Why I Run

I’ve been running for 12 years.  And it’s been hugely important to me.  And because it’s just part of my routine now, I forget what a profound effect it’s had on my life.

At school I was about as unsporty as you can get – chubby, physically unconfident and clumsy, I was never picked for teams.  I was vaguely good at defending in hockey, but catching balls? Forget it!

Fast forward to my late twenties, not a brilliant period of my life.  In debt, a bit overweight, a smoker and not really living the life I wanted to.  I miraculously and thankfully discovered running.

My friend Regina wanted to run a Nike 10k race in Hyde Park. I wasn’t in any way fit, but I liked the idea of a challenge.  We started training on Saturday mornings in the local park.  We’d usually both rock up hungover, and I’d often have a fag on the way.  A significant part of our training was actually ‘speed walking’ round the park and gossiping, and then reluctantly running a lap.  However we committed to the process and gradually improved.

On the day of the 10k, I absolutely loved the buzz of the event and the thrill of finishing a 10k.  It felt like a huge acheivement, especially at a time in my life when not a lot was going in my favour.

Next up was a half marathon, we’d enjoyed the 10k, so why not double the distance? And 5 months later we found ourselves running the Reading Half Marathon.  What strikes me as hilarious now is the stuff I used to run in.  I literally wore the thickest track suit trousers and just a normal cotton t-shirt to run the half marathon.  I just hadn’t got my head around how hot I would get running 13 miles. But I did it!

Regina and I were now hooked on this running thing.  So a year later we signed up to the London Marathon and another friend joined our running crew. I became nicknamed the ‘running Nazi’ because despite my extra pounds, fag habit and tendency to enjoy a bit too much booze, I was actually very diligent in following a strict running programme.  My favourite memory is one Sunday when we planned to do our final long run before the Marathon. We were aiming to get to 16 miles.  I arrived at Regina’s place to discover that she and our other pal had been clubbing for most of the night, but were in their running gear and ready to go.  Miraculously, we completed the run (with a mid-run stop off at KFC).

The day of the Marathon arrived, and despite being bored out of my mind and wanting to give up for many miles of the running, it really was a glorious day.  The crowd support was like nothing I’d ever experienced in my life, I had loads of friends who came down to watch and the sense of achievement was just immense.

Ten years on from that Marathon, running is just a habitual part of my life.  It’s keeps me trim, sane and happy. I may not love every run I do, sometimes it’s sheer endurance getting out there in the the cold and the rain, but it’s always worth it.  I view it a bit like putting money in a bank, it’s not always loads of fun, but I’m investing in me.  And I think the journey from chubby, unsporty, not doing very well in life Katya, to slimmer, fitter and generally happier and more confident me, is all entwined with my running journey.  The running made me feel good about myself and more confident in my life, and as I became more confident in life, I became even more confident about running.  A virtous circle.

If you fancy getting into running, my top tips would be – find a running buddy at a similar level of fitness, get a pair of running trainers and a good running bra, try the coach to 5k app and when you feel ready do a local 5k park run – there’ll be one near you and they are free.

 

My Very Long And Windy Road to Confidence

In my recent blog post Laying Ghosts to Rest I described having had my confidence ripped away at school and being left feeling stupid and not good enough. This lack of self belief had terrible consequences in my life. I thought it was just my story, but I’ve been inundated with messages from women I went to school with who’d suffered throughout their lives with very similar confidence issues. I was horrified.  It just didn’t seem right.

So I wanted to share some of the lessons I’ve learned on my long and windy road to confidence. I’ve gone from being a tortured fragile soul to actually a (largely) really happy, bouncy version of myself. I’ve had a lot of help with therapy, counselling and coaching, which I used to be embarrassed about, but the truth is, it’s been the making of me.  Here’s what I’ve learnt:

1. To be kind to myself and to forgive myself. We all make mistakes or bad decisions in life – that’s just normal human behaviour.  But learning to forgive ourselves for those mishaps is so important.  The weight of guilt and shame I’ve carried for getting into horrendous debt in my twenties nearly derailed my entire life. But as I’ve got older (with the help of therapy) I’ve become a lot kinder to myself about that situation. I’ve learnt to reframe it.  My mum died when I was 23 and I’ve always had a difficult relationship with my dad, so I felt very alone when she died.  Money became my friend and my escape route.  Money replaced the love that I’d lost. I spent much of my 30s utterly ashamed about the mess I’d got myself into financially (which fortunately I’ve sorted out).  But in recent years, with the help of coaching and therapy, I’m actually quite proud of the stuff I did when I racked up debt.  I spent money on counselling in my 20s which was a life saver for me, I travelled the world for a  year, I went on many fascinating courses.  And I lived my life.  I wanted to meet people and go to parties and experience things, and I did. My mum’s death made me ultra aware of wanting to live life to the full.
2. There are different ways of being intelligent. From my school days I’d been fixated on what kind of intelligent I wasn’t. I wasn’t academic, I wasn’t scientific, I wasn’t a natural at languages, I didn’t have a photographic memory, I didn’t know much about current affairs.  I often wouldn’t utter a word in meetings in my last job, deeming everyone else to be more intelligent than me. During coaching and therapy, we examined what kind of clever I was. I can do logistics, creativity, communication, I’m resourceful, practical, I think outside of the box, I have vision.  It’s a long list of skills and talents that I’ve started to celebrate.
3. To allow myself to be vulnerable. I used to be the master of never asking for help. Perhaps my mum dying when I was so young made me super self sufficient. But in honesty trying to live my life so robotically really wasn’t working. When I got divorced a few years ago, I put my stiff upper lip on, didn’t complain and just cracked on with things. I’m not sure how I did it. It was a really lonely time. However what was brilliant was that I went into therapy.  And my therapist identified that I was completely out of touch with my feelings and effectively isolating myself by trying to be so independent and strong. She was very clever at prodding me and questioning me and making me understand that I needed to express myself and let people in in order to be happier.
4. To recognise when a situation isn’t working for me anymore.  My job at 5 live at the BBC was an amazing experience for me – I was there eight years and worked with some great people and really came into my own.  But in the end I felt stuck, and couldn’t develop my career or my confidence any further there.  I left in May 2016 and haven’t looked back.  I catapulted myself out of my comfort zone – last year was all about being creative and having some time out and this year I started my business. It’s still scary and I don’t entirely know what I’m doing, but I’ve learnt a lot, met loads of interesting people and had a pretty amazing time.
5. To embrace new opportunities.  One of my favourite quotes is ‘old ways won’t open new doors’. I think as we get older it’s so easy to become very rigid in our routines. Personally if I don’t have cake and Netflix in the evenings after dinner, I feel very hard done by. However despite some of my cumudgeonly, cosy habits, I have been pretty good at throwing myself into new situations in the last few years. It started when I was getting divorced when I just thought, I can either stay home and be lonely or really make something of my life now.  I was feeling a bit socially rusty, but I joined a fell running group, ran a couple of supper clubs at my house, joined a ramblers club, booked a holiday to Morocco and New York,  went out dating and met my lovely boyfriend, and turned things around.

This is just a little snapshot into how I’ve overcome some of my confidence issues.  I think nearly everyone has their own struggles with believing in themselves and getting what they really want out of life. I’d love to hear your lessons in confidence if you’d like to share them.

Laying Ghosts To Rest

I left Kendrick, my all girls grammar school, 23 years ago when I was 18 and I hadn’t been back since.  I left with rubbish A levels results and broken confidence.  This started a trajectory of just not doing very well in life in my late teens and throughout my twenties (although things are good now), a lot of which I can trace back to the belief I developed at school that I was stupid and not good enough. And let’s not even go into how going to an all girls school impacted me with men.  I can laugh about it now, but it brutally affected my ability to even talk to the opposite sex as an adult, let alone have relationships.

So why on earth would I go to Kendrick’s 140th birthday party when I had such unpleasant associations with my experience? Because I wanted to make peace with it all and find out if my perspective would be different after seeing the school and some of the teachers in the flesh.  A couple of my best friends from Kendrick wanted to go along too – they hadn’t had the best time there either, but we thought we needed to do it and that we would have fun.

We arrived at the school on Sunday at 1.30pm and discovered ourselves to be nervous wrecks.  I hadn’t realised it would affect me this much.  I was shaking.   We walked into register and I could barely write my name on my name badge because my hands were shaking so much. Very quickly the memories came flooding back, looking at the shabby buildings and the tennis courts that hadn’t changed much at all. But what really struck me, was that the memories popping into my head were good and funny. I always had a lot of friends at Kendrick, most of whom I’m in touch with and still really like.  Yes, the school was suffocatingly dull and old fashioned, the teachers weren’t particularly inspiring, but we were kids with energy and imagination (and a lot of hormones) and we had fun.

My friend Katie and I at school when we were about 15

Walking through the dreary classrooms, I remembered how bored I was in classes. I’ve no idea how I got through 7 years of them. At primary school I had been a confident kid, specialising in writing wacky stories and making crazy artwork and doing bits of drama.  I wasn’t a brilliant high achiever, but I knew I was clever and that I was really good at my creative things.  Suddenly at this new school, from the age of eleven you needed to be a self disciplined exam machine, ready to nerdily crack on with hours of homework every night. And there was no patience, no curiousity and no warmth from the teachers if you couldn’t deliver.  Your sense of worth came from scoring the highest test results, not from writing the coolest story about super hero pigs.

I am still bitter that I was a nice, bright child and that I was cast aside for being lazy because I wasn’t a nerd.   It just seems a terrible shame that in my teen years when I should have absorbed learning like a sponge, I was camatosed with boredom and labelled a trouble maker for being disengaged rather than disobedient.

However, I took my chip on my shoulder back to the school on Sunday and discovered that despite everything, I am grateful for my time at school.  I had been in a protective environment full of high achieving girls – it wasn’t the right place for me, but it planted the seed of ambition in me to strive for the best and push myself.  I didn’t excel, but school was a safe, consistent home to me for all those years, and I may not have fitted in academically, but socially I was confident and had lots of laughs.  And even though my A level results were crap, I made it to university.  And when I compare all those happy outcomes of my school years to a lot of other people’s teenage experiences, well actually, I know I’m lucky.

The opening photo is of myself and my friends from school, posing in our old biology lab at Kendrick’s 140th birthday celebration.

 

Riverford Recipe Box Happiness

On Thursday we received the Riverford vegetarian recipe box containing the ingredients for three vegetarian meals for two.

I had not anticipated that the box would:

a) be so overflowing with vegetables and ingredients

b) that I would be quite so excited about unpacking the goodies

Jamie and I rummaged through the intriguing ingredients in the box which included kefir, dill, harrissa and beetroot, I wondered what they would all be for.  I was particularly delighted about the kefir – I’ve heard a lot about the health benefits of kefir lately and was keen to try it.

Within the box there was a bag cooled with ice that contained the items for the fridge, and as well as the veg, there were little pots of spices measured out precisely for the recipes.

We didn’t waste anytime and cracked on with a recipe for our Thursday night dinner. Sweetcorn and leek fritters with tomato and onion relish and alfafa salad (see photo above). Easy to assemble and cook and a delicous combination of fresh flavours.  This wasn’t any old average meal, it was exceptionally good.

Friday’s mealtime I would say was my favourite though, harissa falafels with spiced beetroot, kefir dressing and pittas.  I’ve had falafels many times before but I often find them a little dry, but these were so moist, the beetroot mix was beautifully spicy and sweet and the kefir dressing was a lovely creamy herby addition.

Harissa falafels with spiced beetroot, kefir dressing and pittas

Saturday lunchtime we cooked our final meal: chimichurri and roasted mushrooms with baked sweet potatoes and lentils. OMG I am now a convert to chimichurri (a spicy sauce made with parsley, chilli and garlic) – it was the perfect compliment to the veg and really lifted the dish.

What was noticeable about all these dishes was that they were so imaginative and well thought out.  I’m quite a recipe snob and we eat a lot of excellent homecooked food, but the three meals were exotic and brilliantly flavoured.  They were a real joy to prepare and then eat. The recipes cards were so easy to follow too.

I think these recipe boxes would be such a treat for people who love their food and want to eat healthy, inspiring and varied meals, but just don’t have the time to:

a) be looking up interesting recipes

b) sourcing ingredients

c) spending hours in the kitchen measuring out ingredients

Riverford have got it spot on!

Chimichurri and roasted mushrooms with baked sweet potatoes and lentils

Thanks to Riverford for providing the vegetarian recipe box.  All opinions and words are my own.

Riverford Pop Up Feast, Uppermill

We signed up to weekly Riverford veg boxes three months ago as part of my bid to be more environmental. We haven’t looked back since. I am now a Riverford evangelist. The produce is delightfully fresh and flavourful and it’s given us the opportunity to cook some cracking meals that really focus on the veg. I’ve been especially pleased that we’ve been confronted with foods we wouldn’t normally cook – eg daikon radishes, kolrabi and corn on the cob. We’ve had to dig deep and work out what to do with the stuff, and without fail, the outcome has been delicious.

I was looking forward to the Riverford Pop Up Feast in Upper Mill as it was another excuse for me to gorge myself on Riverford veg and learn more exciting ways of celebrating veg in dishes. The meal was part of a number of events Riverford were running to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Riverford’s Yorkshire farm. Riverford itself has been running for 30 years, but the Northern franchises have been a newer addition. Riverford customers were invited to attend at a bargain price of £15 a head.

A marvellous feast of veg!

I can confirm that the food was exceptional, and here’s the menu:

Sweetcorn with romesco

Tomato, pickled peppers and feta panzanella

Courgette and bean salad with orange, tahini and poppy seed

New potatoes with tarragon butter

Beetroot, rhubarb and blue cheese salad

Macerated nectarines with brown sugar meringues

Jamie and I were lucky enough to sit with Greg Penn, Business Development Manager for Riverford’s Home Farm in Yorkshire. We really bent his ear. I wanted to know everything about Riverford, the farming and the franchises. It was fascinating hearing all about it and we also spent a long time raving about Riverford vegetables and our favourite recipes. This might not be everyone’s idea of a good night out, but I was in my element!

Yet more veg!

I went home very full and inspired. I also came away fired up to spread the word about Riverford and other organic farms, so that more people can join me in evangalising about beautiful organic vegetables, and of course so that farms and companies that are helping the planet get more support.

Thanks to Riverford for inviting us as guests.  All opinions and words are my own.

Having Your Cake And Eating It!

As you may have gathered from reading my blog posts this year, I have a very sweet tooth that interferes with my desire to eat healthily. I have been very open about my ice-cream addiction and my attempts to curb my evening treat.

So a big theme for me this year has been finding a healthier alternative for dessert.  And ‘healthy’ cakes have become a thing for me.

When I say healthy, I think it’s more accurate to say it contains a few more wholesome ingredients than the original. The recipes are still loaded with sugar and fat.   And whether that’s in the form of maple syrup and coconut oil, too much of it still isn’t good for you.

But I do take great comfort in knowing that when I’m eating a healthier version of a cake, it might be doing me a little bit of good at the same time.

My favourite cookbook for these treats at the moment is Love, Bake, Nourish  It was a birthday present back in May, and for the last two months I’ve cooked the sh*t out of it!

Unfortunately I was too lazy to take photos of all of my efforts, but let me tell you about my greedy cakey couple of months.

For starters I really enjoyed the following:

• Courgette and apple
• Maple pecan
• Orange, almond & pistachio
• Coconut
• Chocolate beetroot

And pretty much unanimously, they’ve all been AWESOME.

And the four pictured below are my absolute faves:

• Banana and cinnamon
• Chocolate and chestnut
• Spiced scented carrot cake with a crumble topping
• Nutmeg love

Amber Rose the author tends to use spelt flour instead of refined flour, which is much more nutritious, she also uses honey, maple syrup or brown sugar instead of refined sugar.  And the use of a lot of nuts, veg and fruit in her cakes bumps up the goodness levels.

I tell you what though, those ingredients may make the recipes healthier, but actually they seem to elevate the flavours.  I’ve been really impressed with complex, interesting taste of the cakes.  All of them were rich and indulgent and really satisfying.  Most were quite pudding like in that they were quite dense and moist, and I was all over that.

I can’t wait to crack on and cook everything in the book. Next on my list is the  passion fruit and lime syrup cake.  Mmm.

Banana and cinnamon cake

Chocolate and chestnut cake

Spiced scented carrot cake with a crumble topping

Nutmeg love cake

Pick n’ Mix Reboot Week

After Debbie and I finished our 6 week reboot last week, we decided to throw in one last challenge.  A pick and mix week of all our favourite tasks.

I went for:

1. Continuing to abstein from decaffeinated coffee and diet squash
2. Meditating for ten mins a day
3. Marie Kondo-ing (aka decluttering) here and there
4. Turning my iPhone off from 8pm to 7am everyday

I’m very proud of the fact that for six weeks in total now (since week two of the reboot) I haven’t touched diet squash or decaffeinated coffee.  Both contain chemicals and personally I think I drank so much of both that the artificial taste of the drinks was blunting my palette. Not what I want as a foodie.  I’m delighted to be off the stuff.  However drinks have become a bit boring lately – there’s only so much water and a herbal tea a girl can drink!

Trying to spice up my water with a bit of mint

I’m loving meditating again.  And ten minutes a day is very achievable.  I’ve even done it with my headphones on the train.  I’m working my way through the guided meditations on Tara Brach’s website.  She’s so calming and grounding.  I think meditation is excellent for dealing with anxiety and stress and just putting you in a good head space.  I’m going to try to keep it up (easier said than done though!).

Marie Kondo is a decluttering guru and I applied her principles in week 4 of the reboot.  I haven’t done extreme Marie Kondo-ing this week like I did in week 4.  However I’d say I did some ‘light’ Marie Kondo-ing.  I finally took all the unwanted ‘joyless’ bags of clothes and books that I had packed up to Barnados and re-re-organised my bathroom cabinet and my make up and wardrobe.  Nothing streneous, but it made me feel really positive and focussed.

And turning off my iPhone at 8pm (ish!) every night is still proving to be a revelation.  I don’t miss it one bit.  And I don’t get that irksome feeling in the evenings anymore that I’m wasting my time staring inanely at videos of puppies on Facebook.  It feels like a very healthy new habit.

I’ve found this ‘gentle’ reboot a lot of fun. And it’s proved to me that I’ve got more self discipline than I realised.  Whilst it hasn’t radically transformed my life, I feel like I’ve gained some useful tools I can call on to help me nurture my mental and physical health.

Debbie’s also been doing a mash up approach this week for her reboot.  If you’d like to read about how she got on here’s the link: ProperFoodie

Slow cooker chicken tikka curry

Extreme Digital Detox

For week six of my reboot I went hardcore with an extreme digital detox.

The previous week I survived a daily iPhone curfew from 8pm to 7am.  This week I banned all screens (tv/phone/computers) from 8pm to 7am.

I thought it would be a breeze as I found giving up my phone such a doddle.

So, no telly was not so easy.  Admittedly two of the days I was on holiday in Copenhagen so no screen was no great hardship.  Although getting the plane home without a screen was weird. I bought Red magazine and read every article which I really enjoyed, it made a change from zoning out and staring at a Netflix film.

Then the following evenings were back at home, where my resolute routine is watching tv every evening if I’m in.  I didn’t realise quite how important this ritual is to me until I wasn’t allowed to do it. Wednesday night, Jamie went off into the lounge to watch the City match and I was left in the dining room to entertain myself.  I grabbed a pile of books and once I’d settled in and got comfy with a blanket and gotten into a book, it was really pleasant.

Thursday night, I was getting a bit frustrated as I was tired and I just wanted to kick back and watch telly in the evening.  I’d been working hard in my office and ‘deserved’ it! Instead Jamie and I played scrabble.  I was on top scrabble form, we played three games of scrabble and I did a seven letter word in each game.  Unheard of.  Maybe the detox was making me more clever?!  Usually when I play scrabble I’m browsing on my phone at the same time.  Fully concentrating allowed me to play better.

Friday night after a 15 mile Peak District walk with the Fresh Walk crew I would have just loved to rest my aching bones on the sofa, but no, I was committed to no TV and again played scrabble.  Thursday’s genius had clearly faded though as Jamie thrashed me.

Finally on Saturday night, after a long day in Reading visting my dad, I really really could have done with a chill out in front of the tv.  But we got the scrabble board out again and by now the novelty had worn off.  I have to admit it wasn’t my ideal saturday night.

I’ve missed TV quite a bit this week.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if it had just been a couple of nights off the tv.  In the coming months as the evenings get longer I intend to stop being a coach potato and do some gardening/go for walks and generally shake things up a bit. But I do still want to watch TV on some nights!  However I’m still really appreciating the iPhone curfew – that’s been an absolute joy, it’s almost a relief to not be swiping all the time.

My shortlived scrabble genius on thursday

Debbie, my co-rebooter has been tackling hydration this week and attempted to drink 2-3 litres of water a day.  It’s been challenging, but interesting. Read how she’s got along here: ProperFoodie

Debbie tried to flourish with water like her flowers

Next Week

You may think the reboot is over now we’ve completed the six week plan.  However Debbie (my co-rebooter) and I have decided to do one final week, doing a pick and mix of all our favourite reboot challenges.

So I’m going to:

• Continue with no drinking of decaff coffee and diet squash (not hard as I’ve kept that up anyway)
• Continue with the iPhone curfew from 8pm – 7am daily as I think it’s brilliant
• Meditate for ten minutes a day as it’s easy and rewarding
• I will do a spot of Marie Kondo decluttering here and there.

I’ll update you at the end of the week!

Surviving a Digital Detox

The photo, if you’re wondering, is me feeling very sorry myself, turning my phone off at Manchester airport as I’m about to board a plane.

The challenge for week five of my six week reboot was to have a phone curfew every day for a week from 8pm to 7am.

Typically I lie on the couch every night from 8pm to 10pm and monitor my social medias incessessantly.  In honesty, it’s fairly souless, boring and disappointing.  But I can’t seem to help myself.

Admittedly between 10pm and 7am it’s less of a problem as I’m usually, hopefully, asleep. However if I’ve posted a great photo on Instagram at 9pm in the evening a bit of me will want to know how that’s doing when I switch the light off and go to bed at 10.30pm.  So I might have a quick sneaky peak at my phone at 10.30pm just as I’m about to turn the lights off.  I realise this is appallingly bad for then trying to get to sleep.  Not only have I flashed a bright digital screen in my face, but it’s got me thinking about the post again.  I read that Instagram and a lot of social medias have a similarly addictive effect to slot machines.  It explains my hungry urge to pursue as many of those heart icons as possible on Instagram to feel satisfied.  But it never truly satisfies, it just makes you want more!

So I knew the phone curfew would be a really useful experiment, to discover what 11 hours without my phone would do for me.

In honesty it was easy and enjoyable. As long as I didn’t have my phone too near me while I was doing it.  Most nights I’d leave it turned off in the kitchen or in a bag and I wouldn’t miss it a bit.

However the one night I had it turned off, but had it on the table in front of me as I watched telly, was highly distracting! I had a constant compulsion to pick it up and look at.  It’s so hardwired in me to check my phone every few minutes that I don’t even notice I’m doing it.

A potentially tricky obstacle for me last friday was getting a 90 minute evening flight to Copenhagen without my phone.  Normally I’ll stick my headphones in and watch something on Netflix or iPlayer, making the flight so much more bearable.

However, I armed myself with two really good magazines and an interesting book, I was excited to get stuck in.  I raced through  the magazines reading nearly every article (unheard of for me!) and then moved onto the book.  By the time I arrived in Copenhagen I was feeling super smug at my reading consumption. Perhaps removing my phone made me make an effort.

There were pretty much no downsides to doing this experiment.  It just confirmed to me that, yes I love my phone, but the extent I use it is completely unhealthy, uncreative and unnessary and I have way better things I could be doing with my time.  Any emails or social media comments, whatsapp or text messages I need to respond to can easily wait for the next day. Going forward I will make a point of turning my phone off for periods of time to give myself a break.

Juicy reading material for the plane 

And for those who haven’t been following, my friend Debbie is also doing a six week reboot alongside me.  This week she set herself the task of doing an hour of chores a day in the hope of using her time more effectively. It didn’t work out quite as positively as she had aniticipated. Have a read: ProperFoodie

Debbie’s arsenal of cleaning materials 

And Week Six of the reboot challenge is another digital detox but I’m taking it a step further. Not only am I going to stick with my phone curfew from 8pm – 7am, but that’s now going to include no other digital screens. So no telly or computer either. I’ll let you know how at get on.

 

I Bloody Loved Marie Kondo-ing The Hell Out of my House

Everyone should Marie Kondo.  Oh my god, I’m high on Marie Kondo!

For anyone who hasn’t heard of this lady, she’s a decluttering expert.  The main principle of her book ‘The Magic Art of Tidying Up’ is literally chuck out any of your possessions that don’t fill you with joy or that you haven’t used in the last 12 months.

This clear out challenge was week four or my six week reboot. So far I’ve done yoga, meditation and a week of drinking herbal tea and water, and without a doubt, this has been my most transformative week yet.

I was supposed to be doing 15 minutes of the Marie Kondo method per day for a week.  It didn’t quite work out as planned, but that was quite alright.

It went something like this:

• Monday night: decluttered my bathroom cupboard for 15 minutes, chucked a load of toiletries out I don’t use. End result – amazing looking cabinet and easy access to all the products I use.
• Tuesday/Wednesday: in Belfast for work.  Zero streamlining.
• Thursday morning: spent 90 mins auditing, organising and colour ordering my wardrobe. Concluded that there are a number of clothing items that are nice enough, but as I haven’t worn them for 12 months they need to go to the charity shop.  Feel liberated.
• Friday: 7am – 2pm embarked on a ‘tidying up’ frenzy.  I attacked my office – books, files, paperwork all came flying off the shelves.  If the books didn’t light a little fire in my heart when I looked at them, I put them in the charity pile. I found it addictive and exhiliarating to be just left with the stuff that truly sings to my soul.  I consulted Pinterest and figured out how to organise my bookshelf in a more aesthetically pleasing and inspiring way. Delighted with the outcome.
• Saturday – no more Marie Kondo-ing required.  I peaked on Friday.

Pinterest research on organising a book shelf

Marie Kondo-ed bookcase

Beautifully curated books

Mid Marie Kondo debris. My method of chucking everything from my office onto the landing.

Spending the week paring down my office and wardrobe, leaving me with just my favourite possesions has utterly focussed my mind and inspired me.  Because I’m starting a business and my worklife is starting to get busy and exciting, this couldn’t have been better timed.  With my new sparkly edited office and my spangly minimalist wardrobe, I’m ready to take on the world.

My next week’s challenge is to have a phone curfew from 8pm to 7am.  A pretty scary thought for me!  I’m hoping it will make me more relaxed in the evenings and help me sleep soundly.

My blogging friend Debbie is rebooting with me.  This week she gave up alcohol which took her off on an unexpected and positive tagent – read all about it here: Proper Foodie 

All the wine Debbie has missed out on this week!