Meatless Monday {2020

So here we are: week 50 of Meatless Monday 2020… My week started on a rough note with chronic insomnia (no deep sleep all night) on Sunday night, meaning that Monday was a right off in a lot of ways. I literally got the boys to school came home, signed off sick from work and went back to bed till around 2pm, before picking the boys up from school and getting some work done in the evening.

But it was my last week at work and the boys last week at school and nursery before breaking up for Christmas, so by the end of the week I was feeling a lot more buoyant, that was until the tier 4 announcement came in and the scrapping of all Christmas plans 🙁 This year is such a roller-coaster of so many extra challenges mentally than any of us has dealt with before. But I do think we are, certainly I continue to, learn a lot from it all.

Here’s what we wore:

Me: It was a yoga pants and boyfriend cardi kinda day for me, comfort clothes to wrap up in and keep warm, whilst still being able to do the school run. The trousers are years old, and TK Maxx, the Top = White Stuff (thrifted from charity shops on our trip to Bath in September) and the cardigan was gifted and from one of the big supermarkets.

Boys: The boys started on their new (second hand) wardrobe for the next size trying out some new tops – I love how much they love trying new things and how smart they look, I love that they’re all generally sourced 2nd hand. There is no excuse for the need to buy new – if you cannot afford fair trade, as we can’t, 2nd hand is such a great option, thrifty, and reducing, reusing and recycling and wearing stuff which everyone else isn’t. I just love it and I am getting more and more into it as time goes on!

What’s in my ears:

This week I finally finished listening to Matthew McConaughey’s Green Lights, I definitely would recommend it as a listen/read. This week he got into how once he had made his money through Romantic Comedies, how he made the conscious shift into more meaningful acting, and his process of having to re-brand himself to Hollywood in order to do this, by rejecting his typecast work over and over again before the message got through, and turning down multiple multi-million dollar deals before the message got across.

I’d say I have come out of listening to this book with a great deal more respect for him as a man, and also with a lot of pearls of wisdom which I think with repeat in my head and make me thing more about life and how to handle it going forward, with a new perspective. This is honestly the joy of reading/ audible/ podcasts and so on is getting more of an understanding of life through experience and learning about other people and their filters, their ideologies, it makes you think more about your own and makes you think about the kind of person you want to be going forward.

The other thing I listened to this week was Brené Brown’s podcast – Unlocking Us, episode with Alicia Keys… I listened Alicia’s book More Myself earlier in the year and I absolutely loved it, all the way through, to be honest this interview kind of wanted to make me listen again, but it was just so fascinating to listen to two such inspirational women talk about such interesting material around what it is to become a fully grown woman and what you have to do in order to get there. I just loved how Brene Brown has told her 20 yr old daughter that she must read this book as it will teach her all the big life lessons which she needs to know in life. Powerful stuff, make sure you give it a listen.

I have loved Alicia Keys myself ever since Songs in A-Minor back in 2001 (age 17 for me – 19 for her). Her sounds is so unique, so soulful, so timeless, and she has such authenticity in everything she does, which she has build and learnt over time, and continues to improve upon. So I of course also went back to listening to Songs in A Minor after listening to this interview and reminisced in the joy of this album of beautiful artistry.

Here’s my week in 4:

Boys said farewell to Nursery & Pre-school for the Christmas Break: Both settings they are in have so made the best of a bad situation, with gorgeous video Christmas plays (which entirely melt your heart), Christmas lunches, Christmas Jumper Days, and the boys experienced getting Christmas cards from their peers for the first time, which was so lovely, and they so enjoyed unwrapping them all and see who they were from and telling me about each person. It was so magic and lovely – and gives us a bumper stock of cards to use as gift tags next yr as a sideline bonus!
I made a commitment to try to master meditation: This is something which has been on my heart for a while, a long time if I think about it, I have been doing yoga since my teens and yoga retreats, including one to India, since my early 20s. I’ve always made the excuse to date that my mind is too busy to meditate, it feels too uncomfortable, but then it occured to me, with this latest round of life’s challenges, this is something I can control, and perhaps the very reason I’ve been saying I can’t do it is the very reason why I absolutely should. Also, finally getting round to reading EAT PRAY LOVE this year left a real impression on me in terms of personal growth and managing “all the crap in your head” to coin a rather crass phrase. So I’ve decided to go for it. I am still charging my phone outside of my room at night, so I am connecting it to ALEXA in our room via bluetooth from the landing, I have tried both Headspace and Calm App in the past and have got on better with Calm, and its better value too, equivalent of just £2.99 a month if you pay the annual subscription and it really does have so so much material available for that price. How I have a huge array of what they call “sleep-stories” – part bedtime story, part meditation, read by almost every celebrity imaginable, so there really is something for everyone. And then in the day I am working my way through, first “how to meditate” – currently on day 3 and really enjoying it, and feeling a little Calmer each one I do. I think it is, like anything in life, just something which you need to practice and to make a habit. All I know at this point is anyone, ANYONE, I have met who has mastered the art of meditation is calmer, clearer, and more wise, and have a big ambition now to get to that place by the end of 2021! So this is my little new years resolution to myself which I just happened to have started a couple of weeks early 🙂
Beautiful new winter coats from a fellow twin Mummy: Just when I was thinking this week that perhaps I should have got the boys winter coats as well as fisherman coats and body warmers (always so much to think about and budget for kids), a fellow twin mummy, who I met through the twins trust local facebook group, with boys a couple of yrs older than mine, contacted me to see if I wanted any of the stuff they’d grown out of, I jumped at the chance of course and still have a full bin bag to go through tomorrow, along with these two gorgeous coats. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, we are so blessed to be part of such a wonderful community who really do look out for each other, I am so grateful for her donation <3
Getting my head straight with gratitude as Christmas is cancelled and we go into tier 4: As I’m sure you have heard, any loosening of the covid 19 rules for Christmas was cancelled this week, and we all naturally went back into feel pretty rubbish about it all. Then I saw this re-post from A Mothers Brand and it stopped me in my tracks, and made me realise just how lucky and how blessed we are. Amazing how gratitude can do that! It can literally turn your whole mood around. So this was something too good not to share with you this week and I hope that it helps you too. <3

Video(s) of the week:

I’ve been getting quite into Virgin River on Netflix this week, its a bit up and down, but it is serving a good escapism, and I have now just finished season 1 and on to season 2:

What we ate this week…

Breakfast:

One bonus of being up in the middle of the night is that I set up the bread-oven and cooked a loaf for the morning. When I have a night as bad as I did on Sunday, I don’t have any caffeine all day, so I had decaf tea and the boys had their milk and they had marmite toast and I had honey with fresh raspberries.

Lunch:

When I woke up I had a packet of Skips (surprisingly vegetarian – I’m learning most crisps are – so this is an easy swap to make), and then bagel with melted cheese and marmite and some grapes for lunch followed by a couple of chocolate orange segments for afters.

Dinner:

Between school and dinner we all had an apple, and a mince pie, then the boys had these kids oat bars and I had a couple of matchmakers. Then the boys had beans and toast and I had mushroom tortellini and red pesto, mixed with some tomato puree to make it go further, as I was almost out, and some peas with cheese on top – it actually was surprising delicious for something so simple. 🙂 I had another couple of matchmakers and a clementine for afters.