When it’s NOT Manflu

This was supposed to be a recipe for grain-free, nut-free banana and berry muffins. Maybe next post!

After nearly two weeks of being weak and coughing, getting a bit better and then worse again my darling wonderful husband admitted it was time to go to the doctor.

Once we got there the doctor told him the good news that he had influenza, either type A or Swine ‘flu, that it didn’t matter which- the treatment was the same, rest and fluids, he could expect to be bedridden for at least another 3 weeks and suffer post viral fatigue for a few months after that. Not the best news at the best of times but given the plans we have for renovating and moving in the very near future it left me a bit glum.

I also confess I get a bit cross when he is unwell, my husband does some crazy things and somehow I am certain that it is his rather cavalier  attitude to safety that has caused his illness or injury (to be fair this is really only a perception but if you had seen the accidents he has been in and the way he approaches some things you may have sympathy for me).

Then yesterday his lungs started making bubbling noises (well just the right one really) and he got weaker, then he started struggling to breathe a bit. But refused to let me take him to hospital on the grounds he was too weak to sit take the sitting waiting at Emergency. So I called the government medical helpline on 1800 022 222 which was a good idea as they recommended he got straight to hospital and organised and ambulance. All good until HE SAID HE WOULD REFUSE TO GO. Luckily it seems that paramedics are used to this recalcitrant sort of behaviour and when the two women arrived a few minutes later to assess him they took his vitals and sternly explained they were going to take him in which he agreed to (to my mild surprise) on the grounds that having him here was making my life more difficult. Oh well, whatever gets us there in the end.

Now he is in hospital being treated for pneumonia, on oxygen and intravenous antibiotics and staying for the night at least.  We are waiting for blood tests to confirm he doesn’t have sepsis. I had to insist he stayed the night- he wanted to come home!

I found myself annoyed that there was a blowfly inside, it was let in by the very prompt and efficient paramedics as they stretchered my husband away to receive prompt, government funded health care. despite the occasional blowfly we are very fortunate to be able to tap into resources like this when it is needed. I am very grateful it isn’t needed more often in my family.

I am pleased he is getting the treatment he needs but I miss him already as I haven’t had more than 3 days away from him in total in 7.5 years of marriage!

Tomorrow it’s back to school, trying to muddle through decisions I normally make with my missing other half and finding out more about his current condition.

If you are worried about a health condition please call the helpline and they can advise you if you need to get some immediate treatment. It may have been a life saver for our family today.

Crio Brü CHOCOLATEY Fudge (grain free, can be vegan & nut free)

Ok see it? It tastes better than that, it is amazingly indulgent and rich, doesn’t taste like a compromise but it has a lot of redeeming features. It uses coconut cream instead of cream so you get coconut oily goodness, almonds because they are awesome and Crio Brü because it tastes amazing, it full of antioxidants and lifts chocolatey things to the next level.

If you want to make this vegan or dairy free just use dark chocolate which doesn’t have dairy. If you want it nut free omit the almonds- it will still taste crazy good!

I make this for a chocolate hit, I nearly always find I have chocolate in the house but THIS IS BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE so I tend to make this fudge with chocolate instead of just eating it these days!

OK you probably want a recipe rather than me telling you how great it is right?  It’s really easy:

1 can of coconut cream (the big ones, not the silly little ones) refridgerate it  so the cream floats to the top and solidifies- alternatively live in Tasmania like I do- this is coconut cream’s natural state here!

30 g Crio Brü of choice

200g of chocolate melts (DARK please)

100g almonds

50 g shredded coconut.

Take 3/4 of the solidified cream from the top of the can, (the watery stuff you can use in smoothies, the rest of the cream freeze in ice cube trays, handy to have goes off easily in the fridge)  add the Crio Brü and heat to boiling point, I use the microwave, you may use stove top or Thermomix also- just heat it to boiling and keep it there for a couple of minutes.

Add chocolate melts to the coconut cream.Crio Brü infusion and stir until melted, Whilst you are doing this you can toast the almonds, easiest in your microwave but can be done in the oven too.

Add almonds and coconut to the chocolatey, coconutty ganachey stuff (*drrrrrooooooool*), Stir well and pour into a small pyrex tray lined with baking paper, or cute little patty pan liners would be nice too.

Leave it to set for longer than you can bear in the fridge (a couple of hours sorry).

Enjoy sparingly and mindfully (seriously it is rich stuff!)

Jessie XX

P.S Do I need to write a post about Crio Brü? I think I might have to

Family Flu Time and Not Wanting to be “That Guy”

Things have been set to basic here for the last week. My gorgeous wonderful husband has been hit by the flu hard, he’s barely able to get out of bed for more than 30 minutes at a time and has been like this for a week now.

I got it too and for three days my Twitter activity increased even more, as anything more strenuous than interacting with 140 characters at a time was too complicated.

I am almost recovered completely but all the children have had staggered variations, one has a burst eardrum, baby girl has conjunctivitis and our younger son had it bad first, so naturally he is right as rain now and bouncing off the walls.

Whilst I was sick I tried to pay attention to nutrition, supplements, rest, yoga, anything that could help me out of the quagmire of aches, pains and spotty throats earlier. I started having coconut oil in my herbal and green teas. Coconut oil has anti-viral and antimicrobial properties so it seemed a good bet. I also ate a lot of raw garlic in spoons of avocado. This seems to have hastened my recovery but it also increased my appetite. I can eat for Australia at present and the best explanation I have is the metabolism boosting effects of the  coconut oil. I have also lost a kilo.

This is very interesting to me and even more so because I have never been able to eat much of it before, I was in terrible pain and feeling nauseated whenever I ate it which was disappointing as it has many advertised and studied health benefits but I didn’t seem to deal well with fried food or “free fats”. Then I got a new jar of coconut oil and now it seems I can eat it merrily. Which is good!

I steered away from grains as I was trying to be as nutritious as possible (except for the thin crust vegetarian pizzas we had for dinner when I was too achey and tired to move) and yesterday I made some bread and had a chunky sandwich, then I spent the next 6 hours in agony and bloated and depressed and angry and taking it out on everyone. Which was less good. So today I am avoiding wheat and other grains again and feeling fine again.  It’s not a scientific or definitive approach but I keep having symptoms like this when I eat reasonable quantities of grains so I will make a conscious effort to include some grain free eating (which is often very nutritious as well).

I always thought I ate everything but I have found that soy makes my joints ache, I can’t digest chickpeas or other dried  beans, I haven’t eaten meat other than seafood for years and now I am avoiding grains!

I don’t want to be a allergic fussy eater but I don’t want to be in pain either so I am paying attention to my body and how it feels about foods instead of worrying what other people thing about the food I eat!

I am eating fudge made with coconut cream right now- there are a lot of grain free high nutrition DELICIOUS recipes around these days.

Luckily I am too busy trying to look after a sick family and squirting breast milk in the snotty baby eyes (difficult by the way) to be too angsty about it all! Must go make the boy a cocktail (he read about them in this month’s Delicious- I make him “cocktails” by blending frozen berries with whole lemons and a bit of honey or agave in the Thermomix, add some sparkling water and strain- serve with all important straw!)

Have you found you have had to face an intolerance or allergy you just didn’t want to have?

Naturalising My Beauty Routine

 

Apple Cider vinegar, diluted raw honey, macadamia and castor oil and coconut oil at the front.

I have been having a good hard look at the things I use on my skin and hair lately as I have found a very dry scalp and a face that wants to dry up, itch and breakout (oh and work on some broken capilliaries) just hasn’t been suiting me (I know astonishing isn’t it!) So I am working on cleaning up my act.

I have made an effort to get rid of as many man made irritants as I can with out going totally feral (or broke- I love Jurlique stuff but can’t justify the price) so I have assembled a few things to help me along the way.

There are a few proprietary products I have been using which fit the bill but shampoo and conditioner has been a tough one, my hair was either lank and dull or dry and itchy of the scalp (with much scurf-y build up-not a good look) so I am taking the plunge and going shampoo free. It’s been two weeks now and going OK. I can see it has potential, whether it will suit me remains to be seen. In the mean time I will wash my head with honey, brush my hair well (and wash the brush a lot) rinse with diluted apple cider vinegar as needed. Oh and wear a scarf on my head until it settles down a bit!

I have written about the oil cleansing method before and I think it is effective- I find it gets rid of makeup pretty well, I am using macadamia oil and castor oil. I have started wearing more makeup since discovering the Couleur Caramel cruelty free, natural organic range for which I am happily acting as an ambassador (makeup is fun isn’t it! But one MUST remove it before bed!) More on this in a later post!

Coconut oil is wonderful for rashes, as a lip balm, as a leave in (but lightly applied) conditioner, it is especially great for when you are shampoo free so that’s in my kit too. I even got a little travel pack of empty bottle to store everything in! (By the way don’t pour boiling water straight in the bottles- it melts them! Oops)

I am using bicarb and Hydrogen peroxide as an occasional toothpaste which helps with my tricky not quite through wisdom teeth and leaves them madly clean.

I have experimented with natural beauty products before and gave myself a nasty rash making my own deodorant out of bicarb of soda but it looks like I can get good results with these natural products with little effort or cost so I will report back!

Have you tried going shampoo free? (I can’t refer to it as the No ‘Poo method I just… can’t!) do you have some natural beauty standbys?

Redeeming Features Food.

Redeeming features food.<

 

I try to strike a balance in our house. It can be frustrating for me sometimes as I have very adventurous tastes compared to my husband and then there are two small boys to try to work around (but most of their issues don’t come from the actual food, more from some misplaced power struggle which whilst exhausting normally results in them loving the food and eating seconds!) and of course a baby who refuses to eat anything she doesn’t feed herself (which appears to be a side effect of baby lead weaning).  I am quite happy eating  quinoa, kale chips, seaweed – (I really do!) etc but I am aware that people have different tastes to me so I don’t push too hard. Ideally of course we would eat heaps of home grown veggies, eggs and fruit but this has to balance with our current reality so I try to make sure that our food has as many redeeming features as I can fit in without protest.

It’s not about being obsessive. I see a lot of people really obsessive about what goes into their food and a lot of people saying they don’t want to eat like that, so they are the other extreme; eating absolute junk and shortening their lives. I try not to be either. I try to keep both sides down to a dull roar.

Today I made pumpkin blueberry muffins (also oil and egg free) so there is a bit of fruit, vegetables and flaxseeds, biscotti are fairly high in protein, no added fat but do have lots of healthy almonds, and cheesy pumpkin scones. None of these things are perfect foods but they have more goodness than those 100 biscuit mixes or similar and they get eaten! I would love everyone to eat like I try to but for now ensuring the food they do eat has redeeming features is a good start!

Having a Thermomix helps me but also ensuring that we have enough “healthy staples” so that there is always an option of some sort is really the key.

Here are mine:

Pantry:

Coconut cream (use for icecream with frozen fruit whizzed in the Thermomix, fudge, curries, smoothies etc)

Couscous (good with veggies)

Onions

Sweet potato

Garlic

Agave syrup

Honey

Jaggery or Rapadura

Passatta (bottled tomato puree)

Yoghurt (dry mixes)

Dinosaur shaped pasta.

Long life tortillas

Seeds (sesame, sunflower, pepitas, chia, flax)

Almonds

Bulk premium flour

Rolled oats

crio bru

coconut oil

Fridge/Freezer:

Frozen )

Frozen spinach

Frozen peas

Frozen corn

Cheddar

Shredded parmesan

Eggs

Milk

Carrots

Pumpkin.

Using these things I can whip up something fairly healthy without meal planning (which I keep forgetting to try!) and often times don’t use recipes (except for baked goods, boy do I have some disasters when I try to get all substitute-y with baked goods!)

Do you have any must have foods on your list of staples that I should add?

Why I love Vintage

Petals the Pony a Mastercraft Scotland Creation

I do. I love old and interesting. I find new yawn worthy and boring but more than that I find it doesn’t hold up to the test of time or the test of my family.

I find new doesn’t last these days. Most of the time. This is bad news with such a boisterous bunch using what’s in the house so I find another to buy older stuff.

The lovely creature above is Petals the pony. there is some heated debate as to whether petals is a he or a she but one thing is for sure Petals is TOUGH.

S/he is made mid century by Mastercraft in Scotland and I think it is made from old fighter planes (possibly, citation needed!) and although we bought it as a wacky ornament (albeit a large, beaten up and rather expensive ornament) we found our children love it and use it too. Luckily Petals is up for this with a very stern solid riding action (yes s/he moves under rider power, you move the pedals up and down- it’s pretty scary for me but the children adore it). A modern ride-on would have been in the bin a long time ago sadly. I am not sure why they are so destructive but until this phase passes I am not buying susceptible toys!

Another child proof vintage but is our Formica kitchen table setting, the seat upholstery is getting worse for wear but the table and the chairs themselves are going strong (you see the green of this table in many of my photos so you will get sick of seeing it!). I don’t mind paying for Vintage as it gives us good hard-wearing products as well as adding atmosphere to our interior decorating (is that what it is when we put all the things we like in our house? Let’s say it is!).

There are so many other benefits, not least the minimising environmental impact by not using up more resources and stopping things going to landfill as well as the act that buying vintage sees more money go to small family businesses rather than large multinationals which my have dubious working conditions for their overseas factory workers and a lot of new furniture is made with compressed board which is not only not durable (especially if it gets wet – like a Mogwai) but it could be made with weird glue which can outgas at you (also like a Mogwai? Our cat looks like some sort of gremlin and he definitely outgases!).

Do you have some great durable vintage pieces? Did you buy them or inherit? What benefits have you found?

Shortcuts to Inner Peace Anyone?

Ok we know we should meditate don’t we? I know I ought to (isn’t ought to much nicer than “should”) I think so anyway). There are so many benefits, it helps health and well being on a mental and physical level, clearer thinking, less anxiety, good oxygenation etc . Despite this and the fact that we know it can be as simple as a few minutes a day of being peaceful and mindful we don’t seem to get around to it. By that I mean I don’t. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy yoga, the mindfulness gives you a sort of moving meditation (although of course you ought to be meditating in your asana practice too…not always happening here though.) Tai Chi and probably knitting provide a similar benefit but still, we should be comfortable with being still and quiet in the mind.

It can be hard. I have tried on and off over many years to establish a regular meditation routine but it seems to slip away from me unnoticed until the monkey chatter in the mind becomes overwhelming and I start again. The last few days I have had chattering mind due to the fact we are moving (not  to the house, gee get with the program I am moving to Hobart CBD now! Yes I know how quickly plans change but this deal is done!) and popping out of bed before I am awake to check on the baby (always fine) or see if it is time for an early morning Yoga class (not for another three hours- go back to bed woman!).

It can be hard to get back to sleep so I have resurrected something a thing I used to use when our first son was a baby but had forgotten it. Listening to audio which helps your brain waves get into Theta pattern (bear with me here) which is apparently what your brain does when you are meditating. The advantage here is you can just pop in your headphones and lie down and away you go. I have uploaded mine to my mp3 player now and keeping it next to the bed it has worked like a charm. Even if I need a nap (realllly need a nap, you know- eyes hanging out of the head tired) listening to one of these tracks (around 24mins runtime) is amazingly refreshing. I have Yoga Nidra as well but they seem to take a lot of concentration whereas there is benefit in these tracks as long as you are listening through stereo headphones, you don’t even need to breathe in  special way or clear your mind.

You may have seen advertisements for similar things. It’s called Brain entraining I believe. It’s a thing. One product was heavily advertised in the late 90’s/early 00’s promising to have you meditating deeper than a Zen Monk and offering a sample CD. I tried the sample Cd which had sort of bells bonging in your ears and subliminal brain wave altering messages. It seemed to work quite well and I felt very refreshed but I was stuck on the price Which is around $180 USD. I would want to be pretty convinced for that money. Instead I found a cheaper substitute from Imramma Institute which offered a CD for meditating (or lying down and listening- do not drive whilst listening, OK?) and a couple of CDs for focusing whilst concentration (which I suppose I should really listen to at some stage in my life, like maybe when I am writing instead of checking Twitter all the time!) They cost $30 altogether.

So anyway, years down the track I have them on the mp3 playera pair of $1.85 and I am revisiting the whole thing. So far so good, I am not going to pretend it is a deep spiritual experience akin to years of meditating but I would like to bet that if I had my brain waves monitored you would find at least some of the claims are true; the time flies too, you know when you close your eyes and it feels like a second later but you have been asleep for hours- just like that.  The rest leaves me much more refreshed than normal naps too. I am amazed that when I am so tired I literally feel sick and cannot go on I listen to one of the Insight tracks (which just sound like rain by the way, no bonging bells).  Such good results for a reasonable price. WHY ISN’T EVERYONE LISTENING TO THIS? Maybe it is because the claims sound unlikely? Too much? I don’t know- they sound more realistic than many of the magazine diets to me and lots of people go for them! Ah well. I am interested to see that the Immramma Institute are offering audio to increase your intuition and problem solving.

I haven’t examined the science yet but the Insight audio has and is yielding good results for me. Maybe I will listen to the focus audio when I am writing and working and see how that goes and report back!

It probably warrants some more in-depth exploration really. It looks like there might be quite a few different products from different places online.  I will check this out too.

Oh and you ought to be meditating!

Have you tried any shortcuts to quieting your mind? What have you found that works for you?

Image credit here

Yes You are Very Clever, But are You Happy?

I spend a fair bit of time on social media. There are a lot of intelligent and educated people many of whom have a pet cause, perhaps it is politics, feminism, equal rights, environmentalism, disability awareness etc. All very noble and worthy causes. I don’t argue that any of these issues should be ignored but I have become increasingly aware that those who are most vehement about furthering their cause are the ones who seem to be giving themselves over to it. I see people who only view the world through the eyes of feminism meaning anything that doesn’t have an equal amount of female representation is a deliberate attack on the concept of equality for women. Sometimes it’s just the way things pan out but being worked up about it seems to have limited benefit for the person’s happiness and effectiveness as a whole.

Impotent rage would be an unkind but descriptive term for the sorrow and anger I see online, people pushing their cause seem to conclude that keeping it in the public eye will make the problem one people have to deal with, whilst there is no actual action on the lobbyists behalf. I hesitate to dismiss this as slacktivism which seems to be more in the realm of “click this is if you agree with marriage equality”, the people I speak of are genuinely involved with it on an emotional level but not actually doing much more than allowing themselves to get upset and making the rookie mistake of arguing with people online.

These people are mostly extremely educated and intelligent people. There is no arguing that, but I don’t see any joy or happiness in their tweets, their posts or their articles. By focusing on the intellectual side, by drawing attention to the what they see as the bad stuff, the injustices in the world and ignoring the light or worse, denigrating it for being “unscientific” or “cultural appropriation”. There seems no regard for the fact that cultures other than the one people are born in can have much more to offer the health and well being of people around the world, can increase the happiness. I know my life would be a much grumpier place to live without Yoga* and curries but these are not from my Celtic/Germanic heritage. Neither is anyone from India being exploited due to my actions. Attacking things that don’t make intellectual sense purely on this basis isn’t clever. It isn’t helpful.  Too often I see unhappy people doing their best to tear down what people use to initiate their own happiness. Happy people are what this world needs, not raging intellectual tearing down of the ethereal.

Culture and the world as a whole are evolving and some of it is for the better. Yes we may struggle with other people’s choices such as not vaccinating their children (which I can’t find any solid argument for by the way- science is at its pinnacle here in my opinion- so many lives saved since vaccinations have become more prevalent) but I think if you want to change the world for the better you need to show the world what you can be. I certainly dismiss the opinions of those who appear to be so desperately unhappy with their lot that all they can do is argue and attack others, no matter how valid the point or worthy the cause. Do I want to be like them? No? Then I won’t take on their anger.  (I am not referring to people who reach out on Social Media during episodes of mental health problems but I do hope that they are talking to someone about their depression, anxiety, bi-polar etc).

I used to live in Northern NSW where there were a lot of people who appeared to be happy. Yes they were covered in dirt, yes their concept of democracy and the way society works and science was hazy at best but through the drum circles and the pyramid sitting tree worship there was an enviable simple happiness. Their lack of tertiary education and random cultural appropriation (belly dancing whilst, doing yoga with a Native American Headdress anyone?) didn’t appear to be hurting anyone and the lack of noise in their heads seemed most desirable (of course there were also those who had been stoned for twenty years and muttered about aliens, them not so enviable).

This is just a musing, I do not have citations to give, I am not writing about any one person in particular (and there are some amazing people I know who are tertiary educated and really walk the talk too!) but if this strikes a chord with you perhaps you can think of a way to bring a bit of positivity in your world that doesn’t have a peer reviewed study about its effectiveness. Walk barefoot on the earth, volunteer to work with the people whose cause you champion so much, try a yoga or mediation class (without even being Indian!) Sing and dance. Be joyful, positive and happy! I bet you can influence the world for the better if you do!

*Yoga is, by the way, almost unrecognizable these days as the spiritual pursuit that involved sitting naked in the dirt and smearing oneself with funereal ashes amongst other things. Oh and it was only for men. It has evolved and over time the current form has been rigorously studied by Western scientists who found it not only has amazing mental and physical benefits but that the outcomes are often counter to what the process is. Put simply, it’s not quite explainable yet. So they can go and study and explain it and I will just keep practicing and receiving the benefits and sharing them with my family who likes a happier me better than a cleverer one!

Photo credit of educated but rather miserable looking monkey.