I am back!

Hi everybody!
I hope you have had a grate half year in the 2012! I have been so bad at blogging, but now I want to start scrabbling again, just for my own sake. If anybody reads what I write and would like to comment on it, I am so glad for that too.

Ok. Last week I quit my job. When I started in October I had been waiting for this job the last three years. I have worked there before, and back then I loved it. But I also worked so much that I got adrenal fatigue ( to put the total blame on the job is not rigth though, there are alot of stress in my life) and I was sick for a long time. I never totally get well, but I thougth I needed to try for something else, and I got the manager job in the local healthfood shop where I earlyer where just part time. So far so good.
This shop had gotten a new owner since the last time I where there. And oh my! I signed a contract with them, and already then it showed that theese guys where out there to fool me, and make me work as much as possible with to low income. They where also never around to back me up, help me with the shop, and such things. If I had owned it myself I would have taken care of the things I wanted, but could not, since I needed confirmation for it.
The last couple of months have been a nigthmare, with me not getting payed for what I mean I deserve, a total lack of control, and several happenings with other employees that I did not like. Me and two others filed a complain, and that was not taken good.

Since I had my adrenal fatigue in the back, and my kids needed me to survive this shit. I quitted. And I have never felt better in my whole life, I think.
I do not have a job, but I wil look for one that does not make me anymore ill. Until then i will try to heal myself and are doing some major changes in my nutrition in the next few weeks. I am doing a waterfast for a day, and then a juicefast for a couple more days. After that, I will eat sallads, smoothies and juices for some time, before I gradually include more foods. I wil totaly stay away from refined carbs, gluten and milk. And I also wants to avoid meat and soy products. It will be hard, but I also know it wil help me on the way.
After this weekend we are most possibly leaving for a trip to my cabin, and there I will have the fast. I will also eat huge doses of spirulina and chlorella, and some amino acids, and also do drybrushing. I also wants to try a bath with epsomsalts. Oh! There are so many things I hope to get done this summer! And my body gets totaly relaxed at the cabin, so I really enjoy that place. It rigth by the sea, so we do alot of fishing, there are blueberries in the woods that I wil try to collect, and there are wild edibles all over the place. In addition the neigbours have goats and sheeps on our land, oh how I love to hear the sound of a goats or sheep bææææhing.

                                                                  My little island

What is happening here?

Well, we are not doing much actually. I am working all day, and when I come home I am cleaning clothes (since my husband does not like to do this, he does all the other cleaning- the dishes, the floors etc, and also since we have a young boy who are trying to quit using diapers) preparing food, and working out.
There is still a whole lot of snow and ice outside, so we cant do much on the outside. And the stuff we need to do in the inside is kind of like changing the windows etc, so we wait untill the spring to do that, so we wont freeze during.

We are waiting for the first animal to arive the farm though. It is not born yet, but it could happen any time now. Acording to my son it should be named Buzz, afther the grate Buzz Ligthyear. Buzz is going to help us clean out some mice. Can you guess what animal I am talking about?

This year I am also thinking about makin myself a Herb ally this year, and are thinking about nettles, as they grow everywhere here. Havent heard of a Herb Ally before? Read this!

Veggies!

These days I am only making food for me and my two boys. My husband is doing a surgery in a while and has to eat a special diet in advance. So I have the opportunity to try some delicious vegetarian recipes. My goal is to include more rawfood in my diet, and also to eat more balanced meals, regarding pH, carbs, fat and proteins. I want to avoid gluten and also try to avoid lactose. I am reading a lot about pH in food, and acid/base in our body. I am so hoping that to regulate this; my body can function little better. I have tried serving my husband veggie-meals before, with a wrinkle on his nose. Therefor am I doing it now.

I also have to use up whatever I have in my fridge, and I found a sour cream dip with chili in it. I did not like the dip because of too much chili, so I thought it might be good if I used it in something. So today I made a pasta sauce, had half of the dip in it, and served it with salad and quinoa. I also had a raw oil dressing over the salad. The pasta sauce had onion, garlic, tomatoes, thyme, a pinch of Erythritol (instead of sugar), salt, adzukibeans and in the end the dip. I called the whole thing pasta for my kids, and they eat a lot. The youngest kid, who hardly ever eat anything else than bread, had two servings.

For breakfast today I had a waffle (ahemm.. It was a left over for yesterday) and an orange. Lunch was a huge salad with greens, tomatoes, carrot, apple, cucumber and hempseeds. I also had a handful of hazelnuts, and a handful of pumpkinseeds. And sprinkled the salad with Udos Choice. I also had an apple for snacks and some raisins. Oh, and after dinner today we made tea and shared a small chocolate, just me and the boys. 

But, what I should make for tomorow is blank in my head. Does anybody have any ideas?

          Green hugs from

Snowstorm!

So.. How is everybody?
I am feeling tired at the moment, and are afraid I am doing to much stressfull-activities.
I cant leave the work at work, and I have so much meetings with all kinds of people regarding my son and his diagnose.
But this weekend I took a brake!
I have been doing just what I wanted. Reading, breathing, playing etc.
Outside there is a snowstorm, not hughe, but enough that we do not want to spend so much time outside. Therefor me and my husband went to IKEA yesterday. We where actually just getting some glassjars for my plans on fermenting kale, but in the sales area they had the shelvesystem I have been wanting for a long time, and it was on sale. It was dark brown, and I wanted white, but it is the same collour as almost all the other stuff we have from IKEA, so it is ok.
Today I managed to put it up. And now it is in my hall. It it a place to put all the stuff that did not have a place before. Like my ekstra pans that I do not have a room for in my kitchen, the old curtains and beddings. My ekstras of omega3, vitamins and not at least my tea stash. It contains no less than 34 sorts of tea, maybee my new goal has to be to use it up!!
I have a dream that this could be the start on my new pantry when I find more room for all the other stuff.
Cant wait to get more done, but now I am taking a longer brake to focus on the day to day stuff again.

Best regards

Planning the herb garden for the spring

This spring I want to grow a huge herb garden on our plot. I have the room for it, so I most definately hope to have the time for it. Today I am lurking around on the web for some seeds. Does anyone know of a grate place to begin other than Mountain Rose Herbs?

I want to grow ordinary herbs like basil, thyme, oregano, garlic, etc, for my pizza-garden. And I want to have peppermint, stevia and lemonbalm etc for my tea-garden. I also want to have st.johnswort and valerina for my medicine-garden. But what else do I need?
I also want to try to make my own herbal products this year, like balms etc. I am aiming for somethin containing calendula, chamomille, lavendel, etc.

I cant wait for spring! I was actually beliving that we could have a ligth winter here this year (the two present winter have been hard, with lots of snow!) And last saturday we had a spring-like feeling, with sun from blue sky and up to 9 degrees. I was so happy! Untill yesterday when we woke up to -3 and snow. The forecast says its going to be colder and more snow all the way til the end of february. One year we had snow as late as mid-may. Im hoping that that wont happen this year!

Are anybody else waiting for spring?

This was my garden area for last spring, in our old garden. It gave me lots of produce! This year I am aiming bigger, and the area we have are, well 30-40 times bigger I think. We probably wont use all the area, but I will make it bigger than last year.

A new and frugal Anita!

I hope all is doing well!
AsI mentioned before there are some problems with our internet supplyer, and we are waiting for a new fix on that, in the mean time my laptop does not funtion good on the net, and it sort of just falls out when I try to connect. So, I will just wait til it is done. Before I usually posted here when I was at work, but the recent weeks have been like a rollercoaster on work! Starting with taxraising, so I had to change all the prices in my shop, pruduct counting and now this week; price winning and a drama with a old woman hwo had a hart attack rigth in my shop. I am so hoping for a new and relaxed week this next week!
Also, my special need kid is needig more at the moment and we are taking action at school. This means I have to have a meeting at school once a week, and we are getting back to basic on him. He is in second grade now, and all day he is just playing around, not doing much of the reading, writing and math as he should do. So we need a transform, and are so lucky to have a expert with us now!

On the other hand, I have becomed obsessed on the frugal living! I even dreamed of it last night. I want to get the room in my basement ready so I can start shopping in big value packs, start canning etc. We got a little work in the basement yesterday, and today my husband and his father are going to set up some shelves so I could fill them on monday. This is just to get the stuff we dont have room for in our new house. Stuff like christmas decoration, toys, some clothes etc. We need to get it organized!
And then we can start working on my cupboard!

In the mean time I have started going through the advertising from my local shops to see if there are any scoops. We are also going out to shop when I know it have been more downpriced items in the shop. We do not care if we use products that are out of date, as long as it smells good and tastes good.
 I am doing a kitchen inventory list, and updating it every week. I also plan my menus from what I havein my kithcen in stead of buying new and ending up throwing away stuff. I have a plan to make a homemaking journal to keep all my notes in.
As you migth know I am trying to not spend anything on new stuff during January. And I hope too keep this up during the whole year. The only thing I know that wee need are some chairs for our kitchen. We are getting one from my mums house, and I want to build a bench in the corner, from materials we allready have. Then we only needs to-four chairs, preferably once that can be stabled or stored away in case of guest. And I have a gift sertificate on Ikea, so that fits verry  well.
Besides that we have everything we need i think!

I am also totaly obsessing about getting stuff for free. I have got multiple stuff only this January, mainly beeing things that have been broken on transport, or are out of date and still fully functional. And we are tinking about trying some dumpsterdiving. The only prolem is that it is ileegal here.

So that was a little long update from here. What have you going on in the new year?

(Oh, and I know there are some typos in here, as this machine did not have word to correct it for me)

A new and bussy New Year!

Finally time to sit down with a cup of tea and relax for a moment!
The start on the New Year is hectically this year!
I have so much to do on work now, because we needed to count all the products in the store, and also the government raised the taxes so I have to change every price tag in my whole shop! In addition I should have been remodelling the shop to make room for more products! Oh well.
At home the lightening stroked out our network, so we are using an old modem witch gives us low speed and trouble. So it is no fun on the computer these days. Also my husband an youngest son are sick, so I have to take care of them - or at least make them some food when I come home from work (that is my husbands job at home)
So on Monday night I roosted up a whole turkey, so we could have dinner for Tuesday. And since then we have not eaten anything else. It is just so fun when one dinner last that long and also goes for lunches. Today when I get home from work I am going to bone the rest of it, and make broth for turkey soup for tomorrow. I am also making a salad of the rest of the stuffing and will be adding some nuts etc - that will be my lunch for tomorrow. 

Also, I have a challenge for myself that I will not spend during January. And I have to say, even thought I have done it before, this one is hard! Monday night when I was done after a long day at work counting the products I just wanted to sit down with a cup of tea and read something in quiet in the buss on the way home. I went into the kiosk, only to remember that I should not buy anything! So I ended up going back to the work to get some magazines from there.
On Tuesday a friend of mine came in to me at work and told me that a interior shop had those good big cups for tea on sale, before they costed 9$, but now they where going for 2$. I was thrilled, until I remembered that I was not going to get those. We actually have too much. It was hard that day, but now I am glad! I am also cutting down on my food budget and usage, and this week we have only spent 49$ so far, and in that we have a dropout of my husband who are not on the challenge fully. For lunch I am now keeping it under 1, 6$ if not less. Earlier I could have gone as far as 8-9$ if not more!

31 Days of Nothing Challenge

I came over this really inspiring post from Learning The Frugal Life about a 31 days of Nothing challenge that starts on January the 1th, and thought to myself that that would be grate to try to accomplish! We are not big spenders, but in many ways I think this can be a valuable learning for us as a family.

So I made a decision and sat down to write our rules. And I thought to myself that I am more reliable to stick to this if I post them on my blog. That way I will have it black in white. I will also definitely try to keep it updated once in a while with update posts here on the blog. I will pretty much use the rules Sara at Learning the Frugal Life noted, but with some changes to suit our family.

So, for the rules.

1. The ultimate goal is to spend NO money except for necessities. For my family I consider necessities to be gas for work and appointments (or a buss card), monthly prescription medications, groceries (although very minimal, more on this later) and our basic bills and utilities. 

2. There will be no consumerism. My hope is to stay out of the stores completely (well, not included going to work). No new clothes, books, or any other impulse buys. The hardest part will be not going to the sale! I have already marked out some products that I want for IKEA`s big sale in January.

3. Groceries. We will try to reduce this part. Since we are supposed to cut back on sugars, candy etc. in the New Year that is like eliminating a huge part of our budget. I do not actually follow a budget now days, but we will try to keep it as low as 125$ a week. Here in Norway that is little. We usually uses somewhere between 600-650$ a month. The whole grocery part is a little bit hard now, since we don’t have much in our cabinets since we moved this fall. We have not stocked up on anything in the freezer or the cabinets, but I will have a lookout for sales and bargains. 

4. Zero money spent on entertainment. No eating out, we will cook from scratch and eat at home each day. That also means that I have to bring lunch for work.

5. Reducing, reusing, and recycling. This part has been floating ever since we moved. We don’t have a garbage bin that are ours, and since there have been a totally chaos around here with the redecoration we have just thrower everything away in one place. We need to make a system that allows us to recycle, and actually use it too. We also need to think about the stuff that we actually do buy in the grocery store to eliminate the trash.

6. Gas. We need to plan a head where we are driving, and also do multiple plans in one drive. As it seems now it will be slightly cheaper for me to ride the bus to work, that also means I will get an extra hour at work, with more salary!

7. Shutting off! Ok, this part we are pretty good at if I can say it myself. Ever since we moved we don’t have a lot on! We have our TV, the computers (yes, we have two, since we are two data nerds both of us) and we have two lamps. One of the lamps is on during the night, simply so that we can see where we are going when we wake up. We are in the process of installing a new lamp, and that one will be turned off during night and when we are not home. We have also talked about getting some new lamps from outside that has a solar panel and a sensor so it will turn on when people come. There are now lights here, not even in the road, so it is pretty dark in the evening. 

8. I will give it a try with homemade cleaning products and beauty products. 

So, what do you think? Could you do a 31 days of nothing challenge?
If you also want to join, you can go to Learning the frugal way for more info! 

New Years Resolution 2012

Ok. I know that this whole thing with New Year’s resolutions only last a couple of days, but I love to plan a head, so I have written down mine. My plan is to eat only paleo or primal, with elements of raw foods and superfood. I do believe I can manage this just fine, but I definitely believe it will get hard to eliminate all the candy and snacks I have been eating during the holidays now. 
Paleo food are somewhat Low Carb just that the focus is on the things you actually eat, like the stuff that grows in the grown and live on the field, instead of focusing on counting carbohydrates. I do not count carbohydrates, and I do not eat grains or legumes at all, so that meaning no pastas, rice, bread, cereal etc. What I do eat are fruits and veggies in as grate doses as I please, as long as I stay away from the starchy veggies. Potatoes are mainly replaced with cauliflowers, but I do occasionally eat potatoes or two, especially during the fall/winter when they are in season. I most definitely feel that there is too much focus on animal fat as bacon and meat, and therefore I tend to replace some of this with raw food salads with oil dressing, or a smoothie. This is purely my opinion since I before where on my way to become a vegetarian. 

No sugar. This one is a little part of the whole Paleo step. I am to glad in sweets, candy and snacks. I have to cut down on this. I also tend to react on many of the artificial sweeteners out there, and should keep a good distance. This includes maltitol, which are the main sweetener used in low carb snacks etc. This is the reason why I have to make it myself, or try out some of the varieties of iherb.com.
Either way I do know that fruit is a grate snacks, and it is fully possible to make a paleo dip for veggies. 

Another New Year’s Resolution I want to make this year is to start work out again. Not necessary on a regular basis, but oftener than I have made it this December. I have actually not been to the gym once, and have only made one yoga session at home. It is a shame! We usually went to the gym every day before, and I feel that I have been more tired with not going. That is the reason why I am planning how I can include workouts in my new day which also includes working. I am so found of working out in the morning, but my oldest son is out the door at the same time as I am going to work. So I have to get up earlier to have a session at the gym near work, or else I have to get home from work and then leave at 6 again for workout.  I can’t wait until the fall when there will open a whole new gym only five minutes from our home! Then I could even ride my bike to the gym.

Merry Little Christmas

I want to use this opportunity to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas!
I hope all is well, and that it wont be a christmas with overloads of consume.
I love the Christmas myself, but it is also too much of the goood!

Today me and my younges son are going to my mother to help her put up her Christmas Tree and decorate it.
My oldest is with his grandmother on the other side to do the same!
And tomorow we are going to my fathers for "Pinnekjøtt" that is a Norwegian Christmas Tradition with Sheep Ribs. We do celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve here, so on Christmas Day we dont do much more than to sleep in, eat a good brunch and relax.