Category Archives: Using my hands and my Brain to feel sane!

ok I admit it I have been avoiding you!

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ok Blog, heart-shaped radish, however you prefer to be addressed, the thing is… I have just been so busy. I will make it short as I am sure you do not want a long-winded report on the ins and outs of Robyn world. I’ll apologise as I have to admit, its me not you and truthfully I have been avoiding you of late.

So … where to start

life changing events

I am booked in for a tummy tuck in March next year, yes a tummy tuck. I have had confirmation from the plastic surgeon that I have done all I can do to improve my condition and now it is up to the surgeons to fix it all up and make it pretty again. Now I know that you might ‘tut’ and roll your eyes and say why can’t you just be happy with your saggy skin and your beautiful kids but honestly I have tried.

I am attending university again. I am now a postgraduate doing a diploma of education in visual arts secondary level at Monash university Melbourne. 

So I am embarking on a new journey, one which will lead me to being a confident and energetic Art teacher!

I have abandoned my MOMprenuering although I am still running the beautiful toppers wedding and celebration cake toppers with my mum. http://www.beautifultoppers.com.au 

The children are in full-time day care.

There is a lot of adjustment going on at my place at the moment and things are well lets just say… A BIT CRAZY!!! 

But once I am happy to be exhausted because I have found my path, the kids are not traumatized by day-care and my husband is proud of me.

So bring on craziness I say and just do it, even if it rocks the boat and hurts a little bit.

PS. I promise to be a better friend in future. Oh and just one more thing, I am still on a mission to create tasty and nutritious treats (that are easy and quick as time is more precious than ever now)

Here is a picture of a tomato that I grew in my garden. I thought that you of all strangely shaped things would appreciate it.

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Here’s to a healthy and stress free Christmas x

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This year my family have decided on a healthy, no cook on the day approach to christmas lunch. Platters and salads all round. We are all striving for a healthier lifestyle at the moment so this will be great. This takes away so many negative factors as well. Such as Dad trying to prepare raw meat with a hangover ( this has been a disaster in the past, I wont go into it) Kids running around Mum’s feet whilst she is trying to prepare hot food on the day, most of the day being taken up with prep and cooking and lots of dishes to be done. Plus a lot more of the food will be raw and bursting with fresh, nutritious flavour.

Being a try hard organised house wife I have started the preparations already. Cherries are super cheap and awesomely sweet at the moment so I have tried out a new cherry and sour cream muffin recipe today for the freezer. (but if they turn out really yummy they might not make it to the freezer) they are in the oven as I type, fingers crossed.

I’ll come back to this post after the taste testing!

A FEW DAYS LATER!…

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Well its taken a while but here I am. There are no muffins in the freezer, they were delicious! The house has been decorated, post has been sent overseas and now I am a working mum again! A job just in time for starting the new year. Such a blessing. I will be working from home as a graphic designer for an e-learning company. I am so excited.

Plus three new veg box’s full of seeds!

http://bulladairyfoods.com.au/recipes/r790_sour-cream–cherry-muffins.php  click this link for a great recipe x I put cinnamon on top for a more christmassy feel and I used stevia sugar (natvia). Plus I used a natural light sour cream.

I also left out the choc chips.

Here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2013 x

Life is Scary…

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So happy Halloween…….and welcome November.

New month new beginnings for me.

I took a long hard look at my life today.  My health, my relationship and my dreams for the future.  It was intense. I got stressed so I aggressively kneaded pizza dough and then
ate a whole pizza for lunch….phew. I dragged myself to the chiropractor and found out that I have been ignoring some serious issues for 10 yrs. Gave my self a smack on the hand for neglecting myself and vowed to get it sorted. I also sent off the final part of my application to return to study next year so that I can teach visual art.
My 20′s were for reckless abuse of my body, mind and heart and now my 30′s are going to be the decade of recovery, re focus…rehab basically!
It’s so easy to get lost in your efforts to please everybody else and to live up to their expectations. You forget yourself. When I turned thirty in september I stopped and thought, hang on a min, what do I want?

So I applied for a uni course, took up zumba classes, made some new friends, re-connected with some old ones, saw a chiropractor about the problem I have been ignoring, and some other positive things. It feels good.

Some issues are so deeply woven and engraved that they can not simply be described on a tick list and therefore can not be solved by making a simple change. But all we can do is acknowledge them, face up to them and try to either build bridges or cut our losses and move on.

Life is scary.  Making decisions is scary. Facing the truth is scary.

You have to take charge.

I love something that a friend of mine said recently when consoling someone about their anxiety issues. She said “you have to take charge of it before it takes charge of you”. So true

ahhhhhhhh anyway that’s all a bit heavy.

I hope that you all enjoyed your witches brew and worms spaghetti and you got treated, not tricked.

The poor pizza dough that got a beating!

Sweet and Tangy Homemade Strawberry Jam x

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Summer is coming!

And I can smell it in the air, it’s so exciting. I have never made homemade jam before so I thought I would hassle my mum for some of her time and preserving expertise. My favorite fruit and veg store was overflowing with these beautiful red seedy berries that smelled of sunshine so I thought I would have a go at preserving the little beauties and giving people jam for christmas this year.

Anyway I had to share this recipe, it’s so easy and the jam came out absolutely delicious. Call me an old lady but I had a ball doing this.

You will need…

8 small sterilized preserving jars or 4 medium-sized ones.

A large thick based cooking pot

A jam funnel

A wooden spoon

A ladle

1 3/4 kilo of fresh not too ripe strawberries

3 large lemons

1 1/2 kilo of preserving sugar ( yes this is naughty so we’ll put it un the sometimes food category!)

Wash and hull the strawberries

Blend 3/4 of the strawberries and chop the rest into small chunks

http://www.theheartshapedradish.com

Simmer the strawberry mash and chunks together for 5 mins and then turn off the heat

Add juice of the 3 lemons and very finely chopped rind (about 2 tbsp worth)

Now add the sugar and stir until dissolved

Bring to the boil (no stirring) until setting point is reached.

Setting point can be easily tested by taking a drop of jam mixture and dropping it onto a cold ceramic saucer. If when the mixture is pushed gently with your finger,  it wrinkles, it is ready.

Turn off the heat and wait until the jam has settled. No bubbles should be rising to the top but you want the jam to be quite warm when you pour it into the warm sterile jars so that you create a good vacuum under the lid.

http://www.theheartshapedradish.com

Now line up your jars and ladle your jam through the  jam funnel untill they are just about full. Do not over fill!Quickly seal the lids down and put them aside to cool.

Enjoy right away or decorate for gifts.

Ferocious sales ladies v demanding little customers! facing the mummy guilt of going to work

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Hello, its been a little while and I’ll tell you why.

I have been very busy in the midst of finding myself employment. Mum and I have decided to go back to the drawing board with our little business and go out and earn some real dollars. I have had the luxury (as some might say) of being a stay at home mother for almost 3 years. It has not been a breeze as we all know (or are otherwise reminded) that being a mother is the hardest job of all.  It has been quite a journey going through this transition and I have had to let go of the guilt that come with saying goodbye to your babies in the morning and picking them up at almost bed time. My youngest is only 11 months and I am very protective of him.  Every family has to do what they have to do to survive. One income is not enough for us to live out our dreams and desires for the future,  so here I go,  off to work.  I have always stuck by the philosophy ‘happy mummy happy baby’  This has helped me through the times where that twinge of guilt for doing something that is not purely selfless arrises.

I have been reading support forums for working mums,  the only real benefit of this is that it reminds me that there are millions of us, all going through the same feelings and dilemmas.  My situation is not unique and many children are in daycare from a far younger age than mine.

I made a pledge to not surpass any opportunity that came my way and to not let anxiety stop me in my tracks. So I have excepted a job. It is a succession role, training to eventually be the manager of a contemporary silver jewelry store in the city.  This is a HUGE change for us and I have to say it is really overwhelming.  I also have to say that my new guilty pleasures are dressing in glamorous clothes, having uninterrupted trips to the bathroom and not repetitively saying….. put that down, stop that , stay still and hurry up! oh yes and being able to drink a whole cup of tea whilst it is still hot.  But my boys, as demanding as they are, are my heart, my joy, my everything so naturally I would prefer to be with them covered in snotty finger prints and patches of baby sick.

There are pros and cons to both working and to staying at home. I can’t decide who is more difficult to work with, My demanding little customers or the ferociously competitive natured  ’sales ladies’.  Either way all I can do is focus on the positives and embrace this new challenge knowing that my boys glowing little faces will be there to greet me at the end of each day.

diaryofanewwoman.org

Any working mums out there with advise or stories? I would love to hear from you.

Embracing Mrs winter

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Early morning walk on the beach

Something I find fascinating  about this time of year is SAD syndrome, seasonal affective disorder, It is a result of a lack of the things that make us happy. Mainly vitamin D. When I first heard of this I thought it was just a way to describe the misery that comes with the sheer length of the British winter. The novelty of cashmere cardigans, hot chocolates, pub fires and nights in front of a good movie with 3 pairs of socks on wares off after the first 2 months and then the cold and damp just becomes depressing. 

I live in Melbourne now where winter visits us quite abruptly and with no warning.  She bursts through the door,  blows the cobwebs away, makes you dig out your ugg boots, wooly tights and gloves and off she goes again. It doesn’t give you much time to adjust.

So I have decided to embrace Mrs winter and make the most of her chilly visit. I am going to do this by finding ways of avoiding the symptoms of SAD. Which according to http://www.healthywaymagazine.com/issue34/04_.html are as follows.

 depression

 mood swings

 irritability

 lethargy

 cravings for sweet foods

 and a general feeling of being ‘down in the dumps’

All of which come under the umbrella of depression, this is more of a breakdown of the symptoms of depression in general.

In order to combat these things it is suggested that we excercise outdoors, cut out caffeine, eat more of the foods that increase serotonin. And then there is the herbs like Passiflora and st johns wort that are like a hug in a bottle.

cuddling to keep warm x

My personal plan for happiness this Winter is to simply savour the beautiful moments, Eat what is in season, allow the winter sun to caress my face as much as possible, hug and kiss my family lots and lots!, and buy my self a really cosy, wooly jumper. Oh yeah and drink lots of homemade chai.

My first beautiful moment was  regrettably not captured on camera. We were travelling and couldn’t stop. It was very early and we were all in the car and there was a carpet of mist floating elegantly above the paddocks. In the mist were the silhouettes of alpacas and the sunlight was trying to penetrate making a fluffy shiny fairy tale of a scene.  I will pull over and take a photo if I am lucky enough to see it again.

My mum went on a bread making course and came home with a simple no knead recipe. She came in the door with a warm loaf from the oven that crackled when we broke the crust and melted in our mouths …….. I am going to learn to make bread.

In season for us are root vegetables, mandarins,  fuji apples, passion fruit, avocado….. so much to play with.  The foods which increase serotonin are brown rice, wholemeal pasta, oats, chocolate……CHOCOLATE! sorry, protein rich foods and good fats.

I have been working on some serotonin boosting recipes in the kitchen. These are a couple of examples but I will be posting some chocolate experiments soon! 

Egg plant, asparagus, root vege and salami pasta bake

Eggplants from a friends garden

Wholemeal mini pizzas made with my son

wholemeal cinnamon pancakes with homemade plum jam

Easy fluffy chocolate cake made with stevia and other nice organic things

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It’s good for you to be naughty sometimes, and it feels even better when you know what your eating is real. Real fat, real fresh, no rubbish. You can almost trick your cravings into thinking they are being fulfilled with healthy alternatives to sugar. I could have eaten this cake when I had gestational diabetes, no problem.

This particular recipe is a moderation of the mix all together recipe. You basically mix all the ingredients together , pour it into a tin and bake, awesome.

I can’t stand baking usually because it is so precise, no room for ’I think I’ll just chuck a bit of this in’ .

Heres whats in it;

1 cup of organic plain flour ( I didn’t even use a proper measuring cup!)

100g of organic unsalted butter softened

1 level tbsp of baking powder

3 heaped tbsp of pure coco

2 eggs

1/2 a cup of any natural alternative to sugar

1/3 of a cup of whole organic milk

Mix it all together with an electric mixture for approx 4 mins, pour into a greased round or bread tin, bake in a pre heated oven at 180 until it smells cooked. Pure and simple yumminess

Enjoy!

An Autumn inspired day- pumpkins, mushrooms, and a little birds nest.

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Autumn salad

A perfect Easter weekend day today, Autumn graced us with all its beauty and more. It was a bit too warm for this time of year and the hot winds made it feel very summery. But there were still bright red leaves, mushrooms popping up everywhere, chocolate treats and a family walk in the bush.

Roast beef and pumpkin roasting in the oven ( along side a little polymer clay birds nest) chicken in the slow cooker. Daddy outside making beautiful curly wurly wood shavings that my son calls “my hair” and they do look like his gorgeous copper curls.

I knew that roast meat, mushrooms, chocolate and pumpkin would be on the menu but I didn’t make any plans for how I was going to use them. It was far too hot for my favorite pumpkin, coconut, chilli and lime soup so we had a lovely fresh salad instead.

Our salad ingredients;

Cos lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, sugar snaps, mushrooms, carrot and pan-fried pumpkin seeds (in rice bran oil and sea salt) with a honey, black pepper and balsamic dressing. The roast beef was still cooking so it missed out on being perfect with this salad. I will make something delicous with it for dinner instead.

I created the little birds nest to give to my sister as a gift in return for the lovely chocolate and coconut nests she sent down to us. We ate them on our bush walk, I needed a bit of real sugar to cope with my two-year old who was being a ‘un co-operative’ to put it nicely.

Hope you all have a lovely relaxing weekend.

all photographs are my own.

Beautiful Toppers launches at the Mornington Peninsula Bridal Expo

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This image is property of Beautiful Toppers

We had an exhuasting and Fantastic day. We couldnt have hoped for a better reaction to our work. Brides to be were queing up to find out more.

I officially re-entred the world of Adults and had to talk to real life grown up people! I did ok and I survived. I started to remember what I was good at before I was good at being a mummy and now I can do both. What a great feeling. And I did it all in a size 10 blouse.