Wednesday 6 June 2012

Rebekah & I went to a bat seminar tonight. The Brisbane City Council was offering a free talk about bats. It was on the north side, which is a bit of a hike, but we'd made a commitment to go, so go we did.
I'm glad we did. The talk, by Bat Conservation and Rescue Qld, was mainly about flying foxes and very interesting. I was horrified to hear a couple of days (weeks?) ago that the new state government plans to reintroduce culling of flying foxes. Yes, sometimes they're smelly; sometimes they're noisy; but they're also really quite very cute. And apparently, very intelligent (which doesn't surprise me).
Also learnt that our cocos palm is bad news for flying foxes. Bats can get tangled in their leaves, caught on the spikes and flower cases, get ulcers from eating the green fruit, get the seed pods stuck in their jaws, and ruin their teeth on the seed pods. And here we were thinking we doing them a favour having them in our yard. Seems we'll be getting rid of the palms (as soon as I can convince the Man).

Tuesday 5 June 2012

Today at work I forecast projects I know I'm involved in over the next couple of months. If I could find a clone or two, I'd still be too busy, but strange enough, that just makes me extraordinarily happy. All the work I have forecast is editing work. Yippee! Not quite sure how I juggle 70 hour weeks for a couple of months, but I'm actually sure it won't actually amount to quite that much (I hope!).
To top off my day, as I pulled into the driveway, my phone rang. My past supervisor, who has moved north, rang to see if I could take on another editing role.
He-he-he.

Monday 4 June 2012

Today I cooked lemon pudding. For someone who has decided they don't like cooking, I seem to do it a lot for relaxation. Thing is, I love food. The pudding was a Green's packet mix. I like Green's (I also like the Green's family, who I met many years ago). However, like most packet lemon things, it is a little sweeter than I like.

I decided to fix that and fix it I did! The box calls for one egg and 1 tablespoon of water to be mixed into the sponge mix. I used a tablespoon of lemon juice instead. I think the sponge is actually vanilla or fairly plain, so the lemon juice pepped it up a bit. Secondly, I zested in some orange peel.

In the sauce - sprinkle on top, boiling water deal - I added another splash of lemon juice. Not much, only about 1/3 of a cup ;-) and some more orange peel. I used orange peel because we didn't have any fresh lemons.

The sponge didn't rise well. Maybe the acid of the juice was a factor. Maybe the overly small egg (I debated using two) was a factor. I'm not sure. But it was sure nice and lemony.

Sunday 3 June

You might be wondering why blog about this latest new beginning, particularly given my track record at regular blogging is not so wonderful. I have a lot to be thankful for, but it's easy to forget that and get bogged down in everything that's not right. I'm hoping that if I make the effort to blog it'll spark that appreciation for all that is right in the world, instead of focusing on all that is wrong.

Sunday 2 June - read for about 5 hours. Curled up in bed with the blankets, couple of cups of tea, a heat pack and a not-so-bad book, The Hunger Games. I found the premise of the book interesting. There are too many examples from history for us to be able to say we wouldn't stoop so low. The writing was a little disjointed. The main character is variously a fighter, a survivor, sullen, giggly ... images that didn't mesh together easily. I often wonder if authors write a plan before they start writing their novels - do they sketch up their characters; set out the timeline; draft out a story line. You can definitely tell those that do.

Cooked a roast beef for dinner (not my picture below; we ate it all before I thought of a photo).  I love a rare roast beef. On Saturday I bought a lump of topside; haven't a clue how much it weighed. Slathered it in garlic and Dijon mustard; put it on a rack; filled the bottom of the pan with beef stock and red wine. I've always called it French roasting; but one site says that's where you put the meat on top of the vegetables to cook. Whichever, roasting over a pan of liquid makes for a very moist roast.

It's a wee bit difficult to make gravy the traditional way (flour in the pan juices with liquid added), but I learnt a trick that works well. Mix butter and flour together into little balls, bring the liquids to boil on the stove top and mix in the balls one at a time.

New Beginnings - Saturday 2 June

Long story short - letting things get me down that really need to be shrugged off. Lost my motivation; not eating right, not exercising, not enjoying life. Being a great believer in starting over from where a body happens to be, I decided on Saturday afternoon to do just that. My basic plan is - give up coffee (sigh) and do at least one thing a day that I truly enjoy. Although I started on Saturday afternoon, it is easier to track using full days, so I'm counting '1' from Sunday. However, as a 'catch up':

Saturday 2 June - bought some "Detox & Cleanse" tea from  The Tea Centre. It's a pleasant enough drink; not sure what it's supposed to do.

I also fixed a lamp. It's bugged me for, quite literally, years. It's got a long flexible 'neck' with two prongs going into the base. One prong always comes out of the base and causes the light to droop. I finally decided I was going to replace it, but first, I'd pull it apart and see what was what. Inside the base the prong is supposed to screw into a nut; it was unscrewed. I screwed the nut back on; tightened up the nut on the second prong, and the lamp is as good as new. So simple, so rewarding, so annoying that I left it for so long.

Mid-January Update - List of Three

Thought I'd post an update of how I'm going with my daily list of three. Just briefly.

• It's hard going on days when I'm working. I have a million things to do (I keep a 'to do' diary for work). I don't want to put work things on my List of Three; I'm not convinced I'm going to be inspired to do anything by the time I get home; and I'm not always sure what time I'll get home or what'll be waiting for me when I do. So, I've missed a couple of days this week.
• I haven't been Twittering my lists consistently; particularly on work days. The phone app doesn't allow me to post to Twitter. By the time I get to a computer to send them through, I've often completed them (or decided to can them).
• The kitchen shelves from the 2nd are a bit of a bug bare. Maybe tomorrow.
• My other bug bare (bear?) is my stationary portfolio. I've had other sewing projects (and early nights) take presidence. It keeps getting bumped off.
• I need to make more of an effort to continue to record 'to do' items in a general list. Too often I've thought "I've got three; I'll leave that." Then later I can't remember what it was to add it tomorrow. The plan has always been to keep a "future" list; once the three are done for the day the future list is fair game. It's also supposed to 'feed' my List of Three.

List of Three

For a number of years I've been receiving Philip Humbert's weekly "Tips" newsletter (http://www.philiphumbert.com). I like Phil's newsletter. They're success orientated, but recognise that success does not necessarily mean lots of money, flashy cars and over sized houses. Success is a very individual pursuit.

Some time ago he suggested a very simple method of getting things done. I wish I could find his instructions, 'cause there was a little more to it than I'm about to explain. However, the premise was to take a small card that will fit in your pocket, wallet, etc - so you have it with you all the time. On one side of the card you write three things you have to do today. You will not go to bed until those three things are done. I think on the other side you kept the full to-do list. But the three things are a priority.

Well, I've substituted my to-do app on my phone for the card. After all, I have my phone with me 24/7. I started on the 2nd (not into NY Resolutions). Each day I enter three tasks that I will do today. For the last four days I've completed all but one of them. The outstanding task was a little ambitious and multi-step undertaking.
To add a little accountability, I thought I'd post each of my three tasks on Twitter and then post when they're done. Obviously, my explanation is a little longer than 140 words - hence the blog post. Gees, what did we do before the internet?

The important thing, for me, about the "list of 3" is that they don't necessarily have to be important or life-changing tasks. They're things that I would probably put off without some prompt to get them done.
Here's my lists to date (with a little explanation):2 Jan

1. Fit kitchen shelves - this is my outstanding task. It really should have been just the first step, but I'm leaving it there until it's done.
2. One bookshelf - we're decluttering our books, one shelf at time. This task is likely to be reoccurring for the next few weeks (at least)
3. Bedroom floor - it just needed to be vacuumed and mopped - every square, dusty inch of it, which means moving the bed and everything

3 Jan

1. Masters - to buy bits and pieces including cucumber seedlings and kitchen shelf brackets (and check out whether it really is as good as Bunnings)
2. Weed veggie patch - self explanatory really

I didn't have a "3 3/1", because after the kitchen shelves I was thinking "smaller, smaller", and then went too small, listing each item I wanted from Masters as a separate task. It's a learning process.

4 Jan

1. Plant cucumbers - I'd bought them, they needed planting
2. Buy newspapers for GP cage - we don't buy newspapers, but we'd run out of freebies for lining the guinea pig cage
3. Call Trev, plan worship - needed it for Sunday

5 Jan

1. Clean out the "deal with it" drawer - this is the 'pre-filing' drawer.
2. Plant low-growth seeds - I have had a collection of seeds, some years old. So I dump them into a container based on their growth habit - root, low, high, climber.
3. Clean study desk and shelf - my desk is used for study, for sewing, for work and is everyone else's general repository for junk they're not sure what to do with

As you can see - nothing particularly astonishing there. If you look closely though, you'll see that some tasks have a theme. I could set myself a NY resolution (or just an every-day goal) of setting up my veggie patch again, which is a big task - it needs to be weeded, dug over, plants bought, plants planted, rah-rah. Hours and hours of work. Easier to leave it until 'later'. If I set myself a single simple task each day, before you know it - there's a veggie patch happening.

The other important thing about the List of 3, is that they're not my only activity for the day. They are simply three things that I am going to prioritise on any given day. As things I want to achieve occur to me, I'm adding them to a general list of tasks. Some of them will simply happen as a matter of course, others will get transferred (in small chunks) to my List of 3.
My aim is for each of the tasks I set myself each day to be important to me. I found a little quote last year that I'm using to help me determine just how important things are:

If it's important to you, you will find a way
If not, you'll find an excuse.

If I'm finding excuses not to do things, why are they not important? Have I set the wrong goals? Are they my goals or are they goals I think I "should" be aiming for? Am I wasting time and energy on things that really aren't important to me after all?

I have no idea how long I'll keep the posts to Twitter going, but I thought I'd try it. My first post (including the link to this blog) I'm including on Facebook, but after this one, I'm only posting to Twitter. So, if you're at all interested in whether I achieve a 1,000+ tasks by the end of the year, you'll have to follow me there.

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I found Phil's instructions:http://www.philiphumbert.com/3x5Card.htmhttp://philiphumbert.com/audio/3x5audio.mp3
http://philiphumbert.com/Time.htm