I’m sitting in the airport trying to collect my thoughts.

I still have work to do, but my 98 day trip overseas has just begun. My husband and I will be volunteering at an orphanage in Northern Thailand.

The moment has finally come where there is no turning back. I know you might think it will be such a rewarding experience for us and we’ll have a great time, but I have my doubts. Well I think it will be an experience, but maybe not quite as you imagine.

The conditions will be really hard. We’re going to an orphanage with 180 children. We’re particularly going to help a Swedish/American family who run the centre and care for an additional 18 children under their own roof. 5 of these children are infants in nappies, 2 being toilet trained. To top it off, they are leaving us for two months as they need to go back to the US for visa reasons.

We have been prepared via email as much as possible about the harsh realities of everyday living there. Privacy and the hygiene standards that don’t exist. We will be on our guard from malaria, and in an area where our anti-malaria medication may not be effective. There is more grimness to the situation, but there’s no point in going on.

I’m not writing this so anyone feels sorry for me (I say me, because Mark really couldn’t care less about the above). I’m writing this because I dislike the idea that this is some feel-good trip for me. This is about the family that is caring for the children, to give them some relief, to give them some rest. Might I add the awesome family of 5 who have given their lives to serve the misplaced children.

The wife has said to me she can’t imagine another western couple living in the conditions they live in. That scares me. I want to be challenged, but I also want a clean toilet, warm shower, hygienic food and uninterrupted sleep. I’ll be honest and confess I’ve never had to live without any of these luxuries. This is sounding like a pity party – that’s not my intention! It’s just what is coming out as I type while in the queue to board the plane.

My blog is going to take a different focus until November. I hope to post often, but I’m not sure how great the satellite Internet will be at the orphanage – did I mention we’re in the jungle? Well that’s what I’ll call it anyway.

On the tarmac,

On the plane, a plane called Barry.

Just over 2 months ago, my husband and I did a 7-day juice fast. We were inspired by the documentary, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (see on Amazon) to give our body a cleanse and a restart. Since the fast, juicing has become a part of our everyday lives. We start the day with a fresh juice and try to put more vegetables than fruits into the juice.

Just the other day, a friend gifted us a bag full of beetroots after she went a little crazy at her local farmers market. I was excited to juice the beetroot – I think it was the colour I was excited about! Turns out, beetroot, doesn’t just make a fresh juice look good, it also tastes fabulous. This was the first time we ever wrote down a recipe as it is was definitely a winning combination!

Recipe:

10 Small Apples
2 Small Cucumbers
4 Small Carrots
3 Oranges
1 Small Beetroot

Prepare all the veggies by peeling the oranges and beetroot.

We use a Breville Juice Fountain Plus (see it on Amazon here). We haven’t exactly compared a dozen juicers, but we do like this one. We love that you don’t have to deseed apples and oranges (it just shoots it into the waste) and that the chute is wide enough to put whole apples in. We use a larger container to collect the juice instead of the one that came in the box. Cleaning is easy enough along as you clean it straight away. Just a brush and running water does the trick.
*Note. For some reason all ouf our fruit and veggies were really really small! Using small veggies made close to 2L of juice. So play it by ear, if you don’t want 2 litres, but have big veggies, only use a quarter of what’s in the recipe – just keep everything proportionate

I just had to share these precious photographs of a friend of mine and her sweet little girls as they welcome their newest sister to the world. Felicity Thomson, based in NSW Australia, is the talented new born photographer behind these enchanting and dreamy photos. To see more of Felicity’s work and more photos from this shoot, see her blog post here. You can also follow Felicity’s work on her Pinterest Board here.

So I follow 11 people on Instagram. I’m not being snobby, I just don’t really know how to get into the full swing of things.

One of the “chosen” that I follow is a girl I use to play basketball with at the college we attended. She’s currently living an adventure in Argentina with her hubby where they both teach music.

I just had to share what is an absolute treat on my Instagram feed. Her photos are a snapshot into a world full of colour and festivities.

Find Mikaela on Instagram – Miki503

I just spent an hour reading through their blog and feel really wishful that I’ll find myself living in some crazy beautiful country as well!

p.s. I have a whopping 63 photos on my Instagram: scissorspaperwok