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for life

amanda

Amanda 2I am just getting ready to go live on radio and talk about something that I have always found difficult. A few girlfriends and I started a little experiment a year or so ago and it has gone a bit crazy. Our goal was to celebrate womanhood and encourage women in the fact that we are not each others competition.

Life around my house lately has been quite wild, so writing here has been difficult but I am back and excited to be making a contribution even when it hurts.

My topic today for the live interview is eating disorders and I will be sharing my story about how difficult it was to overcome one in my life in my late teens and early twenties.

Our world is slightly (okay a lot) obsessed with our exterior image, but we don’t realise that everything shaped on our exterior begins its fruition on our interior.

The root cause of my eating disorder was worrying about what others thought about me and my desire to fit in. I may not be throwing up my food any more but I still battle this problem everyday. I battle after two babies in three years, a complete change of lifestyle and career, to find my equilibrium and use food as a fuel rather than a reward.

I grew up in a culture when there was always another diet or fad on the cards, I grew up in a dancing school that promoted ‘The skinnier the better dancer’, I grew up in the eighties wanting to fit into those MC Hammer pants and not look like a Oumpa Lumpa.

Many years of culture and decisions have left me as an adult wondering, will there ever be a day where I am not battling what I am eating from the moment I wake up.

My goal this Spring and Summer has been to walk everyday with my family.

To lay down my phone and engage with my family.

To make my food choices about wellbeing and health, rather than quick weight loss and shame.

How about you?

What are you struggling with this Summer?

We all are, just some of us are more open to confront it than others.

Tune in here: at 8.40 perth time for my interview, or take time to encourage another towards wellness this Summer rather than a desire to fit into a culture that promotes skinny as best.

Skinny is not successful, skinny can be very unhealthy.

Wellness, health, fitness these are brilliant pursuits.

Skinny can be very deceptive.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, get in touch with a health professional today and find strength in being honest and seeking health.

All my love

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Little Foxes

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I am a product of broken sleep.

Some nights at the moment I may wing a four to five hour reprieve from my 8 week old, but most nights she is demand feeding every two hours.

The haze is ever present but across the board I am handling the transition okay.

Except for one little detail.

It’s a small one.

A tiny one in fact.

But of course the old proverb is totally true.

Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. (English Standard Version)

or a translation that says…

It’s the small foxes that ruin the vine.

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Little foxes.

Little annoyances have been getting to me.

The dishes that pile on the sink, after I have just finished a load.

Toilet paper that is not refilled on the roll late at night.

Rubbish piling in my car.

Little foxes.

That test my patience and make me roll my eyes in frustration. Most of my frustration is directed at my partner. My love. My man.

Little things.

Mid eye roll last week, I felt a strong check in my spirit and it was this…

“What if you used reverse psychology on these little things.”

For example.

When I came to the toilet and the roll holder was empty, what if I made a game of it and was stoked that I was the one that got to fill this missing link.

As I washed another dish, what if I thought about all the things I was grateful for…Like how hard my husband works for my family, like how the water feels as I wash the dishes, like how the tree’s move just outside the window that overlooks our sink or thinking about my friends who desperately want a family to wash dishes after.

I have waged a war on the little foxes in my family home.

There are a couple of stories in my world, where wives have lost their husbands unexpectedly and I am sure they would give anything to wash one of their coffee cups, just one more coffee, just one more glance, just one more hand to hold.

I believe strongly that it is the little foxes that ruin our vines of love. We eat slowly away at the foundation of our relationships when we allow the little things to grow and fester and slowly eat away at our hearts.

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Is your flatmate annoying you?

Does those noises your husband makes at the dinner table irritate the living day lights out of you?

Are you sick and tired of washing clothes again and again?

Do you hate the house you live in and are desiring a change?

Maybe change your perspective whilst doing these everyday things, remembering that there is someone else, not very far away, wishing they had the very things you despise.

Each and every onesie I hang, I pray for dear friends desperate to fall pregnant.

Each and every coffee cup I scrub, I pray for family who are longing to fall in love.

Every toilet roll…no actually they still really annoy me and I’m working on that one.

The little foxes.

They spoil the vineyard.

Why not wage a war on the small with me?

Speak Tomorrow.

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A New Born, A Toddler, A Body Builder & a Little Seaside Shack

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Good Morning,

Throughout the month of August I am so excited about all the guest writers that are a part of Capture Life.

I will be writing each Sunday about my little family and the start of our new life with A newborn, A toddler, My Body Builder and our little seaside shack.

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What an amazing season in the life of my family.

Look out for

Monday’s with Jeff and Julie Crabtree

Tuesday’s with Em Hazeldean

Wednesday’s with Brisita Rojas

Thursday’s with Jo Hodges

Friday’s with Kate Smithson

Saturday’s with Bethany Bracegirdle

Sunday’s with yours truly.

I am so excited.

Speak soon

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Knitting all things together for good.

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I have been in a nesting haze lately and somedays I wish I had a studio to retreat to, somewhere I can leave my creative bits and bobs and a two year old won’t touch them.

Space is our arch nemesis.

Storage is our promised land.

Other days I am overwhelmed with gratitude that I have a little shack to call my own and I am able to stay home with my toddler with no stress about rushing back to full time work just so I can make our mortgage repayments.

On these days I thrive on thoughts about the simple life, making my own butter and taking another load down to our local op shop.

I declutter.

I breathe.

I am thankful.

We all have these contradictions in our world.

One day we feel supremely grateful, the next overwhelmed and frustrated.

We each have moments of bliss and then moments of stretch and tangle.

A little like crochet or knitting.

There are moments where we love the rhythm and the finished product and learning a new pattern. Then the day comes when we make mistakes, we drop stitches and create holes, we give up and throw the project in the back of the cupboard, vowing never to look at it again.

I love this thought.

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Whatever is happening in your world, I believe that God is interweaving it into a tapestry of beauty that brings glory to Him.

The good.

The bad.

The frustrating.

The overwhelming.

The annoying.

The brilliant.

The excellent.

Everything.

He uses it all.

So if you are frustrated and feel ashamed about this today, I promise it is being brought together for good.

One day, one moment and you will look back and gain perspective on this season of your life.

Someday.

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an invincible summer

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In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

Today summer found our house, even though it was cold, our hearts were full of family.

My husband was home, our beach shack shone, one of my dearest friends visited and we watched the sun go down as a family with one of my nephews playing basketball at the beach.

No matter the season, there is always another awaiting.

Are you sick of the season that you are in?

Search and seek.

Rearrange and reflect.

Another season awaits.

I am learning to love the season that I am in, more than ever before.

Food on the floor, slow morning’s, watering our lime tree in my PJ’s.

In us always lies an invincible summer we just have to seek it out.

Ask and it will be given.

Seek and you will find.

Knock and the door will be opened.

If you are stuck in a season that frustrates you, look for the summer within.

Beauty is everywhere, somedays we just have to dig deep to find it.

Till we meet again

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