Stepping into the world of Blog!

Here goes nothing – my first ever blog post. Eeek.

So many people have enjoyed the toady adventures and my ramblings on Facebook that I’ve finally plucked up the courage to put those ramblings online. It’s a scary thing for me. To be honest, most of the time I just post whatever comes into my head at the time – usually rants about the toads being up to no good or creating more mess and washing in the house!! I never imagined people would actually enjoy reading it and if I’m honest I’m still very sceptical that they do actually want to see this on a blog post but I’ve had sooooo much encouragement from so many people that I have to seize the moment and try this shizzle!!

Seizing the moment was made a whole lot easier by Fizz Friday last week 🙂 I was cooking dinner (a tagine that everyone said smelt amazing but then moaned about when they found out it was vegetarian), listening to Coxy on the radio and necking my fizz when I had a full pixar lightbulb moment. “I need to write a blog” and so I jumped on that unusual moment of bravery and created my wordpress site.

Typing my first actual blog post has taken a whole extra week – partly because I’m not very good with technical stuff and it’s taken me ages to work out how to locate the blog page but also partly because it’s a hugely scary thing for me to do!! Toad senior constantly tells me to do it, my friends tell me to do it – even random (but very lovely) followers on insta tell me I should write a book…. I guess it’s just having the self confidence to make the leap and do it.

And also the time…. I seem to have my fingers in quite a few pies right now. Obviously there’s the toads to look after and a house to keep. Most people know that I run the office side of our carpentry business (I whinge too much when I labour and refuse to sweep up and make the tea so Toad Senior prefers me not to be on site!!) I’m also still making cakes as and when required, have signed up for a couple of online courses in Nutrition and Accounting and now I’m also nervously embarking on a new venture now: online fitness coaching.

Yep, you read that right and it still makes me giggle every time. Me, Ellie, the fizz and gin loving, table dancing, chocolate munching lunatic. Lockdown has been good for me in that department. Initially we jumped on board with Joe Wicks and his morning workouts…. I use the term “we” very loosely as the toadette managed a half-hearted 10 minutes and then dramatically declared “I CAN’T do it mummy – it’s just too hard” and took up residence on the sofa to watch me puff and pant my way through the rest of the session. Even though I discovered muscles that I haven’t used for the best part of 25 years and struggled to walk for the rest of the day I tuned in the next day, and then the next, and the next…. you get the picture. That’s how Fancy Dress Friday was born – there’s a whole ‘nother post for you one day 🙂

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Anyway, getting a little fed up with Kangaroo hops and the stupid sadistic wheel of death (ok so I may exaggerate slightly there) I started trialling some beachbody workouts that a couple of ladies had shared with me on instagram and loved them. Then the lovely Jo invited me to join her coaching team and my latest obsession was born!! If you want to explore that further then please feel free to drop me a message – I’m sure I’ll bore you with some workouts at some point too.

My other main lockdown passion has been my vegetable garden. I’d been nagging Toad Senior for ages to build me some raised beds and he reluctantly agreed back in February. Mumma-toads garden was born. Lockdown gave me the extra time needed to plow my energies into tending the seedlings I planted. Thankfully I hoard seeds like a Mexican drug lord and when the rest of the country was struggling to get any I was able to share my stash with friends who couldn’t source any. Mumma-toads garden love has made it as far afield as Bristol to date!! I love seeing pictures of veggies people are enjoying from my seeds.

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I was kinda worried about what I’d find to share in my new blog, but after a long conversation with the amazing Jo Lee from infinite pathways – check her out here: (https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/106075516) it became blindingly obvious that I have more than a little content to bore you with. I’ve only touched on a few of the things that keep me busy during the day and that’s without the Toads, feeding everyone, constantly rounding up Badass Beryl the escapee chicken, and the never ending stupid positions that Ripper – our much loved, super placid Jack Russell – chooses to adopt throughout the day! I could fill a blog alone with his shenanigans.

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And there we go, I’ve managed to waffle on for more than 10 paragraphs and still feel I have heaps to tell you!! I feel post number 2 may come quicker than I had originally intended. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I’ve enjoyed typing it – and I really have!!

Thanks for reading xx