Not a New Year's Resolution

I don’t really do new year’s resolutions but this year I am going to be fitter. In one of my Facebook ‘lives’ a few weeks ago I talked about this along with accountability and a term I learned from permaculture called stacking. (Watch that 'live' here-https://www.facebook.com/vckidd/videos/10157499306215579/.) 

Last year my husband started doing the York Park Run (Saturday morning 9am starting near Cherry Lane car park) regularly. The route is marked out on the pavement so it is a really good place to measure your distance and time if that is your thing (it is mine as I like a little competition with myself.) Also if you join the Park Run organisation you can add freedom runs, that you do at any time, even if you never get to one of their events.  

As someone who tends to get in my own way when trying to integrate new things into my life, I thought I would love to ‘stack’ this element of my life so that I did not feel I should or could be doing something else. I also wanted accountability to keep doing it. 'Stacking' basically means getting more yields (outputs) from one element of your life. So with regards to my health wouldn’t it be great if I could improve my physical health whilst also gaining something else. That thing I decided was inviting any friends or acquaintances to join me and therefore getting fit whilst having fun and socialising. Don’t get me wrong I love having a coffee at a friend’s house or at a café or nights out but sometimes life is too busy to fit that in along with everything else. So why not chat whilst walking? Everyone benefits health wise and you get to chat/connect/share. So far I have done that 5k with my Mum, my friend Donna and another friend Sarah and I have loved every minute of it even though I am not a huge fan of exercise.  

Doing this also taught me something else about myself. I am someone who likes to just rush into whatever I am doing even though I know that very often preparation can really help. Abraham Lincoln said it well "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe."  

So I did my first 5k walk with my dear husband Dave on 1^st January and we did it in 52m 57s. So the next time I went I wanted to do it faster but I overdid the fast walking and I had also forgotten to put on my soothing blend cream which is great preparation for any exercise. My Mum, friend and I got 2k around the course and I had to stop to apply my soothing blend (thank goodness I had remembered it!!) and then had to complete the rest in a slower manner. 

So I now have my preparation routine set:

1. Marjoram essential oil on my back in case I go into spasm (at the same time as my morning application of deodorant)

2. Soothing blend on my back and all over my legs (at the same time as I apply to my back every morning anyway)

3. Soothing blend soaked Epsom salts ready for a relaxing bath sometime later in the day so I don’t have to think about it - done when the salts run out 

It works a treat!! I did a joggle (new term for walk, jog, walk, walk, jog, etc.) 5k yesterday with Sarah and no aches and pains today because I remembered my preparation routine. 

I also did some EFT tapping on the way to the course from the car. “Even though I believe that I am not a runner, I totally choose to have fun and trust my body to know how to run with ease.” None of these things took any real extra time although I may have looked a bit silly tapping my face on the way from the car to the start of the parkrun. No aches and pains on the way around and no aches and pains today (the day after.)

So basically if you can find a way to ‘stack’ your functions and get more yield out of your inputs do it. Be creative.  When there feels like there isn’t enough time in life find creative ways to get more out of what you do. Build exercise into your life and invite friends to join you; do some stretches in the morning when you brush your teeth; do pelvic floor exercises when you drive the car; dance when you make the dinner; if you are self-employed share your home and have some ‘hoffice’ days with friends who are also self-employed so at coffee breaks you can share ideas or not feel as lonely and you have an accountability partner there in your home. Do this in a positive way so it adds value. There are so many ways to squeeze more stuff into the time we have without it being a chore. Would love to know your ideas...come share with me on Facebook.

Monthly Moments resurrected

I loved doing my monthly moments blog posts back in 2013 and so to try and get me at least writing 12 blog posts a year I am going to try and resurrect them this year.

Where are all the female superheroes? Great TED talk. Let's bring up females who are powerful, brave and own our power.




Geoff Lawton free permaculture resources

Really interesting article about a woman wearing men's clothes for a month

Crochet boots using flipflops

How to activate your diaphragm for correct breathing with a great video showing how to breathe correctly.

A great way of explaining the autism spectrum in comic format.

Fab advert by Denmark about not putting people in boxes. Well worth a watch

Ah Permaculture Diploma / New Year - where am I going?

I suppose it is always around this time of year that I contemplate where I am going in the upcoming year. I find January is a time of reflection for me as my birthday falls near the beginning of January as well as being the actual start of a new year.

Well, I got a great surprise in that one of my diploma projects got signed off in January with another one nearing being signed off. I have nearly finished writing up my wonderful collaborative Introduction to Permaculture course design that culminated in York's Introduction to Permaculture course run by 2 other permaculture diploma apprentices and myself back in November.

All very exciting but the diploma is also taking a lot of my time and that is something that I do not have a lot of. So the time has come to re-evaluate.

Something I always thought near the beginning of my diploma journey was using the permaculture principle of designing from patterns to details to concentrate, via my projects, on the circles of my life split up as follows:

1. my house
2. my street
3. my easily walkable neighbourhood
4. my walkable area (within 30 minutes)
5. my locality
6. my city
7. everything else needed to create community / remain connected to everything

with more effort put into 1 through to a lot less effort for no 6 and a weird amount of effort for 7 due to wanting to reclaim entertainment tasks from the economy such as cooking, childcare and fun. Across all the circles there is a need to connect with people, nature and myself and then contribute to the communities in those areas.

I also wanted to honour my quadrinity, as taught in the Hoffman Process, of intellect, spirit, emotion and physical body.

This is not something that I have touched on explicitly so far in any of the 10 designs but they are always in the back of my mind. However all these 11 areas are very important to me in different ways but how do I deal with them all in a way that is understandable? This is something that I have struggled with a lot whilst doing the permaculture diploma. Being dyslexic I tend to think big and assume that everyone is going to get where I am coming from. They don't!!!

All you need to do is look at the number of spreadsheets in my diploma journey planning, logging, documenting project plan here. It makes perfect sense to me but it isn't that easy to follow without some sort of explanation. And therein lies a problem because when it comes down to it I really cannot be bothered to explain all the many small details of my inter-connected way of thinking. I don't have the time and even if I did it would be taking me away from doing all the fab things I get to do. So what do I do now? I don't really have an answer. So I am going to keep doing the things I have been doing since starting the diploma and I will just see where this year takes me. I am going to stick to my plan as long as it doesn't cause me stress.

And so I am going to start with a re-evaluation of myself:

1. I am more than a someone doing a diploma in permaculture, I am more than someone who home educates their children, I am more than a wife, a daughter, a sister, a volunteer at my local community hub, more than a self-employed IT / PA / social media person, more than a friend, more than my jobs, more than my relationships. I am all those things and more.

I am the embodiment of all my relationships / all my connections with the world.

2. What I do does not need to be measured to be valued (do not mistake measurement for value eg. salary, school grades, etc) whether it be via salary, signed off diploma projects or whatever.

3. When I forget who I am and I become disconnected - I need to be aware eg. shopping for stuff I don't need, eating stuff that doesn't fuel my body properly, etc

and then:

4. Celebrate the connections in my life and build more:
i. honour the space I live in eg. declutter (minimalist month), use the space in a conducive manner
ii. continue making cider with people on the street every year, connect with my neighbours in other ways, help-yourself front garden
iii.working at the local community cafe & volunteering at the local youth club
iv. regular walks - health and wellbeing and awareness of my neighbourhood & member of my local Timebank
v. use my local shops eg. greengrocers - local produce, local businesses, local market
vi. walk/cycle as much as possible
vii. grow the great connections I have with my friends and with nature

Intellect
Admit my dysfunctionality
Recognise it = awareness
Confront it = will
Move on = take action

Emotion
Recognise the need to listen (observe)
Recognise the need to be heard
Enlightenment is a group effort or Charles Einstein's idea of us being inter-beings

Spirit
Honour the fact that I am part of nature

Body
Just do stuff and find positive body issues

These are just ramblings that I have written as they have occurred to me against the backdrop of the 11 areas mentioned above. A journalution of sorts (click on the link to find out more about journaling) and there is so much more I could write because working on myself and my place in this amazing universe is never going to end. The universe at present seems to be presenting me with many amazing opportunities to help people get the word out about brilliant courses, fantastic services that will help people find themselves or great products that honour the planet.

I get to continue honouring my planet by being part of the lives of the wonderful natural resources that are a whole host of amazing home educated children (including my own.) The next creative generation!! Every day I get to be part of that. It really needs to be celebrated.

So whether I take a pause from my diploma, give it up, keep working on it - it doesn't actually matter because those 11 areas mentioned above (and so many more) are always in the back of my mind along with the need to looking after the planet I live with.

#30dayswild days 1 & 2 and my future plans for the month

On day 1 of the #30dayswild challenge run by the Wildlife Trusts I decided to take my new knowledge from my time at the Bushcraft Show 2016 and decided to try making some nettle cord.

I harvested my longest nettles from the bottom of my garden; stripped the leaves and left the stems to dry out in the sun. I will be coming back to this task some time later in the month.

I saved the newer leaves to dry out and use for tea and the older leaves I used as a mulch round the bottom of my fruit trees.

All in all a productive 1st day of the #30dayswild challenge. And even if the cord doesn't work I have some lovely leaves drying for tea and I love nettle tea!!


If you want more information about making nettles string read my blog post here (the string section starts at 16.00) or there are loads of videos on YouTube like this one by Ray Mears.

Today I was considering what I wanted to do as part of the #30dayswild that would also have benefits beyond the challenge. I decided I wanted to get to know my rather overgrown garden a bit better. I want to document the plants in my garden as well as getting to know more of the wildlife - birds, insects, etc.. I am not particularly green fingered - in fact I tend to kill plants quite easily - however as part of my Diploma in Permaculture Design I am trying to make my garden more productive. My design is based around the idea of a forest garden.

Let me take this opportunity to tell you more about Permaculture. Permaculture is an ethically based, integrated system of design for human habitation that is in harmony with the natural world which Bill Mollison and David Holmgren co-developed (worth googling their names to find out more.) There are many other definitions of permaculture and every person or article that talks about it will tell you something different (watch Kevin Hunn's fab videos of people giving their own definitions including me in this video!!!!).

Another simple explanation or permaculture is that the name is taken from permanent agriculture or permanent culture (or both):

permanent - something stable and enduring and that can continue indefinitely e.g.. regenerative systems like renewable energy, perennial vegetables or forest gardens

culture or agriculture obviously refer to food growing systems and people/cultural systems

What everyone agrees on regardless of their definition is that permaculture is underpinned a set of principles (read more here and here or look at the tabs at the top of my blog) and by the 3 very simple but important ethics:
Earth Care - permaculture works with natural systems rather than against them
People Care -  all people have the right to access the resource they need to exist
Fair Shares - a recognition that the earth's resources are finite and need to be distributed fairly so set limits and redistribute surplus

Bill Mollison believed that "the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production. Even if only on a small scale in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this there is enough for everyone." So one of my plans for the #30dayswild challenge is to observe what is happening in my garden; learn more about what is growing and flourishing in my garden and start planning how to make it more productive whilst also taking the opportunity to learn more about garden wildlife.

Luckily at this point in writing my blog post my Mum arrived. She is a keen gardener so I thought why not get her to help!!! I took her around the whole of my garden videoing and recording what plants she could name.

I also took the opportunity to refill my bird feeder, make a note to get more bird feed, construct somewhere to put my bird feeder using a branch that was lying around and eat some sweet cicely. Over the next few days I will be looking up what can be done with the various plants and planning what to do next in my evolving forest garden.

Reflections on my Permaculture Journey so far

I am sitting in the York University library writing this reflective blog post. I am setting up days like this as it gets me away from the hustle and bustle of daily home educating life. I am also here at the University library because I am "stacking my functions" as we say in Permaculture speak. My dh works here so I am going out to lunch with him. There are precious few times that I get alone with him so driving him to work and working here means that I get some work done without the distractions of the home and children AND I get some quality time with my dh.

 Having spent the morning reviewing my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design (DAPD) journey I have realised that I have come further than I thought I had. I have documented this journey in the Diary tab of my APD project plan here but you can also see it below. I embedded the Google document on my blog last night as a way to show everyone what I am up to. I also (with a lot of help from my gorgeous dh) managed to find a way to make that blog page the full width of the page. It was too squashed to be able to view the document properly with the two side columns there (as on a normal blog page) so I amended the HTML for that page using the instructions here.

I may well amend the other pages along the same lines for ease of viewing but I was really pleased that I got this one to work as the document is quite busy and needs more space.

Anyway better get back to finishing my Goals articulation. This is the under-pinning, overview document to my APD journey and shows how all my projects, goals and activities are linked to the Permaculture Flower, Ethics and Principles.

As can be seen above and here under the Goals tab, I have attempted to list all the goals and associated activities that I want to get out of doing my Diploma. I have then listed where these goals/activity pairings fit against the Ethics, Principles and Flower in columns C, D and E respectively with the key for these in column H. I have then matched these goals against my 10 projects in column F.

I know my project ideas might change over time but I can then just updated this document. I have also added a weighted value against each aspect of the Principles, etc in column I. This scores show how many times these are listed against a goal so that I have a clear indication of whether I am missing exploring some Permaculture Principle or whether a project isn't as rounded a permaculture project as I thought. It is a simple idea but gives me a very clear indicator of how I am doing on my learning path.

This spreadsheet and all the tabbed sheets within it is how I will keep on top of everything but is also a living, breathing document which will get added to and changed on a regular basis. Embedding it in my blog will be another helpful reminder of the need to review it on a regular basis so I am very glad I worked out how to do that.

Any questions or suggestions please get in touch via the Comment Box below!!!

Stop procrastinating and just do something

I am sometimes the Queen of Procrastination but recently I have realised that that is ok and actually it is a way for my brain to tell me that I need to decide whether I want to concentrate on one thing or not.

One of the reasons that I am doing the Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design is as a way to concentrate my mind and get myself organised. To this end I am in the process of organising my websites so that there is one that is more secular orientated here where I am marketing myself as a social media, website, organisational guru (need to find a better word for it than that - any ideas let me know!!) and one more spiritual one here where I am marketing myself as a Shamanic Practitioner and maybe writing more personal stuff about things I enjoy in my life etc.

Both websites need work and cleaning up but what I have discovered over the last few years about myself is that if I don't just get on and do something I actually end up doing nothing and getting stressed about it.

So here are my skills:

And watch this space for some more ramblings about my Permaculturing My Life. Living is a verb, Learning is a verb, Permaculturing is my way of combining the 2.

After at least 2 years of procrastinating here is the another start of my Applied Permaculture Diploma Journey.

"If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you'll end up doing nothing for nobody"

I am changing this quote to "If I wait until I can do everything perfectly for myself, instead of just doing something for myself, I'll end up doing nothing at all." 

Getting Things Done so far

Above are just a few of the things that I have been doing over the last few days to try and set up systems which will help me over the next few years with my Diploma in Applied Permaculture Design.

I have written all the design processes and frameworks; design methods and tools; project management tools and other useful piece of information in a card index folder for easy access.

I have set up a written Getting Things Done system in my A5 Filofax using whiteboard paper I bought especially for this purpose. At present this Filofax also has space for my 10 proposed designs although these may be moved elsewhere at some point.

I have got my email account inbox down to 892 emails. I am now going to use a post by Andrea Klinger to organise my email in a Getting Things Done way (see here.)

I have gathered together all the useful books, cards, information and started collating and organising it so that these tools are on hand for me to use in my designs. For example the U101 cards above were part of a Design course that I did with the Open University and could be used for Random Input or when I need inspiration.

I wanted to add the other pictures to show the other things I have done to get more stream-lined and organised. I have started using a Basics Wallet for my frequently used cards and to organise the other 30 cards I have (which were taking up far too much room in my handbag) set up an index system like that shown here.

I am also still regularly doing a Minimalist Month in an attempt to get rid of stuff that I don't need or use any more.

General Musings

OK I am really hit and miss at this whole blog thing. I am really going to try getting a bit more regular at it as part of my Diploma in Permaculture Applied Design learning pathway and recording. To help in this endeavour I have actually registered on the Diploma and so I am really need to get more focused about it.

As a start I am going revisit my bedroom design and my health design. I am also doing another minimalist month as can be seen below:

There are more things I have got rid of than the things above but again it has totalled more than the 496 things I was supposed to do as part of the minimalist month challenge. This is such a simple thing to do once you get used to the idea and it becomes quite addictive. I have also added the extra layer of randomly picking things up around the house (especially those things that don't have a home and seem out-of-place or a bit forlorn) and asking"does this bring me joy?" This is a question advised in the Marie Kondo book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever and it really works for me. As part of this latest de-cluttering cycle I asked this question about some of the many ink pens I have and realised that although I really like ink pens I don't need more than a couple and so the extra ones don't being me joy because they never get used and are taking up space in my house that they don't need to.

Anyway I really just wanted to put keyboard to computer screen to prompt myself to start writing again and I have done that.

More minimalist musings

The fab collage above shows some of the stuff that has left my home since January. I did another minimalist month in March and then May getting rid of another 1000 things. 

Then last month I got rid of a load of stuff on ebay. I have to say this minimalist process is great fun and really, really good for the soul. It is something that I am going to endeavour to do at least twice a year if not once a quarter. I still have way to much stuff so I know that doing this is worth setting in stone so I have added it to my calendar!!

Minimalist January - part 2

Week 2 of the minimalist challenge is going well, so well in fact that I am posting this a day early!!

I had already got up to 11 and had already done 15 so I only had 12, 13, 14 left to do but I wanted to try and do 29, 28 and maybe 27 so that I had less to do when I was away. The smaller numbers were ok but those bigger numbers - they were a challenge without really cheating and counting things like marbles or pens!!

So I really put my mind to it and I did better than I thought I would as you can see below.

It was great to get some inspiration from some great articles about minimising though like this one.

Even dd and dh got in on the action with Indie getting rid of some items which are part of day 26 below and she got rid of a whole lot of dolls which went on ebay here but aren't included below as I didn't want to include too much of her stuff.

Day	Picture	Reason why
12		I am a bit of a bag lady so there is really no surprise that I had spare bags that I really don't need and don't use. These are just some of them that I could bear to part with. They went to charity shop.
13		Here are some of the books I got rid of but these went to my local library because they are happy to take good quality books.
14		Household magazines like Prima, Good Housekeeping, etc. These went on freecycle.
16		Juno magazines which I had read. These went to a friend.
17		A whole load of various crochet magazines which I had read and noted the patterns I needed. These went on freecycle.
23		Bad picture (sorry) but here are our unneeded Xmas decorations. We have one box of decorations and it was beginning to overflow so it was time to freecycle some.
24		A set of books that went to charity and a set that went to Amazon for some money.
25		A bunch of seeds I had left over from the Grow Wild Kew campaign last year. Some will be sown and the rest have been freecycled.
26		Some games we don't use which have been taken to charity shop and a bag of dd's clothes which are too small for her. It was great getting dd involved. We totally tidied and zoned her room as we went too (see below.)
27		A bag full of painting stuff that we don't need any more.
28		A whole load of various craft and knitting magazines which I had read and noted the patterns I needed. These went on freecycle.
29		Another whole load of various craft and knitting magazines which I had read and noted the patterns I needed. These went on freecycle.

My items from last week are still on ebay and don't end until Sunday but have sold already which is great. I have also freed up at least 3 whole shelves by getting rid of these magazines and various other things.

	Here are the photos from dd's room transformation. I wish I had got some before photos as well because you can rarely see dd's floor. I am hoping that the re-zoning of everything to where it is most useful to her might help her keep the floor tidy but we will see.
Above is a photo showing that there is enough floor space to actually lie down!! Not something you can ever do in dd's room. Here are her newly arranged shelves with boxes and baskets all ordered and organised. This will not last but it looks good at the moment.
	I have tried to organise her shelves so that the books she uses more often are nearer the bottom and ornaments she doesn't play with are at the top. The same with the red shelves in the photo above. The more ornamental things are on the top shelf and the precious things she uses more often are on the bottom shelf.
With the 3 sets of wardrobe shelves (to the right and above) I again tried to find out from her how she uses her toys and boxed them up appropriately. This means that she can get a box down to play with something and there then might be a small chance that she then puts it back!! I think these will need re-visiting as her room becomes messy again. I will then try to find out what is not working and why but by this time she as getting tried of tidying and sorting.
	A happy dd using some floor space for writing her book whilst listening to music. So even when I sort out her desk so that she can write on it she wants to use the floor because she can!!
The 5 piles of stuff that we got from her room which she doesn't want any more. Result!!

Minimalist January - part 1

I am going to play my Minimalist January game a bit strangely because I am away at the end of January and don't want to be left with took much stuff to get rid of at the end of the month when I am not even in my house.

So for the first few days of the challenge I am going to do extra later days as well as the early ones.

Let the de-cluttering begin!!!

Day	Picture	Reason why
1		Tap Shoes I don't use and them and never will. They have gone to a good home where the kids do dance.
2		New Rock Shoes & Keyring These are now on ebay here.
3		Wooden Fairy Village This has found a fab new home with neighbours who I know will get lots of use out of it. I am really pleased because I really, really didn't want to get rid of this.
4		Jewellery that I made and some I don't need These have been given to a friend as a present which she will really enjoy.
5		Socks - socks are only small so 10 pairs of socks = 5 This is what I love about this game. You start seeing everything differently. I had too many socks and had had too many socks for a long time and suddenly I am seeing opportunities to get rid of stuff everywhere. Even getting rid of 10 pairs of socks is a small step towards de-cluttering and it is becoming a habit.
6		Sea glass, sea pottery and marbles I had a lot of this stuff that was on display but I didn't need all 7kg of it so I got rid of 5kg of sea glass and 1kg of marbles and sea pottery.
7		Wool This was a tough one as I LOVE my wool. But I thought I could donate these few balls to either the new York Timebank craft group or some other crafty group.
8		Empty Jam Jars We had planned to make jam and chutney but didn't get round to it so there are being offered on freecycle.
9		Open University course books Put on ebay here.
10		Oracle cards and sets Again I have too  many sets of these so I picked my favourite and these are now on ebay.
11		More Open University course materials These are now on ebay now.
15		Empty bottles and Bach Flower remedies These are not getting used in my house so have been offered on freecycle
30		Books and Game These have been given to my brother and sister-in-law for their gorgeous new baby boy. They are all learning to read books and games.
31		More Books There are always more books to get rid of. I used to have a tendency to think that I needed to keep all books that the kids may at some point want to read but I now know that will more clutter they are actually less likely to read the books they want to read because of being overwhelmed by the number we have.

More next week!!!

Growing my own ginger

I came across this article and video on Facebook via a friend and thought I would give it a go. My ginger has been soaking in water for a few days and I am going to plant it today. As part of my research though I wanted to know what else I could do with ginger and came across all these uses as well as this really interesting page which went into more detail about growing ginger.

Anyway here are the uses of a ginger plant:

What part of plant	Use	Reference page
Ginger Root	Tea - just cut up a hunk of fresh ginger (no need to peel) and pour a lot of boiling water over it. Cooking - soup (fresh ginger, grated or pureed, brings wonderful zest to hot, creamy winter soups); with fish; in sir fries or in baking	Fresh Ginger Root uses
Ginger Leaves	Ginger leaves are edible but are tough to eat or digest whole but here are some uses for them. Just make sure you chop them finely before you use them. Eat them raw - too strong to eat on their own add them to flavour couscous or in salads. Dry them - add as a garnish on savoury meals. Cooking - use in cooking where the root is too much - use 2 tbsp. of freshly chopped ginger leaves in stews or soups or in stir fries. Make tea - 1 to 2g or fresh or dried leaves per cup.	Ginger Leaves
Ginger Flowers	Ginger flowers are edible too. Again though, like the leaves, the plant is very hard but cut away the hard petals and eat the bud finely chopped or blended.	Ginger Flowers
Candied Ginger Root	Any leftover root can be candied and saved for later	Candied Ginger

And here are more ideas about growing ginger as part of a permaculture garden. I am going to be growing my ginger in pots to start with so I can do research about whether it would survive outside in the UK.

Designing Health the Permaculture Way

Part 1 - Movement

Over the last year I have yet again, through lack of time and losing my favourite exercise activity of Ceroc, gone beyond my comfortable size.  I have an uncomfortable "my belly looks like I am pregnant" phase I hit which always results in my taking stock of where I am health-wise and what I am going to do to tone up a bit.  I then found that I was officially obese with a BMI of 30.5, which is probably the heaviest I have ever been in my lifetime,.  I am sure this is a result of many factors such as:

1. my relatively recent foray into the "diet" industry AGAIN
2. the aforementioned lack of Ceroc classes in York
3. my recurring back problem which occasionally stops me exercising
4. my weekly kick-boxing classes being cancelled
5. my liking of chocolate

to mention but a few.  With regards to point 1, like many others, I always end up feeling lousy about my lack of willpower to stick to a restrictive diet and I end up heavier/fatter than when I started. It always seems such an ingrained, natural thing to do though - to diet. I always vowed after having children that I wouldn't diet because I don't want my children growing up with the idea that diets are a good thing. Anyway I am resolute that I not going to restrict my eating like that again and I will be looking at my eating habits as a separate issue to this one.  So having vowed that I would never again restrict my diet or try to be unrealistic about what exercise I am going to do, I was left with a bit of hole as to what to do next.  This void, together with no sign of Ceroc classes returning to York, left me in a bit of a quandary.

So I started thinking about designing my health and I thought that using Lobby's Design Web mentioned in her book Permaculture and People would be a great place to start.  What I liked about this Permaculture Design Process was that it is more geared towards acknowledging me as a person and I felt it would help me overcome the obstacles which have hindered my health in the past. There were also many aspects of the ideas within this web which resonated with processes which I have put in place in my life since attending the Hoffman Process and training as a Shamanic Practitioner (more of these realisations may appear in other blog posts and Permaculture design write-ups.)  Here is the write up of that design so far using Looby's Design Web:

	Ideas
	Growth Phase
Vision	To be healthier. To continue to enjoy life and find more ways to integrate body movement (I hate the word exercise) into my way of life. To find a balance between time away at classes and time with my family. To protect my back (which has been problematic since I was 16) by increasing my core stability. To have fun. Incorporate more movement into my everyday life to counteract the amount of time spent at a computer. To be realistic. Learn more useful skills. Build on what I already know.
Helps	My geeky nature - I could potentially incorporate some apps and goals so I can see my progress. The resources of the internet. My stubbornness and willingness to try anything once. Finding activities which are fun and/or useful in my life in other ways.
Limits	Cost (financial, equipment, time.) I get bored easily. The need to feel that the time/cost is worth it. My tendency to be unrealistic.
	Exploratory Phase
Patterns	1. I get bored easily. 2. I don't like spending money. 3. I don't like going out in the evening as that is when I see my husband. 4. I fear I won't stick to any program if I have to do it alone. 5. If it's not fun I will not want to continue. 6. Worrying about my appearance. 7. I find it difficult to do exercise at home because I forget as there are always other things to do and distractions. 8. Overdoing it and not realising when I need a break
Ideas	1. Find an activity which progresses in some way or where improvements are easily noticed. 2. Use my time-bank hours to pay for classes or find something where the benefit of the class outweighs the cost. Realise any investment will be of benefit to me. 3. Include the family in my workouts or find during the day classes which don't get in the way of evening family time which is what we did with kick-boxing. 4. Find classes where there is extra motivation to participate or find some goal-orientated way to give me staying power to keep going. 5. Find classes I really, really enjoy like Ceroc. 6. Continue to work on the reasons that I don't like my appearance and realise that these are not size-related because they have always been there. 7. Find activities I can do at home and find a way to remind myself. 8. Make sure I evaluate regularly and re-design when needed
Principles	1. Observe and Interact - taking ideas from nature - I have always liked the idea of natural movement (see blog posts here and here) but I find it really difficult incorporating these ideas into my life (point 7 in patterns.) I need to find ways to have the space, time and inclination to does these things and I need to integrate them into my way of life so that I think about it, they are just things I do as naturally as breathing, eating, etc. I also need to be aware of when I am resisting any changes and analyse what this resistance means. 2. Catch & Store Energy - maybe my geeky nature would be a good way to capture the energy of my finding new ways to move and get healthier e.g. revisit websites I have used before to track my activities e.g. endomondo, mapmyfitness, myfitnesspal and investigate other activity apps/websites which incorporate goal setting; connecting to others and forums for advice; in the past I have taken photos along the way which I might do again to keep me motivated; getting my kids involved could also help. 3. Obtain a Yield - feeling healthier, losing the "pregnant" belly feeling, incorporating natural movement into my life so it is seamless, learn what feels good to me, increase my range of body movements and become more somatically aware. 4. Apply Self-regulation & Accept Feedback - if I don't enjoy the activity I need to find something else as I refuse to do exercise for the sake of exercise as it makes me feels bad and my emotional well-being is as important as my physical well-being. Maybe finding classes which are flexible would benefit my life-style in that I very often cannot stick to a set time and day. Pay-as-you-go is therefore better than any pre-paid classes. Revisit how I feel about what I am doing every month or so to check that I am happy; my kids are happy with any time away as is my dh. My feedback needs to be about how I feel physically but also emotionally, spiritually and mentally about my health. Although I am talking about activities and classes if I am not feeling better in all aspects of my life then my plan is not working so I need to find a way to monitor these 4 areas each month. 5. Use & Value Renewable Resources and Services - I will be using my own power to improve my health and one of the reasons I am planning this design is so that I remain a viable renewable resource for as long as possible. 6. Produce no Waste - over time I have accrued all the workout equipment, DVDs, clothing and shoes that I need to try any type of activity necessary. I will endeavour where possible to find local activities and will evaluate why (if ever) I need to go further afield. Again I will balance using my car to get to classes over time away from family and other considerations. 7. Design from Patterns to Details - being clear about why I want to be healthier and how to balance my health with family/time/finances.  Combat any negative patterns about my health and create healthy patterns. Evaluate my monthly feedback from (4) and redesign if necessary. Celebrate any break in negative patterns as well as any new healthier ones. 8. Integrate rather than Segregate - having made a space in my bedroom (see here) for exercise which already includes a climbing wall, punch-bag, various exercising paraphernalia and a playstation 2/TV combo and now enough floor space for most types of activity this gives the kids and I the chance to engage in whatever movement activity takes our fancy. This area is nearly perfect from a theoretical point of view but we need to start using it so that it becomes an integral part of our lives for fun movement activities including keeping up with our kick-boxing skills in case we ever get to go back to our classes. 9. Use Small & Slow Solutions - I am being realistic here that anything I do is not going to make my "pregnant"-like belly disappear overnight or my BMI suddenly be reasonable. I haven't had a BMI within normal range for over 12 years and I am not even sure I agree with it as a measurement anyway. This design is focussing on how I feel about myself from all four aspects of my "quadrinity" (as the Hoffman Process calls the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of ourselves) and so my reflective writings about how I feel will be my overall guide as to how the design is going. Integrating different ways of being in my body will be slow because anything that doesn't work will be dis-guarded and new things tried and evaluated. 10. Use & Value Diversity - I need to look at this "integrating movement into my life" design holistically and as mentioned earlier need to include different types of movement in different places e.g. outdoors, indoors, natural movement, cardio, strength work, martial arts, etc. 11. Use Edges  & Value the Marginal - over the last year there have been changes in my life which are worth considering with regard to edges. For example, my parents moving to York and my getting a Saturday job. Both these things can integrate using my body more into my life if I chose them to. Sharing some activities with my children and husband can acknowledge the edges between us and help me in my endevaour to improve my health. 12. Creatively Use  & Respond to Change - I am going to be 42 in January so I need to incorporate strength work as well as cardio as my muscle mass is in decline. I have an opportunity to include natural movement now we have a woodland where we get the fuel for our wood-burning stove so I can carry logs from garden to house regularly over winter and pile logs all year round at the woodland. I recently started working so relying on walking and cycling wherever possible saves money (+ve.) I also have an opportunity to include my children in anything I do as I home educate and want them to have a positive view on how moving their bodies makes them feel good. Most of all though I need to find activities that take over from Ceroc and kick-boxing.
	Productive Phase
Integration	Thoughts via hackpad
Action	Measure various parts of my body and take a photo on 1st January 2015 Use misfit acticity tracker everyday and sync with app so it gets picked up by mapmywalk Trial Monday swimming with the kids at least once a month Keep going to MFT classes on Tuesday (or Thursday if I cannot do Tuesday) Trial Tai Chi classes on Wednesday morning with the kids, once a month maybe twice - review in 2 months Friday - attend Jitsu class (move to Monday if I cannot do Friday) Friday or Saturday once a month to every 6 weeks go climbing with at least Dave Try out various activities with the kids eg. 7 minute workout on my phone; DVDs; trampolining; kettlebells; natural movement; etc. - start small Incorporate more things as I get more time
Momentum	Review on the 1st of every month. Add this date to my calender as well as a weekly check in when I have time.
	Reflective Phase
Appreciation	Take photos and measurements at my monthly review and celebrate my achievements regardless
Reflection	Monthly review.
Pause	If I need time off, take time off.

That's it for now. Watch this space!!

Finding a rhythm and the minimalist game

Looking back at my post from August and especially the one from the start of 2014 here it is fascinating to see what things have changed since then. I am now employed at the Northern College of Acupuncture (NCA).  It is a blessing to work at such a worthwhile place even if it is only very part-time. I hoping that my computer programming skills might help here as well because the NCA are considering changing their client database structure.

I never got round to adding alarms to my phone for reading books and doing crafts because I wasn't organised enough at the time. I also realised I was too busy finishing my Shamanic Practitioner training, my Permaculture Association Trustee duties (where I was made official administrator back in July) as well as the needs to my immediate and wider family. However I have now started using google calender, google tasks, google keep and their associated apps on my phone so I am wondering whether, once my OU course is finished in July, I will add these things to my to-do-list if that is what I think is the best use of my time.

Anyway over the last year I have started finding a much-needed rhythm to my life. I feel this has been partially due to my Shamanic studies as well as my continued learning about Permaculture design methodology and how it can help design all areas of a person's life. I have started surveying and assessing the way my house works for us as a family. As a home educating family and my occasional need to work from home we have a myriad needs of our house from accommodating large numbers of children and parents to my needing a place to tutor students or work as a shamanic practitioner. This has led to my contemplating designing a number of rooms in the house and de-cluttering as a by-product of the design implementation. I am going to continue this de-cluttering and am thinking of doing the Minimalist game with my dd in the New Year as a way to maintain and tweak the design. Starting from the 1st January we are going to throw things out or ebay them every day. The challenging bit is that on the 2nd we have to throw 2 things out, 3 on the 3rd, 4 on the 4th, etc.

As part of evaluating my bedroom design over the last few weeks I have already made some changes which have resulted in at least the 6th January being sorted as I found 6 bags I don't need. Whether I will manage all the way through January will be interesting but I like the SMARTness (see below) of this game and if it works I will be implementing it more than once as a fun SADIMET tweak to my de-cluttering designs.  My bedroom was my first design within my house but I have my dining/kitchen area that also needs designing as well as potentially my loft, garage, Shamanic room and porch.  Let's see if this game works or not!!

Specific - follow the instructions
Measurable - I follow the instructions or not
Achievable - 496 items = a lot but I have many things I don't use so hopefully it is do-able
Realistic - see above
Time-bound - this is the best thing about this game.  It is very specifically time-bound.  By the end of January 2015 I will have 496 less things cluttering my house. 

The other great thing about this game is the fact that I am limited on time at present but I want to keep my momentum from the Permaculture Association National Diploma Gathering going.  I have put on hold starting any further designs (I have an "exercise" design that I need to write up) whilst I concentrate on finishing my OU course and settling into working at the NCA.  I am however wanting to continue de-cluttering and finding more rhythm in my life.  If anyone wants to join me in the game let me know!

PA NDG - Sensational, Awe-inspiring, Design-filled, Interlacing, Moments, Everyone, Together

Sensational
Action-packed
Design-filled
Inspirational
Moments
Everyone
Together sums up my first National Diploma Gathering organised by the Permaculture Association (see what I did there - using a Permaculture design framework acronym to explain how the weekend went!!!).

I am just back from an awesome weekend at Casleton YHA attending the Permaculture Association's annual National Diploma Gathering 2014. It was my first time at this event and although I have always had in the back of my mind that I might try to achieve my Permaculture Diploma I haven't really properly considered it. Also as part of my role as a Trustee for the Association I have been exploring (with other Trustees) how best to explain what Permaculture is to the masses. As part of my thought processes over the last few months I revisited what permaculture means to me including re-reading my Transition Town competition winning entry about my PDC (Permaculture Design Course). I wanted to galvanise those thoughts with real connections to other people who are implementing permaculture in their lives whilst also attending workshops and generally being nosey about what happens at these weekends. As a Trustee I get to be nosey with impunity and I am so glad I did!!!

All the workshops were interesting, helpful, thought-provoking, inspiring and a great reminder that Permaculture Design principles can be applied to ALL areas of everyone's lives. The three accreditations which happened during the weekend were awe-inspiring, motivating and fantastic examples of permaculture design having fundamental effects on people's lives. Visit the individual sites here for more information -> Nicole Vosper; Niamhue Robin and I will add Cathrine Dolleris' site when it becomes available.

In true Permaculture style there were also magical moments at the edges of the event. For example,

1. I had fortunately flung a few extra crochet hooks into my crochet bag with my latest crochet project and I offered to teach others if they wanted. I got two takers who valiantly battled the crochet handhold and both took home their first pieces of crochet.  
2. I (and others) were given instruction into how to barefoot run safely and it was such fun to have our running recorded and analysed; be shown exercises to stretch and strengthen calf muscles and various other tips. 
3. A fab guy called Kev was recording during the weekend to capture the essence of "what is permaculture" from as many people that he could and I did my part by sharing my thoughts (see below *)  
4. All the conversations with fellow attendees on a whole range of topics from home educating to the benefits of linux over Windows as an operating systems.  
5. Being visible as a Trustee to the members and touching base with 3 fellow trustees who were also attending. I had wondered whether being a Trustee would mean people would take an opportunity to talk to me in that role and it was a wonderful example of stacking that I could be there as a Trustee and as a potential diploma student.

As someone who has struggled with insecurities in the past it was fab that these types of interactions occurred and that I was also approached for my expertise in shamanism, home education and crochet. I even had someone commenting that they had found my blog posts about home educating useful. I know I write this blog for my own benefit but it always satisfying to know that it is being found, read and been useful to someone.

With regards to my short time with Kev (mentioned above*) it was great for me to realise how much "permaculturing my life" is what I want to do because it is a versatile system which can be used in all areas of life. This has really helped me re-evaluate my ideas around my permaculture projects and some changes will be happening to my website sevenstrands.co.uk over the next 6 months because of the weekend. I will also be adding content to this blog and getting back to documenting "permaculturing my life!" in an attempt to streamline and effective-y (I so wish that were a real word) my life by using permaculture design.

So here's to a great weekend jam-packed with inspiring workshops and accreditations; useful discussions about all areas of life; crocheting, making new friends, joining networks; being an effective trustee; re-engaging with permaculture design, doing yoga at 7am in the morning (if you know me you will realise what an achievement that is); re-classifying permaculture as a verb and generally having a fun time. Roll on next year as I will definitely be attending another Permaculture Association National Diploma Gathering and I now have a vested interest because I am new member on the Diploma Working Group!!!!