Just a little image...

(Sorry, I'm not even sure where I found it... but it made me feel good and I wanted to shear the idea, image, feeling, etc)

Lacking Inspiration and Cheer

Lately I have been feeling very uninspired.
I am uninspired in my job, uninspired in my life, uninspired in my relationships. I want to be creative but my mind is dragging.
I'm uninspired with food, with exercise, with myself.
Maybe it's because I am sick with the cold, maybe it's because I'm nutritionally low in something, maybe it's because everything really is just as boring as it appears.

But things are slowly changing now, maybe because it is coming to spring? Maybe because I just decided to make a change? Maybe just because it was going to happen anyway.
But either-ither, things are changing.

As we head towards spring, the days are slowly getting longer. Yesterday morning on my way to work, I even saw some amazingly eager daffodils, although perhaps that's just a sign of a warmer winter.
See Also: Global warming.
See Also: Extinction.
See Also: End of the world as we know it.
Soon my weeping cherry tree, a reminder of a love I lost in 2010, will be budding. Not long and it will be flowering, filling it's small corner in the vegetable patch with it's beautiful hanging, soft baby pink blossoms.

At work, the new season launch for our Summer Collection (I work in retail in the fashion world) is beginning soon and all the new bright, colourful clothes are spilling out onto the floor.
Meaning exciting and fun work to be had, for the next two weeks.
We will be changing the store around, arranging the clothes as the company requires. We will be dressing mannequins and making their headless bodies beautiful.

I finally convinced myself to sign up to a Starter Course at the local unitec, so that I can learn all the things I never learnt in my home-schooled life. Like how to study and write essays.
I can write creatively, but not with much structure.
I won't know if I get to do it until after the interview in two weeks, but I'm trying to remain positive about it.

I have been in a slump and I am trying to stand up tall again. I am reading, when I haven't been for awhile.
I am making food that is delicious and healthy. I am trying to be kind and patient with my mind as I try to climb out of this hole in my head.

I am trying to look at the beautiful things in life. Focusing on the things I love instead of the things I hate.
So... As inspired by Traci French on her blog Blissfulb , here are some things I love.

I love this tree, that blossomed beautifully, in the yard of one of my many homes.

I love this Shop, and all that it stands for.

I love this Sweater, which is Fairtrade and Organic, even though it is for boys.

So, just a baby list today... But maybe next week I'll go for a little trip, maybe see if my workmate wants to come along, and get in touch with some things I love. Like architecture, art, history, nature, flowers, pastries and coffee, and I will take my camera and snap some things I love!

So what is todays little message. Todays little message, which is hanging in my mind, is do the things you love. Spend time with the things you love in life and you will be a happier and more contented person.
If you feel there is not enough positivity in your life, create some!
Example: Take some baking to work, or some flowers. Complement others. Smile. Make jokes. Dance when people are looking too serious. Nothing makes people smile more than a friend doing them a silly little dance.

Smile everybody! Be kind to the people you love and love yourself so that you may be kind to yourself.

How buying Organic changes my opinion of food

My little food journey is slowly teaching me a lot. Small little things that I haven't really looked at before are now standing in front of me telling me "Hey, I'm here and I am a problem."
When I used to look at a product, I tried to find a balance between what was cheapest and what I knew to taste better. The nutrition of a product has always been in my mind, I guess mostly because I grew up with a mother who was very organic-food focused, even owning an organic foods store at one point, making me wonder why it needed so many additives or numbers.
Why should a biscuit or bread really need Emulsifiers anyway? Why does it need soy flour? Why does it need all these numbers? I can make bread at home with flour, yeast, salt, sugar/honey and water. I can make biscuits with flour, butter, eggs, sugar, baking powder and maybe some vanilla extract.
Why would I want to eat all these additives when I could make something myself that would be far more pure?
But even though I knew it wasn't right to eat all these chemicals, I rarely said no to them when I wanted the junk they hid in. I am still a huge chocolate fan. I still love Coca-cola. I love salt and vinegar potato chips, and chose to ignore all the numbers on the back of the packet, to let me continue eating them.

It wasn't until I did my New Zealand Grown fortnight that I really had a break from all those numbers, additives, preservatives and unnecessary soy additions.
It made me really think about the foods I was putting into my body. The voices of all those who have told me the troubles of additives and chemicals used not only now in the forming of foods, but also in the growing of foods, are now loud in my mind, standing right in front of me, telling me. "Claire, Stop eating this crap."

Last week I did my first shop where nearly all of my vegetables/fruit were organic. I believe the only thing I got that wasn't was onions... And somehow, because I didn't buy any junk food, I still spent just as much as I used to spend at the supermarket.
I am now shopping with more awareness of what I will actually eat throughout the week instead of what I feel like eating when I'm right there in the supermarket, which in turn is saving me money and meaning I am throwing less food away.
I used to always have a full fridge of produce, which would slowly decay and only half of it would really get eaten. I was a wasteful shopper. It is shameful the amount of food I used to throw into my compost bin every fortnight when I would clean out the fridge of rotten food for the next load fresh from the supermarket.

Bread was a big problem as well. We always had at least half a loaf of mouldy bread to be thrown out every fortnight. So, In order to try and clean up our eating act, I have started baking our own bread.
I brought a 5kg bag of NZ Grown organic white flour from the organic Wholefoods store in Grey Lynn, for just under $30. It sounds like a lot of money, and my SO was a little horrified. But when you think about how much bread costs in the supermarket, it actually works out to be more cost effective.
Well, for us anyway. We would typically buy "High end" bread I suppose. Vogels or the like.
I did a rough calculation of how much flour is needed in a loaf of bread and how many loaves you should then get out of a 5kg bag and it was about 8-10.
Even if I can just get 8 loaves out of a $30 bag of flour, that's still only $3.75 for a loaf of organic, additive free bread. All I am seeing is pro's with this. Are there really any cons?
The time factor might seem annoying to some, but I personally really enjoy baking so it's no problem for me.

Buying organic also makes me respect food more and stops me from mindless eating. Instead of buying a cheap 500g block of chocolate and eating half of it within hours of purchasing, I can successfully have a 250g block of organic fairtrade chocolate sit in my cupboard for a full fortnight, only eating (and savouring, enjoying, relishing) the occasional square every few days when I feel like something sweet.
I used to have a very unhealthy relationship with food. I was forever either eating far too much (and of all the wrong things), or not enough. I saw it as a battle. I saw it as something difficult.
When I buy organic, I'm seeing it in a totally different light. By eating organic, I'm eating more whole-foods and instead of seeing food as a product to binge or restrict, I am seeing it as nourishing.
Organic food does just that, it nourishes and fuels the body without poisoning it with artificial products made by the food industry just so that their food could stay on shelves for longer.

Ever think that maybe if not even mould will touch it, that we shouldn't either? Something to think about.


Love your bodies, is all I can really say. Respect your bodies. Only put good things into it, and you'll get more good things out of it. (And no, not just nicer poop, I mean energy levels, better moods, etc.)
And by respecting your bodies by only putting in Organic foods, you're being kinder to the planet by reducing the amount of chemicals we pour onto it every year!
It's a win win my lovely readers!

So give cutting out chemicals in your daily life a go!

"The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity."
– Amelia Earhart