My Wellness Journey

 

Update:

So after the first week I feel so much better already.  I am less bloated and I find I am looking forward to going for my walk and having my smoothie every day.  There were a couple of days that I couldn’t walk because of the weather and I was quite disappointed.

A couple other things:  I’ve cut back on the amount of milky coffees I have.  I allow myself 2 a day after that it’s black coffee all the way.  I probably only have four a day on average, so not an enormous amount really.  This has helped with that bloated feeling I was getting.

My Personal Figit Spinner

I found myself getting restless at night while watching TV so I decided to pick up the knitting needles and starting a knitting project.  Keeping those hands busy definitely helps with keeping thoughts of looking for snacks at bay.  Its a bit hard to eat and knit at the same time.

The other importing thing for me was menu planning.  With planning our meals and ordering our shopping online I had everything on hand to make healthy dinners.  I would order heaps of veggies to last us the week including what I wanted to put in my smoothies.  Being prepared is definitely the way to go.

No Numbers Involved

The other thing to note through this whole process is I am talking about being healthy.  I’m not talking about losing weight, it’s all about being well and healthy.  With a daughter that suffers from Anorexia we are a household who have thrown away the scales and don’t think consciously about weight.  It’s all about what we put in to our bodies and how we expend energy.  There are numbers involved at all.

Documenting

I wanted to document this process that I’m on so I can see how far I’ve come as and how I got there.  I think it will be rewarding to look back on the small details and use it as a tool to keep me motivated.  As I’m enjoying the Pocket Page Notebooks at the moment it seem appropriate to use one for this project too.

 

I’m still following along with Ali Edwards (AE-fit) daily on her instastory.  The podcasts are keeping me motivated as well.

Thanks for popping in.

Donna

My Wellness Journey

 

Fitness

I need to get my body moving.  As I’ve hit to 50 year milestone I’ve noticed it was little bit more difficult getting up of the floor.  I will be following the Couch to 5k (C25K) program to get those joints moving, getting my body to moving. This website also gives you more info. www.c25k.com.  There is a wonderful app that is available that ‘walks’ you through each day.  As you can see I’m at the start of week 2.

On thing I neglected to mention in my last post was that drinking 1.5litres of water a day.  Very important for cleansing the body of toxins.

 

Podcasts

While I’m walking I catch up on podcasts, choosing ones to motivate me to reach my goal of wellness.  At the moment I listening to The Real Food Whole Health Podcast as well as Feel Good Effect: Health Inspiration Podcast.  These ones I pickup up from Ali Edwards and they are definitely good choices.

I am also keeping a Wellness Journal to document my thoughts, what works for me and other random ramblings that I feel like adding.  Having this journal helps me stay on track and enables me to put down on paper my emotions and feelings that affect me.  I will post some more of my layouts as I go along.  I think in the future it will give me the opportunity to look back on how far I have come but in the present it will give me the encouragement to keep going.

 

This is my first page where I noted down my reasons why along with current inspirations.

Thanks for popping in.

Cheers

Donna

My Wellness Journey

WHY?

I was feeling blah!  I was not tracking what I was putting in my body and how I was treating my body.  I was feeling sluggish and bloated and my motivation and mood was dropping again.  No, I don’t want to go down that black whole again.  So I had to make changes in my life.

I had been following Ali Edwards’ wellness journey on instagram.  What she was talking about resonated with me so I piggybacked on some of her ideas.

HOW?

The first thing was to have a look at my intake.  I had been having a bowl of porridge every morning and that was working for me.  I felt fulfilled with the warm feeling in my stomach on these cold winter mornings.   So at this point in time I’m sticking with that.

For morning tea I’m including a smoothie and this combination is working for me presently.

 

 

As I’m at work for lunch I have found these are perfect.   I stock up on them when they are on special.  The green chicken curry is delish as well.

When I’m feeling peckish in the afternoon, I’ll have a handful of cashew nuts.

With dinner, I need to please the family but I am trying to add heaps of veggies with the protein of choice.

Looking for something sweet after dinner and I’ll reach for a premade chia pudding or an apple and that usually does the job.

My next post will talk about the fitness part of my wellness journey.

Thanks for popping in.

Donna

Day in the Life 2017 – Completed

 

Title page.

I thought I’d share my completed Day in the Life with you all.  This year I started the day like any other day.  I got up for work, showered, ate breakfast, drove to work.  All normal so far.  But then I receive a phone call that changed the whole outlook of the day.   I ended up spending most of the day in emergency with my daughter.  It’s a long story that I won’t share here but suffice to say that it was a very unusual day.

I did wonder at one point whether I should keep going with it and try again tomorrow as tomorrow would be a ‘typical’ day but then again who really knows what tomorrow may bring.  So far this year life has thrown us some curve balls and today certainly was another day like that so on reflection it was worth continuing as it did show a slice of what this year has been like so far.

I did gloss over a lot of the details and did not get too detailed with my journaling as I didn’t think it the right place to do that.  Plus it’s not totally my story to share.  I had to respect that point.

Anyway, here are the photos of my layouts from 10am onwards.

10am and 11am

 

I’ve been using the app ‘Headspace’ on my iphone. It gives me a daily meditation as well and affirmations. This one popped up today and it seemed extremely relevant to the way the day had panned out. On most pages I used the prompts from Ali’s roller stamp that came in the Day in the Life mini kit.

 

I had been hoarding this swan ephemera from the Chasing Dreams line from Maggie Holmes.

 

I used much of the ephemera kit ‘Live More’ from Pink Fresh Studios.

 

I took advantage of adding extra interest with using this hexagon acetate sheet in the pocket page. I love the peekaboo element here.

 

 

2pm and 3pm

 

I am so in love with this Kerri Bradford traveler pack named ‘Splendid’. It is so fresh and colourful and includes heap of usable elements.

 

4pm and 5pm.

 

On this spread I used mostly papers and die cuts from previous Felicity Jane Kit. I also used a digital stamp from Kellie Stamps. Fun fact: after adhering the ‘Wacky Wednesday’ digital stamp I realised it was only Tuesday! I left it there anyway as it was a pretty wacky day!

 

6pm and 7pm

 

Another pocket page this time using gold spotted vellum.

 

8pm and 9pm

 

 

Finally, 10pm

 

 

A few final notes.  I used a Pocket Page Notebook which is available from The Stamp Spot.  This is my go to now with all of my memory keeping.  I find the blend of pocket pages and note paper perfect for all my memories.

Thank you for popping in for a look.

Donna

 

 

 

 

Day in the Life/June 2017 – Part 1

This time around for this project I followed Ali’s lead and set an alarm for every hour to remind myself to take a photo.  I am way to forgetful to trust myself to remember so this is the best way for me to tackle this project.

I am still in love with documenting in the Pocket Page Notebook which gives me the best of both worlds for scrapbooking.  I want to change it up a bit and used the PPN horizontally as it suited the PL cards.   I also used Ali’s  mini DITL kit and used the roller stamp to give me jumping off points for documenting.  Other than that I have used what ever is in my stash.

Here are the first few hours of my day.

 

 

 

Second spread // 8 & 9am

 

 

 

Thank you for popping in for a look.

Donna

Week in the Life – Day 3 Completed

Hi all and happy Sunday,

I’ve been working on a few other projects but I getting there with my WITL.

Before I show those completed pages I just want to remind everyone about the project that Michelle from The Stamp Spot and myself and leading this May.  Its called #selfcaremay.  It’s about choosing a prompt each day reminding yourself to take a little bit of time for yourself.

MY REASON WHY!

We are also documenting it in one of her Pocket Page Notebooks.  If you follow the link on my homepage you can go to her shop and purchase one.  Simply by inserting the coupon code donna20% at checkout, you will received 20% discount.  You can’t beat that.

Don’t forget to share your work by using #selfcaremay also #pocketpagenotebook.

 

Now to my WITL.

I have continued using Kellie Stamps digital ‘Large Number’ for my title page.

Way to much journaling so I had to make a tip in.

Thanks for popping in.

Hope to see you next time.

Donna

 

 

Week in the Life – Day 2 Completed

Hi all,

I have slowly continued to document my WITL.  I’m not in any particular rush as I have all the photos and the journaling done.  All I have to do is cut and paste the words from my blog onto a document and print out.  The trickiest part is deciding what size to print out my photos but once I’m organised that, it’s all ready to start playing with pretty paper.

As mentioned before I am documenting in a Pocket Page Notebook which you can get from The Stamp Spot.  You can currently get a discount if you use the code donna20% at checkout in the The Stamp Spot’s shop.  Click on the link on my front page to take you there.

The giant numbers I am using from Kellie Stamps.

Used the Maccas packaging for the background paper.

That’s day 2 complete.

Thanks for popping by.

 

Donna

XOXO

WITL – Day 1 Completed

As previously mentioned, I will be documenting my Week in the Life for this year in a Pocket Page Notebook from The Stamp Spot.

So here we go.

Sorry for the glare but its really tricky to photograph without getting it.

The documenting or journaling part was easy and I did what Ali does and mostly copies and pastes from her blog.  So, so easy.

I am using Kellie Stamps Digital Large Number Pocket Cards for the beginning of each new day.  I print them to size and slide them into the pocket page.  Most of the paper and elements are from Felicity Jane kits.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a pocket page and I’ve attached the photos to a piece of patterned acetate.  On the reverse side I mirrored the photos with extra embellishments etc.  Again, sorry for the glare.

The reverse side.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for popping in for a look.

See you next time.

Donna

 

Self Care May

This is YOUR month, a month for all women to celebrate who they are or maybe discover a little bit more about themselves.  Woman no matter what stage you are in your life always need a bit of Self Care.  It’s the month to look after yourself, to spoil yourself, to do little things for yourself on a daily basis.

Michelle from The Stamp Spot and myself will steer you along this journey on our blogs and our individual Instagram and Facebook pages.  (see below for links)

We want you on a daily basis to ask yourself these questions:

What do I need today?

and

How can I fulfill that need?

Two very simple questions that we don’t consciously ask ourselves.  Well that is going to change for the month of May.  Every day you are going ask yourself those two questions.

We will provide a suggested  list of prompts that we came up with.  You may choose to use this list to get you started, you may have your own ideas.  We are all individuals with individual needs at any single moment in time.  So my need for today may not be the same as yours or your friends.  It’s purely relevant to you.  All you have to do is ask yourself everyday those two questions and see what the answer is and then act on it.

This is not a project that is supposed to cause you stress or anxiety.  You make the project what you want it to be.  We haven’t set a number eg: 31 as there’s 31 days in May.  We are merely suggesting that you look at the possibility of allowing yourself a little bit of Self Care.

Michelle  and I will be driving this project and each of us will be documenting this project in The Stamp Spot’s Pocket Page Notebook.  You may choose where to want to record this journey along with how you choose to do it.  If you are wanting to use a Pocket Page Notebook, the same as Michelle and I, you can click on the link at the top of my page which will take you to The Stamp Spot and you can obtain a discount by using the code donna20% and expiry is 15 June.

There is no cost involved to actually do this project, it’s just about forming a community of woman who want to consciously take time for themselves for the month of May.

 

Your Assignment

• Choose where are you going to document this project?  For example a Pocket Page Notebook, an Art Journal,  a Planner
• Choose how you are going to document this project?  For example with words, photos, bullet journal, mixed media etc

You will be able to following along on either of our social media pages

Michelle:

https://www.instagram.com/thestampspot/?hl=en

https://www.facebook.com/thestampspot/

 

Donna:

https://www.instagram.com/donna1008/

https://www.facebook.com/donna.kitchen

We will be using the hashtag #selfcaremay on social media

 

Week in the Life – Day 7 (Sunday)

Well, that’s it peeps, words and photos done for another year.  I will start with the documenting part during the week in my Pocket Page Notebook from The Stamp Spot.  You can click on the link on this blog post or my home page to have a look at this innovative Pocket Page Notebook which is a cross between a traveler’s notebook and pocket pages.  Michelle is offering a 20% discount until 15 June if you use the code donna20% at checkout.

Pocket Page Notebook

Unfortunately I woke up with my migraine still so I finally relent and go and get a prescription filled to help.

 

Please note the look on Sasha’s face waiting for me to give her some of my scone.  I have only just fed her so the fact that she is drooling (literally) over my scone is just greedy.

I take myself back to bed with a coffee and a fruit scone which Declan brought home from his work yesterday.  Caffeine is apparently supposed to be good to for migraines.

 Waiting for the drugs to kick in.

Lara has gone off early to volunteer for a Youth Focus (Youth Mental Health Organisation) charity event.

Declan is still in bed.

The drugs must’ve kicked in as I woke up hours later migraine free (for now) and decide to try printing out some digital numbers from Kellie Stamps.  I plan to use them when documenting my WITL.

Yay, they worked!  Back to bed to work on a blog post for tomorrow and Declan appears.

Declan annoying the dog.

More working on my blog post and then it’s time for more coffee.  You know, because caffeine is good for migraines!

Yes, I copied Ali’s idea of repetition with making coffee.

Time for a break so I wander out the front to put some rubbish in the bins and Sasha follows me.

Just doing what dogs do.

Sasha returning from doing what dogs do.

Declan has put the big bins out for me as it’s rubbish day tomorrow and Lara wanders out to put more in, wish Sasha helping.

 

This is the garden at the entrance to our house.

I come inside and find Declan cleaning the kitchen and he also vacuumed and tidied up too.  What a gorgeous boy.

 

I wanted to also document a few other things before the week ended.

Books I’m reading or on the ‘to read’ list.

Favourite music at the moment – Ed Sheeran

Favourite podcasts

 

Favourite movie

Well, that’s where I’ll leave it for now for 2017 Week in the Life.

I am starting a collaboration projection which will be announced tomorrow.  So be sure to look out for it on my social media.

A little clue about the new project.

Thanks for popping in.

Donna