My Smoothie recipe :)

Just a quick post this morning to share my go-to smoothie recipe. Of course there are hundreds of different recipes and combinations but this one works for me as something I can just throw together every day and not feel intimidated to come up with different combinations. In this smoothie I know I'm getting a good balance of what I need post workout.

Daily Vital Smoothie

Makes 1 serve

1 serve protein powder* (I use a chocolate flavour)
1 cup frozen mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries etc)
1 loose cup baby spinach leaves
1 tsp chia seeds
1 tsp coconut oil
Approx 1 1/2 cups chilled water

Place all ingredients into your blender (I use the K-Mart version of the bullet blender), make sure you tear the spinach a bit as you put it in and blend until smooth. Enjoy :)

*I don't know a lot about protein powders but I will touch on what I know and have tried in a future blog.

A challenge for me...

Yoga is something that makes you feel incredible. It's almost super human sometimes the way that your body can twist, bend and balance, and it allows you to find the strength you didn't even know you had. I've decided to create a yoga challenge just for me, to challenge me and remind me that yoga is something that I need and want to do every single day. So that will be the challenge, to practice yoga every day (not that it's a chore to do so). I plan to do my yoga workout and then add an extra pose at the end which i am hoping will become more challenging as time goes on. I am planning to use Instagram as a record keeper and I also plan to use #ailyogachallenge (an inspired life yoga challenge) just so that I can individualise it and find my own posts in future. If any readers would like to play along please feel free to use the above hash tag or just tag me in your post as I'd love to follow your experience too.
I'm excited to do this, there's nothing more to say but Namaste!

#ailyogachallenge

Linen cupboard clean out:

The first is the before shot :o a bit embarrassing.

The rest are how it looks now and HOPEFULLY how it will stay.
As you can see it isn't a large amount of space that I have to work with but as I am still on my unstuffing and decluttering journey I have managed to remove, reuse, recycle and relocate quite a bit of the 'stuff'. I store my sheet sets inside their matching pillow case to keep things nice and tidy in such a small space. Our face washers and hand towels now live in the plastic tubs. I also have an allocated 'rag bag' at the very top too.
Due to the small size of the cupboard (clearly someone who cared nothing about storage designed this house) our other linens have to live elsewhere. Our towels live in the bathroom on a shelf built by my Poppy and the kitchen linens live in a kitchen drawer. These areas had to be tidied and refolded while i was at it as well.
I know it's not a really exciting area to work on but any space no matter how small or large can provide a feeling of pride and satisfaction when you get it just the way you want it to be :)

Before

After: A rag bag at the top and tubs containing hand towels and wash cloths.

After: Sheets all neatly tucked into their matching pillow case

Towels

Kitchen linens

As i sit here.....

 ...........with a steaming cup of cinnamon orange rooibos blend tea beside me, a stack of dirty dishes in the sink, listening to two happy healthy little boys having their allotted video game time in the other room i can allow myself to feel proud of who i am today and who i plan to be in the future.
 In the present time i have been coming down with a cold over the past week and i have been refusing to acknowledge it, i have pushed through it so far by exercising, eating a healthy balance of good foods and keeping busy. Today it has manifested from the runny nose and sore throat into headaches and that very unwelcome 'run-down' feeling. I have forced my way through it though with a linen cupboard clean out, some baking which i will share here at my other blog and i am at the very beginning of giving a small area of our home a little (and very much needed) face lift, the hallway.
In the future i hope (and plan) to work really hard on my time management skills and also my lack of ability to stay motivated, i have no problem getting motivated as i love life, it excites me but once i start something and it's not 'new' anymore is where i start to fail.
 I was planning on this being a little longer but the computer screen is making me feel a bit off, so i will cut it short, though not before i share my linen cupboard makeover (very exciting business ha ha)
Wherever you are I hope that you are having a wonderful day full of love and warmth x

Hello again.....

I've been on a little bit of a blogging hiatus. I have been trying to find a balance within our home, myself, our family and any other interests, activities and hobbies that i have. The conclusion that i have managed to come to during my 3 month break from blogging is that i am terrible at trying to find a balance. I won't stop trying though, this life is way to short to skimp on anything. I need to be available to my family and myself, i also need to fit the necessities of life in (e.g. scrubbing the toilet and cleaning up an infinite amount of spilled soggy cornflakes and toast crumbs), and i need to find something for me to do, whether its  finding a new career path, sticking with the old or trying to create a future from my craftiness/creativeness. Right now i'm feeling a little overwhelmed and lost. I have however found a new love and passion in becoming active. I haven't been interested in being a very active person since primary school, when you are young you run, play and have no negativity about being involved in sporting activities. As i have aged i had forgotten about being a consciously active person. Sure i'd run if a dog were chasing me or a child with a poopy nappy or boogers on their face was headed my way, other than that the only active times in my day were housework/housekeeping and the occasional wonder in the park or run around the yard. At 30 i am now rediscovering what it is like to enjoy being active on purpose. I'm sure i'll share a little more of that in future blogs. I guess i just wanted to check back in and say "hi". I plan to become a little more active in the blogosphere, ive missed writing the random thoughts that run through my mind and the satisfaction that comes from blogging.

Continuing a gentle transition...

It's Wednesday today and when we left off it was mid morning Monday.
I've still avoided coffee this week and have only slipped up once with something really sugary, that was last night, I had an icecream (it had to be eaten though so it wasn't there to tempt me when I move to phase 2). I've been eating relatively good meals including a beef roast and toasted Hawaiian wraps with caluiflower rice. I am becoming more and more aware of the sugars in everything and I think if all I get out if this in the end is this awareness that I now have then I think that's a pretty powerful thing. I've been drinking lots of tea/teeccino's which I'm getting a little bit tired of, I think I need to switch to citrus water for a little while. Today I'm feeling really tired and cloudy. A little bit unmotivated to be honest. I am considering coffee today but I think it might be because I haven't had anything decent to eat yet today. I have a dirty kitchen and can't bring myself to clean it so that I feel like preparing anything to eat yet! But once this update is done I will get off my butt and get to it! And I'm pretty sure I'm done so off I go.. To do something productive ;)

Gentle transition...

This week I'm following the first week of Sarah Wilson's IQS (I quit sugar) program. I've also decided to quit coffee for now. This is something that I will hopefully live with for the rest of my time so therefore I'm being easy on myself and taking the time to transition gently and slowly. I'm going to keep a bit of an unstructured record of the journey here, a food diary and a health/wellness record.
Pre-IQS I've been feeling really tired, anxious, moody, unmotivated, emotional, bloated. I hope that along the way I feel less of these things and more of the positive states of being.
Sunday (day 1) I did skip my usual morning coffee. I had multigrain toast and vegemite. Followed by hot chips and tomato sauce for lunch. Then a couple of candy snakes and some lime & pepper chips as a snack. Dinner was crispy chicken wings with celery & carrots (takeaway). I drank tea or water. Obviously a few bad choices but that's ok, I'm ok with that.
Today (day 2) no coffee again, instead I had water this morning and then took a cup of black earl grey tea with me to school. Had to go to the shops after so I have just (at around 10am) had some vegemite and butter wholemeal toast and an added sugar free teeccino. I'm feeling a bit tired today, I have a slight headache (guessing caffeine withdrawal). But I still feel motivated and plan to go and do a bit of exercise (which I hope will motivated me to get started on the housework!)
I'm not sure yet what the rest of the day or even the week will bring. I hope to keep feeling positive about it all though.