Organizing Otte: An Odyssey Into Getting Organized

During early April I wanted to try out bullet journalling inspired by some friends who were using it. I started using an old, tatty, small notebook which I'd been scribbling in earlier but not used up. I wonder if the notebook was too small, but whatever the reason, bullet journalling hasn't really struck a chord with me.

In my attempts to find out what bullet journals were all about, I had gone searching youtube for videos, and while snooping around them I stumbled upon planner videos involving all sorts of fancy planners, and started watching them.

Now, insert an image of a rabbit hole, and you'll get the picture.

I have been struggling with getting some form of structure to my life and everyday. I used to be pretty good at it. But events and circumstances have reduced me to sometimes feeling like a dead leaf which gets blown hither and yon by the wind.

One problem about trying to make plans has been a lousy sense of assessing how long stuff actually takes. Another the ever present perfectionism, though I seem to be better at controlling it. And the obstinate streak in me which rebels at any form of system or framework imposed upon me, even when I'm the one doing it. Another reason I have been failing at staying organized will become apparent when you see the pile of notebooks and pads I have been using through the past 10 or so years of my life trying to bring structure into my life.

It should be fairly obvious why it has impeded me more than it has helped. And that isn't even all the ones which have been used.

Since falling down the rabbit hole, I have been rather more efficient than is my wont, not to mention feeling okay about it. I focused on my calendar which is the spiral-bound book on the top of the pile, and on using it more in my daily life. And I started thinking more about what would and would not work for me, and what I actually wanted to keep tabs on.

I have come to some sort of acceptance, that because of my mental health issues, a certain amount of rigidity and routine is required in my life. It is finding the balance which is going to be the important part.

And instead of rushing out and buying a planner, I've been making do with what I have already, and experimenting a bit. This means I get to use up part of my hoarded stationary items (yeah, I have also been hoarding that sort of stuff). I have already been inspired in several ways to make my own hacks. So while this may be leading me into hoarding more stuff, it is also getting me using stuff I've already hoarded.

And because I still haven't found any inserts I really like, I have started playing around with Word and working on making my own. So far they have been very simple, and there's still a ways to go before I figure out what I really want, but I am gaining experience. I have also been working on making stickers. Planner stickers aren't a bit thing here, and the few I have found have been unappealing, not to mention irrelevant. So I want to make some which I like, and which will work for me and my needs.

 I made a video on youtube a month ago about my state, and will be doing a follow-up this weekend. Summing up what progress I've been making, and what seems to work (yes, I am happy to say there are things which are working). I have also been experimenting with some personal sized 6-ringed binders I discovered up in my attic. Expect more blog posts and videos on my odyssey into becoming a seriously organized cat.

My parents have been rather skeptical whenever I mentioned laying plans. They've come to associate it with emotional outbursts when plans failed. And that it would be better to do stuff, than sit and plan it. But they are changing their minds. They have seen that it does help me (especially when I keep it at a realistic level).

There is still a long way before I will have a full grip on things. But using a planner is proving to be a valuable tool for me on my road. So even though the bullet journalling system which was the reason I got into all this turned out not to be "my thing", it did bring about a lot of good.

The post that didn't appear

You may have noticed I didn't post this Tuesday. This is the sort of thing which can happen. I had planned to do my usual "What's in my fridge?" post, and for obvious reasons, well, that has to be done on the same day.

And I did start. And I took a pic. And then technology started breaking down. And then my head fell apart. And the rest of the day was more or less just geared at getting through, keeping myself fed, and just rest, rest, rest.

It is a fact of life that I can start out a day doing fine, and then suddenly it just disintegrates, and being able to string two thoughts together and making sense of them is but a dream. Sometimes there is a trigger, but there doesn't have to be. Yesterday the trigger was camera troubles. I did get them sorted out at the end of the day, but I decided that if this blog is to really give a tangible impression of how my life goes, well, sometimes I won't be posting even if it is scheduled. And I am not going to be ashamed about it. Sad, yes, disappointed, maybe. Ashamed, no.

This has made it clearer to me how important it is to keep a schedule of my blogging, and to try to write a bit every day. This isn't bad, in fact it may be beneficial to me to get the routine in. And having a few finished posts ready so I can use a back-up plan on future days of brain malfunction. Because there will be more. I know it. At least they aren't as frequent as they used to be, nor always as bad.

There are three valuable lessons I learned from what happened Tuesday.

First: planning my blog ahead, and building up a buffer or reserve of posts. It strikes me this isn't merely practical for building a frame/routine for myself, nor for making it possible to post something even on bad days. It would also be helpful for when I plan on going on holiday. And in June and July there will be a need for that. Especially in July when I will be out of internet reach.

Second: I am learning more about technological appliances and computers. I may not always understand how and why, but from believing I had wasted money on a new type of memory card which was useless, I was able to think "What happens if I do X?", and then slowly experiment my way into being able to access the pictures and videos on the card. Even though I am still very much a novice at all this, I am building up a sense of accomplishment and confidence.

Third: Sitting down with one of my colouring books and a box of colour pencils and getting on with them, while either watching a documentary or film or listening to music helps to calm my head, and slowly get it to settle down and start being functional again. I actually knew this already, but it was good to be reminded of it. I need to remember it for the future. It won't cure me, and I might not be able to do anything mentally demanding the rest of the day, but it helps soothe me.

So the post that didn't appear instead spent itself in teaching me a few things. Not bad. And if this helps you see some hidden treasure in your life, better.

Fighting the Hoarder

Some of you already know that I am a hoarder. I don't think I can be said to be a recovering one quite yet. But things are getting easier.

This week, the recycling pick-up guys will have noted an increase in my paper recycling. I have started getting rid of my gardening magazines. I started this particular streak with several years' worth of a BBC gardening magazine, and then continued on the Danish Gardening society mags. Starting with January 1997. Because I have previously managed to get rid of the older ones.

Of course, this doesn't solve the whole issue of hoarding, nor even just the gardening mags. Because I am going through each and every one of them, and tearing out pages or cutting  small bits out. Which are making a rather fair-sized pile all by themselves. At least it is smaller than what's being tossed. I think I have tossed about 15 kgs worth of gardening mags in this round. And there's still a bit left. If we go by my mags, we are now ready for April 2007.

It does help that there was a period of time between 2001 and 2004 where there were no mags. That's when my parents stopped being members, and when I joined. I will probably opt to keep one or two years' worth of magazines, and then get into the habit of sending them off as the new issues arrive. I still haven't decided when I'll go through all the pages I've torn out. And who knows how I am going to store them and be able to find what I'm looking for.

But having reached the point where I can go through them and toss them at all is a major step forward. I have so much paper it isn't funny. Last year I started tossing old calendars, both the monthly wall ones, and the book format yearly ones. I had saved many of the wall calendars because of the pictures. All sorts of adorable animals, and mostly cats. The oldest ones were from 1974. I turned three that year. The student calendars, whether by complete year, or by school year, were all saved from 1985. I tore out the pages from the first one so the paper could be recycled, but I just binned the rest up to 2000. Too much trouble.

For some reason I have got stuck at 2000. I really need to pull up my socks and proceed. There's not much in them anyway.

The largest hurdle by far was getting rid of my (ice) hockey magazines. I had eight to ten complete volumes of The Hockey News, I had eight years of a Swedish magazine, multiple years of several Finnish ones, and then lots of random issues of Canadian and American magazines. I discovered I'd already got rid of the German ones.

And then there was the scrapbook. Since 1985 I had cut out all and any newspaper articles about hockey, and pasted onto paper and put in binders. During a good number of years we actually got three newspapers at home; a Danish, a Finnish and the International Herald Tribune. Plus I grabbed any articles from newspapers I could get my paws on.

It will probably not surprise you to learn that I had fallen way behind on the sticking things in. So I had boxes and boxes of newspaper pages, torn out and small notes about date and paper. And one day I would get it all in order.

I first started thinking about getting rid of them all last autumn. It was a mad thought. It was an evil thought. I forced myself to contemplate it. It took me half a year to bring it up to my parents. It took me some weeks to look for someone who might be interested in them. I failed.

I decided I would have to go the tough way. I gathered them all together. This is what it looked like.

The black packs are all Hockey News, the brown kraft boxes and the binders left of the lamp are scrapbook material, the two piles in front of them are the Finnish mags, and the ones in front of the lamp are the Swedish ones.

If all the mags were stood up in one pile, it would have been about my height. And they weighed 118 kgs. Yes, I weighed them all. One day, dad and I filled up the trailer with the lot and drove to our recycling centre. I stood and stared into the big cavity of the paper container before hurling in pile after pile. I was nauseous. I felt like throwing up. I felt like I was going to faint. It was a physically and mentally draining ordeal. I couldn't do much the next few days.

The worst thing is, because most of them had been stored up in the attic, I don't have a sudden vast empty space to show for it. And I sort of got stuck on continuing by getting rid of my hockey equipment, and looking into what to do about my card collection.

Instead I have managed to focus on the gardening mags. And in part my collection of crafting mags. I think you have noticed a pattern emerge. I have no idea when I slid from merely being a collector to being a hoarder. In fact, I was pretty certain I wasn't a hoarder. Until I read some books on the subject, and then answered some questions. Truthfully. Even then I wasn't really alarmed. That happened when I watched some BBC programmes about hoarders. Who had way more stuff than I do.

What scared me was hearing them say exactly the same things about their stuff that I have been saying about mine. I could tell they were blind to some realities about their stuff and their space.
Could I be blind to some realities myself?

I have now been trying to work on this for more than half a year. It is a bit depressing. I know I have gotten rid of lots of stuff. There just doesn't seem to be visible progress. I guess I have to be more patient. And just keep on. I still haven't reached the point where I can just say "oh, to heck with it!" and toss it. There's still the voice of angst whispering "What if you suddenly miss it next week?"

I am on the right way. I know I need to keep on. I will get there in the end. I am making sure anything that comes into the house is necessary. Or limited in amount. When I reach my 60s, I won't be living in a hoarder show home, I'll be living in a nice, reasonably cluttered home. I don't think I'll ever be a tidy person. But I have seen and heard what could be my fate. And I'm walking down a different road.

Joshua and his girls

As promised last week I am now going to introduce you to the Cluck Brigade. One of my dreams about homesteading involved chickens, ducks and quails. Almost three years ago I was getting frustrated I still hadn't any poultry and decided it was high time. So I bought myself a smallish chicken coop to get me started.

This turned out to be a wise move. Not long after I heard of somebody who needed to find a new home for her flock due to poor health (hers, not the chickens), and two days later I was able to pick up a rooster and three hens for no cost. They are Dansk Landrace chickens, Danish country breed. Supposedly one of the older, unaltered breeds of chicken, and can be traced back some 2000 years. They had been on my shortlist of breeds I was interested in.

Say hullo to Joshua.


So Joshua, Amelia, Beatrix and Cecily moved in to Fowlty Towers. The first few days they only had the small run for going out, but then we constructed a larger area with some netting and bales of straw. About a week later we were all ready for them to become free range.

I knew when they moved in that Fowlty Towers was on the small side for the four of them, and started building a larger coop. Unfortunately it proved to be too much for me to manage along trying to focus on eating and keeping the house, especially as that was the summer of house renovations, so dad ended up building the bulk of it. And it was fortunate that Pear Tree Lodge was being made, because one of the hens ended up hatching three chicks.

You can tell by the difference in wing development which order they were hatched

I had decided that any cockerels would be sacrificed in the name of discovering whether or not I could cope with slaughtering and eating my own chickens. And any hens would be sold off. As things turned out, all three chicks turned out to be female, and I was advised to keep them so Joshua had a larger flock to occupy him. Possible inbreeding on this level was deemed to not be a cause for concern. So at the end of 2013 I had a flock of one rooster and six hens.

Veggie Box Tales 19 May

A fortnight has passed, and it is time for a new box of veg. Hooray! It is almost like Christmas. Almost. See, I do actually get an email on the Monday telling me what's in the box. But still.

So, this is the goodies all lined up.

There's some tomatoes and a cucumber, a zucchini, fennel, some Jerusalem artichokes, a cabbage called "spidskål" i.e. pointed cabbage which a quick google tells me is a member of the white cabbage family, spinach, two lumps of ginger and a fresh garlic.

Now, actually the one ginger and the garlic were not in my box. Instead, there was a head of cauliflower in there. I have ... a complicated relationship with cauliflower. So mum traded me the extra ginger (my parents have a complicated relationship with ginger) and the garlic for it. Dad was looking forward to having cauliflower with the pork cutlets they were having today. I am looking forward to stuffing something with ginger.

I haven't munched my way through all the veg from a fortnight ago, though I admit I bought some toms to supplement. I do still have the lemongrass, which will now be paired up with some of the ginger, some garlic, soy, and other fun ingredients. A friend has given me a recipe for pointed cabbage, which is basically chopping it finely and then making an Asian vinaigrette of hoi sin sauce, sesame oil, and rice vinegar. I think half of that head will be used up for that, and then perhaps I'll do a ginger/garlic/lemongrass/soy dressing for the other half as an experiment.

The spinach will probably find its way to a frying pan this evening, along with some onion and garlic, and some of the feta-type cheese in the fridge. The zucchini and the toms and part of the fennel will either make me a soup or a pasta sauce. I still have the kohlrabi and part of the celeriac from the previous box, and a few carrots, they could be paired up with the Jerusalem artichokes as oven roasted veg and then I could dive into the freezer for some steaks. I should have ostrich and kangaroo in there.

I am also wondering if I should try to cook some of the ginger in a syrup and preserve it. I had a jar of ginger in a syrup on my Ingredients shelf of the fridge for some years which was awesome for impromptu Chinese meals, and I finished it up some years ago. I miss it.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day for me, and by the time I get home, I'll be hungry and tired, which is never a good combo. I think I'll chop up half of the cabbage tonight and prepare it, so when I come home, there's at least something ready to eat.

Tip for people who have trouble with eating veg: soy and anything Asian style makes everything better! It's done wonders for me.

Life is funny

As a teenager trying to figure out what to do for a living, I really wanted a job where I'd be making things with my hands. However, the realist (or was it the pessimist?) in me knew that to make a living out of being creative meant heavy competition, having a lot of talent, a lot of good luck, and working hard. The working hard didn't scare me off, but I didn't want to bet too much on my talent and luck. So I opted for the bookish road, and academia, which was not an unpleasing path anyway.

At the end of my university time I had developed another dream, one which involved settling down somewhere in rural Wales, and having a homestead or similar, and being self-sufficient with veg, fruit, meat etc. Again my inner realist knew that it would be a challenge, so better to opt for a job or two in Denmark before taking the leap down onto that path.

And I finally did land a job. Which meant that at the same time my parents were moving to the small island where mum grew up, I was heading for the other end of the country to work. Things started alright, but finally a number of things which had been developing over years caught up with me, and I found myself sidelined by depression. Sick leave helped a bit, but I came back too soon. And various other issues which are too many, and frankly too bad for me to want to dwell on, meant that I found myself leaving North Denmark to seek refuge with my parents, lick my wounds and recover, and then look around for the way forward from there.

 But somehow I didn't really seem to get any better. In some ways, in fact, it seemed like I was getting worse. Some good did happen, such as realizing that if I belonged any place in Denmark, it was here on Ærø. I would be able to commute for my next job, and perhaps combine that with working from home. Or perhaps even start as a self-employed translator. Which is why we ended up buying a house for me here. With an apple orchard and a bit of land to the property.

And then came the day when I was so sick and tired and weary of it all, that I asked to be admitted to hospital. Signing that paper was in some ways one of the toughest things I have ever done. In many other ways, it was one of the easiest. It was in any case easier than when I had signed my job contract. That is how I got to spend 3 nights in our local hospital towards the end of the year, mostly being a vegetable. The staff were awesome and were shocked to hear I had been living off my savings during all of the time. When I was sent home, it was with medications, strict orders that I went home to my home, not my parents, and that as soon as the Town Hall was open again to file for the sick pay I was entitled to.

Thus it was I ended up in the system, and other people were involved in figuring out how to get on. I won't bother with the long and tedious story. The important thing is that after a few years I was sent to a consulting psychiatrist who gave me two diagnoses. One was that I suffer from recurring depressions, and I would probably face the rest of my life on my medication. The other was a psychiatric illness.

Have you ever thought about how you would react if you were handed a psychiatric diagnosis?

I hadn't. But I know what was going on in my brain when she told me.

One half of me was running around like a headless chicken, using very colourful language, and horrified at being some sort of madman, and probably needing locking up. And the other half was crying and dancing with relief and joy at being told, that I was, in fact, normal, at least in regards to the bits and bobs which make up my mind. It's just not the standard set of bits and bobs. And I wasn't a lazy, good-for-nothing, stupid, doddering idiot. In fact, she stressed the fact that I was in possession of a good intellect. That has held me up many times.

I won't bother about regaling the road from there on to getting a temporary pension (several times) before finally getting a permanent one. Because that is not the important part of this particular story. No, it is rather the observations made during those periods.

I have grown up watching my mum and her mum doing all sorts of textile crafts. Mostly knitting and cross stitching. I had actually done both as a teenager, but it had slid along the side. But during the years before getting the diagnosis and then the following ones, I had picked up knitting again as a way of not losing it altogether. It was a way of keeping my hands, and my mind occupied. People would comment if they saw me without any knitting. And it dawned upon me after I started getting the temporary pension, that I was getting money, and I was spending my days knitting.

This was not what my teen-aged self had envisioned, but in a funny, backward sort of way I was being paid to make stuff with my hands. And after I finally got my first chickens almost three years ago, well, this isn't Wales, and I doubt I'll ever be able to get all my mad dreams of my twenties fulfilled, but it is rural, and I am taking baby steps toward some sort of self-sufficiency.

Life is funny. Funny peculiar, though considering the almost happy ending, funny ha ha could fit too.
Because in a very roundabout way, and nothing like what I had hoped for or dreamed of, I find myself more or less doing what I had wanted to.

I recently saw a quote on a website I frequent: "Sometimes the bad things that happen in our lives put us directly on the path to the best things that will ever happen to us".

Yes. That can happen. And this is what I try to focus on when I have my bad days, or my really bad days, and whenever I get frustrated by the effects that my mental health has upon my abilities and everyday life. Because it isn't all fun and games. It is often a struggle and a battle. But bit by bit, I am going to strive to get closer towards my dreams. It wasn't the way I wanted to follow to get there, but I'll take this opportunity to build my life up again in a way that gives me satisfaction.

This is one of the reasons I have started this blog. Because if some part of my journey before and onward, how I cope with my situation and slowly build up a full life in spite of things, can help or inspire somebody else struggling with some illness or accident which means their lives take a turn down a totally unexpected - and undesired - path, then that is worth sharing.

Crash and Burn

So.

Today I had planned on bringing you a post about the Cluck Brigade. That is, about my chickens. That is not going to happen. Because yesterday in the late afternoon I experienced one of my crash and burn episodes.

What is a crash and burn episode? Basically, it is when I have been doing pretty okay up to when suddenly, out of the blue, I'm no longer doing okay. Where my brain just ceases to function, and small things suddenly turn into huge obstacles, and slightly challenging tasks turn into impenetrable mountain ranges.

There is only one thing to do when that happens, and that is to accept that your brain is not going to be up to anything more that day, and immediately cancel all plans for the rest of that day, and just try to make it through.

Often this means that the next day will have to be slow. Not necessarily nothing going on, but I need to make sure there's lots of time to relax and recover.

So, why do these crash and burn events happen? Well, my guess is that I have probably been overdoing things during the previous days. Perhaps not enough to notice it. But enough to be adding up on an invisible calculator, and then at some point, BOOM! Crash and burn, baby, crash and burn.

I suspect that this particular incident has its roots in my very productive Friday morning where I think I managed to run four or five errands and go into four different shops. I did take the rest of the Friday off, and had a slow Saturday, but I probably should have been slower the following days too.

The good thing about this episode is that it has been a while since the previous one, and that I was actually able to realize I was in the process of crashing and was able to catch myself before burning. Also, I was pretty fortunate to have started prepping for supper rather early, because this meant I was more or less done with the cooking when it happened. So I had a decent supper. I have a small stock of miso sachets and soba noodles or instant noodle packets for times like these. Because feeding myself becomes one of the huge obstacles during a crash and burn.

So yesterday I had to give up hopes of writing about the chickens and finding pics, and also cancel my participation in the local garden society board meeting. Not least because it involved a long car drive, and I do NOT want to be behind the wheel at these times. Our traffic is not massive, but I wouldn't trust my reaction skills if anything out of the ordinary happened. And my brain is still not up to hunting for pics and writing non-rambling posts. So you'll have to wait for next week for a formal introduction to the chickens, and settle for me rambling.

What's in your fridge? 12th May

What does your fridge look like? Is it overflowing with stuff, much of it very possibly beginning to show signs of intelligent life?

I seem to swing from that scenario over to the one where the fridge is almost as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard.

Today, my fridge looks like this:

It's sort of medium stuffed today.

If we start with the door I have cheese and butter at the top. I bought two types of goat's cheese Friday and have been munching my way through them. The next shelf is the chutney shelf. Yes. Those are six different chutnies in there. Then there's the shelf with yeast, tomato concentrate and open sachets of kitty food. Then there's the mayo, bbq-type sauces and maple syrup and truffle balsamic cream. It is much less crowded than it used to be, and the mayo is a newcomer, because my collection of bbq-type sauces has all but vanished. I think I used to have four or five. The bottom is milk - and to be honest, I'm not quite sure what the others are. I guess this is a cue for me to check them out and possibly get rid of them.

Then there's the fridge proper. I strive to keep all my veg and possible fruit in the drawers down at the bottom. It's not quite working at the moment, because several of the drawers are awaiting washing, because there were things in them which, well, new lifeforms were being created in there. But those are the things from last week's veggie box which still haven't been eaten yet.

The top shelf is my "ingredients" shelf. This is where I keep my bottles of ready-made stock, various jars and bottles of Asian ingredients, olives, sun-dried toms in oil, creams and spreads currently open, and similar goodies of a long-life nature. They are the items I use when making stews or more fancy food.

And in between those I have bacon, chicken meat from making chicken stock this weekend, more milk, feta cheese for a couple of things I hope to make this week, cherry syrup - store-bought and some I made myself, a jar of home-made cherry jam, an open bottle of weird beer which has been there since I don't know when, pasteurized egg yolks and egg whites, ready-made pie dough and filo pastry.

I have plans of using the filo with part of the feta and some spinach from my freezer to make small parcels, possibly including some minced lamb. The rest I want to try to use as a filling in regular home-made white bread. Using part or all of the chicken and some of the veg to make a curry would give me cause to use some of the chutney. The pie dough is destined for a quiche Lorraine, along with the bacon chunks. The bacon rashers will be breakfast one day with an egg or two from my pantry.

This more or less sums up the state of my fridge today. Tune in after a fortnight to see if I have managed to toss the old beer and wash the veg drawers. And possibly discovered what the bottles in the door contain.

Having It All

This magnet lives on my fridge. It's a quote of Cicero, and translated into English it reads "If you have a garden and a library, then you lack nothing". I bought it over 20 years ago, because it summed up pretty much what I wanted in life. It has faded over the years, but it isn't going to leave my fridge unless it breaks.

Not all feel that way. A friend of mine who was visiting, looked at it and said, "Yes. I need a gardener!"

Yeah, she's not all that much of a garden person. She'd rather spend her time doing other stuff. Reading is a good guess. And I will admit, there are times when it would be terrific to just tell someone to "Go do this, and then do that, and finish off with the other", instead of having to go out and do it yourself.

But there are times when there is so much truth in those words. Like when we're sort of halfway through spring, and these things are in your garden:

That's my cherry tree. It isn't looking at its best because of course, today's weather has been a mess. It's very blustery and has been rather wet. The sun peeks out every now and then, but not for long. But hopefully the weather won't batter the flowers before insects have had a chance to do their thing, so that a few months down the line, I can pick cherries.

  These are some charmingly pointy tulips growing in my driveway. When the sun is out they open up and form a spiky star.

 And further down the driveway I have loads of grape hyacinths. And I love these guys. They are so willing to procreate, that I am gradually getting large swathes of them.

At the moment I am working on making the front garden look better and will have to dig them all up and spread them out after weeding, but in a few years' time, I might have a whole bed of them.







When you get these sorts of beauties cropping up, you feel pretty darn good about being the Head Gardener of your own personal patch of Heaven. Unless of course the weather behaves badly. Like today. That's when your library steps in and takes over.

Veggie box tales: Getting back in

Once more I am subscribed to a veggie box. I get the small box, which comes every other week. I originally started off with the large one, but that was way too much for me to eat my way through. Even the small box can provide a challenge for me. It takes effort to focus on my diet, and the past months I un-subscribed, because I knew I wouldn't be able to cope with it. Now things seem to be easing up and so I am subscribed again. And getting excited about it.

And today, Tuesday 5th, I got my first batch of veggies after a break of several months.

Actually, that wasn't the exact contents of my box. There was a head of lettuce in it, and I don't really do lettuce. However, mum gets the big box, and knows about me and lettuce, and she likes the stuff, and she offered to trade it for the bunch of carrots. And carrots I can do. So out with the lettuce, in with the carrots. That trade also added more colour to the lot.

So, what is in there?

There's a bag of kale at the top, then a kohlrabi, the carrots, leeks and a celeriac. Below those there's parsnips, onions, a cucumber, and then finally a stalk of lemongrass, a chili, lemon and a fresh garlic.

And now for the fun part - figuring out how to eat them all.

I suspect I'll be using the kale to make a Danish dish called "grønlangkål" which is basically cooked kale in a white sauce. I am considering using part of the celeriac, and one each of the leeks, parsnips, and onions, and a few carrots to pop in a soup pot along with one of the chickens in my freezer. The kohlrabi will probably prove the trickiest of the lot. Along with the chili.

I'll be spending the rest of the day cooking up a meal plan for the next week or two, and figure out how to get through these. One of the reasons I started subscribing to a veggie box was to make it easier to get more veg in my diet. And meal planning in general helps me to eat better.