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Merry Christmas & A Quick Life Update!

Merry Christmas! I hope you have all had a lovely few days and have managed to enjoy some time with your loved ones and with yourself, taking moments amongst the madness to rest and just be. 

We did things a little different this year, It was the first time since we have been married that we have had Christmas dinner just by ourselves at home. Ever since I got married I have wanted to spend every year with my parents, enjoying the same Christmas traditions that I grew up with but in trying desperately to recreate the past I realised that I have missed out on discovering my own future family traditions and figuring out how I like to ‘create’ Christmas. 

So this year was really fun for me. I found out that although I love to cook, I didn’t want to spend my Christmas Day in the kitchen away from the family, so I tried something new. Instead of making everything from scratch, I made stuffing from a box and roasted potatoes, parsnips and yorkshires from the freezer. I’m the only person who likes turkey so we roasted a chicken instead and cooked only a few veggies that everyone liked and it was perfect… for us! 

Prawn Cocktail starters in pretty goblets
Christmas Dinner

Besides spending the day in my fluffy dressing gown, eating leftover chicken, stuffing, cranberry and mayo sandwiches and consuming large quantities of liquorice allsorts, my favourite part of this Christmas season is getting to spend a week and a half with Luke. It’s the only time in the whole year that his phone doesn’t ring and he isn’t head down answering emails or fixing problems. It’s just 10 days of quality time and usually a house project or too.

This year has been a crazy one. We sold our cottage in June and moved in with my parents in their 2 bed house whilst we renovated our new home. I slept in the spare room with the boys and Luke slept downstairs on sofa cushions. It was crazy. I had a miserable attitude and can take no credit for any of the build of the house but thankfully with the help of some serious hard work from my brother in law, tradesmen and Luke’s late nights and early mornings along with my parents patients allowing us to make their house our home for 4 months longer than expected, we now get to start a new life in our new home. Aaaaaaannnnnnnd I can breathe again.

Just a snap shot of the house renovation

Im really looking forwards to a fresh start and a new year. This time last year my motivation was at an all time high. I had found a love for fitness and completed BBG twice (see my transformation here), I had taken my Zumba Instructor training and was just a week away from starting my first class in our Village. It had been such an amazing year of personal development for me and it showed through in so many aspects of my life. My Zumba class has been a great success, I opened up a second class and have been teaching 2 evenings a week since May. I have overcome so many internal battles with regards to being ‘enough’ and ‘showing up’ even when it was hard, but there have been many other aspects of my life that haven’t continued to progress. 

My AMAZING Zumba Family

My motivation for health and fitness has been pretty low, I seemed to find this comfortable place that just allowed me to keep ticking over without making much progress (Thank goodness for my Zumba class). My work and energy this year has been ploughed into my soul and my family relationships. We have been dealing with some seriously challenging behaviour as parents and its blown the wind out of me. We have lots of support (2 years of therapy and counting..) but its long and lonely and draining and exhausting and difficult to balance when there is so much disruption and sadness pulling at you.

I wondered if I would ever come back to The Kitchen Shed. I worried that I couldn’t come back because life has changed me so much since I started creating these recipes to share. I feel like my journey in life has provided massive oppotunities for me to grow, its just been hard to know how to bring that change here on the blog. I’m a different person, and in a positive way I feel but I am still on a journey. I’m always changing and growing and falling and failing and learning and hoping and dreaming and believing in greater things. My life is not just clean eating recipes. Its messy and complicated and amazing and happy and difficult and beautiful and mine. If I want to keep sharing clean eating recipes on this platform then I will have to also share more of me too, because I am not a one dimensional person and I have a huge life behind this screen, I cannot pretend that its all roses and thats ok. I haven’t figured out exactly what I want to do with the blog, but I know that I enjoy this creative outlet, I know that creating clean eating recipes benefits my life and the life of my family by focusing some of my attention on fuelling our bodies with wholesome food but I hope that it can become something more than just about wholesome food and recognise the need to fuel my mind and soul too. 

Christmas gifts to kick start my New Year

So here’s to a new year. Here’s to my amazing soul that keeps me growing, heres to my love of personal development, for my desire to do better and be better but most of all for the courage to be me, all of me, every shade of me and heres to you, to all of you, to every shade of you. Here’s to your amazing soul, to your loves and desires and hoping you can show up in 2019 with courage and kindness…. for you.

All my love,

Charlie xox


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