Friday bits and bobs

Just checking in here, it’s been a week of readjustment and joy.

Sometimes news knocks us off balance, not because we are not happy about it, just because it means we need to change course a bit, reballance, reappraise, realign.

That is a good thing because it actually encompasses way more than the instigating factor, we rebalance everything as we adjust.

Often, most times, we don’t realise how stuck and repetitive we have become and this can (come on, usually right?!) be in negative patterns or in things that aren’t the best for us.

Over the yard arm drink, watching that boxed set again, beans on toast again, yet another sleepless night…

Whatever, they are not terrible in their own right although you might agree none of them are the best thing for you on a loop!

Maybe worth having a think and a look at your loops.

This week I have been doing a lot of dancing, yoga, guided relaxations, walking, it’s been gorgiously warm and sunny and lovely to walk in the autumn colours with the sun on your face. It is so good to move! I can’t stress it enough. It raises your metabolism, releases your happy hormones, lightens you and if you are trying to follow a routine it is quite meditative and takes you out of your loop because you are concentrating on something else. You don’t have to be a super duper dancer, just do what feels good to you. Move more than you did even if that means walking at a snails pace. Sometimes we need to push ourselves, a bit of firm and kind encouragment never goes amiss.

And so, a couple of easy, nutritious, non-inflammatory and satisfying recipes for you.

Simple soup

I have given ingredient ideas, it is not rocket science, be easy, a bit more or less will be fine, adjust to what you have, it is all good!

I actually made mine with a 6 inch piece of squash, organic so I washed but didn’t bother peeling it, half a left over parsnip, 1 leek 1 miso stock cube, a pinch of cayenne, lots of pepper.

1 Butternut, or almost any squash. Depending on size use a whole one or part – you can judge!

1 onion and/or leek

1 parsnip (or turnip, swede, carrot)

1 miso stock cube

ground pepper

pinch cayenne or another chilli of you fancy some heat.

Chop it all up, put in pan and stir a bit over heat with a splash of olive oil. Cover with water, add stock cube and seasoning. Cook until all tender and whiz it up. I used a stick blender so I didn’t have to wash a whole blender.

Souped up-

Throw in a handful of frozen peas. By the time you serve and eat they will have defrosted and make lovely fresh little pops in your mouth.

Stir in a handful of baby spinach, by the tie its is on the bowls this will have wilted and be a great contrast to the silkyness of the soup.

A chunk of goat’s cheese in the bottom of the bowl (Robin loves this) goes deliciously melty.

A great dollop of yogurt (I use live sheep’s, I find goats too tangy generally but it could be a nice contrat for the sweet squash) plopped on top, especially if you used chilli in it.

Sprinkle with diced avocado, tomatoes, red onions and fresh herbs.

Drizzle with herb oil or a good plain olive oil.

Wrap and roll

Take a wrap, any wrap – Robin had flour tortillas, I had dehydrated flax and courgette wraps. You could make or buy coconut wraps, use corn wraps, Nori sheets or rice (spring roll wrapper) sheets, even make socca pancake wraps (lots of recipes online). Lets face it if you are eating bread you could simply make it into an over stuffed sandwich!

Pile on some greens – I used water cress

Layer up with coleslaw – I made a big bowl the day before using sliced white and red cabbage, cucumber, onion, red pepper, cellery and grated carrot with home made mayonaise

Add sprouted beans I used mung beans (instructions below – they are EASY, CHEAP, NOURISHING and go with anything!!)

Wrap it up and eat.

Pimp it-

Sprinkle of  spices, chilli, salt and pepper.

Scatter lots of chopped fresh herbs – mint, coriander, chives, basil, lemony sorrel…

Goats cheese (or feta would be good) rounded Robins out.

Boost the benefits with some fresh garlic in the cl-oleslaw or runn–bbed over the wrap.

Spread some humus, recipe here Tweak… and twerking would help too!

Sprouting mung beans

2 TBS mung beans (they expand a lot!) rinsed and checked for any little stones

Soak in a bowl of water (start with warm water for sweeter sprouts) for about 8 hours or over night

Drain in seive, rinse and replace in bowl.

You could put them in a jar with some mesh over the top. It’s supposed to makes it easier (so the perveyers of jars with mesh lids say) but I always end up doing it using a bowl and seive these days -so I suppose I have found that easier!

Rinse twice a day until the little tails are the same size as the bean. You can go longer but use before they grow a leave, you just want the tail.

Snack on them as they are or sprinkles with some pink himalayan salt.

Great alternative to crisps splashed with a little oil, apple cider vinigar and salt.

Add to soups, wraps, salads, stir fries.

You could add to anything savoury really!

Happy weekend xxx

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Renovations dirty, frustrating, exciting

Do you ever have days when the thing you found so motivating and exciting yesterday is exhausting and overwelming today?

Welcome to my world!

I have been scared of heights for ever; I couldn’t go up the ladder to the first floor of the ‘little house’, the old tumble down house we are now renovating to move into so that the whole of the main house can be used for retreats, holidays and possibly B&B.

On Saturday, after months of attempts and a few days last week of “OK, Robin I am doing this, would you just turn the ladder that way then I will be OK?”….. I wasn’t. Then “OK, Robin would you put the scaffolding up under the hole and I can just climb up, easy!”….. It wasn’t, I didn’t.

So then he put a combination of ladder and scaffolding, then added planks, then stood on it all himself; no go.

So back to Saturday, I just decided and said to myself “I am a person who goes up ladders!” marched over, asked him to stand on the planks next to the ladder and walked straight up, hurrah!!!

Then I had to decide I was also a person who could climb down ladders. I did (eventually and with a few wimpers) and massive progress has been made.

All the bedrooms and bathrooms have been measured out and moved around until they worked. Of course all the windows and beams are not exactly where we thought, so I did a lot of moving around, toilets, basins, baths and showers juggled until there was enough room to get through a door and put a chair, a towel rail, a without going to the loo in full view of the garden etc.

It was fun and exciting.

Now it’s Thursday and Robin is still putting in the windows which don’t all fit (understatement) so have to be cut, filled, wedged and balanced to work inside and out on a crooked wall, a sloped sill, a wobbly lintel and two of us who think different things look best ha!

I have been putting more grass seed down on top of the seed that hasn’t sprouted – again. I am still wire wooling the floor in the main house, the electrician who has been promising to arrive for weeks didn’t turn up again (thats him out, enough is enough) and we are tired.

No amount of green juice, powdered or fresh wheatgrass or chia and aloe filled smoothies will help this mood – thank heavens for chocolate cake and juicy cherries! Raw, grain free, dairy free and energy boosting cake with cherries we picked and froze in the summer.

Sorry for the moan, better go and mow the weeds now while Robin calls the guy building the gate posts to ask where he is…..

Desri X

www.boutiqueretreatfrance.com

Instagram desrigoodwin

 

 

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Doing or going to do – that is the question.

Lets have a word about procrastination, avoidance, distancing.

A client came to me about ‘all the things he has to do, and that he was not succeeding or getting anywhere’. He felt between a rock and a hard place, nothing was working.

We spent a lot of time talking and have spoken many times before about other things. I noticed that one of his frequent sentences was:

“I am going to……”or, I will do …” and often, “I should have done….”.

He was very focused on all the different things he had to do and on the point that he was not good at multi-tasking instead of focusing on a job in hand. Therefore getting nowhere other than more and more depressed and worried and distanced from what needed doing.

I explained that an example of multi tasking could be talking the phone (clutched under the chin) talking to a client whilst feeding the baby in one arm and stirring the soup with another. Or, filling in your accounts on the computer whilst on speakerphone to a supplier and watching (and worrying about) your expensive employee chatting to their best friend on the phone, again.

I suggested that having various jobs or commitments, keeping hydrated and exercising are not multi tasking unless he was planning on lifting weights whilst riding on the sit-on mower and making deals on his mobile.

I also suggested, somewhat forcefully after he kept escaping from our conversation to all the things he will do, he only needs to do one of these various jobs at a time. It creates variety, which we all need. The jobs do not over lap at all and if each job was given an allotted day or time slot and done properly, whole heartedly and thoroughly he wouldn’t have to think about it whilst doing another job. Therefore no multi tasking required.

I advised that he take job A – (which is basically selling) and has a list of everything that is required, the clients list, items he needs to sell, his target written down clearly. Then on that job’s day he starts and does absolutely everything he can with all his resources to get the best possible outcome on that day. So e-mail, phone calls, post if all else fails. Explore every avenue and be creative (if a contact number is not immediately available look at every possible way you could get one or make contact). At the end of the day he may feel a little frustrated if he has not made any contacts BUT ultimately he will feel immensely satisfied that he did everything he could to the best of his ability during Job A’s time slot. No point worrying about it afterwards, it will not change a thing. Let all the hard work percolate until the next time it is Job A’s time slot.

Next day he takes Job B and applies the same intention, intensity and determination and so on.

Maybe as there are a few different jobs have 15 – 30 minutes just to address any e-mails or things to deal with such as if the best client in the world’s PA sends an email to arrange a meeting…

Then, when he is mowing the garden (or driving the kids to dance class or doing exercise) he can put some great music on or an audio book, drink a beer and multi task happily (beer drinking is not applying to the bracketed options obvs 😉 this then becomes recreational rather than part of the job pile.

Lets also talk about ‘job’, ‘task’, ‘commitment’. Make them fun/interesting/exciting and they become enjoyable. Who wants to just do a job compared to playing at chatting to people, finding out how people work, feeling successful and providing something that someone needs? Who wants to do a task or fulfill a commitment when they could be playing at mowing, singing their heads off drowned out by the engine, zoning out to their favourite tunes or being told a facinating and exciting story. Think about how to make what you do into what you want to do. Life is to be enjoyed not endured, how lucky we are to have it.

I worked in a shop at one point and it was so boring until I made a challange to be the fastest on the till (it was the olden days, you keyed the money in as you passed the products along the counter beside you) and to try to get as many people a day to smile. In the end I had lovely if brief chats with people who I got to know in a chitchaty way, and was the fastest cashier in the North – my till was always out by a few pence either way (always!!!) so I didn’t get a pat on the back but I did get a lot of smiles 🙂

The moral of the story is you can spend so much time worrying about that big pile of stuff over there rather than concentrating on jumping right on top of the smaller, more manageable pile of stuff right in front of you. Jump right into the centre of it, splat!, and sort out every tiny little bit of it then go over to the big pile, take what you can carry and put it where the little pile was and jump splat! into the middle of that one and deal with it. How satisfying!

Saying “I will do….”, “I am going to do….” and “I should have done….” is SO much better changed to “I am doing”.

I am drinking water and I am hydrated.

I am exercising and I am fit.

I am dealing with this now.

I am doing my best right now.

I am in control.

I am satisfied.

I am finding a way to enjoy what I do.

I am doing it, now, in the way that works for me.

I am I!

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I am moving this blog back to Whatdesrididnext.wordpress.com. If you want to join me there I would be very happy! Thanks for reading.

Desri x

www.boutiqueretreatfrance.com

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Little woman, me?

Well I am little physically, 5′ 1 1/2″ to be precise.

I don’t like being called short but small, petite and little are fine.

That is not the issue. It is far more sensitive than that.

Yesterday I mentioned to someone how much I have always wanted a certain type of stove, the one that warms the heart of the house.

They said something along the lines of “your husband will have a fit at the running costs”.

I groaned just typing that.

Why, is it assumed that I would not have a fit at the running costs, pay the running costs, be responsible for the running costs, finance the running costs?

We had friends to stay a while ago and took them on a petit tour and passed the hotel de ville. The lady said “Our husbands should buy us a place like that”.

Our car has been called my husbands car and our house has been called my husbands house. Even my businesses have been called my husbands businesses on quite a few occasions!

I once had a male printer who had made a complete hash of my brochure printing – they went from mainly blue through a few balanced coloured to mainly red and back again through thousands of brochures. It doesn’t matter what the brochures were showing really, bad printing is bad printing, but they were clothing so highly important that people saw correct colouring.

When I asked what he would do he said nothing, he didn’t need to see them and indicated I was making a big fuss and condescendingly suggested I had a little chat with my husband about it! Well, you can imagine.

Needless to say I (not my husband) did not pay him.

When I laughingly told my husband about yesterdays comment (it was by a lovely man who would probably be really embarrassed at how it sounded, or think I was ridiculous for taking it that way 😉 he asked me ‘Does it bother you from a significance or a sexual equality point of view?”.

Such a horribly and annoyingly reasonable question.

I do hate, after all these years in business, that being female can make you so insignificant in a business and financial world. I also dislike that I still care and need that significance.

I wish I could calmly rise above it and be content with my own knowledge of my achievements.

Or maybe I don’t. I want to be thought of as super woman, divine wife, perfect mother, great business woman and I want one of those oil guzzling stoves for ‘my’ kitchen.

Oh…

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Vulnerable? Me?

I find myself in an amazing world, living an amazing life, with amazing possibilities.

I have an amazing home, amazing kids and an amazing husband.

All perfect then? Hmmm, not really…

I am in a situation that isn’t great. The odd person who makes life difficult. Makes me feel bad. Often actually.

I’m not sleeping very well, 4 hours last night and about the same the night before.

All because of this situation and the odd person.

I really love metaphors, I use them all the time, in fact, sometimes I use more than one (I’m trying to learn to keep them to a minimum!).

I heard a great one the other day from my friend Emily. She was talking about her Mums latest diet and how if she gives into temptation once she gives up and thinks “That’s it, I might as well just be bad all day, I’ve messed up, why continue blah, blah, blah” – you know the sort of thing. Emilys metaphor for her Mum was; Imagine you have a collection of beautiful assorted porcelain tea cups and you drop one and it smashes, would you then just smash all the rest!”?

Another one I heard in some training or other was;  If you watched a really, really bad film would you sit all the way through it, and then watch it again, and again hundreds of times?

Obviously the answer to both is “NO, of COURSE not!”

But we do just that, well, I know I do! We replay things over and over in our minds. Every time we replay them we re-feel the hurt, anger, sadness, pain, injustice. So really aren’t we hurting, angering, saddening ourselves?

We spend time (waste time) hating the person who “did that to us’ but they only did it once (or lots of things once maybe) and we perpetuate it. They may not be a nice person but it is US who keep beating ourselves with their stick.  And so we get stuck. Tired. Depleted. Disempowered. Disenchanted. This can leave us unable to deal with even small set backs (you know like spilt milk, or someone nipping into the car parking space we were waiting for) and unable to enjoy all the amazing stuff because we are so over come with the ongoing replays of bad things that have happened. Often things that happened days, weeks, months or even years ago! And if they are still happening we are multiplying them so we are juggling lots of bad things not just dealing with the one in hand.

Imagine playing a song you love but at the same time you have three or four other tunes that you really don’t like at all playing – would you really enjoy the tune you love? Would the others playing at the same time take the joy out of it? Would they spoil it?

I think they would rather (probably make you go a bit mad too – so lets add that into the mix). Funny what we do to ourselves isn’t it.

Time to stop. You can. I can. Just put the stick down, turn the other tunes off, throw out the bad film, put the china in a cupboard.

JUST STOP.

Vulnerable…..me? Yes, vulnerable to me.

So who’s the odd person?

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