Writing a 'done' list

30^th September 2018

There’s no need to be perfect to inspire others.  Let people get inspired by how you deal with your imperfections.

Last day of the month, 3 months left in 2018, I don’t even care how many days it is to Christmas as for me it will be a quiet break and no more, I’m not doing all the gift giving malarkey.   I had me a good lie in this morning, 10 good hours with only a few wake ups by mom, felt good.  So far this morning, here’s my done list;

1) Walked Alfie

2) Sorted mom and settled her with the papers

3) Had breakfast with my bestie

4) Done the washing up

This is my new thing, I’m going to start doing a ‘Done’ list rather than a ‘To Do’ list because that will make me feel better!  I love the changes that are happening at WW, the rebranding is amazing and the tagline “Wellness that works”, the fact that they are embracing everything that is necessary to work on our health and wellbeing is just incredible and I’m all in.  I am not in a place right now to focus on weight loss, I try every Monday, every morning, every week and every month and I just feel a bit deflated when I lose then gain the same few pounds each month.  Instead for me, for now – not forever, whilst I’m surviving everything that is Alzheimer’s I am changing my goal to maintaining good health.  I was going to say maintaining my weight then but no, I don’t want to focus as much on the scales as how I feel, I want to feel I have the energy to cope with my life, that is what’s important.  I want to see that I am still getting things done! Hence my ‘Done’ list, it’ll be a reminder of when I’ve accomplished something, it’ll encourage me to keep going, a to-do list can be super stressful.  My done list is a written pat on the back every time I feel overwhelmed by it all, I can say to myself yeah the floor needs hovering but look this week I’ve done 9 cooking demo’s in my meetings which will have encouraged my members to get in the kitchen.  So the cooker needs cleaning, but look you’ve done the washing up and spent valuable time with mom watching movies and keeping her company. 

Ultimately my goal in life is to be happy and right now focusing on surviving and coping will make me happier than losing a stone, what is your ‘right now’ goal?

Then once you’ve answered that questions, ask yourself ‘what is the one thing I can start or stop doing that would have the biggest impact on my life?

Pick the one thing that is most bothering you, then work on that.

Words are powerful but actions are critical, nothing will change in your life until you start doing something differently.   The one thing I did differently this morning was I didn’t write my blog as soon as I got out of bed, nope I put my needs first and left it till later so I could still have breakfast with my bestie at 8am, it’s such a small thing but has made a massive difference to my day and probably to the week ahead.

Now I’m off to spend time with mom, the housework will wait, we have X Factor to shout at, she hates the Chair Challenge, it gets her very angry, which is why we’re watching it this morning and not last night when I was tired and wouldn’t have been so patient. 

Enjoy the rest of your day, I’m going to.

Still dark outside...

29^th September 2018

Spend time with people who are good for your mental health.

I spent yesterday afternoon in the company of likeminded people and it did me the world of good!  Especially as I’d already had a couple of hours to myself beforehand walking round the shops.  Having my mind stimulated with learning was just great and I enjoyed every minute of it, thinking about what was happening with our future was inspiring.  Knowing that I have always been a Wellness Coach and now we’ve been given the title officially makes me feel good.  I’m excited for my future and the future of WW!  Yesterday for me was the start of new things to come but also an opportunity for me to refresh and want to come home and get my books out and go back over stuff I already know because we all forget stuff or get a little lazy.  My mind needs stimulating again and I’m ready for that, but first to run my last WW workshop of the week and my last cooking demo, not gonna lie, be glad to see the back of Gnocchi after 11 meetings!

Now I got back last night and I’d got a takeaway ordered but it made me massively realise why people don’t want to cook on a Friday night after a week at work, I’m like that on a Thursday.  If I hadn’t have decided to have a treat, I think the Slow Cooker is the way to go, even if you can’t be doing with following a recipe as such, just throw in some chicken breasts and a jar of sauce, either a curry one or a chicken tonight style, on low for 8 hours.  Then when you get back you can just microwave some rice or the micro chips – job’s a good un.  

I ordered too much takeaway as I knew I had but I wanted a bit of everything, so I’ll mostly be living on the leftovers all weekend, then Monday I will be resetting my app and having a very great week. 

Keeping it short this morning because I have to go sort myself for my cooking demo before I sort mom and get my backside out the door, oh I better sort myself too!  Always the last on the list!  No really, I do take care of me too which is why I’m going to finish this blog here. 

Have a wonderful weekend BeYOUtiful. Xx

Yay, it's almost the weekend

28^th September 2018

Every day is a fresh start.

But not for me today, I do solemnly swear that today I’m going to eat what I fancy, and I’m thinking a curry from a proper curry house, not had one since moms birthday week back in July and it’s calling me.  Oh and now I know I can order it online now for later, well, that’s proper dangerous!

It’s going to be another glorious day weather wise, I shall be spending my afternoon at WW training, I might leave early so I can go do a bit of me shopping before the training, if I’m disrupting moms routine anyway I might as well kill two birds with one stone.  I’m glad the trainings afternoon not morning as it’s going to take me a little bit more time to recover from the last two days meetings, cooking 6 times in them, yesterday I only had Carol to help,she’s amazing and I’ve never been more grateful that when a member offered to wash up for us after the last meeting of the day yesterday, we were both shattered.

Whilst cooking I was reminded of this recipe which I told some members I’d blog, it’s delicious, if you have kids they’ll love helping you make the pasta and if you were in my meetings this week you could just make the pasta and add it to that sauce we made instead of the gnocchi!

Spinach pici pasta

Serves 4, Cooks In 50 minutes,

16sp per serving if you drizzle a tsp of oil over dish, 14sp if you leave that bit out.

Difficulty - Not too tricky

200g baby spinach

300g Tipo 00 pasta flour or plain flour (30sp), plus extra for dusting

olive oil (2tbsp - 9sp)

4 cloves of garlic

½ teaspoon dried red chilli flakes

200g baby courgettes

320g ripe cherry tomatoes, on the vine

50g pine nuts (11sp)

½ a bunch of fresh basil, (15g)

50g Parmesan cheese (7sp)

extra virgin olive oil (1tsp per plate = 2sp per plate)

In a food processor, blitz the spinach and flour until a ball of dough forms, letting the machine do all the work. Touch the dough – it shouldn’t be sticky, you want a play dough consistency, so add a little more flour, if needed. To make the pici, simply tear off 2cm balls of dough and roll them out into long thin sausage shapes – think fine green beans – on a clean surface (the beauty is that they’re all different, so get little helpers involved, if you can). Cook the pici straight away, or leave them to dry out for a few hours, or even overnight.

Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Put a large frying pan on a medium heat with 2 tablespoons of olive oil (9sp). Peel, finely slice and add the garlic, along with the chilli flakes. Finely slice and add the courgettes, then halve and add the tomatoes. Cook it all for 5 minutes, then stir in the pine nuts and add a ladleful of boiling water. Leave on the lowest heat while you cook the pasta.

Add the pici to your pan of boiling salted water. If it’s freshly rolled it will only need about 5 minutes, but if you’ve let it dry give it 8 to 10 minutes, checking on it to make sure you get lovely al dente pasta. Drain, reserving a mugful of cooking water, then toss through the veg. Reserving the baby basil leaves, finely slice the bigger ones and stir into the pan with most of the finely grated Parmesan, loosening with a little reserved water, if needed. Divide between your warm plates and serve with a few drips of extra virgin olive oil (if you do that's extra SP's, 1tsp is 2sp, with the remaining Parmesan and the baby basil leaves sprinkled over.

Anyway, that’s me for today, I’m off to sort mom, dogs already walked, here’s to surviving today in any way possible, hoping moms better than she was yesterday – Alzheimer’s sucks but it will not win.