Wake up call

 It feels like forever since my last foodie post. All I can say is this, life with a toddler, a hubby, 3 daughters, a new teen (from Switzerland this time) and doing a uni degree is a teeny bit hectic. Throw in annoying hormonal changes and other health issues, lack of sleep included, and you've got a long time between chats.

The journey has been rocky, not gonna lie. 

It took months to establish where my hormones were at through doctor visits and blood tests, and how to manage them and remain sane. I am one who normally HATES relying on medications, but was so desperate to find relief, I accepted trying Pristiq, found to work wonders with perimenopausal women. In all honesty, it only marginally effects my overall mood, but it has removed my hot flushes and taken away the extreme panic attacks, blurry mind and random teary outbursts. Worth it for that alone. 

My diet has been horrendously inconsistent. When I'm good, I'm amazing. Same for when I blow out. Other than clothes feeling a little snug again, I've had a few wake up calls with my health recently. One is swelling, painful joints, classic symptoms of osteo-arthritis, according to my doctor. I am also due for my third kidney function test, as I have not done well on the last few. One more strike, and I'm on meds. As I don't have diabetes, my history of often elevated blood pressure may be a cause.

This month, I celebrate my third wedding anniversary, followed by my 47th birthday. As I want to hit fifty strong, disease free and healthy, I've got to adjust my lifestyle/ diet accordingly.

What I am doing well is this: adding regular exercise to my week. I am currently doing 3 workouts per week, and attempting to walk at least once. I do 2 days with my PT- strength training, and one day of pilates. Even when I absolutely don't want to go, because I'm (a) paying someone and (b) hate wasting money, I'm compelled to keep going. In all honestly, I leave feeling a million times better than when I arrived. If you can afford it, paying someone to motivate and strengthen you is worth every cent!

I'm also doing gratitude well. I have an amazing hubby, beautiful daughters and recently, we welcomed a sweet 16 year old student from Switzerland into our home. And last week I was blessed with an amazing gift! See below for details. It's actually a wonderful life I have :)

Thanks to meds in all honesty, I was able to regain some mental clarity at uni and went on the finish my last assignment with a High Distinction. Not bad considering I was barely passing at the beginning of the unit.

I aim to be accountable once again, and start a food diary. I have researched anti-inflammatory foods and discovered that I like/already eat most of them. I just need to cut back on sugary foods, which includes processed breads and white pasta. And-gulp-cut back on coffee. Wahhhhh. Green tea between meals it is then.

Read on for the start of this new me...

My view this morning. I like new days. they offer us the chance to start again.

Meet Bruce! Bruce is my new baby, an 8 year old Macleay River turtle. After recently getting a reptile keepers licence, I've been looking for a turtle. Baby turtles are sometimes hard to find, and at up to $180 each, 

not an attractive option.

Hubby found the ad for Bruce on Gumtree. His owner made a very descriptive post, and it was obvious she loved Bruce but couldn't take him on their move. The advertised price was $400, and though high, it was for everything, including his 5 foot, custom built tank and all accessories.

So, I went for it. Hubby and I agreed to go halves as it was part of my birthday present.

Then the blessing happened. After some dialogue with the owner, she stunned me by saying I can have him, no money required, as she felt I would look after him well!

They also delivered him, set the tank up, wrote a detailed list of his care requirements, provided food, the works.

I'm blown away still!

Bruce is sociable, loves rearranging his tank, watching TV and following us around. Best present ever!

This is my brekky today. Ok, discovered I'm not a fan of cooked avo, so not doing that again, but love the tomato with egg and a hint of cheese. Perfect start.

And this is my morning tea, Sweet Potato Bread. Recipe below.

SWEET POTATO BREAD (recipe adapted from the IQS paleo sweet potato bread)

ingredients:

• 400gm sweet potato mash (i kept the skin on and mashed mine with water before blitzing to smooth)
• 4 eggs
• 50gm melted coconut oil
• 1 ts baking powder
• 250gm mix including almond meal, oatbran and chia seeds
• pinch salt

method:

• Preheat oven to 160 C. Line a loaf pan with baking paper.
• In a food processor, mix the potato mash, eggs and coconut oil (i added the oil to my cooked spuds prior to mashing)
• Transfer to a mixing bowl and add dry ingredients. Mix well.
• Bake for 45-50 mins or until golden brown. Use a skewer to check if it's cooked through.
• Cool in tin before turning to slice. 
• Freezes well.

And there you have it, a long overdue, but informative post. Hope this encourages you to eat well and get baking!

Until next time, thanks for reading :)

Community Gardens, weeks 26, 27.

After making you all wait weeks for the last post, I thought I'd be kind and get to the next one asap. Lot's of construction last week. Not a great deal this week, thanks to some crazy rain and strong winds.

Take a look at the most recent progress...

Hubby plonked a simple bench seat on my marked out section. When I say plonked, he dug deep to bury the timber supports, compacted them in, screwed and secured the top section. Now, it just needs paving underneath, and maybe painting, and it's ready to go.

The bridge construction continues. Here, Hubby, Mick and Shane all help with the base construction.

Bracing is done, now ready for the top to be covered in timber.

Mick and Shane did a great job putting the top down.

And here, thanks to awesome team effort, the bridge is nearly completed. It needs a ramp front and back to be safe for access. Since this photo, locals have once again improvised with old gates laid flat either side.

And lastly, here is the start of our humble bathtub veggie patch. Starting with easy growing carrots, silver beet, and beetroot. Now, we just need several more bathtubs!

And now, you are all up to date. Some exciting things are happening in the coming weeks- I look forward to sharing them with you!

Once again, thanks for reading :)

Community Gardens, weeks 21-25

Wow, I am so behind with updates! 

Rest assured, there has been plenty going on, even if we both had a stay-cation one week, and I took an extra week or two off to recharge. It's been a BIG year!

Considering the length of the break, forgive me for not being as organised as I usually am. Pictures may not be in the exact weekly order, but you'll definitely see progress. Most of the credit of course goes to my awesome hubby- except for our one week break, his passion and dedication hasn't waned. 

The front flower garden just keeps on blooming :)

People have kept on creating makeshift bridges, so that gave hubby an idea...

But first, the church got a new sign, which helps people know exactly where we are. I attempted to help initially, but once the ladder wobbled, down I came!

After sticking up the initial writing with a chalk background, then outlining the sign when tacked into position, this chalky outline was use as a guide to stick the lettering on.

Slowly, but surely, up it goes.

I got bored waiting and went to check the gardens, and was thrilled to see my first rain lily shoots appear.

The completed sign! So exciting to see this up.

For regular readers, during the early days, you may remember me telling of people who dumped a load of green waste into our creek. Well, this is me, boot deep in uber smelly water, pulling out a zillion mother-in-law plants.

And here they are, ready to be planted into another postion.

As the water took a while to drain, hubby kept on clearing it out to get the flow going again.

Faithful workers, Shane and Mick, clearing the ground.

I was thrilled to discover my bromeliads were actually thriving, despite being submerged, and were indeed starting to flower.

Hubby placed a paver square down for people to step on. Thankfully, the water level has dropped significantly.

The mother-in-law tongues in their new position- leading up to the creek crossing.

These pink buds will soon be jasmine flowers! So excited to see this plant take over the slope.

A new section of path has gone down. Love seeing this kind of progress.

School holidays means bored kids. I admire their neat paver stacking :)

If you can't stop people- build a bridge! Hubby preparing the new bridge base.

My brommies have flowered!

I cleared a section for a bench seat between my two newest garden beds.

Here, hubby is positioning the bridge base.

Graeme helped with the bridge. He is never without his faithful dogs :)

The path has now been cement rendered. 

A beautiful gazania in flower. Love seeing plants thrive :) 

Another stunning brom bloom.

Progress is happening! Each week brings us closer and closer to a completed, amazing community space. looking forward to bringing you more updates soon!

Community Gardens week 20

On a dreary, cold, wet wintry day, what do sensible people usually do? Probably not spend it outdoors gardening like us. 

In all honesty, I did want to spend the day at home, lounging in my pj's, and perhaps snuggled up in bed with a good book. As always though, looking back on the day, I'm thrilled with the progress. 

It was a slow and steady kind of day. That pace seemed just right, as we achieved a lot in only a few hours, as you will see below.

One section of the garden is still waterlogged. And how it pongs!

My main job of the day-mulching. The boys loaded up 2 trailer loads of mulch and dumped it on the carpet. I then mulched the bed with it. It was cold enough to see my breath today- perfect manual labour weather.

I was a bit lazy with the paper today, and too tired to cut and drag wet carpet onto the bed to suppress weeds.

The boys used the remainder of our tree mulch on the main access point garden beds.

The completed garden. The plants have had a great soaking over the past few weeks, and the mulch was nice and damp. These plants should continue to thrive in these conditions.

Hubby agreed-at last- that a chair would be just lovely here.

Forgot to mention that last week, hubby started clearing some obstructions from the creek. He continued today and actually got the creek flowing again. 

Seeing the creek flow again is so good. Not only will the smelly, stagnant water disappear, hopefully the swampy garden sections will drain now too. 

There is still some building rubble, branches and posts laying around, but the flow seems to be improving.

I imagine this creek bed in several months time- planted out with gorgeous flora and looking like a pristine waterway.

These agaves seem to be thriving with all this rain. I already notice each plant has new centre shoots.

The boys tackled the driveway as well today, shoveling up a huge amount of gravel the rains had washed onto the road. It still looks like a mini four wheel drive track however.

After a bit of tidying and some weeding, the day was done. Rain or shine, we are getting this garden done! Five months in, and we have made tremendous progress. Even with a huge amount of work ahead of us, with what we have already achieved and the lessons learnt along the way, we know we've got this. 

That's all for now, lovely readers. I look forward to bringing you more updates soon :) 

Community Gardens, week 19

Another week in the garden has been completed, which means we're another step closer to creating a beautiful green space that attracts people. 

Some of the people keen to get involved this week are rather little. Getting kids involved and interested in gardening isn't hard, especially if you allow them the opportunity to discover and do things themselves.

I don't think I've ever quite met boys this excited about planting carrot seeds! This week, these two, Zai & Hunter, learnt about recycling (egg cartons as seedling containers), how to sow seeds (great teamwork happening here!), how to be responsible (ensuring the seeds are watered twice daily until germination), and patience, as things take time to grow.

Judging by the attention to detail, we are in for a bumper crop of carrots!

My little Belle has had a rather rough week of sickness combined with getting her 2 year molars, so she enjoyed a day gardening with her mum and dad instead of going to care. She was most helpful, like pulling a shovel down on herself here.

Hubby and I tag teamed caring for her as we attempted to garden.

She thought it was a great day and gave us plenty of exercise as we ran after her.

I love seeing her face as she discovers flowers , birds and bugs. I never want to discourage this wonder in her, no matter how filthy and feral she gets :)

The front flower garden is growing incredibly well. The recent soaking rains helped. Even with weeds, this garden looks so pretty.

The boys, Mick & Shane, did a brilliant job laying carpet down by the newly cleared creek pathway. They then managed to mulch a section of it. 

Hopefully, I will be able to plant it out this coming week. I say hopefully, because we've had a bit more rain, and not everything is dry yet. 

Fingers crossed the water doesn't overflow into the gardens once again.

Despite having Belle with us, I managed to edge, weed and clear most of this by myself.

Go me!

I called on hubby to help me with the last section. My poor back and shoulders-this is hard work.

The part I love is planting out time! Still keeping it simple, I fell in love with these bright and cheery Marguerite Daisy plants (argyranthemum to be precise). They grow around half a metre tall and wide and are low maintenance. I just love their colour!

Here is the newly created bed, planted out, but not mulched just yet. I went around collecting several free bulbs growing around the place. Hopefully, they grow well transplanted into this bed. Since they were thriving on neglect, I'm confident they are the perfect choice for here.

I also planted more Rain lily's, yellow this time and as plants, not bulbs. 

This will (hopefully) be a simple bed filled with colour in spring, and one I really want to put a little pathway in leading to a tree stump chair. Sitting among flowers and reading under the canopy of shady tress sounds like heaven to me :)

And there you have it, another week done and dusted. I hope this inspires you to make a difference, even in a small way this week.

Until next time, thanks for reading :)