Danielle is one of my favourite bloggers, and one of my crafty inspirations! She’s one of the few blogs that I check ever day, without fail! I can’t wait to hear about her new little button who should be born some time soon-ish. So go on, have a look at my post, the other guest posts, and Danielle’s sweet posts over at Hello Owl!

... these paper chains to hang in my craft room

... A strawberry pillow (not that I need any more pillows!)

... A name badge like this one (I LOVE the name Olive)

... Some beautiful decorations

(I REALLY need to buy some doilies- so many pretty projects with them! Anyone know where to buy them?!)

It’s official, I’m a University of New South Wales graduate, and hold post graduate qualifications…

New Haircut. Zooey Deschanel style, sort of… In honour of 5 more weeks till we’re in Europe and there are hundreds of photos of me that I will need/want to keep forever…

1. My herbs in the garden are not dead! In fact, they have been alive for two whole weeks!

2. I am using the herbs and other home grown garden goodies in my cooking!

3. I’ve been featured on an etsy treasury!

Row 2, Collum 1

4. This makes two in my short etsy lifetime!

Row 3, Collum 4

5. Our trivia night (complete with buzzers) was a success last Saturday night!

6. My craft room is nice and clean!

7. Luke has been cooking yummy Jamie Oliver dishes, and they have been YUMMY!

8. I have been on craft gawker again!

here and here

9. I have nearly made it to 10 reasons!

10. My creative 365 is up to date!

I went to the doctors a few months ago, and she sent me for a blood test, which of course, I didn’t get (I HATE needles).

When I was listening to coast FM the other day they had a naturopath, Lisa Mitchell ND, speaking about the thyroid. Naturally I was interested, and on Saturday I went along to a seminar on the tyroid at the Myddfai Wellness Centre.

I really like the idea of a naturopathy- an alternative medicine that focuses on natural remedies and the body’s vital ability to heal and maintain itself. To me, as a christian, it makes a LOT of sense. I know from my work in education that the brain is an amazingly complex part of our bodies. It would make sense that, with the right support, our body would be capable of equally amazing things.

I wrote some notes while I was at the thyroid seminar and through I would share them with you here.

Thyroid

1 in 5 women have thyroid disease.

Everybody is different and needs individual help.

Thyroid gland- makes hormones (thyroid hormones and calcium hormones) thyroid hormones dictate the rhythm of our entire body. Sometimes illnesses are misdiagnosed and it is really the thyroid that causes the problem.

Thyroid diseases: Hypothyroidism (low thyroid hormone) Hyperthyroidism (high thyroid hormone)

Low is more common then high.
When your thyroid is low: you might be slow, tired, dry skin, flaky nails, thin hair, sensitive to cold. Sometimes you might be puffy- holding fluid.

How to know if you have a problem: temperature check first thing in the morning. Take temp for a few mins.
36.5->36.9 regular temp. Should be between these.
Take temp on day 2-9 of menstrual cycle.

Tests you can get (from the doctor):

TSH: thyroid stimulating hormone. This hormone is produced by the brain, and makes more to wake up your thyroid. You can test to see if you do/don’t have this.

Free T4: This checks your T4 levels. Thyroxin. This doesn’t have a huge effect on our bodies becuase we have to convert this to T3 in our liver and kidneys.
Free refers to bound (to protein-not active) vs free. Free is active.

Reverse T3- incase of stress/ inflammation get this test. Might be accidentally making this.

Thyroid Antibody: ‘homemade’ antivirus. Immune system check. Immune system is cultivated a lot in our gut.

Vitamin D. Get from sun- you need this to help your tyroid.

Foods and thyroid health.

Thyroid hormones made of Tyrocine which is essentially protein. Eat more protein. Nuts, legumes, meat etc. in REGULAR amounts.

Iodine. Iodine important for brain, ovary function, breast tissue etc. You get this from FISH. Seaweed. Sardines, salmon etc. More ‘fishy’ fish.

Zinc- one of the most important. Helps convert T4 to T3. Eat: eggs, seeds, whole grains.
Affects our tastebuds etc.

Sallenium. Helps with conversion of T3/4. Best way to get it: Brazil nuts. 3-4 each day.

Avoid:
Goitrogens. If you have all the nutrients you needs these aren’t important to cut out. But you do need to cut them out while you’re building up your nutrients.

Brasicas: Cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale etc.
Soy: soy milk (whole soy bean not such an issue). Peanuts. When they’re raw and you’re nutrient levels are low it is bad.

Chemicals: fluoride and bromide. Similar to iodine and therefore compete with it.

Fluoride: Found most comonly in toothpastes. Choose Fluroide free toothpastes.
Fluoride protects our teeth is sweet/acidic environments. Better to avoid sugar/softdrink and not need the fluroide.
Bromide: flame retardants etc. Open the windows/doors so that they don’t build up. Indoor plants help clean the air. Anthuriums are v. good.
Less processed and more organic foods. Grow your own.

Problem One: The RSS Feed

Some of you may have noticed a few weeks ago I added the domain http://lifesvisualjournal.com to this blog. This was after a change in name quite a few months ago. Because I hadn’t completed the entire URL change-over some problems have occured. I am SO sorry about this.

To solve this problem I have completed moved this blog over to the new URL: http://lifesvisualjournal.com, so all the permalinks have been changed. You can still access this blog through http://taliacarbis.com until I change that to a more general homepage.

So if you have this blog bookmarked etc. then please update the link and the RSS feed.

Problem Two: The Comments

The second problem Nadiah had was with leaving comments. I know that Debbie has let me know that she’s had problems commenting before, so I thought it was definintely time to fix things. I have installed Disqus, a commenting system, which should make things easier for you all to comment.

You (hopefully!) have a few options to either leave a comment like you normally do, sign in with disqus and track your comments, or log in with facebook, twitter and other things. Now, this hasn’t been tested so if you could leave a comment on one of the entires for me (and let me know how you went/logged in) that would be fantastic.

If you don’t want to leave a comment you can also just ‘like’ the post- similar to facebook, but not connected.

Phew

So hopefully (wow, I think I have said that way too many times this post!), the problems are fixed! If you do experience any more difficulties then please just send me an email and I will do my best to fix it.

My Email: talia.carbis (@) gmail.com

• 30g Coconut Oil (melted)
• 60g Clear Honey
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 6-8 Small-Medium, Very Ripe Bananas
• 150 Wholemeal Flour
• 1 Heaped tsp Baking Power
• 1/2 tsp Bicarb
• 1/2 tsp Cinnamon
• Pinch of Salt
• 1/2 cup rolled oats

Method

Mix it up, stick it in 12 muffin cups and cook it for 25 minus at 190 deg.

Seriously, These muffins were quite yummy, and simple to make. They use a LOT of banana, and are really moist, this wasn’t in the original recipe though, so if you want to add less (say 2?) then by all means, go ahead, it should still taste good! You will notice that this uses coconut oil, because lately I’ve been researching the benefits of coconut oil. The internet seems to have mixed feelings about it, but I figure it can’t be any worse for me then butter, and that’s exactly what would be going in there if I wasn’t using the coconut oil.

Also, the oats were an extra thing as well. If you’re going to use less banana, then just keep an eye on the consistency of the mix- the oats might change it a bit.

Original recipe here.

Often I think the reason I move from the ‘up’ part of the cycle (where I’m really committed to something), to the ‘down’ part of the cycle (where is put on the backburner for a while), is because I go too hard, too fast (kind of like what I was talking about here, but in another application…).

One of my renewed focus’ of late has been gardening/permaculture/herbs, coupled with natruopathy/healthy living/eating natural food etc. I am wanting to introduce/re-introduce a few things, including sprucing up the garden.

I had grand plans I had for the garden. Eggplants, Capsicum, Broccoli, Carrots- the lot! I think that this may have been my downfall last time. I didn’t spend time researching the best place to put these vegetables (sun wise), I didn’t have time to water them (and didn’t know how often they each needed watering) etc. So this time around I have decided to keep things smaller. To keep things more manageable.

I had a bit of a plan (it didn’t actually end up like that!) for how I will plant up these things:

Basil

Parsley

Tomatos

Rosemary

and some ground cover (low maintancence) herbs also.

Garden Plan

Obviously I am just trying to focus on these herbs, and not have too many different things growing. I’ve done some research on basil particularly, and am looking forward to researching some of the medicinal qualities it possesses.

I hope that as these herbs devleop, and I get into the the habit of looking after them, that I will plant some more… Any ideas what else I should plant?

It is a sad state of affairs when meer months ago my garden was thriving, and now it is a cest pool of cobblers pegs, crazy latching vines, and annoying nut grass. *sigh*.

This footage is *cringe* about two weeks old now, and after I filmed this I did a massive plant up. The good part about that is that the garden is now looking much friendlier and yummy!!