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This time last week I was in Taupo.  I’ve always loved that place so it’s wonderful to go back twice a year to Wairakei Thermal resort.  After 7 retreats this place is super familiar now and that adds to the charm.  It’s kinda like the Cheers theme … “where everyone knows your name”.  The barman even remembered what I drink.  I don’t know if that is a good or a bad thing.

So – ArtVenture was AWESOME.  No bias, just the happiest kind of proud satisfaction that it all went as planned! (It helps when you have amazing friends helping!).  Thursday is always set-up day before the delegates arrive.  I think the little touches around the room were some of my favourites of all time.

This was one of my favourite things.   I had a vision for a vintage white chair, a backdrop and a chest of flowers and Rachel Tucker (the amazing visionary that she is!) created this beautiful photo corner with all those special little touches and vintage furniture pieces.  It was so lovely & tidy to start with.  Then this kind of thing started to happen:

Lucy playing “flower shower” with Karen.  The rules are that you got to keep what you catch.  As long as you didn’t use your hands or open up your clothing!

Then Louise Nelson & I got a little silly in the flowers.

Then it was a free-for-all, really.  Literally.   There were flower angel photos, ladies rolled in the flowers, had photos in the flowers and of course if you were stuck on that perfect embellishment for your page there was always a flower as delegates got to help themselves.

Back to the decorating though, because Rachel Tucker had more gorgeousness up her sleeve.

Our candy bar.  We’ve done this since the start, even since before candy bars were the done thing, and it’s always super popular.  All the lollies were pink/white/black, we went through about 40kg for the weekend. IS that bad?!

Then we had other pretty touches:

Vintage doilies gathered from garage sales & op shops, along with Rae Cooper designed chipboard trees.  Prima flowers set everything off beautifully.

Goodie bags for each delegate, decorated with themed ribbon & a Stampin Up stamp.

A hand-stamped bag full of fudge for everyone.  These were waiting on the bed when they went back to the room on Friday night.  (Stamp by Stampin’ Up, I’ve been asked that many times!).

Along those same lines were everyone’s registration bag with a little kit to make a bag tag or name tag. Delegates always get spoiled.  Coming up with new ways to do this is always a mission.  It requires lots of Sunday afternoon brainstorming sessions.  That’s code for drinks in the sun. Someone’s gotta do it.

Another touch to the themed gift giving were these little hand-decorated packs of gum.  It’s ‘Extra’ gum.  Get it?  Extra?  We loved the idea so much we made one for everyone and left it on their desk on Saturday night, a gift for the when they arrived to the crop room on Sunday morning.

More Stampin’ Up! Stamps used here.  Love the way they design their new stamps to layer. 

So that was most of the decorating – actually there was more, the crop room and the whole resort looked so very cool.  I’ll leave it here because that’s a whole lot of pics in one post – I still have the teachers, classes, projects created, the BEST crew ever and America’s Cup sailing to go over.  Told ya it was awesome,

laters

When my Dad was really young he went on a business trip to the USA.  He came home and told my Mum that one day when he had kids he’d take them there.  I can still picture the day, as a 12 year old, that my Mum & Dad told us they were taking us to Disneyland.  They’d saved for years for the once-in-a-lifetime trip for us all.

And so we did.  Our family went to the USA, I was 12.   My younger brother must have been 9 and my older brother was 14.  It’s about now you get to have a little giggle at the 1980’s clothes and how gawky a 12year old kid really can look.

My brothers are not going to thank me for this. 

Here’s one and my younger brother with KIT from nightrider.

That’s an A-Team brochure I’m holding.  Those were the days.

And looking back on the experience, which I can do because I kept an extensive scrapbook type diary thing, it was the best time ever.  In fact I even mentioned how sad I was leaving the USA “knowing that I was leaving a place that I would probably never ever see again in my whole life”.  Little did I know.

Check out the signatures from the flight crew of the plane.  This was back in the days where kids got to go up and have a look around the front of the plane.  Does anyone know any crew that worked for Air Pacific in the 1980s?  They were cool.  The flight engineer even wrote the flight details (how fast we were flying etc) up the top there.  Priceless stuff. I don’t know that they even have flight engineers now.

Fast forward nearly 30 years.   I’ve always wanted to do the same thing for my kids.  I’ve always wanted to take them to Disney and do all that.  We’ve never been able to afford it, paying as much off the mortgage as we can has always come first in our priorities. 

In January I was in Anaheim for CHA.  I sat in a restaurant right opposite Disneyland and planned to go there on the Wednesday night before leaving.  And then this happened, and within 12 hours I was on a plane home with Disneyland, CHA and everything left behind.  It was on that (long, sad) flight home to my family I decided that life is too short, our kids won’t stay kids forever and that even if I had to put money ON the mortgage, I was going to get us to Disneyland. 

Today I picked up the tickets.  In a few weeks the Howard family is calling in the dog-sitters and going off on the holiday of a lifetime. 

Now it’s Abby’s turn to make a little diary.  30 years on.

Sometimes priorities get changed.  Sometimes there is no time like the present.  We can’t wait.

Laters.

It’s been a few months since I realised how run down Jacob was and sought to figure out why.  Visits to a naturopath, blood analysis and a fair bit of talking later and we embarked on getting Jacob on track for better nutrition. And ya know, I love my health & fitness, my kids have great nutrition anyway.  To the point where I feel sorry for the way they envy others.  It’s a fine line I tred, but a personal choice I make. 

Anyway.  This is what happened.

This day we were told he was eating great nutritionally but none of that nutrition was getting through to his blood system.

The day we figured out a fairly sugar free breakfast, and actually it was quite yummy.

The day I made my own sugar free chocolate.

The day the shared lunch just about broke him.

The day the fish oil just about broke him.

And so it went on. 

Just yesterday I was asked how Jacob was doing and what kind of food he enjoys on a daily basis. He is doing really well.  His focus is awesome, he is more relaxed and he is thriving, growing taller and leaner.  It’s amazing what cutting out simple things, and introducing others can do.

Breakfast:

Jacob loves his breakfasts, it’s usually overnight oats (throw 1/4 cup rolled oats, 1TSP chia seeds, some coconut, bit of LSA, cinnamon, … whatever he fancies really) in a container with milk or almond milk and leave it overnight.

Yesterday though, he forgot and made easy porridge.

Note: No sugar on the porridge.  A very natural yoghurt (no numbers!) with real honey added, AND it’s a probiotic yoghurt which is really important.  Peaches in clear fruit juice.  (Be aware that the ‘no added sugar’ peaches have sweeteners added – no thanks!).  He has different versions of this basic breakfast everyday. Sometimes he adds nuts, takes the peaches away and have frozen berries or whatever.

Vitamins:

Yea, I know.  Some people hate the use of vitamins but I’ve played around with these until I’ve found some I can a) afford and b) think that he really needs.   Jacob’s blood analysis showed the need for all of these and we change them depending on how his blood analysis’ improves each time.

Floradix – natural iron. 
Omega 3 for improving red cell structure.  Helps get that nutrition where it should be.  (admitting that there are some blackmores ones mixed in with the Metagenics ones because I couldn’t afford the metagenics for too long).  Multiflora – Probiotic.  I read this GREAT article yesterday that explained why this is important.
Lastly, a zinc tonic.

Lunchbox

This is tough.  Take a look at your kids’ lunchbox sometime.  Take a look at the ingredients and count the ‘numbers’ on the ingredients lists.  I know I’m at risk of sounding like a preaching-food-hippy here but it’s not until you ban those numbers (only natural here where we can) and you SEE the difference in your kids that you understand. 

I was disgusted when I realised one popular muesli bar in my house had 11 ‘numbers’.  All artificial colours, sweeteners, flavours, a lot of them banned in other countries.  Actually I don’t care if I sound like a food-hippy.  My kids behave better without that crap.  I’m taking that as a win.

Home-made muesli bar.  This one is Tahini & banana but I make apple, almond, sometimes chocolate, orange & coconut.  Easy to make and the kids love them.  Not cheap. Just awesome.

Fruit.

Sandwich.  Jacob still has a couple of slices of bread a day.  We try and pick one that eliminates all those numbers I hate so much.  Usually has carrot, spinach, some sort of non-processed meat, etc..etc… He LOVES these sandwiches.

Snack – homemade scroggin.  He loooooves this.  Nuts & Quest bar chunks.  I buy the yummiest, most natural protein bars and chop about 1/3 one up into small chunks.  This flavour is Raspberry & white chocolate.  No sweeteners, no artificial crap, loads of protein & a sweet kick for him.

Afternoon snack.

Jacob has a mass of different snacks he chooses from.  Yesterday it was carrot, Vita-wheat crackers (no numbers!) and the most natural hummus I could find.  See if I was a real food hippy I’d be making my own.  I haven’t quite got my brownie badge in food hippiness yet or I would be.  Nope, this is Lisa’s.  Only Ok numbers there.

Ok now I’m getting hungry.

Dinner.

Holy natural-good-for-you-sauces, batman,  yesterday we discovered (thanks to the MotivateMeNZ forum) the BEST recipe for dip/sauce/dressing. 

1/2 avocado, 3 dollops greek yoghu
rt, 1 clove garlic.  All whizzed up.

Boom. (forum stated you MUST have the garlic, Jacob agreed).

And then this was the rest of his dinner.  Yep, big meal but check out the nutrition.

Home-made venison sausages.  Home-made as in, Jacob shot the deer and got someone to make the sausages. Clearly you don’t have to go to all that effort, just watch the crap that goes into normal sausages or choose something better.

Salad – spinach, grated carrot, 1/2 egg, slice of beetroot, lots of yoghurt dip, and last night Paul grated a little bit of cheese on top.  Just before I slapped him and went “Dude!  I’m taking a pic of our healthy dinner tonight, don’t do that!!”.

Carbs – a few slices of kumara, oven baked at the weekend and heated up.  Also a ‘mountain bread’ made of corn that I chucked in the oven til it went crisp and broke up on his plate.

Finally.  After Dinner.   Seriously, this kid eats a lot when I analyse it like this.  Finally, a snack after dinner.  Because he was still hungry?

A ‘Annies’ fruit wiggle.  OK calm down, this stuff is natural.  Not a number, not an additive in sight.  I met Annie at the food show and fell in love with this product.  Each packet is the equivalent to one piece of fruit.  It’s literally the same as taking the fruit and taking all the water out.  Nothing added.

The bonus is that it is sweet.  And it’s cheap.  And there are two little strips in each pack.  Abby gets one flavour, Jacob gets the other flavour and they swap one of the strips.  Then they spend the next hour seeing who can take the longest to eat it.  Again.  Nothing added.  it’s just a bit of fruit.

And that, right there, is how we roll. 

Doesn’t mean we don’t break out and enjoy the treats we used to enjoy every now and again, it just means we enjoy other treats now.  And Jacob is feeling better.  Our house is calmer.  And that, as I said before, is a win.

LAters.

If this blog were into the gym, it’d be having a rest day.  Things are pretty quiet around here lately which is a fine reflection on the fact that I have an event coming up, a fitness obsession to feed and far too much interest in “My House Rules”. 

Which is much like My Kitchen Rules except it has less of the food and more of the “Are you sure we couldn’t do that in our house, Paul?” factor.  Hubby hates it.  Probably for the last reason I just listed.

BUT I’m still here, today has been a fine mix of ordering products, coordinating needs from the 4 teachers teaching at ArtVenture, communicating with the USA, contemplating the eruption on White Island whilst quietly wondering if the Helmar 450 glue will hold my slippers together long enough to see the winter through.

I know. Lots on. 

I’ve also actually got lots of other stuff going on around me which is far bigger in the scheme of things but I’m distracting myself with the trivial stuff.

BUT good news for those that miss the scrapbooking side of this blog.  I still know where to get free stuff.  Like this: Color Me Scrappy!  FREE Color Webinar thingie.  26th August.  It’s actually about the 27th August at 6am here in NZ.  It’s free though, you get access to the replay and apparently it’ll answer all those tricky colour questions.

Nothing like free stuff, right?   Click the link,to find out more.  Costs nothing.  Why not.

And I’ll be back when I’ve pushed all other stuff aside and taken some time to create.  It’ll probably go hand in hand with copious amounts of Rum & loud music.  Perfection.  Laters.

Finnabair has a lot to answer for.  It’s her gorgeous vintage products, along with influences from the fabulous Frank Garcia, that has me addicted to this kind of colour scheme.  Things have come full circle really.  I used to love using beiges & browns.  I eventually moved on to more colourful pages, thanks to a magazine editor’s boot up my butt, but now I feel the need to settle back on the grunge couch.  You’ll have trouble moving me from here.

This layout was created with some cool toys, the first being my Silhouette Cameo, (purchased from ScrapBoxNZ, I’m always asked that question), which I used with some cool cut-out arrows & title files from Studio Calico, sounding all a little flash and like I know what I’m doing here, huh?, AND I also used a Prima Sizzix Die called Arbor.  I know.  I got a bit carried away, probably because I hadn’t created anything for ages and wanted to use everything I possibly owned to justify owning it.  As you do.

 

 

And of course there was no creating without a little bit of a push.  I used the Prima Sketch featured in this Prima Blog post to create my layout.  It’s also featured in the August Issue of “My Prima Place” , an online magazine that is chocka full of inspiration, totally worth a visit while avoiding doing other jobs.  Like making the dinner.  Or folding the washing. 

Supplies:  All supplies are Prima as follows:  Engraver Arcade Paper, Vintage Vanity A4 Journaling Pad, Finnabair 6×6 Elementals Doilie Mask, AnneMarie Chipboard Pieces, Bel Canto Flowers, Serenity Flowers, Avon Rose North Country mini roses, Say it in Studs Flourishes, Prima Sizzix Die: Arbor.

There’s two pretty special things about this layout, really.  Firstly, it’s a layout.  Not many of them happen around here lately.  Secondly, it’s a dress.  Not many of them happen around here either.

Alrighty – if you are keen to do your own version of the sketch, it’s on the Prima blog as linked above OR you could join us at our AE Retreats facebook group.  It’s a cool little group of scrappers on facebook, you don’t have to be coming along to one of our retreats to join the group and we have some pretty cool little challenges and discussions if I do say so.  The August Prima Sketch challenge has just been put up there.  Check us out, here. 

(It’s a closed group but I’ll approve ya quicker than a quick thing that is really really quick).  Have an awesome Tuesday.

Laters.

I’ve put my creative hat back on, I’ve been busy with other stuff but it’s time to pick up the laptop, place it aside and make room for coloured bits of paper and,well, other coloured bits of paper.

Currently I’m working on some classes, but while I was procrastinating, while I was looking through some images of layouts I’ve completed this year I came across this one.

I don’t think I’ve shown it yet.   It was the “pink version” of the layout below, created to show the students in Autumn Escape class “Black & white & coloured all over” how easy it was to swap colours around.

Both these layouts were really quick to do, with a whole lot of fun with rub-ons,stamps, paints and other creative stuff.  I’m hoping to find that creative fun again now.  I’m not the only one this happens to, right?  Struggling a little.  Wish me luck.

laters

I’m kidding.  No chocolate in this home.  Well, not since we bought a snack-pack of the Whittakers L&P chocolate because we just had to try it.  My verdict?  I love chocolate.  Would I buy it again? My answer, I love chocolate.

Anyway, many of you have been emailing asking about how Jacob has been getting on since my 6-in-a-row posts of 2 weeks ago, in pursuit of sugar-free. 
Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6.

Posts did stop after 6 days, right about the time Jacob went and stayed on a dairy farm in order to get some work experience.  His hosts were fabulous, he remained relatively sugar-free, worked hard, played hard and learnt not to stand too close to the back end of a cow.  Not what you are thinking probably, he has bruises (still!) to show the real reason.

Jacob loved it.  It’s what he wants to do.  We were incredibly lucky to have friends that would take him in, give him a bed, feed him and include him in their busy daily lives on the farm, all with the aim of helping him choose his NCEA subjects next year.  He’s a lucky kid.

But that aside, Jacob is STILL sugar free and doing awesome!  He’s had a check-up at the naturopath again and his body is starting to respond.  He is more energetic, calmer and has even thinned out.  His boxing trainer even noticed it after not seeing Jacob for 10 days.  This is all from a kid that didn’t really eat much sugar in the first place.  (Seriously, my kids eat barely any, no nasty cereals, nothing). But taking out refined sugars and replacing a lot of the other foods such as white flours etc with more natural stuff has made a huge difference.  I was somewhat ‘brainwashed’ by the thoughts that all fats were bad meaning my kid’s diets had barely any.  I didn’t realise the damage I was doing and now that we are all enjoying more healthy fats and less refined foods, we are all healthier.  I realise I’m risking sounding like a total food-hippy here so stopping there BUT seriously, it’s done amazing things for us all.

Here’s an idea of the kind of things we are eating now:

(this is a treat, we’d have this kind of thing 1-2 times a day max, after dinner for example).

No-Bake fudgey sugar free can’t stop eating it slice.

(Made and cut into small squares for treats, this recipe is an adaption of a few other recipes and has a dark chocolate taste)
* 1 cup whole almonds
* 15 Pitted Dates
* 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
* 2 tbsp. melted coconut butter/oil
* 1 tbsp. honey
* 2 tbsp. water.
* Add almonds to food processor & pulse until ground.
* Add dates, cocoa powder, honey, coconut oil & water.
* Blend until it’s a sticky mass. If it won’t stick well, add tiny amounts of water and blend some more until it sticks.  Press into a tin and cut into small squares. Alternatively roll into balls.

For those that want a sweeter version, add in less water and add:
* 1/2 very ripe banana
* 1/2 cup shredded coconut
* 1/4 cup cranberries
* 1 tsp xylitol (or equiv of other natural sweetner such as stevia 1 bitty scoop)
or 1 additional tbsp honey

If you like it superdark chocolately, add 1/3 cup additional unsweetened cocoa.
Play with the recipe, it is easily adapted!

(note this is an adaption from a recipe you can find here)

I have other tried and true recipes too.  Along with many failed ones. 

For those of you that thought this was a scrabooking blog, it still is – I’ve got plans to share over the next week or so – inbetween trialling new sin-free chocolate recipes.  ‘Cos I can. 😉

Laters

School holidays are awesome.  No pressure to find time to fit a thousand things into each day, no pressure to kick the kids out of the house on a cold winter’s morning and best of all, no notices from school asking for money or time or for me to remember school trips, appointments or other things that despite having a calendar on the fridge I never remember. 

This week I got a red bat-phone direct line installed to talk to Prima about ArtVenture.  Well, not really but I wish I could, I spend a lot of time on the phone organising what we need, what they need us to do, all that kind of stuff – lots of those conversations have the words “Just go downstairs to the warehouse and get some of those boxes of pretty stuff and walk across and put them on the pallet of stuff headed my way”.  Nothing like pretty stuff being sent my way. 

Next mission is to get class supplies on their way from the USA to us, so it seriously starts to get busy.  Sneaks will be coming out soon, people will start emailing asking to swap classes or book in the ones they wish they’d book in but didn’t… we’ll get the last minute sign-ups to ArtVenture, those that originally decided they couldn’t come but then realised today IS a rainy day and they should dip in to their birthday money.   

So that is how my school holidays is being spent.  Phone calls, skype, playing with pretty papers and glue.  Creating samples, completing assignments, arranging classes. 

Not a bad job.

No “In pursuit of Sugar-Free” posts for a few days, Jacob is on work experience and isn’t here.  I miss him LOTS.

Leaving you with a little assignment I did for Prima a while back.  It has hard to see pockets & hiddey places made from Julie Nutting Prima tags.    I originally put this little mini book somewhere safe to fill with pics from this school holidays.  If you know where my safe place is, let me know, I know it’s cliché but the place was so safe that I can’t find it. The part of my memory that stored where I put the mini-book is probably full of all the info from school notices, what to do, where to be and when I need to pay by.  It’ll turn up.

Laters.

Today, as a family, we ascertained there is no substitute for pancakes (pikelets) made the refined sugar, flour, eggs and milk kinda way.
In fact, chickpea maple flavored pancakes served with natural yoghurt, berries and honey may just cause one to burst into tears if one is a 9 year old girl that at first thought it was whipped cream and jam.

3 out of the 4 family members thought the substitute was ok. We’ll try again next week with the less ambitious banana/egg white recipe we have.

Jacob is currently out on some work experience on a farm, missing him already.

Laters

One of the biggest hurdles when Jacob first started this journey was stomaching the Omega 3 oil prescribed to him by the Naturopath.  Not designed to be a forever-thing, the oil he is taking is a super-mega-concentrated ‘grenade’ approach before moving onto a less concentrated, less expensive one later.  It’s so thick it crawls out of the bottle on to the spoon.  Masked with a peppermint flavour, it’s meant to taste Ok, but as these picture testify, it’s not pleasant at all.  Ain’t nobody really going to get past the fact it tastes like fish and it’s breakfast time, and eating fish at breakfast ain’t really that appetising.

Psyching himself up to swallow the dreaded peppermint fish oil.  
Breakfast ready to scoff down straight after.  Check him out.  He’s giving the same look to that spoon as I give to the leg press at the gym. 

 

Booyah, get it in!  The bulldog on his top kinda reflects the attitude, really. 
He always let’s go of his nose afterwards and says “Thank God you taught me to hold my nose” and scoffs into his breakfast.  Which happened to be homemade oat-quinoa muesli, unsweetened yoghurt & berries this morning. He’s seriously loving all this good food.

It’s a big day tomorrow as Jacob gets ready for a few days working on a dairy farm.  He is fairly set on working in dairy when he’s older so we’ve told him we’re happy for him to go down that path as long as he gets a taste of it.  4.30am mornings, here we come.

Last word from Jacob:

The Good: Talking myself into believing that the peppermint flavour repeating on me all day is really Peppermint Bubbly chocolate, not peppermint flavoured fish oil.  (it’s all in the mind, right?)

The Bad: I’m getting sick of swallowing heaps of vitamin pills, especially the disgusting herb one. 

Tomorrow’s mission: Getting a few things sorted to take to the farm.

Laters

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Day 4 in pursuit of free sugar. Uh… sugarfree