Happy Sunday everyone, hope you are enjoying your weekends! This week has been such a strange one. James has been off which has been awesome, but we’ve had so much to do it’s felt quite rushed. We’ve had bank appointments, dentists and nursery visits and we’ve needed to have things fixed around the flat. We’ve decluttered on an epic scale to try and make our space more attractive to potential buyers, which on one hand is great, but on the other leaves me feeling quite unsettled without my ‘things’ around! My mood has been all over the place as well depending on the amount of sleep Finley has allowed me to get, luckily he’s been having a few good nights to make up for the really bad ones. In general it has just been one of those weeks where I’ve felt like life is throwing a lot of lessons at me, I’ve had a lot of deep thoughts put it that way!
It was also James Birthday so we enjoyed another interesting date night. I’ve also had some great news about the blog and Grains and Mains being featured in some newspapers this weekend and next. Phew! With all that going on I’ve been enjoying my superfood packed smoothie bowls to keep my energy levels up!
Eat
porridge with blueberries, cashew butter, goji berries, seeds, cacao nibs and raw almond ‘cream’
pear porridge with cashew butter and gojis
homemade muesli with a mix of oats, granola and gojis
Pret treat lunch!
Great Food Tuscan Vegetable bites with salad, red onion and tahini dressing
roast carrots and beets with rocket and feta
Harissa baked chicken with sweet potato and roast brussels sprouts
Blueberries, greek yoghurt and homemade lemon curd
Homemade cacao mint bounce balls! These are vegan as well, will share recipe soon!
On Thursday night we headed out to the Jesmond area of Newcastle for James birthday. We visited Dabbawal, our favourite Indian street food restaurant where I enjoyed a delicious chicken korma with vegetable rice and bombay potatoes. After that we grabbed a Starbucks and went in search of a random street address for our first Sofar Sounds gig. James lives and breathes independent music, so this was perfect for his birthday! We enjoyed listening to three musicians unplugged from our cushions on the living room floor of the host. It was an unique live music experience indeed!
Move
- Monday – yoga challenge 5 minutes
- Tuesday – yoga challenge 5 minutes + gym workout: 10 minutes cross trainer, bike and step machine, core exercises
- Wednesday – yoga challenge 5 minutes + gym workout 10 minutes cross trainer and step machine, squats and deadlifts
- Thursday – yoga challenge 5 minutes
- Friday – yoga challenge 5 minutes
- Saturday – yoga challenge 10 minutes
- Sunday – planning on a little run later this morning!
I had planned to get to the gym more with James being off (so I had someone to take care of Finley) but that didn’t really come off! I was going to go bright and early on Monday but I was SO exhausted I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. I dragged myself there on the Wednesday after a hard night and actually felt a lot better for it. Still loving the yoga challenge, I’m generally doing a few minutes before bed to relax which is lovely, next week I might try more mama and baby yoga from You Tube.
This week I also agreed to sign up for the Newcastle Stampede 10K with my cousin and a few others to raise funds for The British Heart Foundation. I must be nuts!
Wear
I did a bit of shopping this week and picked up this striped blazer and top from New Look. I was going through one of those ‘I have nothing to wear’ moments after I did a declutter on my wardrobe filling a huge charity bag. I felt much better after that though, although I’m looking forward to spring fashion now!
Love
I treated myself to a Share the Love Lifebox for Valentines Day! I think these are pretty amazing value when you look at what it would cost to purchase these snacks alone. I thought it was the perfect healthy treat for my body! Also…
Finley’s first ‘meal’! I pureed some avocado with breast milk for his lunch and he enjoyed a couple of spoonfuls // getting my business accounts done and seeing that I’d actually trebled my profit from last year, whoop! // James surprising me with a bar of salted caramel Lindt for v-day // signing up for a business mentoring programme // making homemade almond milk // Wholeheartedly Healthy being featured in the Mail on Sunday!
Link
- Cuppa and Cake Valentines Day gift with Wrap.me – get my recipe for a microwavable chocolate raspberry cake!
- Recipe for Harissa Chicken Salad with Avocado and Lemon Tahini Dressing
- Healthier ways to enjoy chocolate including raw chocolate recipes
- New moon magic via Gala Darling
- Seriously Super Cereal via My New Roots
- Motherhood: tips on getting things done via Maidae
- Healthy breakfasts for busy mornings via The Road to Less Cake
- Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge recipe via She’s So Lucy
So yes, it’s been one of those up and down weeks, but mostly up it has to be said :-)
How has your week been? Did you do anything to mark Valentines Day, even for yourself? When was the last time you decluttered?
I absolutely adore that Lindt chocolate – the dark chocolate with sea salt is amazing too but I can’t stop at a couple of squares! sounds like you guys managed to squeeze some fun in with all the things you had to get done this week! I had what felt like a very busy week too. lots of stuff going on at work, study to do and trying to keep up with the little one but I got surprised with some lovely flowers on V-Day and we went out to dinner at our favourite restaurant in town that night too, then I got up on Sunday morning to run a Colour Run which I had been given the entry to the night before! It was fun but the competitive runner in me got frustrated at all the people stopping and getting in my way while I was trying to run ;-) i definitely think I’ll stick to your traditional races from now on! Hope this week is a bit more settled for you and you have some luck selling the flat!
I really want to do the colour run this year! But I can imagine it was a pain with people in the way of you, I was the same when I used to run more seriously :-)
Weeks like that are so weird, glad it has been mostly positive though!
All of the food you’ve posted about looks and sounds amazing!! Love the colours in the first two bowls especially :) YAY for Finley’s first meal too! :)
I keep looking at those boxes and wanting to get one so will have to treat myself I reckon ;)
Congrats on trebling your profit from last year too – amazing!!
That run looks like fun, although very muddy!
That gig sounds very cool- Andy and I try to go to one gig a year as that is how we met and we used to go to lots of gigs and festivals and allsorts!
Fingers crossed that your decluttering helps with selling your flat.
I’m currently on a decluttering mission, the problem is I get bored so easily and just at the point where I’ve finished creating the big mess before I even get on to the decluttering part!!
I keep thinking how nice your pear porridge looks on your posts, how do you make it please?
Hi Fran, sorry for the delay in replying to this! I make the porridge as I do here:
https://wholeheartedlylaura.com/2014/03/make-super-creamy-custard-porridge.html
Then I just slice a pear and add that into the porridge along with 1/2 tsp ground ginger, it’s yum!
Your porridge bowls look so good! That sounds like a lovely thing to do for James’ birthday and I love that blazer and top. x
Epic decluttering over here too this week. Not because I’m moving, but because I’m tired of living with SO much stuff I don’t need. Its so hard to get rid of stuff you have an emotional attachment too. I think its the coming of Spring that brings it on. Congrats on good news, and hope you have a better week next week!
Sounds like a good week, congrats on being featured in the press. Yay to Finely getting avocado :)
Salted caramel chocolate from Lindt is the stuff dreams are made of – I love it but can never find it! Great looking meals, that chicken, sprouts and sweet pot dinner looks so so good!
Ooooh we had salted caramel truffles from Thorntons at work the other day (a guy bought them as he was leaving) and they tasted GOOOOOOD. I bet the Lindt ones were amazing.
I pushed Ben to have a clear through of his clothes as he always complains he doesn’t have space but i know for a fact he doesn’t wear loads of items either. He got rid of the grand total of two tops and a pair of shorts. Hmmmm! Decluttering is not something he’s familiar with ;-)
Mmm your food looks delicious. I have been a little carb obsessed over the last week with two bake potatoes featuring and Koshari (Egyptian carb fest of pasta, lentils and rice with a spicy sauce). Also eating all things hot to keep warm. I made lemon curd this week. It’s delicious the children love it I hadn’t made it before but definitely will again it only took a few minutes it was definitely a why haven’t I done this before moment when I tasted it. De-cluttering always gives me a high afterwards there are lots of lovely new fashion items to buy in the shops – love that. Sorry to hear about the long nights, that’s hard. But you should feel good about your food choices, they are key. I eat like a (demented) demon when I’m tired it’s all to easy to make bad choices.
Wow that sounds amazing with the lentils and rice, yum. I could make lemon curd all the time only I’d eat it all far too quickly! Yep, I ended up shopping this week to fill the void ;-)
Ooh some excellent looking bowls of porridge! So good!