Challenge re-cap

The three weeks are over, my house is clean and sorted, and last week I finally got into exercise mode and started to
really enjoy it!

Seeing that it was such a schlepp to get going with the challenge I am very happy about the results.

It reminded me once again that if I know what is good for me and persist, I WILL get to the stage where it becomes
natural and effortless to live healthier.

The trampoline jumping and the yoga are by now integral parts of my day, and it will be easy to keep doing it.


Working on the list of niggling things was also great!

It is such a relief to write down all the things bugging me somewhere in the back of my mind, and then to do something about them. Every item I get done is an inproportionately huge burden released from my mind.

This week I continued with the veggie garden (did some planting), and right now a friend of mine is building us a greenhouse.

The storeroom is sorted and the cactus garden is weed-free:

I haven't done the driver's licence conversion yet, and I haven't done the foreword....
So these two are on this week's list.


And now I am so looking forward to spend more time with crafting and sewing!
And to eat the occassional sweet thing :-)



A wonderful start to the week!



Lots of love,

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Love is.... and an apfelstrudel recipe

Two of a kind, snuggling up:

Also, today is the last day of the challenge!

To celebrate, I baked:

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (365 Fahrenheit).
Cover a tray with baking paper and start layering phyllo pastry sheets, buttering the sheets before adding the next one.
I made six layers.

Then add the filling.

Peel and slice 4 apples, add 2 tablespoons of castor sugar, some lemon juice and about 100 g (3.5 ounces) of ground nuts (whatever you have on hand).
Add 250 g (1 cup) of smooth cottage cheese and mix.

 Distribute the mixture on your phyllo pastry sheets and roll them in.

Bake for about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!


Have a wonderful Sunday

Love,

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Kasha Mango Salad

The challenge is coming to an end.

I can't say that I am particularly sad about it :-).

There are just too many delicious looking sweet thingys I have never tried (yet).


But seeing that it is only Friday, here another healthy recipe:


Kasha Mango Salad

Kasha or buckwheat groats are a gluten and wheat free grain that is quick to prepare.

For the salad, use 1 cup of Kasha, 2 cups of water and some salt. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat and let it simmer
for 10 minutes.
If you don't have Kasha, you can make the salad with sorghum or quinoa.

In the meantime, peel and cut the mango. If you can't get fresh mango use dried one, soaked over night.
Slice a cucumber (when I wanted to do that I realized my cucumber had been eaten, so no cucumber in this salad) and
cut some spring onions.
Mix with the Kasha.

I still had some almond flakes that I toasted and added to the salad.

For the dressing, mix olive oil, balsamica vinegar, lemon juice, some honey and some mustard.

If you eat protein and starch together, you can also add Feta cheese.

To avoid a rebellion in my family, I also made grilled chicken breast (spice chicken with lemon juice, olive oil and
whatever spices you like, let it soak for a while, then grill until done).

Have a great start to a great weekend!



Lots of love,

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Three week challenge - Final week!

Yeah, the final week!

My house hasn't been that clean and sorted in a long time, and I am feeling very clear and focused.
This aspect of de-cluttering still takes me by surprise, but it is the most wonderful side effect.
And it is such a pleasure now to open drawers or cupboard doors :-).




The healthy eating and especially the exercising are not going quite as splendidly...

Oh well, I am moving in the right direction!


How are you doing with the list of niggling things?
My veggie bed is coming along nicely (will show you tomorrow), but the foreword still isn't written.
Back on it goes, for the last time!
I added some more items to the list, maybe I will be able to get them all done this week:

Weed the cactus garden (painful job, that one)
Clean windows (five million little square window panes)
Have my driver's licence converted into a Namibian one (this one I managed to not do for 15 years...)

 
For the sorting part, this week we will tackle all the out-of-the-way rooms:

The cellar
The attic
The storeroom
The garage

and:

Your car
Your handbag
Your computer and cellphone (go through your files and contacts, sort and delete, back up!)

 

Have you written down your ideal day?

This week we will take this idea further.

Read through your day.
How would you feel if you would be living your ideal day?

Secure?
Happy?
Fulfilled?
Prosperous?

Write down the most prominent emotions, and then look for ways to feel like this now.
It is always about the way you feel, not about the outer circumstances.
You can sit in a beautiful house on the beach and be utterly miserable.
And you can sit on a park bench without a home to go back to and be happy and content. Like Eckhart Tolle did.


Through feeling good now you will draw many more opportunities to feel good into your life, and you will realize that you have control over the way you feel, instead of letting it be dictated by your environment.


And of course, drink lots of water and eat your greens :-)



A happy, fulfilled, loving and creative last week!


Big hug,

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Sunday again!

How did that happen so quickly?


I am sitting here in my office surrounded by paper:

Why was I keeping age-old receipts for things I don't even own anymore?
Phonebills from three years back?
Eva's first years of school everything?

It feels so good throwing all that stuff out!


Yesterday I sorted and cleaned the bathroom, finally hanging up my jewellery that used to live in a tangled heap
at the bottom of the cupboard.
Maybe now I will actually wear some of it? Or at least Eva will :-).

I also put somebody else in charge of reminding certain people to close the cupboard doors (very important with
a puppy in the house!). In german, we call women that keep on nagging about something 'Meckerziege', which
loosely translate to grumbling goat, just to explain my choice of animal.

Here are still some pics of the bedroom:

The healthy eating is going pretty well, the sport got a bit neglected but I am still doing more than before the challenge,
so it is quite cool.

How are you doing?


And just to show you that it is not all work, here is how my Sunday morning started off:

Have a wonderful day!



Lots of love,

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Day 11, and the best salad ever!

Eating healthy food is so much easier when said food is good. 

Good food good mood good attitude dude!

Sorry, let me stop here and rather tell you about a wonderful salad recipe.

It is delicious, quick to make, easy, healthy, and really pretty!
And it tastes of warm summer evenings or lazy lunches in the garden...


You will need watermelons, feta cheese, and basil or mint leaves:

Cut the watermelon and the feta into small pieces:

 Mix, pour some olive oil and balsamico vinegar over it, and sprinkle with some mint leaves:

And now enjoy! 

Wishing you a wonderful day filled with love, sunshine and healthy food :-)

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3 week challenge - week 2

Good morning dear friends!

I hope you had a fabulous Easter weekend.
We drove out to a farm in the African bush together with my man's family and had a great time!


And now for week 2 of the challenge!
 

Let's start with the niggling list items for the week.
If you have done the first third last week, keep going with the second third in this week.

I managed to get the Apostille and it is on its way to Germany.

But I still haven't done the foreword.

So this is the number one thing for this week (again :-) ).

The second item is to finally establish a veggie bed.
I have had several half-hearted attempts at it, (doing a bit of digging and then throwing some seeds in (nothing happened) or planting some seedlings that became a feast for the locust), but in our climat the beds have to be prepared really well, otherwise nothing will grow.


On the organizing front I managed to do everything from last week (see here if you are catching up).

The tasks for this week are:

Your kid's rooms
Your office
Your bathroom
The dining room if you have one

Once again, if that is too much, just do one room thoroughly and keep going after the challenge is finished.


And for the thinking session, make yourself a lovely cup of tea, sit in a beautiful spot with a beautiful notebook and think about what your ideal day would look like.

Start early in the morning, when do you wake up, where do you wake up, with whom do you wake up?

Maybe you would like to live at the sea like my daughter, waking up to the sound of the waves?

 She asked me to tell you that this is not necessarily her dream home :-)

Then keep going through your day, writing everything down as you would love for it to be.

And don't be too critical at this stage. In fact, don't be critical at all.
It doesn't matter one bit if you can implement it or not, just get it down and then tweak it until it is really really perfect.

After you have done that, look at which elements (people, place, work?) are absolutely critical for your happiness and write them down. Then select those ones that are important but that you could live without, and last write down the 'frills'.

Once you have done that, it becomes a great way to help you make decisions.

Should you change jobs, being paid better but having less time with your family? Check in your ideal day what is more important for you.
Should you move to a bigger house, or to an area further away from your parents?
Should you join this committee?

It helps you to get clarity about where you want to go and what really makes you happy.

Your own personal compass :-)


Also continue with the daily form of exercise.

If you haven't been physically active for a while, walking is a great and healthy way to get back into shape.
Why not ask a girlfriend to join you every morning (or evening) for an hour long walk through the neighbourhood.
You get fit and can catch up with your friend at the same time!


And keep on eating your salads and veggies, drink lots of water and go easy on the left-over easter eggs :-).


Have a wonderful day!


Love,






Ps: Lovely Kim from I - Lost in Austin gave me the Happy Blogger award!

Thank you so much dear Kim!!!! If you like delicious recipes, beautifully photographed, hop over to her.
She is a master in coming up with the most delectable goodies.

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On the fourth day

Good morning all you lovely people!

My daughter woke up at 4 this morning and decided that she can't sleep anymore. After some discussions
(that I lost) we both got up and had tea, hot chocolate and a cuddle.
Now she is reading, I am writing, and Frida is crowing loudly in the pitch dark.

Anyway, enough chit chat. How are you doing with the challenge?

I am slowly getting a bit more momentum. My favorite part is still the sorting out.
I am finished with the living room, apart from washing the curtains and cleaning the windows. There are about
500 little square panes, which have to be cleaned from the outside by standing in the overgrown cactus garden....

Maybe that should rather go onto my niggling list :-).

I have also done the kitchen and the bedroom, and today I will tackle the clothes cupboard.

Still haven't written a foreword. Also still haven't painted any eggs. This year we are all about bunnies, which is
probably a reaction to all the testosterone in my chicken coop...

The sport is going so-so (haven't done a real long sweaty yoga session yet) and the healthy eating is relatively
easy, at least during the day.

In the morning I have a cup of coffee and at night I have a glass of red wine, and I am enjoying both.


Something I haven't mentioned yet but that works really well for loosing weight is to not mix carbs and protein.
It takes some getting used to (no more meat and potatoes, pasta and cream, or bread with cheese), but it is
really effective.

At least for me.

As with all these tips, see if they work for you and use only what does (quite a no-brainer :-) ).

So, you eat fruit by itself, best in the morning, and then wait at least two hours before eating anything else.
Then you eat either carbs with salad or veggies or protein with salad or veggies.


Another thing I haven't mentioned in a while is how important it is to like yourself.
To like your looks.
To be happy in your own skin.

Without that, all the healthy living is not going to make a lot of difference.

Throw out all the critical thoughts you have about yourself, all the nagging, all the guilt...

These feelings and thoughts can be quite persistant and they can be quite persuasive too, but they are never
on your side, and they are never good for you.
So please don't allow them to take up space in your head.

For this beautiful day, be really really REALLY nice to yourself!

A big hug and lots of love,

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