dodgy photo)

So here is my tutorial for the re-fashioned sweater.  Here is a picture of the sweater to begin with:

As you can see it is not the most flattering of jumpers, it is too short for me for one thing.  Also it has this rather hideous stain on the cuff that I sustained from a malicious banana:

So first I cut the sweater straight down the middle (just at the front):

Then I cut a section out of the sleeves which included the stained section:

Remove the sleeve section then pin a little hem down the front.

Pin the little pieces off cuff that were left onto the sleeves:

Sew the cuffs and the seams down the front.  With the cuffs it was a little tricky because the cuff piece was narrower than the sleeve bit so I had to stretch the cuff bit so that it fitted into the sleeve properly:

Much better!

Then I sewed a little flower for the lapel just to add a bit of fun:

I am really pleased and proud of myself, I have never done anythng like this before and I think it was pretty successful.  It was a simple design bit but I think it worked.

Tutorial - nettle tea.

Finally I am getting round to doing a tutorial.  I do loads of stuff but forget to photograph it so then can't do a tutorial, however I remembered to take photos whilst I was making a batch of nettle tea so thought I would share it with you.

According to teabenefits there are loads of health benefits to drinking nettle tea. 

• Nettle tea fights coughs, tuberculosis and asthma;
• Nettle tea counters arthritis, rheumatism, tendonitis and other disorders of the muscles and joints;
• Nettle tea combats a variety of intestinal disorders;
• Nettle tea fights skin problems;
• Nettle tea fights allergies like eczema, and hay fever;
• Nettle tea is used to treat urinary tract infections,

The main reason I drink it is to help with my hay fever, i helps because it contains something which is a natural anti-histamine.  It also helps with my allergic rhinitis. 

To begin with I pick some nettles.  It's important that you only pick nettles that are away from the roadside, or fields with crops that may have been sprayed .  I pick them from my allotment where they are plentiful! (Don't forget to wear gloves!)
Next I wash them really well to get rid of any insects or other nastys wearing washing up gloves to protect myself from the stings.
I then put them onto a fine ish mesh over tray and put them in a low oven,

at about 50 degrees for as long as it takes for them to go crispy, keep checking them regularly, you might even want to keep the oven door  open a little to make sure the oven doesn't get too hot.

Take them out of the oven and let them cool, then scrunch all the leaves up into little pieces so it looks like tea.  Although the nettles have now lost their sting I do this part wearing washing up gloves because they can be spikey.

I store them in a jar, they keep for ages,

Now all you need to do is make the tea itself.  I use a deep tea strainer and make it in the cup but there are allsorts of re-usable and disposable tea bags you can buy and fill yourself. 

The nettels swell up and go a lovely green. They do need to be soaked longer than regular tea to get the full flavour and benefit.

Then just drink up!  Yummy...

Hope you have a lovely bank holiday!!

Skin Deep

I recently read a book called "Skin Deep"  By Pat Thomas about the nasty chemicals that are in the cosmetics and toiletries that we use every day.  It was such a shock to me that I instantly stopped using my usual daily moisturiser and shampoo.  I had no idea that the cocktail of chemicals could be so harmful and I decided that I really didn't want this stuff in my body, I wanted to be au naturale.
Annoyingly I am quite a sensitive soul when it comes to skin and mine is quite sensitive.  In past have suffered from eczema and I get flare ups when I am stressed and particularly in the winter, I have tried other moisturisers but my skin has always reacted badly whenever I have changed.  I felt like my skin was addicted to my usual moisturiser!
Pat Thomas recommended using wheatgerm oil for sensitive skin so with some sceptisism I bought some online and have been using it for about two weeks.  After three days or so of not using my usual beloved moisturiser my skin went mad, it was dry and sore and blotchy, I felt like I was wearing a horrible bad skin mask.  My initial reaction was to go back to my normal moisturiser but this time I decided I would persevere with the oil and I am so glad I did because my skin feels wonderful now. 
Because the oil is natural it does not contain the chemicals that drive a normal moisturiser deeper into the skin so it takes longer for my skin to absorb and of course there is the added hassle of leaving an oily residue on everything I touch directly after using it!  But the benefits definatly outweight the negatives.  I would really recommend using natural plant oils to anyone and particularly people with skin problems, there are so many differant types available to suit your skin and you can mix them and add essential oils to make them smell nice, what could be better!