Thursday 3 July 2014

In love with greens

Strangely, for people who live on over a thousand square metres of land, we grow our greens in pots, on our kitchen balcony. Part of the problem is that our four dogs have access to all of the garden (and I would hate "weed-on" greens). The other reason is the fact that no matter what D tried to dissuade our local snails that our chard was not the tastiest thing in the garden, it didn't work and our greens always had the tell-tale sign of being slug/snail snacks. 

So pots it is... and they have really taken off! We have several different types, baby spinach and Swiss chard being my favourite (Swiss chard is apparently a misnomer, as the chard is a native of the southern Med...). 
We have been going through loads of it pretty much every night, both as a salad and stir-fried/steamed. Its yummy goodness has accompanied pretty much every other dish we have eaten in the last few weeks...

I'm in love with my greens! 





Tuesday 1 July 2014

Can an app change your life?

Ok, so maybe not exactly "change" but certainly "improve". 

I know I have not been posting lately - life has taken over and we are on a bit of a rollercoaster of late. All of it good, luckily, and it feels like that never happens to us, so I have been quiet, mainly soaking up the loveliness and preparing for change. We have a court date for Boy in Ethiopia, so waiting for that to happen... while preparing everything else here. 

So... the app that has changed my life? Buddhify2!
It is a meditation app, which I downloaded for the price of a small cup of coffee and it has made a huge difference to my life these last couple of weeks. It has guided meditation recordings, for all sorts of different activities, as you can see on the picture (a screenshot). 
You click on the activity you are doing, during which you want to be more mindful/want to meditate and you are given several options, ranging from 5 to 15 minutes long. By swiping over the meditation you would like to listen to you get some information on the track. 
I have been using it at least once a day, but most often several times and have tried many of the tracks. They are fabulous! The voiceovers are calm and clear, with quite a neutral English accent (all my other meditation apps have had weird new-agey American accents which would not let me concentrate on content).

All in all I highly recommend it - it has certainly brought meditation back into my everyday life in a very practical and fun way. (And for the geeks amongst us, there are stats to keep too!)

Meditate away! 



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