Good Morning! I am up bright and early today and thought I would enjoy a cup of green tea. I used to drink green tea every. single. day. when I was in college, but after grad school and children (late nights studying and frequently interrupted sleep is never a good combination) I turned to something stronger and typically have a cup of coffee each day. This morning, I just felt a bit different and was hankering for green tea. If you haven’t found my instagram feed yet, I would suggest checking it out. I’m also discovering some new local companies and products and on Monday I shared a new-to-me tea company called Winterwoods Tea Company. On to my joyful movement goal for the month! It’s a bit more than half way through the month and I feel like I have met my goal. I am definitely feeling more excited about moving my body and I don’t view the activities that I am doing as ‘exercise’ which is a nice shift in perspective. I find myself looking forward to getting outside and moving my body whether it’s working in the garden, going for a walk, playing chase with my daughter or jumping rope.Having that said, there are a few things that I have noticed about fitting movement into my day that haven’t worked the way I thought they would. With running my own nutrition practice, I am using the early morning hours to take care of business tasks such as taxes (bleh), credentialing with insurance (yuck), scheduling and following up with clients and social media stuff (such as this blog!). So I have been struggling a bit with the decision to get in some early morning movement vs taking care of business. Business more often than not wins and I haven’t been doing as much movement in the morning as I anticipated when I set my goal. There have been a couple of super rainy days when I was busy with the kids waking up early or totally exhausted at the end of the day where I didn’t get much intentional movement into my day.
Overall, I feel like I have succeeded with my intention to move my body more and now it is definitely more joyful rather than something that ‘I know I need to do’. As to whether I am active all six day out of the week is questionable. I am averaging around five currently, but my movement time is more than 20 minutes most days. It is so important to go through this process of setting a goal, re-evaluating the process to reach that goal and being realistic with yourself. I think I am at a good place with movement and will continue through the rest of the month!
Garden Update: Look at all those veggie starts! I guess I do have some berries in there too. I am so jazzed that they seem to be doing alright in the window. The tomatoes and peppers that I planted are definitely starting to take off and I can’t wait to start hardening them off. We are still a few weeks away from the last frost date, but I am optimistic that I will get these puppies out into the garden beds so they can have a bit more room. 🙂
Admittedly, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with my gardening set up. There are a few things that need to be accomplished before I can safely put these plants outside. One of them is a dog/chicken proof fence around my raised beds. Currently, my chickens are roaming through the yard free ranging and they love it! They have fresh grass, clover and dandelion to eat every day as well as plenty of bugs, grubs and worms. Their eggs are incredible and I don’t want to sacrifice that, but I can’t have them scratching through the raised beds to get at worms and accidentally scratch up and knock over my yellow pear tomato plant that I spent two months nurturing inside. Hence a good fence needs to be installed as a barrier. We have quite a large area of land, so the chickens and dogs will still have plenty of space to roam.I am in the process of giving the raised beds a desperate soil upgrade. The native soil here is very high in clay and low in organic matter. Over the last month, I have double dug each of the beds to loosen the soil deeper in the ground and allow the future plants to easily send their roots down. This is the only time that I plan on double digging. In the future, I will likely just add another 2×4 to the raised bed and build them up, adding compost and organic matter to the top of the soil. I’m also moving aged chicken manure into the beds to increase the nitrogen content and organic matter. I still have quite a few to go. Finally, the top layer will be fresh garden soil for heavy feeders that I will have delivered. I’m always reluctant to purchase soil, but since we moved in just before the fall/winter and didn’t start a compost bin until now, we don’t have many options. I guess that’s it! I better get myself outside and working in the garden! 😉
Until next time, eat well!
Questions for comment: Do you have a favorite tea brand? Any movement goals or exercise related goals that you are working on or would like to share? What plants are you excited to get in your garden this year? Are there any seeds that you have started that are new to you? What is your favorite soil amendment?
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