My first Veg box, recipe suggestions welcome!

Squeee I'm so excited! I got my first veg box about ten mins ago and I don't recognize or know what to do with half the stuff in it! Going to be soooo much fun! So here's what I got, recipes welcome! 

One of the bags is mixed salad with mustard (yum) and another is amazing smelling basil, but the third is summer greens? What are they? Sounds like a catch all term and I have no idea if I can eat raw or cook them. 

Once I took out the bags I could see all the lovely courgettes and carrots and tomatoes, all of which will get eaten in no time. And a small bag of potatoes which I think us Irish will have no problem getting rid of :) 

 But also in there were Ramiro Peppers, can I just eat them like normal peppers? And broad beans which I've of course seen before but I don't think I've ever cooked with them.

I'm going to go back to work now and then google everything and look for new recipes at lunchtime! Kinda just want to start eating my way through it now, but that might be a little unfair on the poor boy in work.

Also the bunnies are going to be delighted about the carrot tops! And to be honest the box too. 

 

No regrets

Well it’s been almost a year since I handed in my notice with my last teaching job. I worked until the end of November while they replaced me, but I made the decision about a year ago and that was the big deal as far as I’m concerned. Walking in and telling the principal was terrifying, but the relief once I had was AMAZING!

I quit because my neck pain had gotten worse and my lower back was giving me some mobility issues, in particular with lots of stairs, and I quit with a dream of getting my business completely off the ground and nothing else really. I just had to get out of there, it was scary as hell, my other half was unemployed at the time and we had practically no savings, but I was coming home crying from the pain every evening and the stress of knowing I was failing the kids was killing me! So doctors note in hand I handed in my notice.
A year on, I’m still broke and I’m still sore, but importantly I’m nowhere near as sore, my business is on the up (fingers crossed),I have a part time job essentially playing with power tools and I’m  enjoying getting back into Geology. I really am a million times happier. I changed not just my job, but pretty much every aspect of my life, I’m now a veggie that doesn’t eat dairy, and yoga is a major part of my life. I’m way more mellow and my back makes me cry way less, although now I’m more likely to cry over a cute picture or a sappy movie!

Schools started back in the last few weeks and got me thinking about teaching again, wondering if a little bit of me misses it, a part of me definitely misses the kids and the really good lessons but it honestly must be one of the most stressful jobs in the world. Just after I quit a guy I didn’t know very well, an older man in his 60’s or so, told me that life was about to get much more stressful and that s no one worked harder than the self employed and teaching essentially was a sweet gig,. He was convinced that was what I’d think in a years time. He was wrong, being self employed is stressful you do work hard and you don’t have time off, but on the rare occasion I do take a break, I know it’s just my dreams that I’m “abandoning” for the day, not the dreams, hopes and possibilities of a class full of students. There is nothing like the guilt I used to feel when I gave a not great lesson, or when I couldn’t get a kid involved. Seriously teaching is high stress! So fair dues to you guys that stuck it out and that love it, but I’m much happier and healthier out of it and it was 100% the right choice for me! No regrets!

Now time to get to yoga class...

Womb Yoga and Yoga Nidra weekend

So diet is not the only change I’ve been making to try get on top of my health I’ve also been focusing a fair bit on yoga Recently I’ve mostly been practicing at home, as I let myself get a little too stiff and out of shape after the Nuclear plasty. So about 2 weeks ago I started going back to classes and had a lovely Yin Yoga class at yoga fever before I dived in last weekend with a day of Womb yoga on Sat and a morning of Yoga Nidra on Sunday and wow it was good!

The womb yoga was very interesting it made me realise a few things I hadn’t thought about and got me thinking in a less negative way about periods. She said some very interesting things about societies view of menstruation and how we’re expected to always act how we act when we’re in the ovulating part of our cycle and maybe that drains us and is part of the reason periods hurt so much. Somewhat along the line of when you’re go go go in work and you get a holiday and instead of being able to enjoy it you end up sick and in bed for a week. She also talked about the fact that it’s still seen as a dirty thing we don’t talk about and how ridiculous that is, and there was an interesting discussion about the tampax mother nature adds. As soon as I got home I downloaded a period tracker app for my phone which actually let me choose between dog cat or bunny for my front screen I presume you can guess which I went with :) and I’m planning on downloading and printing this womans quest workbook once I get ink for the printer. Also planning on going next week to another well woman yoga class and sussing it out.

The yoga nidra class was even more interesting, I’m not really sure how it worked to be honest but it got rid of my neck pain for the guts of the rest of the day! Which no drugs have ever done! Essentially we lay down with our knees up on cushions and under a blanket so we were uber comfy and cosy, then listened to what the teacher said. What was strange is I didn’t really hear the words that were said, I zoned out but I was completely relaxed and when he told us to wake up I did, its almost like I’m missing that ten mins or so but I felt great afterwards and my neck didn’t hurt! We did three different sessions which all felt a little different and talked about the whole thing in between and they gave us a CD to try it at home which I intend to do this evening. Really something everyone should experience because I can’t explain it to be honest but it was wonderful!

Butter binges!

Well it’s been a while and I'm still veggie and I’m mostly dairy free, no cheese in weeks now! Doing los of yoga and overall taking a lot less painkillers then I was.

The veggie thing to be honest has been pretty easy, with the exception of a few restaurants that have really lousy veggie options, and I have no inclination to go back to meat, and I like not feeling guilty about whats on my plate. I’ve discovered foods I didn’t know and I feel like I have more energy.

The dairy thing has been a little harder, I changed to Almond milk back at New Years and that’s made my tummy sooooo much happier over all but I was never really a big milk drinker anyway, it was just something to put on my cereal. I was starting however to find I was eating more and more cheese since I turned veggie which I didn’t want to do either health or ethics wise. So I decided to cut it out, and I’ll be honest I did dream about toasted cheese sandwiches a fair bit at first but after about a week and a half I stopped caring, and realised that a lot of the food I was covering in cheese was nicer without.

So now I make my own pizza minus cheese and I get the actual flavours of the tomato the courgette the mushrooms whatever I’ve put on it and wow its soooo much better! Before all I could taste was cheese so it was only the strong meats like pepperoni or the flavours like pineapple that I could taste, not a problem anymore! I have yet to try get a cheese less pizza eating out or at a restaurant though! I have a feeling that will be entertaining! I thought ice cream was going to be the other big problem but then as I’m sure most people have noticed it’s not been a summer that makes you want ice cream, and anyway there is sorbet.

Surprisingly the main stumbling block has been butter. The vegan substitute I got is sweet and I don’t mean sweet as in great I mean sweet as in tastes sugary :(  which I’m not loving, some of the soy based ones might be better but I’m trying not to eat too much soy cause it’s not exactly the best thing for your hormone system and it doesn’t agree with my tummy anyway. I’m considering getting I can’t believe it’s not butter, there is some dairy in it (it’s made from buttermilk) but in fairness I don’t use a lot so I think it will prob be better then depriving myself and everytime I’m drunk binging on butter! ...I wish I was joking!

Why should we or shouldn't we eat meat? Opinions please.

Ok this post is going to be a little bit different, it’s not all about narcissistic me it’s about you and your opinions, and for the record that’s what I’m after, opinions not a fight.

I’ve made no secret of my recent sway to vegetarian and attempts at veganism, I did it for health reasons, I didn’t go oh the poor animals I don’t want to eat them, and interestingly once you say that people generally back off and don’t try to tell you to eat meat! But now I find myself asking why, why for me and not for the animals? I’m an animal lover I’ve had pets all my life, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs, budgies, fish and even Henrietta the hen. But up until new years I ate pork, beef, lamb, fish, turkey, venison, rabbit and buckets of chicken! I have even eaten rabbit since I have had my two little bunny girls. To the logical part of my brain this no longer makes sense! I used to tell myself that it’s natural to eat animals we’re top of the food chain and thats that. And the rabbit I ate was a wild rabbit which had a good life and anyway it was delicious. But most of the meat we eat nowadays has had an awful life, especially the chickens and pigs, but we eat them anyway. Honestly I think I just choose to bury my head in the sand, I knew about the battery chickens but I cleared my conscience by saying I couldn’t afford the free range meat, but honestly it’s not been hard giving it up and I wish I’d done it earlier.

I have a friend who’s family have a deer farm and I’ve been there and I’ve seen the animals and if I go there again I’ll eat deer, because those animals have a pretty good life. So there are exceptions, but for the food most of us buy every week in Tesco or whatever those animals have had a pretty rubbish life!

So anyway, my question to people is, why do YOU eat (or not eat) meat? Do you have a reason that you think makes it ok? ......Again I’m not trying to start a fight, I honestly want to know, I can’t resolve it in my head and I would like other peoples input.

.....Also on a side note to anyone in Ireland or the UK who has knowledge of the dairy industry, up until recently I’d never thought about it, but do cows need to be kept pregnant or have recently calved to produce milk? Do the calves get taken away from them straight away so we can have the milk instead? All the stuff I’ve read on the topic is US based and they seem to make torturing animals a sport over there (by they I mean factory farmers) so I want to know what it’s like here.  

Discogram and Nuclear Plasty Oh my!

Well quick catch up!

I had my discogram and nuclear plasty about 3 weeks ago now, and fortunately I remember very little of it. I was awake, it’s one of those things you need to be awake for, but the anaesthesiologist was fab! And funny! So he gave me some drugs; Michael Jackson juice according to the doc, and I don’t remember anything. I was home 2 hours later. Just tired and battered, however the next day I got worse and the following week was pretty much me sitting in a chair not moving. Unfortunately it’s a it gets worse before it gets better treatment, so for the guts of a week Conan had to do everything for me, very, very frustrating! Everyone should be able to put their own socks on! I have gotten better since, but I’m not sure yet if I’m better then I was before, but it’s still relatively early days. Essentially they burnt away the centre or nucleus of a disc in my back and the idea is that it will shrink in on itself and stop bulging out and pressing on nerves and stuff. Fingers crossed. Follow up appointment is in June.

I’ve been trying to get back into my yoga, took a few weeks off on account of not really being able to walk  :) and it’s nice to be back, taking it easy and just doing gentle stuff at home with the bunnies. Everyone should have a chance to do yoga with bunnies climbing all over you! I have just broken down and sat there laughing a few times, the girls never fail to cheer me up!

The pain from the cyst has popped up a few times but not too bad and not much I can do about it anyway so C’est la vie! I’m reading up on vegan diets and various superfoods and at the mo I’m mostly vegan. I have been eating a little meat, but more and more I really can’t be bothered when I do, there is so much yummy food out there anyway!

Tough weekend

Well I spent this weekend in the hospital, it's the first time in my life I have ever spent a night in hospital and the food was worse then I expected! I'm fine now just got to take things easy for a few days which given that doing half a sink of dishes tired me out I think I should be able to manage!

What happened was I had pretty bad stomach pain on Thurs night so took a few pills for wind etc and hoped it would go away but the next morning it was still bad so I went to the GP who suspected appendicitis and sent me straight to hospital. I got an ultrasound pretty quickly (about 5 hours after I arrived I'm told that I was lucky to get it same day) and then the scans got lost! So the doctors decided to be cautious and kept me in planning on doing a keyhole surgery the next day to see what was going on.

Next morning I wasn't as sore, I was hungry and the pain wasn't on my right side anymore so the docs decided not appendix and everyone stopped moving fast on stuff, gynecology came to see me and said I wasn't theirs (still my scans were lost) and surgery decided to keep me in a little longer just to keep an eye on me.

Sunday morning I felt much better, not so much pain as a bit bruised and worn out and woohoo my scans had been found and it was a gynecology problem. I had an ovarian cyst which bled into itself, its not serious, it just hurts like hell, so they sent me home with panadol and said take it easy for a few days! Would have been home Friday if they hadn't lost my bloody scans!

All in all though it wasn't too bad, very boring and I will be getting a smart phone before I go in for my back surgery! The nurses were lovely and the other patients were really really nice! The food was amazingly bad! Pizza and chips! Bad pizza and bad chips for dinner, and tiny portions! Thank you Conan for bringing me in decent food!

Really nice to be home now! Best nights sleep ever last night! And great lie in!

.....As for the veggie stuff, well I've gone back to eating beef, and had a lovely casserole last Sunday also had Chinese beef satay on wed night and a few bites of left overs about 5 mins before I doubled over in pain on Thurs! I'm not sure if that means anything but it has got me wondering, I think I'll stay veggie for the next week or so and then when I try it again if I get sick thats that for meat!