Wednesday 23 October 2013

project 'my secret garden'

“You are never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however.” ― Richard Bach At home in bed again, and sick and tired, literally of being ill. This time I've got Darth Vader syndrome, when my boyfriend tried to call me to see how I was he thought he called the wrong number, that's how scary I sound! So here's what I'm going to do about it. I'm setting the goal of doing one small thing a week (at least) to make our home more organic, healthy and as self sufficient as possible. My step for this week was finding a little treasure chest called Kitchen Gardeners International already subscribed and started looking at all the goodies there, tips and recipes yay! Join me if you like on my journey and I'll keep you updated on where all of this takes me :) Oh and two gems from Louise L Hay and Sarah Wilson (whose blog is great!) that led me to my project today: 7 louise hay insights for healing your life (and a thyroid tip) and yes! louise hay tells me her #1 healing trick A big thank you to both!

Sunday 20 October 2013

Gut and Psychology Syndrome -

A very interesting talk shared by an always inspiring friend of mine: GAPS Thank you Agnieszka for sharing :)

Cruelty-free perfume shopping for all you animal lovers

Love Nature :)
I used to be a perfume fanatic until I found out that a lot of major brands do unspeakable things to animals to produce their products. This put me off all perfumes for about 5 years in which I stuck to LUSH and Body Shop loyally. Only recently it occurred to me to further investigate whether there is a wider range of products I could use that are still animal friendly and smell nice at the same time. Here's a helpful website for other animal lovers: PETA I wish everyone a peaceful Sunday afternoon with this soothing song that's playing in our cosy living room: Starlight and You Thank you my Love for sharing it :)

Monday 14 October 2013

Be happy for no reason...

My motto for tomorrow :)
Namaste :)

The two most important days in your life....

Wow! :)

A tale of two boys - from the 7 day Inner Engineering course

I listened to the third class in my inner engineering course yesterday and in this session Sadhguru spoke about taking responsibility in our lives, about responding to life and the things around us. Instead of saying 'this is my responsibility' we always have the choice of at least considering what to do about a situation. This session made me realise how much it troubles me that my grandmothers are living thousands of miles away from me and how much I miss them and would like to include them in our lives more. It also made me realise that instead of just saying they're not my responsibility, I can look at what options are available to get nearer to them. Just the mere act of thinking about the situation and exploring options has lifted an enormous load off my chest. I called one of them tonight and told her how I felt and that I would like to do something about this. She said she wants to stay right where she is. Maybe nothing will really change in our situation, but this communication and sharing has made all the difference. Sadhguru told a story about two boys that I would like to share. A father had two sons, an optimistic one and a pessimistic one. They happened to be twins, so as their birthdays approached, the father decided to do a little experiment with them. In the pessimistic son's room he piled up a heap of expensive toys, all the amazing gadgets you can imagine. In the optimistic son's he placed a pile of horse poo. When the boys came home and ran upstairs, the father listened curiously to what their reactions will be. All of a sudden he heard a loud sobbing. He followed the boys upstairs worried that he overdid it with the horse poo a bit.. Only to find his pessimistic son crying beside the heap of expensive toys. When his father asked him what he was crying about he said: 'I'm crying because now I have to read all these instruction manuals and when my cousins come over tomorrow I'll have to share all of these...' The father then went to his optimistic son's room and found him whistling and dancing around the pile of manure. When his father asked him what he was so joyful about he replied: 'well, if there's horse poo, there's bound to be a pony somewhere nearby!'
speaking of ponies :) a peaceful night to you all xxxx

Somewhere over the rainbow... juicing vs pizza and cakes

...is where I walked the doggies today :) However, this last weekend I was far from being over the rainbow! It took me a while to figure out that what I put into my body might have something to do with it, duh! Whereas the weekend before I was spoiling my body with kale, cucumber, tomatoes, grapes and blueberries and an endless list of energising goodies, this last weekend I ended up going the opposite way: cakes and and pizza on Friday in lovely company, but still packed with sugar and wheat. Not such a good idea as it turned out. I could really feel the difference in my mood, in my body, the difference was shocking. I am writing this down so that next time I will remember! The outcome of this little indulging episode is a non-New Year resolution, to keep one day of the weekend as a cleansing day whenever I can and have an overdose of morning glory and bruschetta tang instead of margherita pizza! I am not against pizza, far from it, but if I want to deviate once in a while, a cleansing day will surely follow! :)

Sunday 13 October 2013

Guess who helped out with our laundry this weekend?

This little beast:
and of course this one couldn't miss out on sunbathing on top of the pile either!!! :)

Friday 11 October 2013

Thursday 10 October 2013

Juicing continued..

Although I'm not juicing all day, I now (thanks to all the juicing inspiration) start the day with 2 glasses of fresh juice and that's all I have until lunch time. I've been drinking: 4 apples, 4 oranges and half a bag of spinach leaves or 4 apples, 4 oranges, 2 beetroots and quarter of a lemon, both delicious, nutritious and energising :)

My favourite soup recipe for autumn :)

As the weather gets chillier, the temptation grows for comfort food! Here's a few recipes that might help beat the cravings: The best butternut squash soup I've ever tasted with roasted garlic and red lentil: Ingredients: 1 large butternut squash, diced, skin left on 4 garlic cloves left whole, papery skin removed olive oil for cooking 1,5 tsp dried mixed herbs 1/2 large red onion finely chopped 250g red lentils 750ml to 1 litre veg stock 3-4 tsp green pesto (optional) sea salt and black pepper Method: Preheat oven to 200°C Place the diced squash and garlic in roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper and dried herbs. Mix well and roast for about 20-25 minutes or until the squash is browning at the edges and the skin is crisp. Heat a little olive oil in pan (I use coconut oil lately) and cook onion for about 5 minutes, or until softened. Add the roasted squash, garlic and lentils and enough veg stock to cover and simmer until lentils are cooked. Season with salt and pepper and process or blend. Transfer tonserving bowls and drizzle with a swirl of pesto if using. Good for: skin, immune system, heart and circulation, and the digestive system and deeeeelicious! Enjoy :)

Epic

Just finished watching 'Epic' animation, highly recommend it! Very entertaining and meaningful at the same time. What I do NOT recommend is taking a farty dog to the DVD rental place, unless you can be very convincing at saying 'it wasn't me' :) If that hasn't brought a smile to your face then let me show you Dorka dog's first experience with a horse:
and dreaming of the times when the sun was still scorching us in August, sharing with you a happy memory from Cornwall, St Michael's Mount (a must see, one of my favourite places in the world) the Giant's heart:

Wednesday 9 October 2013

Thank You :)

To all of you who bring sunshine into my life, I hope you know who you are! ;)
And some 'little wings' for those who also dream about riding with the wind: 'Little Wing' thank you Catarina :) Noemi xxxx

Monday 7 October 2013

Home sweet home at last :)

After a very busy but adventure filled day, I'm finally back home cuddling with two stinky little rascals: Rascal 1:
and 2:
As for the detox, working in two jobs + dreaming up a future project + drinking only juice in one day = disaster. Luckily my boyfriend is still alive, but only just :) So a tip for anyone who's about to embark on any kind of detox, either take some peaceful time off, or do only the weekend when you can have plenty of rest! Today I had my favourite breakfast: morning glory and favourite lunch juice: bruschetta tang, and broke my three day fast in the afternoon with my very much missed ALDI oatcakes, a handful of nuts, dried apricots and a banana, yes I was hungry! :) Wishing you all a peaceful night with positive thoughts and music: click here to listen and one of my favourite songs by fly jeti fly: Fire and Water and dedicate it to the One it makes me think of ;) sweet dreams xxxx

Sunday 6 October 2013

Grace

Wishing everyone a peaceful night with Ronnie Laws' 'Grace' from Joaozinho's never-ending and delightful music collection :) listen here

Tip for gardeners

If you've also got a set of green fingers you might appreciate the fact that while juicing you can wash your juicer with just cold water, I do it under the garden tap and pour the water into my water butt to use later for watering plants! I love simple eco-friendly solutions :)

A day out in Hawkley (Saturday)

Yesterday we discovered a little gem tucked away in Hampshire thanks to some lovely friends who were staying there for the weekend. A big thank you to them for the peaceful and inspiring time we had there sharing our dreams and ideas :) I brought back some pictures to share: A stunning little church with a very unique roof: The tree of Life :) Two new acquaintances: Who were very nosy :) Farewell under the setting sun: And a very random sign on the pub balcony: well we didn't dare after reading that! :)

Juice detox day 2

Breakfast today was jolt juice: 2 Apples 1 Orange 1 Cucumber 1/4 Lemon Peeled 4 Kale Leaves and a big mug of warm water with juice of half a lemon. It was really refreshing and tasty, but nothing beats morning glory so far... Having said that maybe today's lunch is competing with it, yummylicious!!! The name is bruschetta tang and is better than any bruchetta I've ever had! The ingredients: 2 Tomatoes 1-2 Garlic Cloves Peeled 1 Bunch of Basil (20 Leaves) 1/4 Lemon Peeled For dinner I decided to get creative after a one hour sauna and steamroom session. Getting inspiration from one of two lovely ladies I miraculously came across in the spa I decided to go wild with avocado, celery and cucumber and added tomatoes and apples and spinach, don't ask me why... I drank it all up, no wasting food here but yuck! Note to self: if ever I get low, lethargic and ill again it's time for some juice. I've had nothing but nutritious juices and lots and lots of water for two days and haven't felt this energetic, sharp and positive in ages. I feel so so good :) I can't believe that my cure was this simple, after visiting a GP, a homeopath, a health food store and spending a fortune nothing was helping my blister go away. Since I've started this detox it's gone down, almost completely disappeared, and haven't even thought of having a cigarette in 3 days! Or chocolate :) The foods I can't wait to get my teeth into funnily enough are my oatcakes, nuts and houmous :) How boring they seem sometimes but when you go without them... like with a lot of things!

Saturday 5 October 2013

Juice detox day 1

Today's breakfast: morning glory won :) Before juicing: And after: Truly delicious, much better than it looks! A glorious start to the morning indeed! Off to the woods with the doggies to get some vitamin D and fun too!

slim, healthy and alive!

Another gift I received today came from another lovely soul who is a great inspiration to me in the way she is with children (and not just children :) she told me about a film called 'fat, sick and nearly dead' and when she said it would be a life-changing experience, she was not exaggerating one bit. I watched the film today after a horrible night of tummy troubles, preceded by a mouth blister that seems to have grown very attached to my tongue in the last couple of months and spots on my face and neck that remind me of being 14 again, not pleasant memories! But after watching the film, I couldn't wait to get juicing and see if this might be a way to cleanse whatever it is that my body has had enough of. I said yoga was one of my passions, well food is the other, especially healthy, nutritious food. So I've embarked on a mini-adventure and going to juice myself slim, healthy and very much alive! I found a 7 day juice detox plan: and dashed to Waitrose to confiscate their shelves from all the spinach, kale, celery, cucumbers, apples and other goodies. I looked like I was off to feed the entire Monkey World. I then brushed the cobwebs off my juicer and made my first juice dinner called sunset passion and although the taste didn't quite compete with 4 cheese pizza or blueberry muffins, the fact that I'm writing all this down shows I didn't go into zombie mode (like I usually do on a Friday night after the ominous pizzas) I have taken photos of 'before' to keep track of the changes caused by the diet, but might post them later when I see some improvement. Right now I'm still coming to terms with my spotty face and not so slim waistline :) That's all for tonight, there's only so many calories in a beetroot, spinach, cucumber, lemon, lime and apples oh and a carrot. I actually don't feel hungry and feel a very calm and natural sleepiness unlike the times I did choose to devour a whole pizza and maybe a kit-kat or two to wash it down! Before I go I want to say an enormous thank you to my greatest source of inspiration, my loving life-partner Joaozinho who puts up with a lot of grumpiness during my crazy detox adventures and manages to make me laugh even when I'd rather punch someone! :) A peaceful night to all and I will definitely be dreaming about my breakfast tomorrow, which can either be a morning glory juice consisting of: 2 Apples 1 Cucumber 1 cup Blueberries 2 cups of Grapes 2 Kale Leaves 1″ Ginger or jolt juice with: 2 Apples 1 Orange 1 Cucumber 1/4 Lemon Peeled 4 Kale Leaves I'll see what I'm in the mood for when I wake up. Happy inspirations to all of you. N :) Click here to watch film

inner engineering

This day brought two discoveries my way that I felt I needed to share. One of them is an online course I found thanks to the guidance of a very lovely lady I met at New Delhi airport. She gave me the gift of being able to meditate in a little pond filled with rose petals and the motivation to look into to inner engineering through the isha foundation. I have enrolled on a 7 class course and am finding it incredibly stimulating and thought provoking. Yoga in itself has been a saviour for me in troubled times and has grown to be an addiction to some extent. To me having some shape or form of yoga in my life is like breathing eating and sleeping. Without it I feel lost. If you have similar bond with yoga, inner engineering might call out to you too.

Friday 4 October 2013

an inspiration a day keeps the doctor away

Welcome to my world. It is a beautiful one, colourful and inspiring, but not without challenges, definitely not. I invite whoever is interested to join me on my journey as two of my favourite things in life are: 1. exploring new experiences, finding new inspirations and 2. sharing them with others. A very dear fellow traveller on this journey Kaily asked me to start writing things down. I start my account of adventures with a dedication to You you very kind soul and thank you for the light you brought into my life and others too I'm sure :) Happy awakening to all you other light workers and hope you enjoy and find strength and encouragement in one of my favourite inspirational poems: The Awakening by Sonny Carroll