Hello!
Wow! It has been such a long time since I wrote and even visited my blog! sooooo much has happened in the last few years, life literally flew out from under our feet and we got caught up in the flow of busy life. We are all well and happy though and now its time to come home and slow things down a little and remember what smelling the roses feels like :)
The boys are now happy and gorgeous 8 and 7 year olds (how did that happen?!!), they are well involved at school and enjoying it. We have even been through 2 winters of the boys playing Rugby! I can't believe my babies have sprouted so quickly, awesome but makes me a little sad that we have well and truly left the littlies stages behind us and we are into the next chapter of having school boys.
MrW is enjoying his extremely busy job, and he has rediscovered his love of cycling that he had as a teenager being a competitive young cyclist. He has worked very hard over the last two years and has trained and trained and trained and made his way back to being a competitive 'mature' cyclist :) He doesn't love being classed in Masters but he is doing VERY well and we are so proud of him and what he has achieved in a short space of time (brag moment but he even won silver for his age group in the 100km Rotorua to Taupo flyer race earlier this year...no easy task!).
And Me....well I have been on a whirlwind couple of years! I was diagnosed around the time I stopped blogging with an autoimmune disease called Graves disease which really made me stop and take stock of life. I withdrew quite a bit as I went on my journey to healing myself. I did get there though! I have been off the meds and in remission for a over year now and no signs of it coming back. I re-assessed our lives and although our diet was fine as I was cooking everything from scratch and eating wholesome whole foods, I needed to get fit. I walked around our hilly 6km loop about 4 times a week but I wasn't that fit.
Long story short I decided to start running and MrW convinced me to get a road bike as well. So over the last couple of years I have run 4 Half Marathons, ridden the 160km Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge and competed in a few shorter distances with managing to come in 3rd woman home in a race around lake Rotorua! I decided at the start of this year to train for the Rotorua Marathon which was in May this year...I got all the way through my training and even completed a 38km run around Lake Taupo and then just as I was beginning to taper for the marathon I suffered a knee injury and that was me out of the running and I found myself rehabbing an injury. It has been a VERY tough few months dealing with the emotional side of the injury as well as the physical. Not being able to just go out for a run when it had become such a huge part of my life has been hard, I have stuck with the bike but I haven't been able to commit fully to this with this feeling of emptiness that I can't run. ANYWAY at the advice of my physio I joined the gym to develop my leg strength and stability and to get into the pool and I have had a bit of success and have just gone into a run/walk program! oh man I can run for 2 mins at a time relatively pain-free over 5 minute intervals for a half an hour run/walk session and my spirit has lifted immensly. Funny how these things affect us isn't it?
I also went back to work three days a week when I was better from the Graves with a merchandising job since both boys were at school and we thought the money would be nice now that we both had our new sports that we were getting into. We were nearly debt free and it was great, we were able to purchase all of the equipment that we needed and a some things for the boys and we got ourselves around to a few events. It was so nice to have two incomes again for a while. But along with me working came the loss of maintence at home, I let the garden go as I didn't seem to have the time with working, training and running the family and although I still kept cooking as I have such a passion for cooking yummy nourishing food that are wholesome and not full of nasty stuff, a few things crept back in that probably shouldn't have (like jars of pasta sauce would you believe and packet flavouring for the crockpot! I felt guilty at first and then it became second nature to have a few of these things in the pantry) I stopped stockpiling as much, the bread maker got put away in favour of the cardboard slices from the supermarket and although I baked I found myself having emergency packets of biscuits instead of baking in the freezer. The green cleaners disappeared as well and in came the chemical versions again...and my dermatitis. We still ate healthily enough though, we had to with training, our bodies need a lot of nourishment doing the endurance sports that we were doing. I wasn't happy with things as they were but I could live with them...it gave us a second income right?
The saving grace came with this knee injury, part of my role was climbing ladders and kneeling on the ground, both of which became incredibly difficult and painful with a gammy knee. Eventually it got to the point where it was obvious part of the reason I wasn't healing was because of my work.
MrW and I had some big decisions to make and we decided that although the second wage was nice, the kids were missing out on having Mum home after school and in the holidays, I didn't have the time or energy to feed our family in the way I prefer to and life was just far to BUSY. We took it as a blessing in disguise and I left work and came home, but it was on the agreement that I spend the next three or so years while the kids are still at primary and need Mum around for afterschool and holidays studying towards a degree to set a new career up for later in life. So back on one wage we go and time to re-acquaint ourselves with frugal living again.
So here we are my lovely blogging friends, I am back home and now studying towards a Degree in Accounting and Management via correspondence. I have slowly been trying to chip away at cleaning things up again but I have over committed myself for the moment (hard for me to admit this) and jumped into two papers for my first semester not knowing exactly what the work load would be like. But I am nearly finished this semester (early Nov) and then I am dropping to one paper to gain some balance. All the foods of convenience are long gone and the bread maker is back in action and the oven/stove is on at least once a day :) Gosh it feels good and I'm starting to be able to appreciate just living in the moment again. I am slowly getting some of my green cleaners back into the cupboard and The garden...Oh my poor garden.... we have plans when the semester finishes to get in and clean it up, I even have some seedlings patiently waiting to be planted in the soon to be resurrected vege patch...and we have even been talking about some chooks to add to the family.
We have changed a little of our food philosophy over the last wee while. I have researched a lot regarding just what our bodies need to sustain the training we do, and I have discovered a lot about the effects that refined sugar has on our bodies, the effects of choosing low fat options over the traditional good fats like Butter, full fat milk and cream and the differences in some of the flours we have been using. We are focused on nourishing wholefoods and clean eating, but I could never live without my sweet treats....of which I now have plenty of recipes for guilt free treats to share with you! But I will write a separate post on this another time :)
So I am waking my blog up :) I have soooo many recipes that I am trying that I would love to share with you all, I still use my old ones and some I have adapted to our food philosophy changes.
I would love for you to join me getting back to the slower pace of life, I am enjoying being back in the kitchen full time cooking nourishing whole foods from scratch, getting back into the garden but most of all, have a cuppa with me and enjoy smelling the roses :)
MrsW xx
Wow! It has been such a long time since I wrote and even visited my blog! sooooo much has happened in the last few years, life literally flew out from under our feet and we got caught up in the flow of busy life. We are all well and happy though and now its time to come home and slow things down a little and remember what smelling the roses feels like :)
The boys are now happy and gorgeous 8 and 7 year olds (how did that happen?!!), they are well involved at school and enjoying it. We have even been through 2 winters of the boys playing Rugby! I can't believe my babies have sprouted so quickly, awesome but makes me a little sad that we have well and truly left the littlies stages behind us and we are into the next chapter of having school boys.
| The crazy boys and I |
And Me....well I have been on a whirlwind couple of years! I was diagnosed around the time I stopped blogging with an autoimmune disease called Graves disease which really made me stop and take stock of life. I withdrew quite a bit as I went on my journey to healing myself. I did get there though! I have been off the meds and in remission for a over year now and no signs of it coming back. I re-assessed our lives and although our diet was fine as I was cooking everything from scratch and eating wholesome whole foods, I needed to get fit. I walked around our hilly 6km loop about 4 times a week but I wasn't that fit.
Long story short I decided to start running and MrW convinced me to get a road bike as well. So over the last couple of years I have run 4 Half Marathons, ridden the 160km Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge and competed in a few shorter distances with managing to come in 3rd woman home in a race around lake Rotorua! I decided at the start of this year to train for the Rotorua Marathon which was in May this year...I got all the way through my training and even completed a 38km run around Lake Taupo and then just as I was beginning to taper for the marathon I suffered a knee injury and that was me out of the running and I found myself rehabbing an injury. It has been a VERY tough few months dealing with the emotional side of the injury as well as the physical. Not being able to just go out for a run when it had become such a huge part of my life has been hard, I have stuck with the bike but I haven't been able to commit fully to this with this feeling of emptiness that I can't run. ANYWAY at the advice of my physio I joined the gym to develop my leg strength and stability and to get into the pool and I have had a bit of success and have just gone into a run/walk program! oh man I can run for 2 mins at a time relatively pain-free over 5 minute intervals for a half an hour run/walk session and my spirit has lifted immensly. Funny how these things affect us isn't it?
| MrW and I after finishing the massive 160km Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, MrW finished in just over 5hrs and I finished in 6hrs....we were pretty tuckered! |
I also went back to work three days a week when I was better from the Graves with a merchandising job since both boys were at school and we thought the money would be nice now that we both had our new sports that we were getting into. We were nearly debt free and it was great, we were able to purchase all of the equipment that we needed and a some things for the boys and we got ourselves around to a few events. It was so nice to have two incomes again for a while. But along with me working came the loss of maintence at home, I let the garden go as I didn't seem to have the time with working, training and running the family and although I still kept cooking as I have such a passion for cooking yummy nourishing food that are wholesome and not full of nasty stuff, a few things crept back in that probably shouldn't have (like jars of pasta sauce would you believe and packet flavouring for the crockpot! I felt guilty at first and then it became second nature to have a few of these things in the pantry) I stopped stockpiling as much, the bread maker got put away in favour of the cardboard slices from the supermarket and although I baked I found myself having emergency packets of biscuits instead of baking in the freezer. The green cleaners disappeared as well and in came the chemical versions again...and my dermatitis. We still ate healthily enough though, we had to with training, our bodies need a lot of nourishment doing the endurance sports that we were doing. I wasn't happy with things as they were but I could live with them...it gave us a second income right?
The saving grace came with this knee injury, part of my role was climbing ladders and kneeling on the ground, both of which became incredibly difficult and painful with a gammy knee. Eventually it got to the point where it was obvious part of the reason I wasn't healing was because of my work.
MrW and I had some big decisions to make and we decided that although the second wage was nice, the kids were missing out on having Mum home after school and in the holidays, I didn't have the time or energy to feed our family in the way I prefer to and life was just far to BUSY. We took it as a blessing in disguise and I left work and came home, but it was on the agreement that I spend the next three or so years while the kids are still at primary and need Mum around for afterschool and holidays studying towards a degree to set a new career up for later in life. So back on one wage we go and time to re-acquaint ourselves with frugal living again.
So here we are my lovely blogging friends, I am back home and now studying towards a Degree in Accounting and Management via correspondence. I have slowly been trying to chip away at cleaning things up again but I have over committed myself for the moment (hard for me to admit this) and jumped into two papers for my first semester not knowing exactly what the work load would be like. But I am nearly finished this semester (early Nov) and then I am dropping to one paper to gain some balance. All the foods of convenience are long gone and the bread maker is back in action and the oven/stove is on at least once a day :) Gosh it feels good and I'm starting to be able to appreciate just living in the moment again. I am slowly getting some of my green cleaners back into the cupboard and The garden...Oh my poor garden.... we have plans when the semester finishes to get in and clean it up, I even have some seedlings patiently waiting to be planted in the soon to be resurrected vege patch...and we have even been talking about some chooks to add to the family.
| This is my very poorly neglected vege garden.... |
| New Life! Seedlings ready for the vege garden's revamp :) |
We have changed a little of our food philosophy over the last wee while. I have researched a lot regarding just what our bodies need to sustain the training we do, and I have discovered a lot about the effects that refined sugar has on our bodies, the effects of choosing low fat options over the traditional good fats like Butter, full fat milk and cream and the differences in some of the flours we have been using. We are focused on nourishing wholefoods and clean eating, but I could never live without my sweet treats....of which I now have plenty of recipes for guilt free treats to share with you! But I will write a separate post on this another time :)
| MMMMM Omelette for lunch! |
So I am waking my blog up :) I have soooo many recipes that I am trying that I would love to share with you all, I still use my old ones and some I have adapted to our food philosophy changes.
I would love for you to join me getting back to the slower pace of life, I am enjoying being back in the kitchen full time cooking nourishing whole foods from scratch, getting back into the garden but most of all, have a cuppa with me and enjoy smelling the roses :)
MrsW xx
