Meatless Monday {2020 – week 49}

So here we are: week 49 of Meatless Monday 2020… Insomnia carried on into this week – with all the stresses going on at the moment, 2020 in general, the lead up to Christmas, work, overwhelm seems like a constant state, which is really hard to manage, but I do keep trying. at least we all break up for Christmas at the end of this coming week, so a couple of less things to think about for a couple of weeks, these beautiful boys have kept me going as they always do <3

Other tools which also help me are daily yoga (wherever possible), gratitude journaling, and getting out in nature – whether that be for just a cuppa in the garden or a little gardening or a walk, I always always feel better for it, so hope these suggestions maybe help you too <3 – sending you all love and light…

Here’s what we wore:

Me: Boots = Clarks, Trouser = FatFace {thrifted}, Long Sleeve Top = New Look, Vest = Primark, Knit Cardigan = Vintage, Scarf = Handmade by my very talented sister-in-law, Gilet = Joules, Hat and gloves = T K Maxx

Boys: Fox Hats = John Lewis, Bags = SkipHop, Gilet = Facebook Selling (one Primark, one BHS), Hoodies = Vertbaudet, Trouser/ Tops = various 2nd hand sources, Vests = Supermarket, Shoes = Clarks

What’s in my ears:

This weekI carried on listening to Matthew McConaughey’s Green Lights, soaking in more pearls of wisdom as I went… one of my favourites was A Roof is a man-made thing, which is taken from his famous 2016 University of Huston Speech :

It’s because we have created a fictitious ceiling, a roof, to our expectations of ourselves. A limit where we think it’s all too good to be true. But it’s not. And it’s not our right to say or believe it is. We shouldn’t create these restrictions on ourselves. A blue ribbon, a statue, a score, a great idea, the love of our life, a euphoric bliss. Who are we to think that we don’t deserve or haven’t earned these gifts when we get them? It’s not all right. But if we stay in process within ourselves in the joy of the doing, we will never choke at the finish line. Why? Because we aren’t thinking of the finish line. Because we’re not looking at the clock. We’re not watching ourselves on the jumbotron performing the very act that we’re in the middle of. No, we’re in process. The approach is the destination and we’re never finished.

motivational speech at the University of Houston

… this really is an excellent reminder to always believe in ourselves.

I love this concept of how he finds this theme of green lights, when something goes right, what a great way to look back on life. Here’s what the amazon synopsis says:

From the Academy Award®-winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call ‘catching greenlights.’

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

Amazon

Here’s my week in 4:

• 

• 

• 

• 

1. Post Birthday, Pre-Christmas meet up with Besties: I arranged to meet two of my closest friends for a walk on Tuesday this week and it was just so so good to see them, even if we were outside and it was freezing – something which 2020 has definitely taught me is just how much seeing your loved ones in person feeds your soul, and these two most certainly do do that. I am so grateful to have them both in my life.
2. Mail-order Christmas Problems: This was a re-post I shared this week and it was just too funny not to share again with you guys, as I read it and literally both laughed out loud and thought “yup – this is my life” – I Iove giving people gifts and sourcing them from ethical shops online rather than trapsing round some big shopping mall – but there are many many times where I have no idea what are in the parcels in my hallway! Anyone else feeling me on this – I know you are!
3. Post Birthday meet up with my Sister & Niece: On Saturday we met up with my sister and niece for a walk at Woburn Deer Park, one of our favourite places locally and so picturesque. It was so good to see them and so good for the cousins, especially, to get together – as they are only 6 months appart they often are like siblings when they meet up and it is just gorgeous to experience the joy they have all playing together and jumping in muddy puddles! These are precious moments to cherish <3
4. Two little sheep: The boys have their 2nd of two Christmas plays this week, as they had one at school and one at nursery, both are being done virtually, as in filmed for the parents to watch later, which is a little heart breaking to not be there in person for their first ones especially – but hey FU2020 and all. For the nursery one they are sheep and so I managed to source these sheep onesies on Facebook selling (saving myself half the price of buying new and reducing, reusing and recycling at the same time) and they are so cute in them, I can’t wait to see the videos of both of the plays – I think the nursery one is a traditional(ish) nativity and the school one was Eddie the Penguin Saves the World (which seems to have a very green storyline and be very much up my street).

Video(s) of the week:

I finally got round to watching Kiss the Ground this week – which has been on my to watch list ever since I heard about it…

The premise of this documentary and this concept is that soil, and the absorption of excessive carbon in the atmosphere back into it, through regenerative agriculture, could literally fix global warming for good, by changing the way we farm it is incredible how quickly it is possible to make the soil back into the living organism it should be and not only solve global warming but make the entire food chain healthier, happier and more sustainable across the board!

Regenerative agriculture is a conservation and rehabilitation approach to food and farming systems. It focuses on topsoil regeneration, increasing biodiversity,^[1] improving the water cycle,^[2] enhancing ecosystem services, supporting biosequestration, increasing resilience to climate change, and strengthening the health and vitality of farm soil. Practices include recycling as much farm waste as possible and adding composted material from sources outside the farm.^[3][4][5][6]

On a regenerative farm, yield should increase over time. As the topsoil deepens, production may increase and fewer external compost inputs are required. Actual output is dependent on the nutritional value of the composting materials and the structure and content of the soil.^[7]

Wikipedia

Overall watching this film gave me a good deal of hope – which I think we are all crying out for desperately right now. One of the tangible things highlighted in the documentary was Four for 1000 Initiative, developed by the INRA (National Institute of Agricultural Research in France), which 30 countries around the world have signed a pledge to work towards this over the next 20 years… The below video explains what this is all about…

Just in writing and researching this post I have realised how you can delve deeper and deeper into this subject, however to goal to grow our food in healthy, chemical free, soil filled with micro-organisms which absorbs excess carbon from the atmosphere, really does seem to be a win win win solution all round…

The primary tool of farming is the soil. It’s not the tractor. It’s not the combine-harvester. It’s not the satellite. It’s the soil. What’s really at stake here is what happens after COP 21 in Paris. If all people here can become aware of the role of the soil, and if people can get that the soil can be loaded up with carbon, and then after that, we must all take action to achieve these objectives.

Le Foll in French

And once again I am so pleased that Biden has won in America and he has promised to re-join the Paris agreement as one of the first things which he will do in office {source}

Hopefully what I have said here will intrigue you enough to look into this all further yourself, even if it is just to watch the documentary. I know for sure I’m not going to be using any pesticides in my garden going forward and my focus is going to be on increasing plants and natural gardening and hopefully some home-grown food too, and certainly bee-friendly plants by the dozen. I am also going to wherever possible buy organic going forward – whenever budget allows me to – this is my personal pledge.

What we ate this week…

Breakfast:

I started my morning with a cup of builders (English Breakfast) tea after a poor nights sleep and 12 minute yoga for Brain Power to try and wake up my brain for the day ahead. Then we all had hot cross buns and berries for breakfast and the boys had their milk before the school run, when I got home from the school run, before starting work at 10am I decided to try a meditation for self love, again from Yoga with Adriene and linked below, meditation is something which I enjoy so much in a class setting, but I am yet to master the art of distraction when practising at home, this is something which I would like to continue to work on over the next year, something I would like to feel like I have mastered to some degree, as everyone who I have ever met who has managed to master meditation has been transformed by it and has an inate sense of peace, which it is very hard not to envy. Up to this point I have always argued that my mind is too busy for meditation, but perhaps this is the very reason why I need to learn to make it a habit… so I am going to try and do just that over the next year and as ever, I will keep you posted how I get on.

Lunch:

Mid-morning I had a pack of Wotsits to keep me going and then went for a comfort food lunch of melted cheese and marmite bagels, followed by a couple of clementines and a cup of decaf tea.

Dinner:

After I collected the boys from school, I had another cup of decaf tea, and a couple of biscuits, then we all had one of these rather delicious fruity worms which are marketed as a healthy after school snack, I can’t say they are healthy (even if they are made of mainly fruit juice) but they most certainly are delicious! then we all had a couple ritz crackers (which have become a houshold staple since listening to Mariah Carey’s autobiography the other month, where she says its one of the few snack foods her Dad would allow her and how much she loved them, and so I bought a pack and haven’t looked back – they are a great little – in between meal snack for the boys and not too unhealthy :)).

For dinner I decided to be a bit adventurious – as I had bought some courgettes the previous week, with the plan to use them for my courgette orzo, which I love, but then realised that I already had some in the freeze in leftover tupperwear, which left me with the conundrum, what to do with these courgettes. I had some leftover cous cous which needed using too – so I decided to combine and make myself some stuffed courgettes for dinner, which were simple and delicious, please find the recipe below.

The boys had their usual beans and toast and fruit for afters.

Please check out my Pinterest meatless inspiration board: #MeatlessMonday to gather some pinspiration:

Along with the official Meatless Monday board which I am also now sharing on:

Find out how I got onto Meatless Mondays in the first place by watching this video:

And check out #meatlessmondays on this blog to see all my Meatless Monday posts and recipes. Hope you have a lovely week. 🙂

Go on Pin it!