Pancakes, Fruit and Veg!

In the past few months I have been trying out some new recipes and have found quite a few that I enjoy on a regular basis either taken from actual recipes or made up myself. I have been trying to find quick and healthy meals that I can make in advance and keep in the fridge/freezer.

So far I have tried these recipes….

Butternut Squash, Lentil and spinach soup!

This one I kind of made up as I went, I had butternut squash that I had to use and some red lentils and I added some spinach for a bit of colour. I also had onion, pepper and salt and a bit of water just to thin it out. It was easy to make a batch and then take to work for dinner!

Buckwheat and banana pancakes!
These have become a really easy regular that I have probably 2-4 times a week and I just change up the toppings. I can usually make these in about 10-15 minutes, (including washing up!).  I also make the batter and keep it in the fridge so that the pancakes are always fresh and not just heated up. Toppings I use have been cranberries, almonds, cashews, nut butters, cinnamon, ginger, lemon juice, banana, kiwi, pear and apple. All natural sugars in this one too which is a bonus!

 

Porridge!

This is what I will have if I don’t have buckwheat pancakes. I add oats, almond milk, cacao powder and banana together until it is creamy and then top with any of the above-mentioned toppings! Very quick and easy to make and I can have it made in about 10-15 minutes as well (including washing up too!)

Zucchini Noodles

These are also another staple, a quick lunch or dinner. Zucchini noodles with capsicum, tomatoes, onion and pesto! Sometimes I add carrot but I prefer it without.

Lazy breakfast!

When I want eggs and am being lazy…..the following happens…. Scrambled eggs in a mug yes, I sink so low as too make eggs in the microwave! My add ins are usually spinach leaves, tomato and cheese. I will also have some fruit, an orange/apple/kiwi etc as well as a tea gotta fit in with the brits somehow! haha

Snacks!

Just your usual carrots cucumber and hommus with some biscuits….and chai tea. The we have fruit salad! Yummy yummy!

Lazy Dinner!

Lazy dinners for me mean no washing up, an example of one is below. Cheese and tomato on rye with cucumber and garlic bread. It was very nice cheese! I have found cheese to be very cheap over here compared to back home.

Not so lazy Breakfast, Lunch or dinner!

This is always a filling meal when I have this! Eggs on toast with avo, tomato, sauted onions and a pine nut pesto pasta salad from Marks and Spencer and then steamed broccoli with side of carrot and orange juice. I must admit it was too much as I didn't eat the broccoli and ended up taking it to work.

All in all I've tried some good meals and am trying to add to it! I would love any suggestions of quick and easy healthy meals and snack :) But for now goodbye or Ta-rah! as some of the english would say! 

Musicians, Music and Me

Today was an interesting day! My housemate L and I went on a bit of an adventure. We had to go and get her bag repaired and ended up having to travel about 1.5 hours to find somewhere that would repair it for her. We took the tube and the overground and stopped briefly at a station to catch a connecting train and I found Keep Cups!! I was so excited because I left mine back home and have been thinking about getting a similar sort of cup from Starbucks or somewhere so I can take tea to work. It was nice to find something from Australia over here in a non-touristy area too.

So we ended up finding the shop and they took her bag with no problems whatsoever! We then had to make our way to Tottenham Court Rd as she needed a mute for her violin and I needed to buy some more picks for my guitar....as L has told me I am a true guitar player now as the first thing I say whenever I start to practice is I've lost another one! so I now have a bit of a stash just in case I lose anymore! I hope I don't though!

I also picked up some sheet music at the same shop, it is a compilation of the best of David Bowie and I can't wait to start being able to play some of his songs. I'm going through a bit of a Bowie phase and I also picked up a documentary about him as well as a few other things.

While we were in TCR I decided to see if any of the music and guitar shops were hiring as I am currently really not enjoying my job and would prefer daytime hours as opposed to evening/nighttime hours. Unfortunately most of them don't have any vacancies as of yet but they said to send my resume in and something might pop up in the new year when their Christmas casuals leave, so I am hoping it does!

We left the TCR music shops and headed to the tube, Along the way we decided to stop in a this shop that L has been telling me about for ages! It is a shop that sells music, DVDs, books and gift items and they are really cheap. It was massive! 3 floors! I ended up coming out with quite a lot of things.......

Led Zeppelin, The Beatles and David Bowie posters to hang on my walls.

Documentary/Biography movies ....

Becoming David Bowie

Super Duper Alice Cooper - welcome to his nightmare

The man who fell to earth

Eight days a week the touring years, The band you know the story you don't

The rolling Stones - Stones in Exile.

The Soundtrack to The Man Who Fell To Earth

I decided I needed to stop there as that would be more then plenty enough to keep me busy until next year! We escaped and took the bus home, made dinner and then collapsed in a heap from our long day. I was definitely tired and ready for bed!


To Add to my collection of musicians I am interesting in learning about I bought some books off Amazon a few weeks ago as well....

Hero: David Bowie (By Lesley-Ann Jones)

Led Zeppelin - When Gods Walked The Earth (By Mick Wall)

Jimi Hendrix - The Man, The Magic, The Truth (By Sharon Lawrence)

I have evidently been filling my spare time with reading and watching Music legends as well as practicing guitar. I want to keep reading and learning about many more musicians and fill my room with books, posters, movies, music all related to them. Learning what makes their music theirs while figuring out what my own style is while I am learning is going to be a fun long journey and I wish to pursue this as much as I can!

Positive, Negatives, Emotions and Logic....and Bikkies :)

Ahhh! I can do this! Consistency! Positivity! Come on! You got this gurl! I hope you're all ready for a long post, so grab a cup of tea, some bikkies and a comfy sitting position! :)

I know I have not been at ALLLL consistent in posting on a weekly basis and unfortunately I have let things and emotions get in the way of me actually making ANY progress with my goals which is why I moved half way across the world and left my friends and family and my Cat (Yes my cat is very special to me and I have missed her a lot of late :'( ) However, I have realised something in the past day or two which I believe will help me on my way to my goals! My short term and long term ones.

So many things have been happening in my life lately that I have let have a negative impact on me. However I recently read what a friend wrote about positives and negatives and realised, like really understood, that I have been going about life the wrong way. I have been letting the negatives take over the positives. Its not something I haven't been told before, its not something I haven’t tried to do before, but the way said friend wrote about it and explained it made me actually understand it. When it all comes down to it there are positives and negatives and if we dwell on the negatives we forget the positives so why not just focus on the positives as much as we can? There are always positives you just have to get creative in finding them or make them yourself and then focus on them. 

*Gasp* So many "positives" and "negatives" in this post, I think I need a thesaurus!

Everyone everywhere has low moments in their life, its unavoidable. If we didn't have lows then how would we know that we had highs. A lot of the time we focus on the bad things because they are easy. "This person made me feel this way", "This failed because of something other than me", "Its too hard/difficult/boring/tedious". Tough bikkies I've started saying to myself! Tough bikkies! (haha such a strange saying, but it works!) I have found that it is easy to slip into the easy way of blaming someone else or something else because you made a mistake or have chosen to dwell on a bad feeling. We all do that and it is fine....for a little while. But I have found that it does not do well to focus on these things for too long because these thoughts inevitably leads to spiral which only causes you more frustration/anger etc making it harder to get back to the happier things in life. 

Reading what my friend wrote I realised that I can take these situations catch my thoughts and find the good in the situations. What opportunities can I see now that this door is closed, have any others potentially opened up? Can I learn from this and apply it to other things in my life? Can I become a stronger person emotionally or physically because of this? If I can learn to manage my emotions and how I react towards other people and scenarios then I believe I can have a more happy and fulfilling life. I do not mean to put a blanket ban on negative emotions, but just allowing myself to acknowledge that certain situations make me feel a certain way and to not make any rash decisions while I’m feeling this heightened emotion. That way I can gather my thoughts and come up with more sound approach to the situation and respond logically and respectfully rather than emotionally.

It does take some mind training to start with to realise and catch yourself in these emotions, then to talk yourself out of reacting emotionally. Really have conversations with yourself (you probably think I'm crazy here haha but oh well :) However, if you can catch yourself in the moment thinking “It’s too hard, I don't want to do it, I can't do it" talk back to yourself, challenge yourself. Ask "well why is it hard to do? Am I just being lazy, if so (Insert fav saying along the lines of "Tough Bikkies"), a lot of things in life are hard and I can be proud of myself for not giving up." If there is something getting in your way how can you remove that? Then you can be proud that you worked through the problem rather than give up! J

For me, sometimes getting through a particular work shift I am proud of because my inner me is just saying walk out, leave, its too difficult, the customers are too irritating or horrible or difficult. However I stop myself and say, no. you have to do this, you will let others down, you will let yourself down and by getting through this shift without giving up or being rude to that lady who is telling you how to do your job you are allowed to be proud of yourself. And I am :) It’s only a small thing but I can be proud of it. 

The same can be said for if someone "makes you feel a certain way".  We all have natural reactions to other people’s actions which can cause us to become emotional. The important thing is to feel these things but try not to react emotionally on them, from experience it usually ends up worsening the situation. Usually. I find in these scenarios that talking to myself about why I feel this way helps. "I am really frustrated by what this person has said/done, I can't believe they did that, I would not have done that, I wish I could just say/do this back, but I know if I do I will be disappointed or I may regret my actions/words." Distract yourself just long enough to once again gather yourself and then react logically and thoughtfully rather than emotionally. Once again the positive is showing yourself how you can handle things well, being proud of yourself! 

Having said all of this, distinguishing between emotional reactions and thoughtful/logical reactions can be difficult to start with, I am still learning that myself, however I think I now understand the principal and will be able to see it a lot more in myself than I did before and subsequently be able to have better relationships with others as well as myself.

Ah so how are we all doing? Got a bit deep there I know, I'm terribly sorry if you got bored but hey, you made it to here, so can't have been too bad :) I hope my 3am ramble has given you something to take away if not the fact that I can write more than 200 words on a blog post! 

I am going to focus on more positives in the future and I am going to re-evaluate my goals, long term and short term. I think you can expect a post on these in the next day or two but for now.... I'm off to sleep!! 

Goodnight lovelies! Stay positive :) Xx

Short Term Goals

So, update on the parcel pick up I went on at the end of my last post... I still don't know what it is because I went to pick it up and they had lost it! Turns out however mine wasn't the only one, it seems that every parcel that didn't get delivered on the day mine was supposed to was also missing. Hopefully they find it soon!

It's still cold and raining but the wind isn't as bad today. Housemate and I had tea again, although I forgot about mine and it went cold as is what usually happens! We have had a bit of a lazy day and decided to order pizza for dinner as we found this really nice pizza shop that delivers and it is amazing pizza.....and its square!!!! its our go-to for pizza nights.

I haven't done too much else this week, I've mainly been working and sleeping and playing guitar. However I have decided I need to get out and about a bit more and focus on what I am doing over in London rather than focusing on things back home. I have made a few goals for the next few weeks....

1. Practice Guitar everyday even if its just for 20 mins.
2. Walk to the park a few mornings every week and spend an hour or two reading.
3. Go to 1 place new each week.

I had another guitar lesson this week which was great fun! I now know how to play two songs to speed - Pumped up kicks and Chasing cars. I've also learnt a few scales as well. So guitar is well on the way!

My work hours have been a bit strange, I don't normally finish until about 12:30/1am so my sleeping pattern has been horrible, I am looking for a new job though that has hours that suit me a bit better and will allow me to sleep a bit better.

I have another makeup assisting job coming up this week which will be exciting. I don't know anything about it yet but hopefully will find out more soon!

Oh! I booked my return ticket back home for September next year! It will only be for a visit but it will be nice to go home for a bit.

For now I'm off to bed but I will try to write at least once a week :)

See ya!

Hello!

London. Cold, wet, raining, overcast and its not even winter...or so I keep getting told! Hello my friends and fellow blogger's I am currently writing from my kitchen, while its 'blowing a gale' outside and my housemate makes us tea, because well what else do you have on a freezing cold movie and pyjama day, in England, other than tea!? Today is a good day :)

So for those who do not know, I moved from Melbourne, Australia to London, England 2 and a half months ago to study as a makeup artist, hair stylist and nail technician. I completed the course and struggled to find work in the industry so I turned to hospitality and found a job at a local franchise that is very 'retro diner' minus the poodle skirts and skates! I have also done some makeup assisting work which has been a lot of fun too.

While moving to the other side of the world, without my friends and family I have had to find things to occupy my time and I have rediscovered my love for music and picked up the guitar. My housemate also decided to learn an instrument and bought a violin. So we are a bit of a noisy household during the day! As I already know how to play violin I have been helping her a bit get started and she is quite the star pupil! haha
Guitar on the other hand I needed a bit of help as it is quite different to any instrument I have played before. So off I went to have a lesson and I had the time of my life! It was great just playing songs with my teacher! I learnt so much and I have a better understanding of how a guitar relates to a violin, viola and double bass! So practice practice practice! who knows maybe one day I'll be touring the world with my band! One can dream :)

As it is quite cold over here I have had to buy some warmer clothes as my ones from Melbourne didn't quite cut it. In an effort to save money I've have been in and out of the local op shop which i have learnt over here are called Charity shops! There are quite a few words I have learnt that are different to back home. Some people may frown upon my choice of shop however I have really found some good pieces for a very small price. I have picked up a nice winter coat, a cashmere top, a few angora mixes and some other warm tops. I am all for the kindness to animals however angora is rabbit fur and I did not know this until I got home :( but it is very warm so I decided to keep it.

I am off to the post office now as I have a parcel delivery to pick up! I don't remember ordering anything but I guess I will soon find out what it is!

Until next time!

Cheerio!