And once again 6 months has passed me by without a blog!
Thank god this isn’t my job or I would be sacked!
On that note, let’s start here. I am currently unemployed (although to be
clear I was not sacked!) and it is the best decision I have made for myself in
a long time. I am putting me first for a
while and sadly the environment I was working in didn’t allow me to do that, so
I got out. And that’s all I’m gonna say
about that!
One of the reasons I haven’t blogged in such a long time is
I totally lost my passion for food, especially for cooking, and blogging about
food wasn’t really appealing as you can imagine. Well I am super excited that I am starting to
get that passion back and experimenting in the kitchen again which I am pumped to write about. I even have some
experiments in the oven as I type!
So much has happened in the last 6 months so before I get on
to food let me fill you in a little bit.
I haven’t exactly had a great start to the year, so I will quickly skip
through the crap before getting to the fun things, like becoming an Aunty!!
It
kinda feels like MS has been ruling my life a little this last 6 months, not so
much in a physical making me unwell kinda way, more in a I need to deal with
this shit so I don’t get sick for the rest of my life kinda way! My brain grew itself another lesion sometime
between December and March but that is only one change since my original scan
in September so it aint all bad. Seeing some
changes allowed me to make a little more peace with my diagnosis and I am now
out of that limbo phase of “you have MS but we can’t officially diagnose as you
don’t check all the boxes yet..so just wait and we will see how long it takes”. It is nice to be out of limbo.
That peace of mind allowed me to make some decision and so
in addition to changing my lifestyle I have now started medication to assist in
slowing down the progression of the disease.
I am doing self-injections every two weeks, a bit like an Epipen. Once my body has adjusted to it, it has
little side effects, the worst of it is flu like symptoms, headaches etc, and in comparison to
all other drugs on the market that is actually easy to deal with!
Ok on to the good stuff.
I AM AN AUNTY! I have the cutest niece in the world and I love her. And my sister also has a bun in the oven so look out, I'm going to be Aunty of the year showering the kids with chocolate and presents! This
unemployed status has allowed me to spend a lot more time at the farm and it
has been really enjoyable. I have gotten
back to my farm girl roots, I helped my brother out with cropping and even
drove the tractor for a few weeks. My only
aim for the entire thing was not to crash, who cares about getting the crop in correctly
(don’t tell my brother that haha).
Hmm what else…*thinking face*…There are definitely 3 other
things worth mentioning. I started outdoor
netball again this year. It’s been a
long 8 years since I last played and gosh I am rusty to say the least but it has been really
lovely to get out and at it again.
I participated in the MS Walk & Fun Run on Sunday June 5th. The weather was not our friend but the
enthusiasm of ‘Chloe’s Crew’ outweighed the damp and dreary day Albert Park put on for us. 23 of my most amazing
supportive friends and family made the journey to Melbourne and together we
raised an amazing $3803.50 to go towards MS Australia. I am so grateful and overwhelmed by everyone's support which has come from so many places and in so many ways.
Ok the final thing before the food is wine! Yum yum yum, get
in my tum! I participated in my first Winery Walkabout in Rutherglen and it was
amazing. If you haven’t been before, you
totally should. I am not much of a
drinker these days so I wasn’t sure how much I would enjoy 2 days of drinking
but I had a really enjoyable weekend, not to mention some great company. For me the weekend consisted of just taste
testing some wine at each winery and enjoying the atmosphere, good music, great
weather and the stunning scenery.
So..food…what should I tell you. I might just touch on a few things I have
started to whip up in the kitchen as I am definitely not eating out as much as
I used to these days. I have started to
find a happy medium between giving myself some treats and following the low
saturated fats rules. Let’s just say
there has been a little cheese and chocolate here and there but I am starting
to find ways to enjoy food and adapt some tasty recipes to suit me without compromising the deliciousness that makes food the bomb!
One of my favourite
dishes I have created is Chilli Con Vege.
I had a serious craving for tacos one day so I did a little research and
this is what I came up with. I was genuinely
shocked with how good it was and it has become a regular in our weekly
meals. It is really easy to freeze too
so super handy to pull out when I can’t be bothered cooking.
I have been trying to come up with sweet options so I don’t get
sucked into eating chocolate when I have that craving and have got some pretty
good chices so far but the winning one to date is lemon macarons. I visited the farm a few weeks ago and my
Nana has a huge lemon tree so I came back with 3 bags and some inspiration to
try new things. I started off attempting
some vegan lemon butter and it proved more difficult than I thought. One recipe was a complete disaster, straight to
the bin for that but the second had custard powder in it and it was extremely successful
and then these bad boys were born. They
are awesome. They are easy to make although
admittedly pretty time consuming but so worth it. Make them! You won’t regret it!!
So last blog I ended with “2016, I hope you bring me, health, happiness and
good fortune”…Well I am still waiting on that tattslotto payout but I have made
some good decisions that have made me happier than I have been in a while and I
am doing pretty good on the health front realistically so here’s hoping we
continue on the up and that I am back here before another 6 months rolls on
by. Until then, keep smiling J
