Feeling stuck

For a while now I've felt pretty lethargic and dissatisfied, it's almost like the princess and the pea syndrome, something isn't quite right and I can't put my finger on it. I thought it was work (which has been pretty stressful of late) but I'm currently on a weeks holiday and the 'somethings-not-rightness' just hasn't shifted. Maybe I'm feeling bored and in need of some inspiration? I'm really not sure, but I do feel like something's zapped my energy and I need to get it back. How I'm going to do that, I have no idea. I think a good place to begin is by taking it back to the basics - eating well and getting plenty of rest. Then reconnecting with the things I love - reading, writing and playing games (which I haven't done in ages!), with perhaps a touch of creativity thrown in. So basically plenty of 'me' time is required.

I think I quite possibly am exhausted - 2013 was a busy year with the majority of my holiday's being spent decorating or building flat-pack furniture, copious amounts of home improvements including a brand new roof and new front door, as well as a rather traumatic relationship break up. Looking back, I don't think I ever appreciated all that I achieved - in fact I've probably never really given myself credit for my successes and have always demanded more...the result, as with anything, is burnout and the more I give myself the space to write on this tiny little corner of my blog, the clearer it becomes. So it's time to try and put things right, to spend the rest of my week off taking care of 'me', resting and doing the things I love.

And here's a little reminder in case I forget...

Couch to 5k

Work has been manic recently and i've hardly had any 'me' time. However, I have managed to carve myself a little of time out of my busy schedule to do something that I never thought i'd do - i've started running! I never thought I could run as attempts to train for the Race for Life when I was younger resulted in chronic leg pain and me swearing that i'd never run again. However, I found the NHS''s 'Couch to 5K' plan online and decided to give it a go. It's fabulous as it intersperses both running and walking, gradually building up the length of your running time as the weeks commence. I'm currently on week 3 and managed to run for three solid minutes last night without stopping, it seems like nothing, but when your there and your body is feeling drained, you're mind is telling you it's too much and you just want to stop for 'one minute - honest', it's a totally different story.

There's actually a group of us doing the 'Couch to 5k', we're all novice runners and our goal is to run the Jane Tomlinson 10k next June. Being part of a group has definitely helped me to stay motivated, it's much harder to miss that one night because you're feeling tired, have work to do, blah, blah, blah when you know that you're part of a team. Plus that 'I did it!' feeling when you get back from a run is amazing and always makes the whole experience worthwhile.

We've only just started the third week of 'Couch to 5k' but i've already noticed my legs firming up and that slight 'spare tyre' around my waist disappearing. I'm amazed that i'm noticing a difference in my body already as I always worked out before and didn't expect to see many changes in my body shape, but there you go, i'm definitely not complaining.

So that's where I am right now. I'm still working on the '12 week turnaround' (this is week 8) and getting rid of the clutter in my life, though I suspect that it's going to be a much more self-focussed and introspective journey than I first predicted. I'm excited about where i'll be by the end of week 12.

12 week turnaround: week 4

Well, just when you think you're on the road to getting things sorted, life throws something at you that you weren't expecting. Two days after writing this post, my relationship of (almost) 3 years ended - it came out of the blue, just like that, and it totally floored me. The past three weeks have been a bit of a blur as i've tried to come to terms with things, whilst simultaneously burying myself in my work. Needless to say, I have spent a lot of my time feeling very, very sad about the whole affair. The break up has brought new challenges with it, as i've had to pack up 'M' and the girls belongings and accept that our plans to move in and spend the rest of our lives together are no more.

I am slowly coming to terms with things, it's going to be a long process and i'm sure there'll be ups and downs along the way. Today though, I have felt better, I spent the morning pottering around in the greenhouse and I could feel the old, positive Vicky returning. I went and caught up with a particularly wise friend yesterday, was told a few home truths and I feel that marked a turning point - the message: I need to focus on myself more and show myself the same kindness that I offer to others - I will. As the weeks have passed I have started to reconnect with old hobbies and passions that I just didn't have time for when my weekends were committed to spending time with M and the children. Meditation, yoga, reading and visiting family and friends have all featured heavily and i've even bought myself a new tarot deck to explore - it's amazing what parts of yourself you can lose (sacrifice) when you're in a relationship. Today though, I feel hopeful; hopeful that my heart will mend, hopeful for the future and hopeful that I am slowly letting go of the person I have loved so dearly, without bitterness or resentment. There is hope.

12 week turnaround: week 1

I've just completed the first week of my 12 week turnaround and what a busy week it's been! Despite going away for the bank holiday weekend i've managed to tidy and declutter the cupboard under the kitchen sink, rehomed 3 cookery books, taken 2 foot off the very overgrown hedge, cut the grass and given it a much needed weed and feed, waterproofed the front of the house ready for winter and washed down and repainted the porch ready for my new front door which arrives on Wednesday. It's amazing what you can do in a week, although I have been off work so I suspect not all of my weeks will be as productive as this one. I've also learnt how to prune roses, it's been on my to-do list for ages but i've never got round to it, now after a quick search online (whatever did we do before the internet!) i'm a rose pruning 'expert' and my roses have just started to flower again.

I've also had a few offerings from the veg patch this week - some gorgeous freshly dug potatoes, broad beans and a large courgette. There's plenty more to come, especially courgettes as my 'dwarf' Verde di Milano courgette plants from the Real Seed catalogue  are taking over the veg patch!

I can't believe how huge they've grown, they've sprawled about a metre in width, and as I thought they were dwarf plants i've planted about 6 so the veg patch is slightly over-run at the moment. I suspect it's something to do with the erratic weather we've been having, or perhaps the huge mound of compost I planted them on, but i'm not complaining as they're producing plenty of flowers and hopefully lots of courgettes to follow.

12 week turnaround

So much has happened since my last visit to this blog. I've expanded my chicken flock, invested in an Eglu, refurnished the main bedroom (and even built my own flatpack furniture!), decorated the middle bedroom, decluttered and re-homed more things and had the house re-roofed. Phew! There's probably more but that's all that springs to mind at the moment.

The middle bedroom went from this...

...to this!

Despite my efforts, there still seems to be so much to do, so i've decided to mix it up a bit and see how much I can turn things around in the next 12 weeks. I'm not going to give myself a to-do list as it'll be so huge that i'll feel like giving up before I start, i'm just going to focus on turning things around one step at a time. Whilst the main focus is reclaiming my space, i'm going to apply the 12 week turnaround to my life in general and make time to enjoy long-forgotten hobbies and maybe discover a few new ones along the way! It feels exciting to be on the brink of something so fresh and unplanned. I wonder where i'll be 12 weeks from now?

Hetty, Betty and more decluttering

Sadly, Anais and Lily have recently passed away - I think as ex barn hens they were just 'egged out' and exhausted. This left Violet wandering around the huge run on her own and looking rather sorry for herself so i've got her a couple of new friends, a couple of bantams named Hetty and Betty:

At first there were fireworks as Violet chased them around the run, ensuring that they knew that she was the boss. I brought out extra feeders and drinkers, lifted them into the coop for the first couple of nights and by the end of the week she had accepted them as part of her flock. As you can see from their barely visible combs, they're only young so i'm not expecting any eggs from them until spring, but they seem happy and quite clucky in their new home.

I've also got another, rather exciting, new addition to the run coming very soon, but i'll save that for another post...

On the 'housey' front, I spent yesterday morning decluttering the cupboard underneath the stairs. I've found a few old coats that i'm going to drop off at the charity shop tomorrow and i've managed to finally organise my tins of paint and painting supplies from my 'decorate two bedrooms in two weeks' challenge in August (yes I do like to put the pressure on). I also got rid of two bags of junk that were lurking in there, recycling what I could, and I also discovered a bag of hay from my guinea-pig keeping days (over 2 years ago!) which i've rehomed in the shed ready for when I build my no-dig raised bed in the spring.

Today, i'm hoping to keep up with the decluttering vibe that's currecntly enthusing me by cleaning out the cupboards under the kitchen sink. I'm sure i'll find more junk, but hopefully some useful things too!

Progress

Remember the junked up area at the bottom of the garden that I posted about here, well four months later and i'm pleased to say that i've finally finished it (I said I was a flighty person!). The junk area has gone from this:

to this:

As you can see i've created another compost area and have started to lay down some cardboard to kill off the weed growth. I've also been given a load of tyres which i'm planning to grow next years potatoes in. The area isn't completely finished yet as i'm planning on building a no-dig raised bed there but i'm waiting until the weather's a bit warmer before I begin that, otherwise the bed will keep in the cold.

Well at least that's one thing I can tick off my list and my life now feels slightly more clutter-free!

Cutting down on caffeine

I've decided to take my self nurturing routine one step further and reduce my caffeine intake. I've always been a tea lover but the effects the caffeine might be having on my body has bothered me for a while now so i've decided to cut down, partly for health reasons but partly just out of curiosity to see if I feel the benefit. Tea has always been a family ritual with fond memories attached to it, whether it be sitting around a roaring coal fire at my grandparents, chilling after a busy day at work, or  idle chats in cafes, tea has always conjured up feelings of warmth and security. I think it's the nostalgia of tea, rather than the taste, that i'll find so hard to give up so I need a plan to keep me on track.

What i'm hoping to do is gradually reduce my normal tea and replace it with herbal and rooibos teas. I usually only drink about 5 cups of tea a day so i'm hoping to gradually replace these with 'kinder' teas, hopefully by taking it slowly i'll avoid too many withdrawal symptoms. I've stocked up on some tempting sounding Pukka and Yogi Teas ('morning time' and the rather lush sounding 'choco' tea) and have a big box rooibos too so i'm ready to take my first steps into a life without caffeine...well apart from the occasional chocolate treat.

I'll also be making sure I keep up my green smoothie routine in the mornings to give myself an extra energy boost!

 Cheers!

Taking time

I've been reading Kris Carr's 'Crazy Sexy Diet' for a while now and it's really hit home and made me consider what I eat. I've not rushed in, all guns blazing, and turned avid raw foodist overnight but it's message has slowly seeped into my brain, colouring the way I view my body and the food choices I make. After reading the book, I wanted to try adding daily smoothies to my diet and so decided to invest in a Vitamix. Five months on and I'm convinced it's one of the best investments I ever made. I now have a smoothie every day before work, nothing fancy, just banana, pineapple, grapes and spinach, and not only does it help to keep hunger pangs away until lunch time, but it has also kept those horrible cold and flu infections (that come as part of the territory when you're a teacher) at bay. 

I've recently been experimenting with making soups too, especially after discovering that the blades rotate fast enough too heat the soup, so no extra cooking is required. I made tomato and basil soup using all home-grown ingredients and I have to say it was one of the best I have ever tasted!

Taking the time each day to look after myself and give my body some much needed tlc has certainly opened my eyes and made me realise just how hard we can push ourselves and the need for us to take time out, even if it's just 5 minutes a day, to nurture ourselves.

Simplifying

I'm in the process of simplifying my space as my home just feels too busy and I feel like I need space to breathe. I can't belive how much 'stuff' I have accumulated over the years, it just sits around doing nothing, untouched year upon year and it has such an impact upon my internal life too, I feel blocked, drained and unable to move forward. So I have decided that the time has come to have a major declutter and get rid of anything in my life that I don't find useful or beautiful, there's no more time for a bit of decluttering here and there - the time has come to be ruthless. So far I have managed to get rid of 3 bags of 'clutter', i've donated and recycled what I can but other things have had to be thrown away. I'm predicting that i'll have cleared out 100 bags of 'stuff' by the end of August, just the thought of scaling down my posessions feels like a breath of fresh air.

Clutter clearout grand total: 29 bags

Creating zones

I'm a naturally flighty person, my attention jumps from one thing to another and I find it hard to stay focussed for long. As a result, my decluttering endeavours seem to be rather shortlived and if I don't feel like i'm getting anywhere fast, I lose interest and move onto the next thing that catches my attention. To help me stay on track i'm trying to break my areas to declutter down into 'zones' to be tackled one at a time, the idea being that if I focus enough on one zone (rather than a whole room/area) i'll be a able to see enough of a difference to spur me on to complete the task. I'm hoping this approach does the trick.

So, to cut a long, procrastinating post short, my first zone is the junked up area at the bottom of the garden. If I declutter it i'll be rewarded with an area big enough to set up another, much needed compost heap.

Wish me luck!

A list of 'shoulds'

Recently i've felt like a hamster running around in a wheel but never seeming to get anywhere. I've had endless to-do lists, ticking one thing off only to find that another thing has been added to my list. I feel drained and run down, which is probably why on Friday I lost my voice and i'm now suffering with a chest infection. My body has made me stop because I was pusing myself too hard. It's a pattern in my life, I push myself too hard, get ill and have to stop, vow never to do it again, then recover and the cycle begins once more. I'm a compulsive overworker, I constantly try and squeeze a little bit more out of my day, the phrase "i'll just do this" is a recurring thought and I constantly fill my days with a list of 'shoulds'. In the process of doing this i'm so busy ticking off things from my list that I don't actually live my life and savour it.

It didn't actually hit me what an ingrained problem this was until a recent fallout with my partner where she claimed that I constantly tell her what to do - "you need to do this, you need to do that", she threw at me. It was only when I tried to explain to her that I wasn't ordering her around, I was only offering up suggestions that I realised there may be a problem - telling someone what they "need" or "should" do is very different from making suggestions in a "how about trying/doing this" kind of way. I use exactly the same phrases for myself, when planning my days they consist of "shoulds" and "needs", they're quite forceful words, I need to be gentler with myself and others.

This morning I woke up with a feeling that I need to change. I guess that the fallout along with being ill has opened my eyes and made me realise that my expectations of myself (and others) are too high and whilst I have recently felt snowed under with a massive workload, part of that pressure has been self-inflicted. From today I will try to slow down and try and live more consciously, the days are whizzing by and they shouldn't be. I'll try to be gentler with myself and rein myself back in when I start composing my list of 'shoulds'.

Hello 2012

Happy New Year! I can't believe that Christmas has been and gone and the New Year is here already. There always seems to be a bit of a lull at this time of year, my mood drops slightly and I become more aware of the post-Christmas void, the low after the high perhaps. I usually use this time for quiet reflection and give myself time to focus on what I want to bring into my life in the year ahead. For the past few years i've chosen a focus word for the year, a sort of affirmation of what I bring into my life. 2011's word was 'growth' which seemed to fit perfectly with the events of the year. For 2012 my affirmative word will be 'peace', not just in the sense of being emotionally at peace with things but also bringing peace to all areas of my life - I will create a peaceful, clutter free home and try and create some peaceful quiet time for myself on a daily basis, meaning less time online reading other peoples blogs and facebooking and more time spent quietly reading, improving my space and focussing on my own life. I suppose what i'm yearning for is a period of withdrawal and some time to retreat into my own space, even the thought of it fills me with a fuzzy feeling of warmth so I know i'm on the right track.



I think all that s left to do this evening is to curl up with a good book, bliss.

Photo Reflections Day 15

Today I have finally finished icing the xmas cakes. It was my first attempt at making them and I made 5 which, on reflection, was slightly ambitious. However, they're Christmas gifts and i'm sure that they'll be appreciated by my family. I haven't tried any yet so i'm keeping my fingers crossed that they taste ok. They've been 'doctored' with brandy over the past couple of months so if nothing else hopefully they'll make people slightly merry! And yes, your eyes aren't deceiving you. the one above does have two 'Merry Christmas' greetings on it, it's actually a rather large cake and is going to be shared between my Mum and Nanna. Hope they enjoy it!

Photo Reflections Day 14

I was invited for tea at my Mum's last night, it was lovely to sit around the table as a family and just chat, sharing good food and sipping tea. Tonight I feel slightly under the weather, I think i'm coming down with the lurgey, so i'm tucked up under my blanket with a hot water bottle watching The Hours. It's an amazing film, filled with so much emotion, it always takes my breath away. I wont give the plot away, all i'll say is that it's 3 stories beautifully merged into one, if you get the chance to watch it then I recommend that you do.

Photo Reflections Day 13

Today i'm dreaming of sunnier days, days when I don't leave for work and come home in the dark, days when I can get out in the garden for an hour or so after work and when I can let the chooks have a roam around. I love the opportunity to snuggle up in winter and the gentle glow of christmas tree lights but i'd still like to odd day of summer light and heat every now and again. Today i'm missing summer and looking at my garden pics from this year makes me miss it even more. For the moment I need to be content with my hot water bottle and snuggle blanket.

Photo Reflections Day 12

I missed yesterday's post as I was invited out for tea and then came home and got snuggled up in bed, it was blissful not to have to think about doing any work on an evening for a change. This evening is another fairly chilled out night, i've done my work and i'm now relaxing with a Guinness. It brings back memories of being a student and sitting around huge 'beer keg' tables in my local Irish bar, with good friends and lots of merry banter. I miss those carefree days and would love to try and recapture that feeling on a daily basis, the first step right now is to relax with a Guinness, lush.

Photo Reflections Day 10 and 11

It's been a busy but fun weekend. My partner came over and we cooked ourselves a Christmas dinner as we wont be able to spend Christmas day together. We put the tree up and exchanged gifts (the tree is absolutely gorgeous, this photograph really doesn't do it justice). We did plan to cut the cake that we decorated together but we were so stuffed that we really couldn't manage any (can you tell that we made the icing too runny?). I'm sure i'll enjoy a slice or two before she comes to stay again on the 27th.

Photo Reflections Day 9

I don't have much time today so all i'll say is - the chooks are still laying. Amazing!

Photo Reflections Day 8

It's been a busy day today, I was up at 5.30am and at work for 7.30. To say its been chilly is a bit of an understatement, it's been freezing! I was so cold and tired when I arrived home that I snuggled under my blanket on the sofa and had a quiet 10 minutes with a cuppa - bliss.