'Fudgy Chocolate Balls' - with hidden green things

Our littlest won't eat anything green, especially not vegetables. I struggle to get nuts into her when she needs some sugar-free energy, and of course she won't eat seeds, ESPECIALLY not pumpkin seeds.

So when I was at Coles recently and spotted a bag of 'Trail Mix' packed with all sorts of good-for-you things and only one not-so-good thing: the dried cranberries have some sugar in them (but there were no preservatives-hallelujah!) I came up with a SUPER quick and easy way to hide all the good and green seedy bits:

I chucked the whole bag of Trail Mix into the Thermomix (a food processor would be just as good), whizzed it all together on speed 9, added 1/4 - 1/3 cup of cocoa powder and a dash of water to moisten the mixture and rolled these fudgy delights into energy balls for my ever-hungry girls. Win!

I recently made another batch with a slightly healthier trail mix from Aldi and added some dates for extra sweetening. Not AS popular with our little sweet tooth but she would eat them over plain nuts any day.

For a quick and easy gluten, egg and dairy free treat for the kids stock up on:

-Packets of trail mix or any nuts/seeds mix

-Quality pure Cocoa powder

-(dates/sultanas if your mix is fruit-free)

*Oh and coconut to roll the balls in (sulphar-free if possible)

Sadly they are not for me as they are not fructose-free. I make sure I'm stocked up on these yummy simple almond chia cookies for the perfect accompaniment to my tea.

xoxo

Crochet inspiration from {little golden nook}

I'm racing to finish a blanket for our youngest whose birthday is next week and sometimes looking back through past projects helps to motivate me to keep going (I started this blanket a year ago!)

So I thought I'd share some of the finished work in my home with you. A fellow school mum stumbled across my feed on Instagram earlier this week and kindly messaged me to say how inspiring my crochet was (thankyou Deb), so here is some of it, plus a little peek at my home which is truly, honestly far from perfect looking in real life........

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The language of Heaven

All my brokenness is a whisper that I don’t belong, and every time I don’t feel like I belong, the Scarred and Rejected God whispers, “Come here, my beloved.”

-Ann Voskamp

And suddenly its June again. Its raining. And its cold. But I can hear this magical sound, and I'm inspired again.

The past few months of illness and family and Church and work, play and sun have unravelled messily behind us, distant and blurry because of the pace we move at. Winter has settled down to stay here, down near the bottom of mainland Australia. We can light fires and drink more tea, make things with yarn and snuggle. But its still a challenge.

My beautiful friend Dee has pointed me to a place of joy lately and while I'm sure I'm probably the last one to find it, it is most definitely the right time for me to have 'a holy experience' on this crazy world of online distractions. My Maisy and I lay and listened to the beautiful music of David Nevue and both fell in love with the sound. An hour before I'd been touched by Ann's words and her little corner of joy and grace, her focus on Jesus.

{from this post}

So we bought the album, and I signed up to read when I can, it brings me back to a place where can drink in the beauty in my day and in the very place I am at, weary and clinging on, often hanging out for sleep time, and really truly it opens my heart to see some of the beauty of Jesus.

Lately my brief daily snippets of Spurgeon wisdom have nudged me, and the women who I meet in our community group have reminded me, and the Spirit is so gentle but persistent when He tells me that I must make time to be with God, to hear each day of grace that rescues a heart like mine and love that waits and stays and reaches out.

Its amazing how small life can get when we are missing that external thing that is bigger and greater than us. That thing that takes our eyes off ourselves and our family and our own pleasures or distractions. The seasons around us change gradually but yet so quickly and when the summer nights are steamy and blanket-less we can't imagine ever needing socks or electric blankets. I cannot imagine here in my warm bed in the middle of June, the feeling of a starved belly or no place to rest. I'm distracted by the list of things that need doing in my big house, the washing and the cooking, the endless cleaning and improving. Simple gratitude is crowded out by our need to do and to consume. We are small and our lives are so completely fragile in the eyes of a Creator who sees all. And when we are always looking down, the parameters of our hearts close in a little tighter and we miss joy and real beauty, and yes even as believers we miss the glory and grace of Jesus.

I am grateful that despite my semi-blindness I still see bits of beauty in my day, that I feel joy when a friend speaks of the smallest of gifts from above that are actually giant when seen through uplifted eyes. After a long, sick, low, frustrated day I might just want to curl up and wait for sleep time and the hope of new mercies tomorrow but tonight my family spur one another on amidst grumbles and bouts of frustrations at lost shoes and scratchy scarves to walk the dog in the dark under the fresh night sky. And the ten minutes of breathing and literally looking up together makes the day's disappointments fall away. He is in control. And I'm not meant to understand it.

So what pulls on my very being and what I seek to do often is to be quiet and still. Because my real home is waiting for me in Heaven, and my body tells me daily that I don't belong here, most especially in winter, I have to keep on learning to speak the language of Heaven.

xoxo

When heaven is really your motherland, then prayer is really your mother tongue, and you can’t help but yearn to speak in the language of your Father now.

-Ann Voskamp

A double long black and I'm back {for today}

Well hello there!

If you can see through the layers of dust covering my Little Golden Nook blog world, you could picture me lounging on my favourite summer spot (no, not our dreamy nook, its too hot for that) on our bed upstairs, my favourite cool retreat.  I’m typing(!) And I may just post whatever I find on the page once I'm done.

I haven’t blogged for over six months now. I don’t really feel like explaining why, I want to get straight to my reason for my current state of wordi-ness.

But I’ll briefly explain because its important and real afterall…

Back in May last year an amazing, seemingly wise-beyond-her-years friend in our Church small group tragically lost her darling one year old in a sudden home accident. Little Charlotte didn’t die straight away but clung to life for a few short hours in emergency before she went to be with Jesus.

As you can only imagine this accident utterly devastated my friend, her husband and their little Peter. It rocked our wonderful church family to the core and caused many other churches and families in Geelong to cry and pray and reach out towards the family.

Through all of their brokenness and questioning ‘why?’ this small family were strong and certain in their hope and faith in God and this encouraged hundreds of people whilst all they wanted was Charlotte back with them.

Their hope encouraged me too. But I think the shock and sadness of it all knocked me into an early winter depression (I struggle more with reactive depression in winter).  At the same time I was (extra) weary from being heavily involved in a new Church Plant and trying to hold on to enthusiasm for teaching RE as well as worry about our four year old who wasn’t yet thriving at kindergarten.

On top of that our computer spat it and refused to upload any of my gazillions of photos anymore so it seemed it was the end of blog-land for me.  I left it behind and got on with our busy year.

Between then and now I have had a couple of sweet encouraging comments that have tempted me to play on here again. My fabulously stylish, super-kind, teacher-of-the-decade, shoe-loving new friend Anna gave me a confidence boost with her too-high-praise, and I did hear that a friend of a friend might have been encouraged a little in her own journey with illness and creative wanderings.  Not to mention my sweet handful of bloggy friends who I’ve missed so much.

But my inspiration for today’s chat is far more superficial. Well it doesn’t stem from deep emotions coming from my ‘Kidney’(Hebrew word), but it IS related to my ‘inmost being’* (the definition of said Hebrew word) in a way…….

(Sorry, that may have been a disturbingly confusing sentence that only a couple of you may understand.)

I’ve mentioned before that I benefit from doing coffee enemas for liver cleansing and well general cleansing of the ‘inner parts’.

My daily enemas have become almost my favourite time of day. I enjoy ‘children’s bedtime hour’ just as much.

Well today I’m particularly sore and ‘hungover’ and thought I’d try two coffee enemas only an hour apart. Of course I use only the best fresh oganic coffee beans and follow these Gerson Therapy instructions closely.

  I’ve taken to inviting our new pet Twinkle to join me upstairs for the process. She keeps me company and isn’t tempted to sniff around my nether-regions like I soon found Scout our dog was when she was too small to leave alone downstairs.

So Twinkle the budgie patiently stands guard while I relax with my phone – I try to restrict myself to my bible and MARSHILL apps only during this time -  and let the freshly boiled brew do its thing.  The result of today’s first ever second enema is what you are now reading (though the effect is wearing off and I’m wishing I never started such a long and probably boring story). Too much caffeine in the blood stream plus a child-free afternoon and a tired, sore body equals an more-than-usual wired brain and a sudden urge to share!

Twinkle standing guard in our bathroom

It is truly great to be back though :)


*Psalm 139

Autumn crocheting :: Fingerless gloves

I get so cold so easily in winter. But I don't like having the central heating blasting like the husband does, it makes me feel more tired and uncomfortable.  So I tend to wear scarves and fingerless gloves around the house throughout the 'cosy' months.  In the past I have LOVED and still covet these cuties from a favourite local store run by our friends Joel, Rach and Jane.  But after the big reno we are still paying Tom, Dick and Harry for various unexpected necessities (blinds, painting etc) SO I decided to get to making my own!

I tentatively used this pattern and was very happy with the result! They are different from my F&D faves but short of quickly re-learning to knit or asking my mum to knit me some this was my best option.

 As usual I got myself a bit addicted and am about to start my 5th pair.  I was worried that they wouldn't be very warm with the gaps in the pattern but I've been wearing them heaps and they are super warm and perfect for all day wear (although mine smell faintly of onion after cooking dinner with them on tonight).

AND

I think I might sell them for some extra cash :) Thats if I get beyond making them for gifts first!

Next project: A warm and snuggly crocheted scarf.....

xoxo

Things I'm loving

 The Autumn sun :: my favourite time of year and the best place to be is right here at Barwon Valley, a 2 minute drive from my house. We are having plenty of beautiful sunny days lately and the sun brings out the vivid autumn colors to perfection. I'll bring the girls here or a crochet project, a devotion book or just a notebook and pen and drink in the beauty.

The great outdoors :: We went camping in the Otways National Park last weekend. I expected bush and gumtrees and koalas and cold air. There were all of those things but I didn't expect the green hills and young cows, bunny's tail weeds, amazing views and even the sunshine we found too.

 

 The easy company of family friends :: No pretending, quality company, happy children, good laughs, life-long relationships.

Beautiful snippets of Autumn :: In Forrest on our way home from camping adventures, our own little piece of Autumn in the front yard, and my favourite tree next door to our home that I can't stop taking photos of.

Tea with me {a long overdue catchup}

Hi!

Hasn't it been ages since we've had tea together?

I've been so busy with life and extra little things that are important to us and I have been thinking of you and wanting to say hello but have just had to be patient and wait for time, energy and inspiration to come my way.

But come in, its beautiful and sunny inside as well as outside of our home today. I can seen all the colors of autumn from where I'm sitting at the dining table. Do mind the hydrangeas on your way in. Actually they are not in the way, I just want you to notice them as I adore them and am just a bit proud. You'll smell my vegetables and quinoa lunch cooking away on the stovetop (there is plenty if you'd like some). I'll turn it down and pop the kettle on instead for now and we'll have tea out on the deck in the sun.

I've been sipping peppermint, lemongrass and ginger or rose hip lately, no caffeine for me for reasons I may explain, if you can stomach it! But you have chai or green or black tea if you like, whatever you fancy.

So we've had an eighth birthday since we spoke last and on the same weekend we had church at our place with dinner afterwards as usual.  It was wonderful to open up our home to new and old friends and learn and pray and sing and share a meal together and have so many helping hands to serve and clean up afterwards.  It is a challenge for me and I hope to be continually challenged to have our home, our family space open to others in this way. I find large groups of people intimidating and extremely tiring. I would rather keep 'my space' private and calm and under my control.  But being willing and excited to join this church plant where living as missional communities is key to knowing Jesus and making him known means being stretched and nudged out of my comfort zone. Eeeek. So preparing for and recovering from that weekend was intense but absolutely worth it.

We set off camping again last Friday, this time with friends, two other families but I have to admit that we hired a cabin this time and I'm so glad we did. It was cold in the Otways National Park and having a real bed and a little heater made all the difference.  I hate to say it out loud or put it in writing but honestly, I MAY be nearing the end of my tenting escapades, many and varied as they've been!

I've been reading some lovely books lately. The Enchanted April and Madame Bovary most recently, the language and setting of both books was just dreamy I think, though don't read the latter if you don't like tragic and depressing tales. I'm now reading Anna Karenina again. I've been following along with 1 and 2 Peter podcasts from our established sister church in Melbourne, and in our small group on mondays we've started 1 Kings which is totally different to Peter, the former being a narative style and the latter personal instruction and encouragement but both have so much relevance to our lives. Its exciting to be able to see how two books from the bible that are so different and so far apart in history tell the same message of love and grace and hope.

I've given up sugar again. I've been pretty much sugarless for 2 - 3 years now. But then came Easter and adventures in Melbourne and eventually poor diet and doing too much caused a sharp decline a my health. Blah! My reliance on dark chocolate blew out a fair bit after Easter and the caffeine and sugar addiction began to mess with my sleep and blood sugar levels and I was just feeling wound up all the time.  Soooooo I gave it up three weeks ago and grudgingly took up the coffee enemas again. Yeeeeees, I take organic coffee beans, grind them up and boil them with filtered water in a saucepan. I then get to enjoy a fresh brew most mornings through the opposite end from where you'd normally enjoy a quality cuppa (if you were a coffee person). All I can say is it helps. You may research into it further if you'd like to. :)

I've still been crocheting and baking cakes (though less frequently). We've started lighting the fire again and gathering around it to read before bed - its the oldest and best place in the house to be in these colder months. We finally got Blake's old piano back from storage and he plays and the girls practice or pretend and I'm so glad we kept it for so long waiting for the day when we'd have room for it.

Have I gone on too long? Of course if you were here I'd have been asking you where you've been lately, what you've been reading or doing and what you are enjoying most right now.  Do you enjoy camping? have a piano? Feel free to tell me if you like. Or have 'tea with me' through Em's linkup. How gorgeous was her video post!?