After all these years of following her career, I saw Björk Live last week – she was fabulous as expected! Didn’t think much to the woman who came on first… sound levels all wrong for a start. Björk however was spot on. She was a little drowned out by the music at times but her voice, her dancing, her performance were wonderful, and really impressive opening and closing, plus all the effects :)
Love you Björk!
I was attuned on the 3rd March, and the attunement was amazing. I wore my Moldavite pendant and was pleased to find my Reiki Master was wearing one too :)
I had some interesting experiences during treatments with a fellow student too, and the bond between myself and the other classmates is getting stronger. We are going to try and do a regular share session starting sometime soon.
I failed to do a daily self treatment for 21 days this time, but I must get back onto that before I am attuned to third degree in May. Exciting stuff!
yesterday. I found some things that were not meant to be in there, and I did a deep clean. Very therapeutic! I have set myself the task of getting the children roped in to sort out the games cupboard as it is stuffed full of games and puzzles that nobody ever plays with. Including a dance mat for the PS2 and we already sold the dance game that it was for ages ago!
I have some plans in my head for storage etc, and must keep chipping away at this goal over the next month or so. Got to get sorted out once and for all!
to reiki in the first degree attunement, and have paid for classes both for the second degree attunement and third degree in March and May respectively. The tutor has a 4th degree class as well but I am going to wait and see on that one for the time being, plus I am running out of funds!
It is so exciting, I was attuned on Monday and have practiced each day, last class was yesterday and I feel the Reiki energy stronger every day. Before bed when all around is quiet and still is delightful, and mornings when the house is empty is great too, I must remember to take the phone off the hook in the mornings just in case I am interrupted.
to the tune of currently being 147lbs. Have gone raw in the daytimes again, really enjoying all the fresh fruit and veggies, and the way it makes my skin glow!
I never actually said what my secret project was!
We have our front door which is timber, and then an inner door which is glazed with lots of smaller glass panels, and two of them were broken and for the past year had been protected with cardboard.
This time last year (about the 10th I think) I started to remove the glass, and gashed my left hand open in the process but then it got left for many months longer.
So I finished getting the glass out (with correct hand and eyewear!) but then found I couldn’t remove the old putty. I tried chiseling it out, then I googled and found that the heat gun would soften it (duh!) which made it soo much easier.
All done now, even though the glass pattern could not be matched as they don’t make that pattern any more (at least at the glass factory I went to) it looks much nicer :)
I’m not completely certain what the new project is, but I’ll keep it updated here without giving it away of course!
Hubby was really surprised! I had wanted to get the door painted before he saw it but that would have been impossible!
I’m going to mark it done then reopen it cos I have a new secret goal!
I won’t mark this as done yet, but I feel I have completed my ‘challenge’ on this. I made Bramley Apple and Sloe Gin Jelly, 3 jars of the stuff, and two are for presents, the third I have opened to make sure it didn’t set too firm, and tasted ok which it did. I was thinking it would only be good for eating with savoury foods or for meat eaters with their turkey or whatever, but it tastes nice enough to eat on toast as well :)
Still need to scan in that photo but have decided it’s for Yule for the pair of them, and they can have some chutney too. I think the Sloe Jelly would be wasted on them, knowing them they would not be partial to that kind of thing.
Just need to get a pressie for a friends we are seeing tonight, probably a big tin of sweets for their family. That’s an easy enough gift to pick up!
he wanted, and have strained the Sloe Gin :) After bottling there was enough for hubby and I to each have a small shot of it! It was really nice and a very nice reward for all my hard work. I’ve been cooking a special Italian Nut Pastry thingy for tea tonight. I’ve also made a Veggie Leek Casserole with Dumplings. Not that these have anything to do with Yule, but everything is coming together for me and I feel really on top of things.
I just have to make labels for the Gin and then I can wrap those two as well.
Still not done anything about the wedding photograph idea I had for the step-mum-in-law. It’s her birthday on the 17th so maybe it can be for that. I’m hoping it will scan well and then I can take it on disk to be professionally printed.
by Wednesday, as that is my birthday. I just want to be able to sit back and look at my handiwork on Wednesday!
who I’ve been nagging to tell me what he’d like. I got his wife something already. The relatives kids are just about sorted now.
The main thing for me to do now is strain my Sloe Gin and bottle it, and make some Sloe Gin Jam with the leftover fruit.
The Jam is going to make presents too if it tastes nice.
I get an idea, something I want to do, you know the sort of thing. I find that if I tell anyone then it gets forgotten, as though the telling was the final nail in the coffin. It reminds me of the song Bon Idée by Regina Spektor: “Don’t tell your secrets to anyone
Because ideas are vulnerable
As soon as you say your ideas out loud
Then they can go and live on their own without you”
The last secret project I had was to paint the lobby/entranceway in a fresh coat of white paint. I completed that in a few sessions, with none of my family noticing! Prior to that I secretly filled a hole in our wall that was really deep, layer by layer, which took me several months in fact – partly because halfway through I got ‘found out’ and so it was ‘out there’ and got all but forgotten until I finally mustered the momentum to get it finished.
The current project, all I have told my husband is that I have a secret project. He knows my feelings by now and so is not asking/guessing what it is or pestering me about it.
Yesterday I suffered a setback and had to pop out for replacement materials which cost me £5. This morning as I was working, I felt a little incompetent, until I ‘googled’ what I was finding difficult, in the end completing that stage of the project. He telephoned shortly after I had finished to say he was on his way home and I had to rush around putting the things I had used away so as not to give the game away.
I’m quite excited, but a little nervous. Now that it’s the weekend I am going to find it difficult to complete the project with the kids around. I reckon I will have to put it off until Monday at the earliest.
because I feel I do this all the time and don’t need a reminder. I never felt inclined to list anything here, but I thoroughly recommend it as an everyday practice! Plus I need the space in my 43T :)
I just have the step-in-laws to buy kiddies presents for, as we agreed years ago to only buy for the kids, then there’s just the father-in-law’s framed photo – if that’s what I end up doing, plus my brother and his wife who are meant to be telling me what they’d like.
Otherwise I have been wrapping the presents as they arrive/are bought and feel really on top of things for a change! I still need to get a couple more things but I am not sure what yet.
I found myself saying the other day that I hope there’ll still be something small to shop for last minute. I think I just enjoy the feeling that you get a day or so before the big day. We celebrate the main stuff at the Solstice, but I always do the big dinner on the 25th because then I get some peace and quiet and there are no interruptions. The majority of the presents are opened then too, especially since most people give them on Christmas Eve.
well actually they are my hubby’s Dad and step mother, who married the year he and I first met. None of our presents over the years seem to have been appreciated by them. Once we bought them some votives and candles. She told us on the phone that when she opened it she said “what’s this?” then another year I baked small cookies cut out into little cat and house shapes and put inside a tin I had decorated myself. They had a shelf life of approx 2 months according to the recipe I had followed. Well a year later they still had them.
I just visited them today, and the present I made them two Yules ago – a ‘sandart’ style jar full of brownie mix, layered for attractiveness and with a carefully printed label attached (how to use and “use by March 2006”) is still sitting in their kitchen window like a piece to be looked at. Hmm maybe I should take it as a compliment, or maybe they just suffer it’s presence to avoid hurting anyone? My own mother finally made her jar up in about October of that year and they were delicious, but even so! So last year was Homemade Chutney and a jar of stilton and I hope they either ate it or gave it to someone who would.
So anyway, I had a brainwave whilst I was there – she has photos of each of her daughters on their wedding days, blown up big and framed. I thought what a good idea it would be to get a professional wedding photo blown up and framed for her to add to her wall. They have no photos of us or our kids up in their house, yet they have of HER grandkids (and she always says how everyone is treated equally – yet she gives their kids money and nice stuff for Yule and, quite frankly, cheap presents to ours. Last year she said to me “I hope C likes the chess set, it cost me £24.00 so if she doesn’t, let me have it back”. When C opened it, it had a huge price sticker on it saying £4.99 so I felt she had lied but no idea why she’d feel the need to do that). About 6 years ago she asked for photos of our kids growing up, so I gave her loads of photos that were doubles of ours, but recently she gave us back the montage she had made with them, so I have no idea whether she even has any photos of them anymore!
Anyway, despite any apparent bitterness I have, she says she only has a few years to live, and that she doesn’t want any presents this year. I told her nah… course we’ll get you something! In the next breath she asked for 2 photos of hubby and I for one of the albums she’s been making (she has been using up all her photos by making albums to give all of us, with her pinking shears and lots of bought stickers).
So after all that really long winded (ranting) explanation, it got me thinking, maybe a big wedding picture would make her happy – hubby thinks it sounds egotistical but I certainly don’t feel it should be seen that way. Plus, one of my ‘things’ on here is to stop caring what others think of me! We will probably be giving them some homemade Sloe Gin as well :)
After our holiday I had gone up to 148lbs! Only 3 of those went on during the holiday though, but I am surprised that my first week of about 60% raw has only lost me 2lbs. It’s healthier that way really, but I just thought that the latest 3lbs I put on would have been mainly excess water or something.
Anyway so now I am 146lbs. edit with that, I awoke this morning to find I am now 144lbs :D
Ooo I just thought, I probably gained some extra muscle over the holiday due to all the extra walking I was doing over uneven ground – ah well so I will be less hard on myself then :)
Fruit for breakfast, which keeps me going till lunch. Lunch has frequently been a bowlful of baby spinach leaves (yum!) with pine nuts sprinkled over. I’ll have a piece of fruit for a pudding, usually an orange or some orange juice anyway if I eat something different. Evening meals have been cooked but ‘diet type’ meals, mainly vegan although I have slipped a couple of times and had pizza with cheese on top. Over the weekend I had some brandy and also had some hot milk at bedtime. These are both things I can easily do without!
I’m contemplating getting a Yaoh hemp milk maker soon, for hemp and nut milks. It doesn’t heat the nuts or seeds, and it can be used for soaking them before making the milks. Anyone who has one care to review it for me? I might also get a spiralizer/saladacco.
we were in North Devon and so we bought presents for all the relatives up there and went back to the rented cottage to wrap them, and delivered them the next day. Talk about organised! I haven’t bought anything for the family down here though, except a couple of stocking fillers for the kids.
I’ve been needing to get back to eating raw for so long now, and yet I haven’t had enough motivation or inspiration to do so. Now though I have been reading lots, specially Shazzie’s Detox Your World and am partway through The Sunfood Diet Success System (I stopped when Shazzie’s book arrived, which I then took on holiday with me!).
I’ve noticed the ill-effects I get from alcohol lately. It probably doesn’t help that the red wine I drink is a very cheap one, and the brandy I had last night was very cheap too and I only bought it for the Yule Pudding and Cake I made at Samhain. I’ve noticed red wine makes me get an itchy eye, and that the brandy brings on a mild asthma attack – enough that I need to take my reliever inhaler. If those aren’t warning signs that I should sit up and take notice of, I don’t know what is.
Got back from a week in North Devon yesterday. I weighed myself this morning and was dismayed at the number on the scales. 148lbs! I know that 3lbs went on over the past week, and the reason being the poor diet I had for that week. We got takeaway chips 3 evenings and some days we skipped lunch and ate cakes and things instead. Oh well, a last splurge prior to my new regime.
Woke up this morning and decided I would not eat until I felt I was ready. I wasn’t ravenous or anything, so when I was ready it was about 10:55am and I ate a red grapefruit. I ate it in 2 halves with a spoon and it was delicious.
By 12:30pm I was starting to feel hungry again, and I really wanted to eat some raw greens so I shredded finely several leaves of savoy cabbage, tossed in some rocket, and my husband and I tucked into it with some brazil nuts on the side. I ate about 10 brazils and drank some warm water. I’ve had quite a lot of water today. The savoy cabbage was quite nice actually, a bit hard going but I felt I was doing myself some good by eating that way.
I’ve since had the last of my goji berries (only about 10g) and a Date, and have had lots of water today and no tea whatsoever. I have a bit of a headache now, despite our regular tea being decaffeinated. It might be to do with the brandy too. I’m going to make a cooked meal this evening because we didn’t intend to go 100% raw overnight. I will be having mine with the leftover Rocket and a little cooked basmati rice instead of the oven fries the rest of the family are having – just to bulk out the meal more than anything and ensure I have plenty of calories today. I’ll have a large orange afterwards.
I need to plan the menu for the next few days, along with whatever I will be giving to the kids.
I have an hour and a half, I am pretty organized I think! I’ve not panicked, but I did find it hard to sleep last night.
I actually still have to finish packing my toiletries/toothbrushes etc, and to clean out the rabbit hutch or at least his toilet. He is going to have the run of the garden and be fed once a day.
So apologies in advance for not returning any cheers for the coming week!
