New Year - New Moon - New Beginning - First blog of 2025!!!

 Greetings and Salutations All & A Happy New Year!!

I bet a few of you have hangovers today hahaha - a few parties and few too many drinks later!

Did you make any New Year's resolutions?

We spent our New Year's Eve at home, nothing special really - I managed to clean out my Greenhouse of all plants and give it a good sweep through.  We then sat under the gazebo and Paul wrote a couple of new guitar tracks, so we listened to him and sang along whilst I was repotting a fern and ripping up cardboard/paper for composting.  Caetlyn was doing her knitting (swearing a lot because she miss counted or dropped a stitch... hahaha) and Mavis the dog was just following anyone around to see if she could help or sleeping under the table!

Later in the day we just had a normal meal, watched a bit of telly and then played scrabble until it was time to wish each other a HAPPY NEW YEAR.  We did consume a lot of sweets and biscuits/cookies though - which we con't normally do as we have reduced our sugar and salt intake over 2024 quite substantially, so when we have a burst of sugar like this, it does disrupt our bodily patterns somewhat!

As it was also the New Moon, a time to start something new, a fresh beginning as it is the start of the new moon cycle.  I did light my huge candle and some incense to welcome in the new year - however, I don't really get excited about it because our (witchy) new year isn't until Samhain on 1st May.

This year in the Chinese Horoscope it is the year of the Wood Snake (which means it's Paul's year this year). That doesn't come into effect until 29th January 2025.

Thinking of 2025 - I do hope that this year will be a better year than the previous 3 years, which have been a bit rough - and even though I do not make resolutions (as I am always disappointed in myself when they all fall apart), there are a few things (goals perhaps?) I would like to do:

1. Keep trying to get fitter and healthier - as I am getting older I need to make sure that I maintain my flexibility and fitness levels so that I don't end up on the "Medication Merry-go-Round".  I believe that Mother Nature has provided us with all the help we need in the forms of herbs and food for medicine.  I have created a spreadsheet for the next 6 months with every detail I need to form an opinion on patterns (good or bad) so that I can tweak my fitness progress:

Front Page of my Fitness Plan

I have included things like exercise, rest, daily health assessments, supplements taken, fortnightly weight and monthly body measurements.  With this information I should be able to see what progress I am making, and if I am not making progress, I should be able to see where I am failing with all the collected information.  I also have a page for NOTES after each month and on there - well it's like a journal - I put my feelings on certain days so I can see if there are any cycles or patterns there.

It should be all very interesting!!

2.  I would like to progress my YouTube channel by varying the content on there, hoping I will get more followers (but if I don't, ah well C'est Lavie), I will still have fun documenting my journey in life...

My YouTube Banner
Annette McLean's YouTube

So if you want to see more videos on Gloomy's Garden, or on my witchcraft practice, herbal remedies, book reviews, Q&A's and Tea & Chat videos, hop along on the bad foot to my channel and press subscribe, and ring the bell so you are notified of when I upload.  It would be greatly appreciated!!

3.  I would like to learn how to make my own soap - from scratch - right now I have done the melt and pour soap, and I am about to embark on the reusing the old soap bits that usually get thrown away - to make soap bars... but I would really love to learn how to make pure soap from scratch, using the oils I have infused with herbs and flowers from my garden.  I am a bit wary about the Lye though - I have heard that can be quite a thing to get used to!!

Melt & Pour Lavender Soap

I thought that the soap and pour ones were very easy to do and with the soap colours, they looked quite pretty (plus I did put some Lavender blossoms and oil in the mix as well).  For my first try I was quite pleased with them - I  did some flowers and some stars - it was a gift for a friend (along with a load of other witchy items) that was moving interstate.

4.  I want to repaint and redecorate my witchy room come office.... I want to make it feel more mystical and magickal, full of beautiful things that make me feel peaceful and joyful.

My messy work desk and Altar

My witchy cupboards and a load of mess

My bookshelves filled with odds & sods (mess)

However, if I don't get to these things this year - there is always a next, I am not going to be putting undue pressure on myself just to prove a point. 

To do my room I will probably have a month off in either April or May so that I can take my time and get it how I want it.

Isn't it lovely to have a new year, a fresh start?  To get rid of ALL the negative aspects out of your life (as much as possible - unless you live in a cottage deep in the heart of a wild forest somewhere, where nobody visits and you have no media to drag you down, just nature) and just breathe a sigh of relief, knowing YOU are in FULL control of what happens in your life - sure, those around you or situations can influence that and how you react, but at the end of the day - YOU are the one who makes the decisions for YOU!!

Take control of that aspect this year - say NO more to things that you don't want to do - even at the risk of upsetting someone you love or the boss at work!

This year is a time of YOU

Now you might think that this is self-centred... and maybe it is to a point, but we have all been living under a man made stress for so long despite our mental and physical health.  Self Care is NOT self-centred, it is hard to be everything to everyone if your health is on the brink of crumbling around you.... To be strong, you NEED to concentrate on getting YOU right FIRST.  That is why NO is going to be the word of 2025....

If you don't want to go to a party and you would rather stay home in your PJ's with your cat/dog, watching something on TV or reading a book - then say NO.

If you don't want to take on more responsibility at work, tell them that you don't have the capacity to do that - say NO.

If you have a gut feeling that something isn't right and you don't want to proceed - then NO!!

It just amounts to prioritising YOU first.

Anyway, enough of me ranting - I'm off to spend some time in nature (my back garden), so have a lovely first day of January 2025 - get some rest, eat well, spend some time in nature and breathe in all that goodness, and I will catch you in the next blog or vlog on YouTube.

Blessings to you all )O( xxx

All of a sudden.....life takes a turn!

 Hello my dear Spring Blossoms,

I hope you are all keeping well and enjoying the weather where you are (whether it be Autumn or in our case, Spring).

Spring seemed to be upon us in no time and to be honest, I thought I was prepared, but clearly I was not!!

Three weeks into spring and I still hadn't prepared the beds for planting, I had sowed the seeds of many flowers and food, kept them alive in the greenhouse, but just had nowhere to put them.  Which is OK I guess as the weather has been fluctuating quite a bit - we have had cold days/nights and we have had temperatures into the 30's (Celsius) - like yesterday (today it's back down to 16 degrees!!

BUT - All of a sudden - life took a horrible turn...

My beautiful husband Paul became very ill and ended up in hospital in the Cardiac Care Unit - he didn't have a heart attack, but he had an onset of Edema, which blew him up like a balloon with fluid.  His liver couldn't cope with the toxins in his body and was pushing the fluids out to anywhere it could (legs, stomach, chest, back) his body became toxic, so because of all that happening (in just a few days), his blood pressure skyrocketed and heart was weakened.

He spent 9 days in hospital and lost just over 22 kg in weight - in fluid!!  (I just thought it was all the homely cooking I was doing that was putting the weight on him) So you could imagine the strain it put on his heart. 

Now he is home and is very exhausted from both the experience and the drugs they have him one to get rid of the fluid, reduce his blood pressure and strengthen his heart.

He still feels awful (not in pain though) and is sleeping a lot of the time - the doctors were quick to put him on the drugs - and I guess they saved his life, (they told me that if he hadn't gone to hospital he would have been dead two days later) so I am thankful for that - but nobody prepares you for the mental anguish that comes with it.  He feels useless, old, (he is only 58) like his life has no meaning anymore.  He can't get interested in anything - even music, his number one love, is on the back-burner.  He has picked up his guitar a couple of times, only to lose interest again.  We feel that it is the drugs and the restrictions that are making him this way and we know that once he has got to a certain place in his health matrix, that a lot of those drugs will be eventually gone - but he still feels like he was put on the "medical merry go round" that he was not prepared for.

You see, we are a family that never goes to the doctor, we pride ourselves that we are not on any of the medications people our age (mid forties to early sixties - yes, I am the oldest!!) are on.

You might think that is silly - but we have always relied on Mother Nature, using food and herbs as our medicine when we needed it - that is why I garden mostly - to stay healthy.

Now we have to watch how much sodium we ingest as that creates a fluid build up AND you would be surprised at how much sodium is in the products that we buy daily - and we just don't think about it.  It has truly been an eye opener - even home grow fruits and vegetables have a certain amount of natural sodium in them - like celery!!

One thing that did make him feel less useless was fixing our back fence - we have wooden fence extensions and in the storm on Monday night - they broke!  So Paul fixed the fence up and it gave him some purpose - an achievement, and maybe he can discover he can do other things too - which will make his self worth better.

Forever the clown!!!

Mental health is such a fine balance - and as I said, it was OK for them to stick him on all these drugs and give him restrictions, but there was NO mental health support whatsoever... it's just something you have to deal with....

People are not machines, you can't program them to do things if it is not in their nature and them having to go against their nature is very hard on them and those around them.  This maybe something that the medical field need to look into - whilst we are grateful for them saving lives, correct (non-biased) mental support is needed for the patients as well.

Low Sodium Food For Thought maybe???  hahaha!

Anyway, this is his second week out of hospital and we are making progress here and there.  I am lucky that when all this happened that my work supported me and gave me a month off to cope with it all.

So onwards and upwards we go on this merry-go-round called life - just to see where it takes us!!

I hope you are all doing well my lovelies,

Until next time - blessings to you all and take care of yourselves and your loved ones xxxx

Gloomy xxx )O(

When an invisible illness hits.......

 Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all doing well....

The last time I wrote a blog it was December, and in that blog I was saying how time flies - one minute it's October - then December... and now it is February!!!!

Not a lot has gone on - I had my months annual leave in December - we didn't go away or anything, just stayed home and pottered around the house and garden.

I didn't have much energy to do anything after last year, you see I have an invisible illness - not that I am going to go into it here, but suffice it to say that it's to do with my immune system.  There are times that it hits really hard and I don't have enough energy to do anything, I feel bloody awful and can't seem to focus on even daily tasks that I have to do - it makes me cry that I feel so bad....all I want to do is stay in bed and sleep the day away.  Depression and anxiety rear their ugly heads as you go further and further into the pain quagmire.

I have been a lot like that lately - I have no energy, I feel ill ALL the time, my stomach hurts, my joints ache, my head pounds, my skin breaks out in itchy rashes and I can't sleep.  Sometimes I am up until 4:00am just trying to wear myself out enough to crash into an exhausted slumber - but then the alarm goes off at 6:00am for work and it starts all over again.

My husband is the same - he has a workplace injury that he has had for about 25 years now, sometimes it is impossible for him to get out of bed with the pain - and painkillers do not work (or if they do - not for very long). It can cripple him for days at a time - all because it wasn't treated well enough at the time of injury.  This wears him down mentally as well and he ends up in a very dark place of self destruction.

However, if you were to meet me or my husband - you would never know, as it isn't something that shows like a broken part of the body or stitches etc., we come across as normal functioning people - other people have an idea that you are faking it - that you don't have an illness and are just having sick days for attentions or something.... which is just not true!

So our lives revolve around pain and how much we can endure to function normally.

Now I am not telling you all this for sympathy - no, not at all..  I am just telling you this so that you come across people who can't seem to function, maybe they seem a bit confused or depressed - take a step back and ask why - do they have an illness that can't be seen  - something that makes them not function as you would think a normal, fully functioning person would do?  And maybe cut them some slack.

BE KIND!!

Everyone is battling something in their lives and I think we can expect too much of people sometimes... 

It's time to take a step back, to slow down, to take a deep breath and just go with the flow.  Not rush around like headless chooks... slow and easy... take care of yourselves - self care is very important because if you don't care for yourself, no one else will!!

SO Take care everyone and have a fantastic week ahead!!

Cheers,

AJ