Thrive

As I've mentioned before, my one little word for this year is 'thrive'. I wasn't surprised to find out that others have also chosen this word and some for the same reason.

One lovely American lady who also shares my name has a congenital brain condition called a Chiari malfunction. This week she faced her third surgery. The American healthcare system is not as good as ours and being a student, this has been an expensive time for Jen.

I saw this T-shirt on Jodie's instagram and immediately loved it. When I read the story behind the T-shirt - that it was raising funds for Jen's surgery, I snapped it up for my birthday.

The good news is that the T-shirts are available again and you can find them through the links above.

Here's wishing Jen a speedy recovery from her operation.

Paleo Experiment

Now that it's holidays I'm finally able to spend some time getting on top of things health-wise and part of that is trying to find a diet that helps me reduce my meds.

Yesterday we stocked up for our meals until Saturday which basically meant vegetables, meat and fish. We'll be starting this morning with beef patties (sounds better than burgers for breakfast).

I'll let you know how we got on next week.

Green Smoothie

As part of my 'thrive' project, one of my 2015 goals is to find a nutritional balance that works for me and keeps my ulcerative colitis at bay.

Nico surprised me with this book this week and the first thing I tried was this smoothie with banana, berries, spinach, coconut cream and water. In the book it was purple - I think I messed up the spinach/berry ratio a little but otherwise it was nice.

I can definitely see myself making more of these and look forward to experimenting with this book and paleo recipes in the future.

Music!

As of yesterday morning we are officially a musical family. Since we moved Nico has been getting back into his guitars a lot and Isabella loves to listen to him.

He inspired me to get the keyboard going again and I spent some time learning 'Imagine'. It turns out that Nico can play it on guitar so we can play together soon. 

Isabella is not as convinced about my piano playing though - she just wants to join in. So far though, I'm tipping her to follow in Uncle Florian's footsteps and play the drums.

I forgot how destressing playing music can be. It takes your mind off things quite literally as you have to concentrate but it's quite relaxing too and when you pick up a new tune, it's a great feeling.

Making time for more music is going to be a priority this year - it really fits in with my Thrive theme for the year.  I'm just gearing up for my first guitar song now!

Weekly Wisdom

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One Little Word

It's been a couple of years since I took part in Ali Edwards' One Little Word.  I didn't do it in 2013 or 2014 as we were busy enough getting engaged, planning a wedding, getting married, going on honeymoon, getting pregnant, having a baby, receiving a big health diagnosis and buying a house... phew!!

Bearing all that in mind, and the fact that we are already being asked when baby number two will be arriving(!!), I really want 2015 to be something of a break. I want it to be about enjoying life and our family and learning to make the most of what we have before we do anything else.

I was struggling to find 'one little word' to encompass this idea of being, living and enjoying until I was browsing through Ali's archives and found it:

Thrive

So watch this space for lots of thriving in 2015!

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