Well, the reason I have been a little lax in the blog department is that we've finally gone to exchange of contract!!!!! Now, this is a bit of a New South Wales thing, but the law of property sales in that state allows for "gazumping". Gazumping means that even though you have made an offer that's been accepted by the vendor, if another person makes an offer on the property and gets to exchange of contract first, they get the house/land/deal. This doesn't happen in Qld, so it's been a bit of an education to deal with the legal system.

So, this means that in roughly 53 days, we'll be the proud owners of the farm. The only hitch being that we live on the opposite side of the country at the moment slight hassle. Thus we're starting to plan in detail how we will make the move out to the property and the skills etc that we will need to make our dream a reality. Hubby recently celebrated his birthday so he got a book on Biodynamic Farming methods and he's already started talking about different elements.

This whole exercise has been a lot like being on the BTD for me. You can make a deal with yourself and then things happen along the way that break that contract. You fall off the wagon, things happen and you might choose to not follow the recommendations. Then suddenly something happens that makes you really commit to your health - you start reading the books, cleaning out your cupboards and planning your meals a little more.

I need to do that. I'm 100% compliant to the O non diet, but something is still affecting me. Ron's mis-typing scared me, but I've been tested 3 or 4 times and I'm always an O, so I'm confident that I'm on the right diet. The problem seems to be my stomache and its inability to just settle at the moment. We're going to a different doctor on the 12th, which I'm hoping will lead to me finding somebody like my old Brissie doctor - caring and truly committed to using natural therapies instead of trying to throw antibiotics at things.

I'm wondering about trying the explorer diet to see if that will help, but the gripping pain I have after eating is making me a little gunshy of trying anything new. Who knows, it could be the thing that helps even though the test clearly indicates that I should be on the BTD not the GTD.

I have to admit, I've started this blog a few times with different names. I'm not sure why, it's just nothing has seemed to really summarise what's been happening over the past week or so.

First up, we've been using our slow cooker much more. Nothing too inventive yet, just really stews - primarily beef - although I've used turkey this time, so we'll see how they go. I'm thinking I put too much water in this time as it seemed a little more soupy than previous attempts. In good news, hubby will be home a little late tonight, so I'll try to thicken his up before his dinner.

Secondly, I've been trying some new recipes for Mick to take for his lunches and breakfasts. Some of them are naturally BTD compliant whilst others aren't really, but can sort of be made that way. For example, bacon and egg muffins. Now, generally this would be a no-no. But, if you bake compliant spelt-based english muffins and use roast turkey that's been lightly fried rather than bacon, they turn out ok. They also got the thumbs up from him - I consider that a massive achievement. Lunch wise, thus far he's had the shepherd's pies, turkey red curry with rice and turkey filo parcels. Not all of them have been massive hits, but at least it gets away from the same things all the time and gives him the opportunity to try something new as well.

Next up - we got our side of organic, grass-fed, local beef! Plus a whole lamb. The puppies have some bones and lamb flaps from the same animals so nothing should really be wasted! There's about 90 kilos of meat all up with probably 20 kilos of bones/dog food. Next up I'm ordering in some free-range turkeys so that the freezers are well stocked and we have no excuse for having anything but good quality, home cooked food.

Which brings me to my final piece of exciting news - we have a vacuum sealer. Seriously, this thing, although it uses plastic bags, is great. You can vacuum seal pretty much anything. Mick joked that if he stood still long enough, I would have vacuum sealed him, but it is great. I packaged up all the meat into meal sized serves then vacuum sealed it. No risk of leakage in the freezer! I've also been experimenting with frozen cookies (making the dough, then freezing it ready to bake), cakes and muffins for lunches. I'm hoping to do one big batch every month or so, then just take off what I need for that week.

Well, I've had a few things on my reading list. Admittedly, I should have been reading cases on Torts Law , but surprisingly other things became a little more exciting.

First off, the Last Lecture. I actually laughed out loud and cried during this book; on the bus no less. Just an amazing reflection on somebody's seemingly ordinary life and the achievements that we all take for granted in our lifetime. If you get a chance, it's a great read and really makes you think about your own life and how you want to live it. For those of you that haven't heard of the book, it's based on a "Last Lecture" delivered at Carnegie Mellon by Randy Pausch. The thing that makes it amazing is that he delivered it after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and he didn't focus on what he hadn't achieved or on what was being taken from him but on the accomplishments, on the wins and on the lessons that he wanted to pass on to his children. It is a beautiful book.

Next up was the Acne Prescription on Sheriberry's advice. Well, I gave it a go and my skin cleared up. You still eat your normal BTD foods but it's about the mixing of foods and the foods to avoid to stop pimple formation. Well, I gave it a week then decided that I'd try going back to having a couple of treats - sweet potato chips and possibly my biggest weakness - Ribbit's Quinoa muffins. The acne came back with a vengeance. Let's just say I'm a convert to SheriBerry's methods.

Other than that, we have freezers and a vacuum sealer now. We're going to give the once a month cooking idea a try to hopefully carve a bit more time out of our schedules. Mick's been working some extremely long hours, so having something healthy to give him at 8pm is sometimes a bit of a struggle - thank goodness for frozen turkey schnitzels and the slow cooker! He's still been getting substantial lunches and breakfasts, but hopefully freezing a bit more pre-prepared food will help a bit if I can just quickly heat it up on the stove or in the oven each night.