Thursday Gardening Journal - Magic In Our Garden

So a lovely little blog I read in my down time, haha jokes I do not get down time and if I do my eyes are shut tight. Any who as I was saying I really do enjoying following Rach over at Squiggly Rainbow. Her terrariums are AWESOME!!! I can not wait to buy one of her kits and set up for the kids, maybe Santa could bring one.

On her blog, Rach has started Thursday Gardening Journal.

I love this idea for a couple of reasons; 1. I need to post more often but do not often have the time nor energy to think of witty (I think I'm witty even if others don't) content in the hopes of amusing anyone who might happen to read my blog and 2. I have fallen in love with the idea of starting our own sustainable urban/micro farm so linking up to TGJ will give me the motivation to see this latest fad of mine become more than a "Flight of Fancy". Wow that was a long sentence, oh how my English teacher must be cringing at the thought of me lose behind a keyboard. My Secretrial Studies teacher, on the other hand, would be totally stoked with my mad type skills.

About two weeks I had the sudden urge to pull out the adorable Tinkerbell Fairy Garden set I had bought from Little Green Fairies a while ago for Lil Miss.

Image from Green Little Fairies

Instead of just give Lil Miss the lovely little package I decided it would be fun and exciting if I gradually added parts of the kit every few days, of course missing those days she was a complete Diva and didn't deserve to have fairies living in her garden.

Off we went to our local nursery and selected half a dozen pretty coloured flower plants. After I eventually remembered to buy potting mix, oops my bad again, we got our hands dirty and arranged the plants in a large pink (of course) tub.

Over the next week and a half the fairies started to make themselves right at home and Lil Miss was thrilled to check out the latest construction efforts each morning.

I even had a little fun using my new iPhone macro len too;

This past Tuesday, after cleaning and sorting her room while she was at daycare, I left her a little surprise for her to find on her return home. On the off chance you do not speak Fairy, the little note reads "Sprinkle some fairy dust, chime the bell and soon we will have all moved in, Love The Fairies".

So not wanting to offend the fairy gods we set about sprinkle dust and ring chiming bells all over the backyard.

Boy, oh boy did the fairies move in, there are a heap of the little creatures hanging out in there now.

I am not sure who is more exciting about play fairies in Lil Miss's Fairy Garden, her or me.

If you have made a fairy garden for anyone special and have blogged about it I would love for you to post a link in the comments.

x Renee

Flight of Fancy

We recently watched a movie called, Wanderlust , now I wouldn't say it is a brilliant, could watch it over and over again, movie but it does have its funny moments. One in particular is;

Wayne: "My name's Wayne by the way, I'm a nudist"

George; "Oh yes we noticed your penis earlier"

Wayne: "Touché". 

That a side though, a scene from this movie really hit home with me and has stuck with me every since.  It was a scene between the two main characters played by Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston. Here is the scene; 

 

No word of a lie when I saw this on our television I was imagining them with hubby and my heads on their bodies (oh how I would love to have Jen’s body). My hubby is supportive though and so is George. What I am realising or have really know all along, but found too hard to admit to myself, is that it is I am the unsupportive one. I am unsupportive of myself. I have become so accustomed at just letting things slip away when I grow bored or come against a stumbling block.

For example, my passion for sewing. Just over two years ago I found the joy of sewing and loved it so much that it did go from just a hobby to a passion. That passion had me create a community of like minded people from all over Australia and the world too. I threw all of myself into this group and ate up the energy I felt. This time though I gave too much of myself and burnt out. Then after one small, trivial run in with a member I opted out, leaving a few lovely people in the lurch. This community had the potential, online, to become more than a hobby or passion. It could have helped bring in a few extra dollars to the household had I played my cards right. I didn’t though and now after throwing money into that we did not really have I have a blog sitting gathering virtual dust and someone, somewhere is probably jumping at the opportunity that I let slip away.

Another example is before I had children, around the time hubby and I we’re married I had a grand plan to start a screen printing business. I did a little research and conned my mum into bank rolling my start up costs. Well guess where all the tools of that little venture is now, sitting in my mum’s garage gathering dust and my mum’s money is still to be made in order to pay her back.

I could list several more pathetic attempts at starting my own hobby businesses but I won’t bore you, I am sure you get the picture. I am passionate, I do throw myself into my latest craze with both feet first, never testing the waters before jumping in. This is one of my top three things I want to change about myself.

My Top Three Grow Up and Own It List

1.       EAT RIGHT –teach my family a better way of eating.

2.       PLANT MY FEET – find real that I want to do and can realistically do to help support out family

3.       LOSE THE LONER – this one calls for a post all of it’s own and will be published next week but for now so that my friends don't think I am calling one of them a loser just be clear - I am the loser.

Until next time xxxx

Wordless Wednesday

My favourite Instagram shots from the past week, ENJOY! (oops I just typed words)

Eating Clean : My Way!

Howdy, so well as it seems I am all about airing my dirty laundry here on this little ol' blog of mine, so I thought I might just share something that is as about close to dirty laundry as you are going to get; me in my unmentionables.

Now I realise I might not have that much to complain about, yeah a few spare tyres here and there, but really what this post is about for me is bearing all so that I will commit to changing my, and my family's, eating habits.

Since my youngest stopping breastfeeding, two months ago, I have already gained a few horrid kilos back and I am scare. I have just been out and bought a new wardrobe and was finding my FAB again, I am most certainly not willing to go back to being a DRAB mum again.

After shelling out too much money on what I can only say is a scam eating plan I feel totally stupid and ripped off, but mainly stupid.  So now I am going to go it alone and going to eat clean : my way!

So follow me, if you please, and help me be accountable for what I put on the table for dinner for my children. Out are the days of cooking conveniently using packets and jars; in are the ol' school days of cooking from stratch in order to know exactly what I am serving up is healthy and nutritional.

If you would like to follow me I will be starting a Facebook page, here, in order to make it a little easier to follow along then to have to remember to check in here.

Obnoxious or Excitable?

ob·nox·ious

annoying or objectionable due to being a showoff or attracting undue attention to oneself: an obnoxious little brat.

VS

ex.cit.a.ble

emotional, passionate, fiery.

Since being on my "Happy Pills" I have found one of my personality traits to return is my incessant need to talk in social situations. I am not sure if it is a good thing or not.

See I have this problem, verbally, when in a group of people I do not know all that well, for example this past weekend I attended a friend's Tupperware party and there were a couple of ladies I wasn't overly familiar with, and so I try to relate to them by sharing my own experiences which relate to what they might be talking about.

Not such a big deal, right well yes it can be as I feel like I come across as obnoxious when in fact I am only just excited to be around new people but I feel nervous so I talk and talk and talk. Then I become known as the "know it all", "story for every thing" type of person.

This time around I seem to not only do it around new people but those in my group of friends here in town too and it worries me a lot. These ladies are fantastic and seriously their friendship over the past two and half years has seen me through the darkest times even if they aren't aware of how much it meant to me. The thing is they have only know me as what I know refer to as the "bat shit crazy" Renee. I didn't actually go crazy but my poor hubby definitely was on the end of some crazy irrational rants on the phone. They don't know I have a constant need to share and relate to people due to me awkward fear of socialising and needing to blend in. 

Thankfully though with this new "ME" I am also only to happy to explain my, I guess you might call it quirky behaviour. This time around it is all about being straight up, open and honest with those I love and care about.

So what is one trait about yourself that you think is misinterpreted?

Caution: Emotional Pile Up In Progress

Well I guess it is about time I shared some home truths with the world. For the past few months I have been taking anti depressants. There I said it, it is out there for everyone to read. See my big issue with putting it out there is that for many years I saw depression as an excuse. I really did not see what was so wrong with peoples' lives that they would cause them to feel so, well depressed. Now after experiencing first hand I wholeheartedly apologise to anyone I unintentionally judged when learning of their depression.

Do not get me wrong though I still believe some people require more self awareness of their lives and need to much much more to help themselves. Simply being on medication for depression or any similar illness is not good enough as I am learning. You can allow it to be an excuse if you do not work at making yourself better and you can not do this solely on medication.

I thought I had it sorted with the medication I am taking, hubby starting a new job which saw him home each night after work and a new wardrobe to brighten my day. I was wrong though. Not even three months into the new job which was to solve all our problems, except money of course, hubby is now back working away Monday to Friday and I am here playing duo role as mummy and daddy to our two rugrats. Now I can already hear some of you say "So what that is my life everyday" and I take my hat of those that either do the single parent thing or similar. I have learnt that, well I am just not made up of the stuff it takes to handle those pressures. I like to think I am tough but I am not that tough it seems. 

I just deleted what was becoming quite a large point form run down as to the reason I believe me to being on medication. I deleted it because it sounded like I was trying to hard to explain myself and well I just do not want to have to justify it to anyone. So just know that my life as a mum to two young children and a husband who worked away most weeks took its toll on me. My problems are not that big compared to most but to me they are and that is enough for me.

Not only did I start taking medication, I also had to come to terms with weaning my Lil Guy and moving him from our bed. I am a big breastfeeding advocate and Miss S self weaned at fourteen months, never to have a drop of formula. Now at almost 11 months Lil Guy is fully bottle fed and sleeping full time in his own cot, with minimal fuss of going to sleep by himself. It took me a month to be fine with doing this as I battled with myself internally about every aspect of what this would mean. I had to be alright with it knowing that in years to come I might want to blame myself for stopping too soon. I am okay with it and really believe it was best thing for all of us. As they say "The Proof Is In The Pudding" and now that we have more of a routine with Lil Guy, he is *touch wood* only waking once per night opposed to up to three or four times to go to the boob more so for comfort than for hunger. He even went a full 8 hours straight the other night.

Like with everything in life things are not easy and our latest curve ball first had me acting like a spoilt child who had their presents taken away from them, on Christmas morning, after only being allow to open them. Hubby has for the past week and a half been sent away for work, even though he took this new, much lower paying, job just so he could be home every night. So as gutted as I am and after eating myself silly I now need to pick my sorry self up, dust my new skinny jeans off and find a scenic detour around this latest emotional pile up.

Anyway none of the above probably is well written but that is not the point of this post. The point is that I have so much going on inside and out that I just need somewhere to digest it. It has taken me a few weeks to finally get to this stage of posting and if I wait any longer I fear I may internally combust.

One thing I am liking about the new found me on this journey though is actually old parts of me that I thought might have been lost since becoming a mum. Thankfully though you never truly loss your old self it just moves over to make room for new parts but is always there to lift you up when the time calls.

Anyone who feels things are getting too much for them, for whatever reason, I urge to call Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636 and speak with someone today. It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help!