Organising The Chaos!

Since being on the mediation (see Caution: Emotional Pile Up In Progress) I am reconnecting with my inner Neat Freak.

One of my major hang ups at the height of my depression was the chaos around me. It caused me to have major anxiety issues and our home became a dumping ground. There was piles of crap everywhere. Whenever I got the urge to do something about it I would take one look around and be so overwhelmed I would slink back to the couch to procrastinate about it some more, hence never actually getting around to it.

Within a week of starting the anti depression meds I was on fire organising left, right and centre. I got quite a lot accomplished and it felt amazing, so liberating. Though it was short lived as once hubby was sent away for work again I allowed the house to crumble in a heap, myself along with it. I picked myself back up again and found The Organised Housewife's 20 Days to Organise and Clean Your Home Challenge. Some of what Katrina has in the pre challenge tasks I already have in place some what. Thanks to the timing of this challenge though I am working on make our routines more concrete and finally getting back to having this house run like a well oiled machine. Here some are photos of what I had done prior (sorry I neglected to take before photos) to the challenge beginning;

 

In our kitchen we have two large deep drawers, in the bottom one I keep all the baking trays etc. Before the meds (B.M) this draw was a disaster. 

Thanks to some nifty plate stackers from Kmart for all of about $5 each I was able to stack a lot of the trays and pans.

B.M. the plates and bowls would slide all over the place in the top draw. They slide no more with the use of a Kmart plate stacker for our plates and a Can Shelf for the kidlets bowls and plates. 

A nice tidy (aka OCD Neat Freak) oragnise pantry is the result of a Facebook Free Weekend (FFW). I am in love with our great is and I have done so much more baking since. I really should take recent photo as this was also taken prior to my Clean Eating : My Way.

Once again B.M. I had rushed out and bought whiteboards and corkboards but never got around to putting them up. They both need a nice coat of bright paint and it's on the TO DO LIST, I promise. This is such a handy little area to have in an other wise big wasted space next to the fridge and above the garage bin.

Keep watching for more posts on Clean Eating and of the 20 Day Organise and Clean Your Home Challenge by TOH!

I've been cooking!!!!

Not too long ago I stumbled across Wholesome Cook, via Itty Bitty Bites Brisbane, and I was blown away by the fact that Martyna had a fantastically awesome e-Cookbook, My Whole Food Philosophy, available free for a short period. I mean in this day and age there is not much that is free in this life and after being stiffed by a dodgy clean eating "diet plan", not so long ago, I was just amazed that Wholesome Cook was being so generous. You can now buy this e-Cookbook for only $6.99, here and if you use promo code: nomorejunk you will receive a whopping 30% off!

Back to the reason for my post, currently Martyna is running a Blogger Comp running where she is offering a $100 Amazon voucher up for grabs and all you have to do to enter is blog about cooking from her e-Cookbook. How could I not try to win such a great prize when I have been keen to cook one, actually all of, her recipes since I downloaded the book.

After flicking back and forth I decided to go with one of the more easier recipes and boy am I glad I did as I did not pick a fantastic night. Normally hubby and I work in sync with each other, one baths the kidlets while the other cooks (and normally washes the day's dishes).  Not last night, last night hubby was installing a new radiator in our car so it was up to me to bath and cook. Anyway I picked the Baked Spring Rolls and they were YUMMO!

I apologise now for the terrible photos, as mentioned before I was in a bit of a rush.

 Of course I took the more convenient route and went with store bought BBQ Chook. I have never cooked with Duck however I fully intend to give it a go soon though. With the BBQ Chook I decided to combine the Vegan option and add the Rainbow Salad mix. As was no surprise to me, hubby wasn't able to get Rainbow Salad mix at our local Woolsworth so it was the Fine Coleslaw mix, containing a bright mix of Cabbage and Carrot. Still a very tasty combo with a few added Coriander leaves.

To serve with the spring rolls I had store bought Sweet Chilli Sauce and homemade Honey-Lime Dipping Sauce from shape.com. The sauce was so simple to use and was very tasty.

TIP: When working with Spring Roll paper be sure to keep the paper sheets on a damp tea towel as not to dry them out. If they dry out, even a little, when it comes time to roll the spring rolls the paper will easily tear.

All in all I would recommend this recipe to anyone. My children (3.5 and 1 year old) scoffed them up with Lil Miss advising me that she would like them for her kindy lunch next week, awwww.

I really hope you check out Wholesome Cook. Martyna has so many other delicious looking recipes on her site that are not in the e-Cookbook, such as the most recent; Chilli and Beer Barbecue Pork Ribs which I know hubby will be itching for me to make.

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.

I HATE TUNA!

Which side of the fence do you sit? I sit on the "Tuna is cat food" side! I can't stand tuna and when I say tuna I mean the tinned stuff of course. I will be honest and say I have never tried fresh tuna but one day I promise I will just to say I have.

I just can not stand the smell, taste or texture of the canned stuff. I am sorry but if something is so similar to something we feed our pets why would we want to eat it?

Now I know a lot of you are on going to be sitting on the "I love Tuna" side and that is perfectly fine, each to their own I always say. This blog is not about hating tuna so much as showing my frustration at the fact that nearly every single wellness eating plan I have read has a butt load of tuna. Why, I ask, why? Alright I totally get that it's a great heatlhy option to eat but well what about us poor suckers who can not stand the stuff???? Are we destined to be fat and unheatlhy due to our taste buds? How can we retrain ourselves to eat heatlhy without jamming this horrid food down our throats? Seriously this stuff makes me gag so much. Recently I picked up a piece of sandwich from a mixed platter thinking it was ham and tomato only to realise after the first bite that it was in fact TUNA. Unfortunately due to where I was at the time, spitting the mouthful across the room, in disgust, was not an option and I had to swallow hard then move to the closest bin where the remaining sandwich was quickly discarded.
 

So if you sit on my side of the fence please join my journey to clean eating and if you have some alternative suggestions to tuna I would love for you to share them.

Take Care
Renee