{Grooving Mums}

Here I am linking up again this week with Kate on Thin Ice for her grooving mums blog hop. I'm a bit slow at joining in this week - I'm normally very organised and get my post published on a Tuesday as soon as the link goes live. However, my me-time during the day is now limited as my toddler has decided that he no longer wants his afternoon snooze... he still needs it, and sometimes I'll get him to take it, but other times he's so adamant that he's not sleeping that I just have to go with it. I also feel bad as I've not been commenting on the other #groovingmums blogs, so I apologise and hopefully will catch up soon.

I've been a bit rubbish again this week with the challenges, but one thing I have done is contact my gastroenterologist about my Crohn's Disease and he's not concerned about my symptoms as my blood results and other tests came back ok. That's something I can at least put a tick against...

I did revisit one of the previous challenges 'winter warmth' and treated myself to some cosy ear muffs today from a local gift shop. I'll post a photo soon of them.

Here are the festive challenges set by Kate this week:

1. Get some catalogues and look online and in the shops to identify something for your body that you would like for Christmas. Then tell us all about it.
2. Can you do the same for your mind? Perhaps a book or film on a topic that you would like to explore further. Again, please share your ideas with us.
3. Light a candle. If you are up for meditation, try that. If not just enjoy the sight of it or buy one of those lovely scented ones to lift the spirits.
4. Make a change to your blog. Add an image or a badge (The Grooving Mums one is very lovely, hint). Add a disclosure policy if you are interested in reviewing product samples. Give some real thought to what you want your blog to do for you in the New Year.

Come back next week and hopefully I'll have achieved something off this list!

This past week I've been ill... I could hardly talk at the weekend due to sore throat and cold and so I had to skip running club and Pilates class which I was rather disappointed about. The weather has also been rubbish - wind, rain and even snow! So I've not been out as much and I think that's having an impact on my mood.

I did have a session with my personal trainer last night which I managed to go along to and - despite the mince pies and ice-cream that I indulged in over the weekend and the limited exercise - I've only put on 1lb and my body fat % has crept up just 0.8% - phew! I'll get back on track this week as I would hate for the weight to creep up each week and for me to end up where I started.

I've got our Christmas tree up and decorated the house, so I'm starting to feel very festive and my son is very excited about Santa and is thoroughly enjoying his advent calendar each day! My dad's wife made my son and daughter a calendar each and in the little pockets I put some chocolate santa's, coins etc.

I treated myself to a scented candle recently... it's very expensive for what it is and I wouldn't usually indulge this much money for a candle... but seeing as it's Christmas as we don't have a real tree or a log fire I thought I would get a candle that incorporated the essence of these things. It's called Library and is from True Grace and it is described as "a smoky blend of wood, amber and moss to recreate the sensation of walking into an old library". Funnily enough it reminds me a little of the strange scents from the Jorvik Viking Centre from when I was a small child - I've nice memories of our family trips there (I've just had a look at their website, and the tour takes you inside the home of an amber worker, so perhaps it's the amber!). Anyway, I digress... it's a lovely scent and I'm going to go and light it now and watch my twinkly fairy lights for a few minutes and relax (I finally got my son into his bed!!). That will at least tick off challenge #3 for this week :-)