Garden antics...

It's been a busy few days in the One Girl Growing household, not with vastly exciting things, more the mundane tasks of washing, ironing and generally keeping the house tidy. Friday was a very productive day in the garden though as I re-potted 72 plug plants - Arctic Dianthus, which I'm hoping will provide some much needed weed-preventing ground cover for my borders. I was amazed at how tiny they were when they arrived and was worried that I'd damage them when I removed them from their tiny plastic covers but so far they seem to be pulling through unscathed.

 

I'm also awaiting the arrival of some Mesembryanthemum and Polyanthus so there'll be some more re-potting to do soon.

Almost half of the garden is dedicated to self-sufficient endeavors. I have a large chicken run and coop which houses 9 chickens (the 'chooks') and the rest contains two veg patches and a couple of compost bins. I've been busy planting various seeds and on Friday my girlfriend and I planted a cherry tree in an unused spot of the garden. Hopefully, with a bit of tlc, in a couple of years it'll give us some lovely cherries that we can use in pies and crumbles.

The sun is shining today so I'm going to make the most of it and weed and feed the lawn and sort out the blueberries which have been slightly neglected so far this year and need a good weeding. We're going away on our hols for a couple of days tomorrow so I suppose I should pack my suitcase too - I hate packing!

Birthdays, baking and blogging from an ipad

This is my first attempt at blogging from my iPad, partly due to me being lazy and not wanting the hassle of uploading my photos to my laptop. There's an obvious time lag between typing the word to it appearing on the screen, which is slightly annoying, but I'm going to preserve with it and see how it goes.

It's currently the Easter holidays which means I have two weeks off work - hooray! And I seemed to have crammed quite a lot in so far. On Monday it was my lovely girlfriend's birthday so I spent the day making her feel like a princess and eating cake - yum. I made this carrot and courgette cake from the Good Food website as it's her favourite (and this is the point where I discover that there's no option to add a photo from my iPad - or if there is, I can't find it so will have to do some research...):

Tuesday was spent in the garden - cutting the grass, weeding and all the usual jobs that we dash to do at the first hint of sunshine. We also bought a cherry tree which we plan to plant together on Friday.

Then yesterday I painted the bathroom and bedroom ceilings. I should have done it when I decorated the rooms but as my leaky roof needed replacing it didn't seem like a wise choice (especially when I woke up mid-winter to a dripping sound, only to discover that my loft was full of snow which was melting - thankfully the insulation soaked up most of the moisture but the ceilings didn't completely escape). But after a long day of painting and discovering the day later that I had muscles that I didn't know I had, the job is now complete. Two ceilings down, two to go - although they can wait until the summer holidays!

Today has been a tidying up and feeling very tired day. I haven't pushed myself to do too much and have just pottered around the house. I made myself this lush veggie pizza for tea:

I made the dough in the bread maker and topped it with tomato purée, frozen mushrooms, peppers and sweetcorn with a sprinkle of mozzarella on top - delicious!

Taking care of your mind

I've started to listen to some TED talks while getting ready in the morning, in fact they've virtually become part of my daily routine. I always find them fascinating and inspiring and love how it's possible to type in a keyword and a whole host of talks centered around that theme come up. My theme at the moment is 'happiness' and this morning I listened to a talk by Matthieu Ricard who suggested that happiness comes from within. As someone who has read a fair bit about Buddhism and had on-off love affairs with meditation, this idea didn't come as a surprise to me; but one thing that Matthieu said really struck a chord with me, he said that we are prepared to spend time working out, educating ourselves and looking after our bodies but we don't spend time looking after our minds (meditating). Wow! When I heard that, it hit me that I fall into the category of people that don't look after their minds; I do everything else: working out, eating healthily, taking vitamins, getting enough sleep etc. but my days are filled with such busyness that I rarely take the time to sit and meditate anymore. It's something I often think about but rarely do. But that is going to change, from today I'm going to make the time to look after my mind and spend some time each day meditating. I'm not going to set myself goals of "I'm going to meditate for x amount of time each day" as it's not a competition and I have nothing to prove, it's simply a way for me to create some space and time for myself each day, a quiet place where I can allow myself to unwind.

For anyone curious about what else Matthieu had to say, I've posted the talk below:

 

I hope you find it as inspiring as I did.

A new journey...

Sometimes your life hits the point where you feel completely stuck; you get up every morning, go to work, come home, eat, watch tv and then go to bed before beginning the same cycle the next day.  And life begins to feel somewhat mundane and...well...lifeless. That's the point where I'm at right now. Somewhere along the line, I feel I've become so wrapped up in my work and the day-to-day running of a home, that I've forgotten about the things I love in life. I no longer spend my spare time reading, baking, creating and crafting; instead my days are filled with working and keeping my home in order. Something needs to change. I want to feel inspired again rather than irritated, enthusiastic rather than exhausted.

This blog is my 'fresh start'. It's a place to chart my journey as I create more space for myself within my life and reconnect with the things I love. My previous, rather sporadic blog, can be found here, but my new commitment to myself begins right now. And on that note, before I create some quiet reading time, I think it's important to share this 'Life Manifesto' that I stumbled upon, something that I feel is important to reflect upon:

I hope it inspires you as much as it inspires me.