by Krista | Jul 31, 2012 | Bootstrap Monday
I love the Olympic Games so much. The drama of combat, inspiring stories, and thrilling feats of skill that give me goosebumps and make me teary.
I especially love watching them in different countries.
I’ve watched them in my homeland of Canada, my adopted country the United States, and now I get to see them from an Aussie perspective in my new country of Australia. It’s so fun!
Each country focuses on different sports, and here in Australia I’m discovering sports I didn’t even know were in the Olympics, things like field hockey, dressage and table tennis. I love it!
As I happily watch one event after another, I thought that today we’d take a trip down memory lane to the city hosting the Olympics and revisit the streets of London.
I visited London for the first time last October, excitedly wandering along the Thames with my dear English friend Katy from Starry-Eyed Travels.
Katy knows the city like the back of her hand, and we had so much fun seeing things I’d only read about or seen on movies.
Like this statue of the marvelous warrior queen Boadicea (Boudicca) who led her people in a valiant fight against the Roman invaders in AD 61.
And the soaring Saint Stephen’s Tower (aka Big Ben).
We strolled past London war memorials and houses of Parliament, and gazed in delight at the beautiful old buildings standing tall and dignified along the bustling streets.
London was nothing like I had imagined. It was better.
I will show you more of this incredible city next time.
Do you like the Olympics? If so, what is your favorite sport to watch?
by Krista | Jul 26, 2012 | Fabulous Friday
I feel very grateful today.
Someone close to me has found peace after years of anguish, and I’m so happy for him.
In just a few weeks I will be an auntie for the first time and I can’t wait.
And yesterday I met an amazing new friend, a lady whose past is so similar to mine we could hardly believe it.
There is inestimable comfort found in talking with someone who understands. It is such a gift to be validated, to hear someone say, “I know. It really happened. It’s going to be OK.”
And you believe them because they were there.
As a teenager I was in a religious cult for nine years. Years where I was brainwashed and abused physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. For years after I blocked out much of what happened. Couldn’t remember it for the life of me. I now know that’s a common occurrence among survivors of such things.
Over the past few years I was able to get counseling and therapy and began a painful and wonderful process of healing. Healing is the best thing, but it is also the scariest and hardest thing I’ve ever been part of.
Last year I started a new life in Australia, a life I love more than I can say. 🙂 I had no idea what a refuge it would be, how healing and nourishing it would be to live on our little goat farm, to have a man beside me who loves me unconditionally, and to have dear Aussie friends who hug me tight, laugh and say, “You have the craziest past we’ve ever heard of, but we sure love you.”
Healing has brought back memories of those years, of other traumatic events that my mind, in self-preservation, blocked out for a while. I don’t like those memories. I don’t like the nightmares that accompany them. I hate the physical pain that inevitably follows.
But it’s worth it. So worth it.
To get through a night without waking up screaming.
To get through the normal ups and downs of life without crumpling. (For too long, anyhow ;-))
To be able to love without fear.
These are the things that make this worthwhile.
But now and then you need a little boost. We all have such unique stories, individual pains and traumas, that sometimes we need a kindred spirit to come along and say: “I’ve been where you’ve been, I’ve seen what you’ve seen, I’ve hurt how you’re hurting, and you’re going to be OK.”
That’s what my new friend did for me yesterday. When I got home there was an email from her waiting for me. And it meant so much to me that I have to share it with you. Maybe you need to hear her words too:
“I’m so glad we got to meet today beautiful girl!
Never again will you be alone and isolated.
From now on you will always be heard, believed, understood, validated, cared for and free.
You are amazing, honest, courageous, intelligent, strong, wise, and beautiful!
You have so many gifts to offer the world through your experiences.
Catch up again soon x”
I hope her words sink deep into all our hearts and spur us on to deeper healing and greater loving as we fumble our way through this crazy, heart-rending, beautiful thing called Life.
Wishing you a beautiful weekend. XO
by Krista | Jul 24, 2012 | Compatriot Wednesday
The light in Australia is unlike any I’ve ever seen. It is clean and bright and feels so alive.
I love it.
In the afternoon it softens to the most intense gold, glowing and warm, even in the dead of winter. This is my favorite time to go for a walk on our farm: Citadel Kalahari.
I’ve started taking our goats out for a daily trek through the bush. They love it! Dashing from one succulent bush to the next, stretching up as high as they can to nibble off tender leaves.
This little fellow loves eating so much that he gets utterly absorbed in it and never seems to notice when the entire herd wanders off. I keep an eye on him and laugh every time he suddenly realizes he’s all by himself and hoofs it off through the grass to find his mother.
I take them for their walk in late afternoon, simply because the soft winter light makes it even more pleasurable.
While they’re munching along, I get to explore a bit too.
This week I nearly scared the liver out of myself by almost stepping on an enormous (but harmless) yellow and black blue-tongued lizard. Yipes!
A while later I had the unnerving sense that someone was watching me, and looked up to spot a lone kangaroo peering at me through the grass. 🙂
I’m very happy we have so many gum trees for the winter light to filter through, so many meadows of long, golden grass for the setting sun to glimmer through.
I feel lucky every single day to live in such a beautiful place. It may not be Paris or Amsterdam or even my beloved Italy, but it is infinitely precious to me.
On such beautiful days I feel the need to spoil us a little.
Turnips may not be the first thing that springs to mind when it comes to food indulgences, but they may be after you try these little beauties. 🙂
I often have a surplus of vegetables around my house, mostly because I get so excited at the Warwick Farmer’s Market that I forget I’m only cooking for two and come home with BOXES of plum tomatoes, Lebanese cucumbers, and silverbeet.
This week I had an abundance of root vegetables: turnips, parsnips, potatoes, etc., so I decided to make root veggie pancakes. I didn’t want plain ol’ pancakes though, so I jazzed them up a bit with Feta cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, and added a dollop of garlicky plain yogurt and a drizzle of roasted tomato puree.
I love when healthy things taste so good you feel like you’re getting away with something. 🙂 That’s the case with these little pancakes. We had them cold and plain for mid-afternoon snacks, piled them high with the aforementioned yogurt and tomato puree, and warmed them slightly with a sprinkling of Worcestershire sauce. All of them are good, especially eaten in the glow of the setting sun.
What is your favorite healthy indulgence?
PS – If you’d like to know more about life on our Australian goat farm, visit us at our blog: http://www.citadelkalahari.com/or our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/citadelkalahari
Feta Root Veggie Pancakes
Ingredients:
6-8 small turnips, peeled and cubed
1-2 parsnips, peeled and diced
3-4 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
salt and pepper
1/2 cup Feta cheese, grated
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
3-4 green onions, sliced
4 eggs
olive oil for pan
Toppings:
plain yogurt mixed with minced garlic, green onions, and salt.
roasted tomato puree (roasted tomatoes whizzed up in the blender until smooth)
Directions:
- Dump turnips, parsnips and potatoes into large pot. Cover with salted water and bring to boil over high heat.
- Reduce heat slightly and simmer 20-30 minutes until vegetables are tender enough to mash with a fork.
- Drain vegetables and let cool 5-10 minutes.
- Add salt and pepper to taste, Feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and green onion. Mix well.
- Add four eggs and mix very well.
- Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add spoonfuls of vegetable mixture to make disks about 2-3 inches wide.
- Cook until disks bubble on the edges (like pancakes). Flip and cook another 2-3 minutes. Flip again if necessary to ensure even browning.
- Remove cooked pancakes to platter and cover to keep warm while you cook the remaining batter.
- When ready to serve, arrange three pancakes on a plate, top with garlicky yogurt and/or roasted tomato puree, or eat plain.
- While good warm, they are also good cold straight out of the fridge as a snack.
by Krista | Jul 23, 2012 | Bootstrap Monday
I do love a Girls Day Out, especially when it involves chocolate and jazz.
Thanks to the generosity of my friend Sue who gave us tickets, my friends Ann, Shirley and I got to go to the Like Chocolate for Women event in Warwick, Queensland this weekend.
As part of the Jumpers and Jazz festivities, it provided a much-needed respite from our hectic daily lives, and reminded us of the importance, nay, the necessity of taking care of ourselves.
Held at the beautiful Warwick Town Hall, Like Chocolate for Women started off with fabulous jazz music, first a jolly group of locals outside, jamming their hearts out, later a female vocalist wowed us with her gorgeous voice and made us swear we were at a Parisian nightclub instead of a small town in Australia.
We were seated at chocolate themed tables – ours was Cadburys – and at each of our seats was a ribbon bound box filled with delectable chocolate cupcakes, cookies, truffles, and fudge. We sipped strong cups of tea and coffee while we listened to the music, feeling the anxieties of our myriad responsibilities melt away.
Speaker Kim Morrison spoke with hilarity, honesty and intuition, focusing on this one belief:
“Self-care is not selfish – It’s essential!”
Her words were not new, but somehow they came at the right time for me and, based on the responses of those around me, for many other women as well.
She focused on our willingness to lose ourselves in the care of others, forgetting to care for our own bodies, emotions, and goals.
She listed the things that are essential for good health: gratefulness, exercise, healthy eating, solid rest, good relationships. We KNOW these things, but somehow we don’t make them a priority.
We’ll walk two miles to help a child in trouble, but we can’t find time to walk two miles to keep ourselves fit and healthy.
We’d spend two hours a night making healthy lunches for our partners, children, and friends, but content ourselves with quick fast food or ready made meals for ourselves.
We’d devote a whole weekend to attending sporting events or business functions for various family members, but can’t find time for coffee and a good visit with a trusted friend.
Again, we KNOW these things. But does that keep us from living schedules and lifestyles that leave us frazzled and stressed and sick and overweight and unhappy?
It really hit home for me when Kim explained gently that how we live our lives is a shining example to the kids in our lives of what it’s like to be an adult.
Would I ever want my friends little girls or boys to feel like they don’t matter? That their goals and hopes are secondary to others? That they aren’t worthy of good health, thriving relationships, and a fulfilling life?
Never. Ever. Ever.
I know I’m probably rambling here, but that short talk yesterday really, really impacted me.
What I loved most about it is that the goal of self-care is NOT to put down anyone else. No way. The goal of self-care is for us to thrive as human beings so that we can celebrate and support the lives of the people dear to us in a strong, healthy and loving way.
I love that. That’s the sort of person I want to be.
My friend Ann and I drove home under a glorious sky, feeling rather thoughtful and emotional after all we’d heard. It was like Kim had given us permission to look our lives square in the face and see them for what they are, no apologies, no fears, no guilt, just reality. As she said, “Sometimes you need an upper cut.”
We got one. 🙂
Today I feel quiet in my spirit. Looking around my house, the farm, my little world with new eyes. I’ve been in survival mode for so long that in some senses, I’ve forgotten how to live. REALLY live. I’m changing that now.
I leave you with this beautiful snippet from the Brave Girls Club that meant so much to me this week:
“Somehow it happens that we isolate ourselves over time,
stuck in a mode of survival,
and forgetting that there’s anything else to think about beyond how to get through the next day….
or even the next few minutes.
Life is not meant for that kind of living,
even though there are stages of life that can stretch for a long time living this way.
Try to reach out today.
Call a friend and be really honest about where you are.
Try something new….a new skill, a new recipe, a new route to the same old places….
this will help you get unstuck and begin to build a live that is about
THRIVING and ENJOYING
rather than surviving and enduring.
You are SO STRONG and you are so great at surviving and enduring, friend……
but everyone who loves you wants more for you than that.
YOUR SOUL wants more than that too…..you know that, right?
You can do this….
there are so many smiles and laughs and new friendships and new adventures ahead for you.
Your best years have not even been lived yet…
you have so much to look forward to.
Decide to LIVE BIG!
You are so very loved.”
by Krista | Jul 19, 2012 | Fabulous Friday
It may have been pouring rain outside yesterday, but that didn’t stop volunteers from braving the weather to decorate trees all through Warwick, Queensland in time for the Jumpers and Jazz in July festival opening today. Jumper in the States may mean a shapeless dress, but over here the word refers to cozy sweaters.
My friend Ann and I pulled our own jumpers a bit tighter against the cold so we could check out some of the earliest completions like this gorgeous tree outside the library.
We couldn’t get over the detail in this amazing display in the library parking lot. A whole table covered with knitted food like spaghetti and meatballs…
…and a knitted hamburger with French Fries next to a platter of knitted burritos. Someone was very creative. 🙂
Tucked up in the tree was this little knitted doll with a star-topped wand, and all sorts of other creatures like owls and bugs.
Even the Warwick Town Hall was decked out for the occasion with its stately pillars covered in a rainbow of patchwork squares and larger than life knitted flowers.
For the next two weeks thousands of people will descend on our little country town to attend jazz festivals, gourmet dinners, wine tastings and all sorts of events.
On Sunday afternoon a group of friends and I will attend the Like Chocolate for Women event. I’m so excited to see this interesting combination of soft jazz, delicious chocolate and inspirational speaking.
It’s put me in the mood for chocolate, of course. Something decadent like these oh so simple but delectable Dark Chocolate Cups that my friend Shirley and I made. Filled with coffee-flavored yogurt, fresh fruit and whipped cream, they are light but scrumptious.
What is your favorite chocolate dessert?
Dark Chocolate Strawberry Yogurt Cups
Ingredients:
4 dark chocolate cups
1 small container latte/coffee flavored yogurt
1 banana, sliced
1 pint strawberries, washed, hulled and sliced
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 sprigs mint leaves
Directions:
- Divide yogurt evenly among four dark chocolate cups.
- Add bananas and strawberries.
- Whip cream until stiff, fold in powdered sugar and vanilla.
- Top dark chocolate cups with whipped cream.
- Garnish with fresh mint leaves.
