Monday Flylady Blessings - swish and swipe

I'm happy to say that my laundry and me have made up last week. I'm quite happy! So I'm ready to ad a new babystep. My swish and swipe routine is in need of some brushing up! So ... I'm off to check if my supplies are in place! I'll ad a pic of my s&s toilet basket. I bought it when we moved back into our house two years ago after the renovation works on our house. It has blessed my S&S routines most of the times ... so a little fabulous making focus will get me going once again :)

This is a small perfume bottle/spray. I fill it up with a mixture of water and cleaning product.

This is my s&s basket. I have one in every toilet.

Sunday? Family fun! - Sea

Ooh I so enjoyed my trip. My batteries are recharged. Chatted for hours with my friends. Great food. Some me time... but completely exhausted. will ad pics and comments tomorrow!

VILLA

MARITZA :)

Ready to jump into adventures ...

Sigh ...

That's me during my early morning walk :)

Saturdays blessings - Trip to the coast/Visiting greatgrandma

This weekend I'm having a "mummy-break" :) I get to go to the coast with some friends. While DH takes the kids to my grandmother and will stay there for the weekend. Kids have been asking whole week now when they will be sleeping there .... wonder why ... could it be they get slightly spoiled there lol :)



So allthough we will be divided ... I guess we will all be blessed with a generous amount of fun. The Home will evidently be neglected :/ ... which reminds me (running off to reboot laundry just before leaving!) ... Ok ... now I can honostly say ... BUT I did take care of Mt Washmore :) and I will do some room rescueing if time permits me just before leaving! North Sea: here I come!



These videos were shot last year with the kids:

Foodies Friday - Mussels recipe

This is one of our typical Belgian dishes. It's also DH favourite ... and because it is his birthday monday, I want to surprise him! Mostly he will prepare them ... so I hope I will be up for the challenge. Here is the recipe ...

Ingredients

For 2:
- 2 Kg/4pounds mussels- 50 cl /2 cups dry white wine- 2 onions chopped in rings- garlic six cloves minced (optional)- 2 stalks leek chopped up- 4 stalks cellery chopped- pepper- olive oil or butter - four carrots chopped.

Preparation: Rinse mussels three times in cold water. Divide mussels in two pots/casseroles?. Divide veggies in two casseroles. Fruit onions and veggies in the two casseroles. Divide wine in the two casseroles. Ad the mussels and mix everything wit a spoon. Ad pepper. Put lid on. They will be ready when all mussels are open, about six minutes. We serve them in the casserole with french fries or bread.

Friday

Leftover Friday

Saturday&Sunday

Weekend with friends at the coast! Dh staying home with kids! They will be "fed" by my grandmother :)

Monday

Dh's birthday. Will make his favourite: fried cheese,clams (mussels) cooked with lots of greens and served with french fries, mousse au chocolat)

Tuesday

Grains, chicken, veggie mix cooked in tomato sauce

Wednesday

Spaghetti Bolognaise from freezer

Thursday

Potatos, fresh fish and lots of my green freezer veggies in ricotta sauce.

Toddlers thursdays - bedtime

I love bedtime. Not only mine, but also kid's bedtime :) ... We always have been blessed with our kids when it comes to an easy bed routine. Mostly they are quite happy to go upstairs for there evening story and most of the time they will go to bed without to much of a fuss ... but then there are those evenings ... and mostly they announce a period of days where sleeping isn't there primary concern ... sigh ... knowing that it will pass doesn't always ease the pain ... mostly ear pain lol.







But here is my survival guide:

• when I am more tired than the kids, I sleep in there room on the sofa



• taking one of them out of the bedroom for a time-out (mean while pray that the second one has fallen asleep)



• start putting away kids cloths in chests ... and making them stay quiet. (And pray they will fall asleep when they see that I'm not planning on letting them out of sight)



• reorganizing kids clothes (And pray ...)



• room-rescue kids room (And pray ...)



• begging dh to sleep on their couch ;)

I wouldn't advice ignoring late night parties in the bedroom ... last time I thought I had my fair share of late night parenting and thought that DH could take over 15m later when coming home ... they completely emptied out there closet, poured out their drinking water and emptied all toy bins :/ ... 15 m ... they really are miracle minutes :))

Wordless wednesday - 927

Breast Cancer Walk: 10k :)

Lifestyling tuesdays - Zumba Reel 2009

Just back fom my weekly gym session. And even our group can't escape this new zumba hype. Can you imagine a group of mostly 50+ women ... lol!

It's very hard but so much fun ... ! Never had such a great warm up lol ... but why do my hands and feet rebel against the moves? ;)

Monday Flylady Blessings - laundry

Mt. Washmore ... just when I think I'm conquering it ... a new turn occurs! Well on a positive note, I did manage to even out the laundry loads over the week. Doing one on week days and two per day during weekends. But I didn't concentrate on the other babysteps.
1. Put dirty laundry in hampers ... check!
2. Sorting ... OK although I slightly euhm exaggerate here :/
My "laundry room" is in the cellar ... OK I know that it is ONLY a cellar but it really is an awful place to do laundry, but for now there are still more important projects on the agenda ... so I'll have to try and stay patient lol. But I did manage to import an "impressive sorting unit" :)) Oh well ... maybe one day I will settle for three sorting mountains lol, for now I'm using two of these:

I have my whites hot wash, whites cold, coloured warm, coloured cold, blacks warm, blacks cold, coloured hot and a place for cleaning rags ... I just can't help myself ...


3. One load a day does keep chaos away... Yes ma'am!
4. Hanging/Drying/Ironing ... still on track.
5. Folding?
6. Putting away ....aargh!

I just will have to redo my homework ... because all this laundry is haunting me! Better get my act together before Halloween!

In need of some laundry fun?Watch this first and then this!

Sunday? Family fun! - Breast Cancer Run / Walk

Another fully booked Sunday today. First I will go have a 10k walk with my aunt from Brussels to support Breast Cancer organisations. (Will post some pics later!) The walk will go through two off the (remains) of Brussels most beautiful woods. Maybe I can gather some woody crafty material, now DianeDenmark has lightened my creative flame lol! I also will meet up with a woman who went to the same revalidation as I did so really looking forward to see how she has been doing lately ... she will be running the 5k! I'm so proud of her ... she's so amazing if you know the physical level we started from!
In the afternoon, DH, the kids and me will have an early celebration for DH's birthday next week with some of our friends. They are expecting their second every minute now, so we thought we wouldn't take any chances and claim DH quality time birthday fun, before that cute little newborn will naturally become the centre of all attention :) So chili plans are put off til later and we will probably have some take-away Chinese or go to a pizza hut (pizza is one of our favourite birthday foods when meeting up with these friends lol) nearby.
And although there really can't get anything in our way to make this a formitastic family fun kind of day ... I do hope to save some energy to save the house and my schoolwork later this evening through the by now traditional commercial break mode!

PS: Hey we Belgians get a Saint today in Rome: Father Damian!

Blessed Damien was a Roman Catholic missionary who helped lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. (Wikipedia)

Saturday blessings.

I should say "sleep in Saturday" today ... lol. Today to bless the family, we went to my aunt's in Brussels. We had a great time and I let my responsible food choices at home lol ... As an appetizer we had one of my aunt's success recipes:

Blinis with smoked salmon, sour cream and fish eggs
( caviar if you have the means lol)

It's very easy but so yummie! You pop some bought blinis in the microwave till warm ( I usually take 30secs) or warm them in a pan (which I would do when making them for guests, because you can dress them while they lay in the pan and thus stay warm!). You can also make them yourself. Or you could use pancake mix, if it doesn't contain to much sugar. We don't make them like on the picture. In stead we put the smoked salmon first, then top it with some sour cream and then put the fish eggs on top. Those little bites are real mood improvers ... !


And did my house get some love too today? Well ... that's when I hear that little voice of Marla in my head ... my routines need some loving too ... babysteps ... but I will do a 15m miracle session to end my day. Babysteps!

Foodies friday

Inspiration

Ooooh I just love food! Especially the eating part. I like to cook too or maybe I should say I don't dislike cooking lol. Now most of my life I have eaten exactly what I wanted, in the quantities that I wanted, whenever I wanted. But even though I never had any real weight issues ... I always was very intrigued about healthy food. When the doctors told me last spring that because of the meds I took when I was ill and because of the menopause I'm in at such a young age, I became high risk for developing heart diseases ... well I finally decided to do my food homework a little better!


One of the books that inspired me most is : Food & Mood: The Complete Guide to Eating Well and Feeling Your Best, Second Edition by Elizabeth Somer. It is a very good introduction I think to how your body responds to food. I think many people could find a cure for many of their medical problems in it. I am a big fan! I started to implement her food advice last august and lost about 8kg! Now don' expect a crash diet. The weight drops slowly and I exercised a lot alongside the "diet". But I feel so much better ... and the great part? It ain't a diet ... you change your attitude to food at your pace!

Menu planning:

I must admit menu planning is one (of many lol) of my weaknesses in the flylady system :) But on the other side I learned a lot from the regular mailings from Leanne. I stuff my freezer with lots of handy veggies, meats, fish, vegetarian burgers, and fruits. I make spaghetti sauce, chili, mashed potatoes, soups, muffins, brownies, bread in large batches and freeze them ... and ever since ... I really didn't need a lot of planning to get food on the table :) ... but ... we need a but don't we ... well I admit that with a little planning things could be better lol. So I will give this a go, again!

Friday:

leftover Friday

Saturday

Invited to dinner by my grandmother and aunt.

Sunday

Vegetarian chili made by dh.

Monday

Late night school meeting: Spaghetti bolognaise (meatless) from freezer.

Tuesday

Late night school meeting: DH will make Chinese food. (I hope lol)

Wednesday

Fish Sticks with mashed potatoes, carrots.

Thursday

Spaghetti with ricotta endive sauce and bacon.

Toddlers thursdays

Finding a Thursday theme took some time lol ... but why search it to far... I want to write about everything I heart and of course I love my kids to bits ... and they return the favor ... especially the bits :)
So as an introduction to toddlers Thursdays:

My dd4. Verbally knocks down everybody she meets. Addicted to candy ... and knows how to get her fix despite all my trouble to minimize sugar levels. Can be a little angel, helping me "raise" her little brother. Has a PHD in how-do-I-get-dear brother(db)-in-trouble (will get back at this lol).

DS will become 3 in December. Wants clips in his hair like DS. Has his mother's love for food ánd food preparation. Has a passion for jigsaws. Terrorises me lately with his sleep deprivation clinging.

Well :) Sit back and prepare for upcoming Thursday toddlers adventures!

Wordless wednesday

This is the emblem of the group breastcancersurvivors. The words say as you might have guessed. Can be active (after breastcancer). We try to support each other while making our bodies fit :)

Trying to get in Halloween mood!

Baking.

DH put some shelves up on saturday :)

Kids and me trying out DianeDenmark's Ghost project. We loved it!

Bye!

Lifestyling tuesdays

What about Lifestyle on tuesdays? Well, in about 15m. I will be dashing to my weekly gym session. Since I became ill one year ago, well doctors made it perfecly clear to me that I had to begin thinking LIFESTYLE. And they meant it in the most broad sense you can ever imagine. And well, being ill, one gets time to think ... alot lol. Though I don't know if they meant me to start focussing on philsophy alone :)) But one of the things they emphasized alot is EXERCICE. And just as our friend Jonathan and the Flylady try to get into our sometimes thick heads ... movement, loving movement can be so easy ... and as so many flybabies I'll ad and so d* hard haha. But I got my BTF, and I try to fit in as much loving movement as I possibly can ... not that it will be a free ticket to everlasting health, but my body really needs it more than ever. And allthough Princessy has been wining the last couple of hours that it would really improve my health to just go to bed early ... it's flue season ... you need your sleep ... But Princessy ... you will meet all hose lovely women who fought the same battle as we did, they are all tired and all are fighting of flues and colds ... but we get together every week and allthough we need to listen to our body, sometimes we have to take the tough route! Ouch this is a boring introduction to lifestyle tuesdays :/ But hey ... it's only the introduction haha! I hope I will be able to pimp it a bit next week :)

Monday Flylady blessings!

What a greater way than starting of the week, knowing that the Flylady is standing right behind you? Mondays will be devoted on the impact of the flying miracles throughout my life. I will concentrate on zones, missions, routines and the wonderful community of flybabies :)



Well this week the magic wand is aimed on laundry. Mt Washmore has been degraded to a cute little hill lately ... but still my sweet family finds ways to get their clothes dirty at a paralysing speed. And although we can enjoy clean underwear in chests and drawers, I still do most of the laundry blessing during weekends... where I could do with some me-time ;) Soooooo I know, I know ... she told me so: A load a day! Been there, done that ... hey! Will get there again :)

This is funny! First commercial of link ... euh could be my house on weekends :)

Sunday? Family fun!

Saturdays family fun has to make friends with interval home blessings like laundry, room rescues, DIY and grocery/general shopping. But one of my bigger faults is letting chores, home and schoolblessings become for fun most of the time ... and all work and no play ... So this schoolyear I promised myself that family would come first during weekends. I did pretty well I think. We went to visit some friends, went to theme parcs, went swimming ... And now I even have to introduce some more work alongside the fun haha!
So today family fun will take us to Bornem the village where DH parents live and where he grew up! There is a carnival there today and afterwards we will have dinner at my PIL. It's a pretty little town with it's own castle!

Stay tuned for the pictures ... :)

Saturday family&house blessing

Hey love this stolen blog routines already :) Well from now on saturdays will be assigned to blessing both my family and my home! A little bit of fun and hopefully a motivated family to get some chores done.
Well for the fun part. When the kids woke up I made up my mind to try and kick off with some joy! Pancakes! And the favourite music from the kids. So kids and me were making Nigella's mix . And then I made them wake up DH for breakfast Its a great thing to make with kids. I let them measure and mix. The baking part is for me. Once you made the mix, baking them is so easy ... And delicious, with maple syrup, marmalade, sugar syrup ... Mmm ....


OK, then just when I was ready for a tap on the back ... oh well picture perfectness turned ugly. Kids got in tantrummode. (Still blame dh for not getting up in time grmbl). Anyway my first official family blogfun oh well that's life. And on the positive side, both dh as dd seem to feel a bit guilty and trying to make as we speak ... euh write :)
For the blessing the house part. Well being a teacher, I have lots of school papers, books ... and I let them linger around the living room, as I am not always able to work at my desk when the kids are home .... today I solved my problem! I got this pick-nick basket this week ... well I just resigned it :)

And DH? He's hanging some shelves in the living room where we can organize our cds, dvds ... and a plant :)

Time ...

Wow writing this blog seems part of the old ages :) I've started work again! Go me! :) And I'm feeling quit proud of it. This month I learned lots. I learned that I didn't lose my passion for teaching, I learned that I can set boundaries for schoolwork when I want to. I learned that ... I really miss my twittering friends, and I learned that ... well once a she ;) OK, so quit a few of my routines went down by the drain. So I'm going to use this "teaching high" and try to jump back on.

Which were the things I did well? Well, through the last weeks I managed to find midweek some time to start thinking LAUNDRY. So although not yet on a load a day basis, I still try to lower the weekend burden. Mostly I made the bed, which is really awesome, cause that bedroom is a laundry magnet when it ain't made! There was dinner every single day! I managed to prepare my lunch for school almost all the time! I worked out almost on a daily basis! And although no p word comes in sight ... everything ran quit smoothly thanks to my dh, my grandmother and of course my housekeeper.

But there is room for progress! Every now and feelings of being overwhelmed falling on me. And I know that there will be times when I won' t have the energy to throw them off ... so I desperately need a BTF and start listening to the FLYLADY again!

And what about the blog? I really don't know yet lol. Going fit in a few plan&play moments today! But one thing is sure .... I don't want it to stay just a survey of my household glories and nightmares ... although good for falling asleep at night :) During last weeks my twittering friends, inspired me lots with theirs! But we will see :)

Wish me luck!

Day 28

Ouch :"eat good food, drink your water and get your rest. "

I'll repeat that : ouch.

Sometimes even fluttering seems to difficult ... feet seem to be glued to the ground and flying seems so far away ... but I won't give up lol :) I know flylady can help me ... I just have to give it time and take the bad days along with the good.

So lets try to get chaos out of here 15minutes of loving roomblessings at a time ... giving myself 15minutes of loving rest after each session ...!

Eat good? I really try to! Drinking lots of water. I try to eat lots of veggies, make sure to use healthy fats, eat whole grains almost all the time ... But sweets are my downfall grr ... I so much love my sweets and fats ... s long as I don't have to bake for guests or have to go out for meals I'm OK ... I need a talk with Princessy about the binging ... cause it really feels awful ... So I baked myself some low fat low sugar muffins and Princessy: You still deserve sweets, but hey one serving is enough and if you stick to it one month, we get to make a whole fat whole sugar desert of choice ... what do you think!

Day 27

Feeling very overwhelmed lately. I want so much! And time ... well our friendship is hitting a rough patch ... I would love a time out for a week or so, just me somewhere nice and quiet, no responsibilities, just me and my confused thoughts to organise and clean up. But that seems unattainable right now. And, :) , I'm hearing Flylady in the back of my head ... babysteps ... get your routine rocking and time will free up ... I see the path ... just have to jump back on! And I will.
So that's one negative voice turned around. Then there are the paenting issues. Kids are sleeping in the same room ... which never caused problems until DS2 1/2 found out how to climb out of bed and showed DD4 how to parteeeee! Ok, at first I thought: Oh well, after a day or two they will get tired and get back to their old sleeping habits .... yeah right .... they did get tired and grumpy, and mom and dad got tired and grumpy, but no sleeping before late in the evening ... I was trying to fall asleep before them on the worst days. So keep doing nothing turned out to be a big no no. So DH and I decided to pretend sleeping in there room until they fell asleep, we would take turns so that one of us could clean up after dinner in the mean while. First problem, although DD fell asleep very easily now, DS had trouble giving up on his party rhythm. Second problem, DH is associated with "FUN TIME wheeeeeeeeee" so no falling asleep when he stayed there nor for DD nor for DS. Third problem, the second problem caused DH so much stress that it ruined the whole evening for the two of us. Result I'm staying there every night sometimes till it's time for me to start counting sheep ... Very frustrating seeing my me-time vanish day after day ... so I started staying up a bit later ... so I started becoming more tired and grumpy ... and we know what a negative cycle starts then ... But now the turn for the positive. Kids are starting to forget the late night parties ... I feel that I will be soon able to start moving my way out of there bedroom ... it's just one of those parenting challenges... OK a part that asks lots of energy ... but all parents know ... we get enough in return :)) and it will pass ... we will find a new balance ...
And then there is the housework ... well I decided to add on some hours of extra help from the cleaning lady ... I feel like I'm failing myself and my family by not managing on my own, but my recovery from cancer, the hospital visits, my new views and expectations on life ... well I can't fit them in in my planning. On top of that I'm starting to work again in September ... I want to brush up a bit and start prepared which will take time too ... so I hope that I will learn to accept this and know that when my body and mind are ready to take on more, I can always cut back on the hours of help. I hope to learn to see this help as a blessing for me, to help me go my path, not as a failure. I will have challenges enough to bless my home, in finding routines that suit our family, decluttering and organising, making nutritious meals, spending fun time with DH and my kids ...

So lets jump!

Day 28 What's for dinner? We eat "dinner" at "lunch".Well when to think about that one? I must say I put a lot of time and effort in our meals. I bake bread every two weeks, make sure there is homemade soup with lots and lots of vegetables every day, we try to eat lots of vegetables with all meals, raw and cooked. We eat lots of fruits. Try to cut down on sugar. But is there a plan? Well I make sure that I have lots of frozen vegetables, meat and fish ... and mostly I decide an hour or so in advance what to make, some days are prepared in advance like when I buy a non frozen chicken, or fresh vegetables that perish easily. And on very good days I have plans for easy meals on the more challenging days when I don't have the luxury of time. So that has been my plan till recently. Lets try to fly a bit higher by planning ahead one day at least ... and lets think about it after breakfast, just before I finish up my MR.