Julia Child Music Video
Check out her knife and rolling pin solos:
Recipes
Gr’attitude Adjuster 
How to be grateful and happy in life.
Here’s an example of a guy against all odds who’s outlook on life is unsurpassed:
Nick’s site: attitudeisaltitude.com
Muppets Swedish Chef does music video:
the kitchen timer is the metronome, the popcorn in the microwave is the dance beat…
Poor little flying lobster…
Calculate how long it will take to pay off your credit card -or- Calculate what your payment would need to be to reach your payoff goal.
CLICK HERE to add your own amounts
Budget Calculator – Easy just fill in weekly/monthly amounts and it calculates automatically for the year – auto calculates pie chart too
CLICK HERE to add your own amounts
One of the ways to get organized, be organized and declutter (clearing clutter) is to deal with collectibles and items associated with memories.
I got many remarkable revelations this year, after the unexpected and sudden passing of my health conscious eldest sister at 44; one of which is regarding memorabilia…
While sorting, the message that stood out was, what would she want kept for her children … and what information would they find important when they have the milestones in their lives (turning 18, marriage, babies).
I felt unqualified to make that decision, and decided to keep what reflected her as the beautiful loving awesome person I know… all of her discoveries of herself while attending seminars and coaching; letters from college, photos of friends … anything that, if a stranger went through her memory box one day, by the end they would have felt as if they’ve known her, and those important to her.
My suggestion, to put it out there, would be that you are the best one qualified to narrow it down to your one box, as you know what’s the most important reflection of you.
This includes having office files/papers organized and filed by year, which I worked on for myself – if someone came into my world and had to figure out my system and where I left off could they do it?(good business practice at any rate).
The other request is, the stuff/clutter you-cant-take-with-you… thinking back to my friend’s parents with house & storage facilities full, if you don’t deal with it, somewhere, someone else does!
It’s better if you find qualified homes for it.
A recent quote I came across: “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself.”
From my experience…. hope it helps with perspective…
Sylvia
Life Organization – Starts with a single step
Most, if not all, major feats start with a single step, and are just a series of small steps all sewn together to create the final product.
The Hoover Dam, the CN or Eiffel Tower, and the Pyramids, are some handy examples. Even an ant colony is constructed using one grain of sand at a time. Honey is made from one blossom after another, the serendipity of which, is, we get our food from those bees pollinating. No pollination = no food. Einstein said that 4 yrs after the bees are extinct, humans go extinct.
So how does this pertain to our daily lives?
Daily is the key word. Life is balance. Think of an old fashioned balance scale, or the scales of justice. If we eat enough carbs for a hockey player, but only get enough exercise for a soccer mom, we’ll be a little heavy on one side of the balance scale.
Life is about flow, not perfection.
Think of how your life would be in a perfect world? How do you feel? What values are important? Is life calm? Is the house tidy & relatively clean? Is the household loved ones content? Schedules are smooth and flowing.
For me, my values are Peace, Simple & Health; as my previous frustrations were: drama/chaos, complicated and un-well. Frustrations can be a valuable mirror of values, which are typically the opposite – ie: Drama vs Peace.
This life is possible, one step at a time, one decision at a time.
The Top 5
Before we get to the “envisioned” life, lets start with the cogs in the wheel.
What are the top 5 most frustrating things in your life?
Alleviating the thorns in the paws can be very effective in the starting process of a newly contented life.
Behind in taxes? Mornings too chaotic, in which those feelings carry throughout the day? House too cluttered? Move 1 thing & 5 things fall down?
Many of the above are not a 1 step process. Decluttering is an ongoing one, but is very do-able. Start with 1 room at a time, a smaller room, such as the bathroom. Once it’s junk free & relaxing, start on the bedroom – or even one area, such as the dresser, or putting away clothes. If there’s more clothes than closets, edit the closet, keeping only the things you love, and that look good on you.
Now, every time you walk in the bathroom or see the clean dresser in the bedroom, you can breathe a sigh of “oh that’s so nice!” (instead of .. oh, another junky room, yuk).
Our outlook on the areas we inhabit most (work, school, home), play out huge in your psyche. Either we’re confirming our contentment, or exacerbating our dis-contentment on an hourly basis.
This process is like eating a watermelon – one bite at a time. Eat the whole thing & you’ll be on the toilet.
Finish the first watermelon, the top thing that frustrates you the most, then move on to the next, etc. Within a few months you may find the top 1 or 2 frustrations have been extinguished, and peace has now filled that void. This method can be used throughout every area of our lives.
We’re not talking “purchase a new home” or “make my spouse a personal servant”. This is to quiet the nagging conscience, such as, no-one has underwear cause of the pileup in the laundry room. Each watermelon can be a monthly process, to get over the hump, such as Mt. Laundrmore. Sure there will be ongoing maintenance, but adding 1 load per day to your daily schedule will keep all going smoothly, instead of the weekly Saturday Laundry Marathon. Imagine having a Saturday to yourself!
It’s those simple every day decisions that can turn a mess (we call them messes) into a peaceful Saturday and an ongoing clean laundry room.
Having baskets for each colour helps too: lights, darks, light towels, dark towels. I’m going to purchase shades of towels that can all go into the same washer load, this will save room and time… see, it’s ongoing, but it gets to be inspiring later on, and just little tweaks here and there.
Then, move onto the next watermelon…
This works for piles of paper at work, or school assignments too…
If you need help starting here is a great free resource www.flylady.net
Looking for a taco salad recipe with Doritos?
My sister Colleen says this is a winner at summer picnics
A quick and easy ground beef recipe!
Doritos Taco Salad Recipe
Brown ground beef (approx 1 lb). Cool.
Mix with salad mix (salad in a bag – from the grocery store, or make your own),
chopped tomatoes,
grated cheddar cheese (approx 1 cup),
1/2 bag of crumbled Doritos
and cover with Catalina dressing.
Shoplifting Seagull Prefers Doritos Tangy Cheese:
A seagull has developed the habit of stealing Doritos from a neighborhood convenience store. The seagull waits until the Manager isn’t looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos.
Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds.
The seagull’s shoplifting started early this month when he first swooped into the store in, and helped himself to a bag of Doritos. Since then, he’s become a regular. He always takes the same type of chips.
The Manager thinks it’s great because people are coming to watch the feathered thief make the daily grab and run, and that’s good for business, and especially since customers have begun paying for the seagull’s stolen bags of Doritos because they think it’s so funny.
If that seagull starts to grab a 6-pack of beer to go along with the Doritos, they may have to put a stop to it. But so far people friends of Sam the Seagull have been donating to his daily fix.
The Why of Food?
By Sylvia Fox Bevan
Growing up, my mom was a stay at home mom, and dad worked, we had 1 car, and 4 kids in the household. So, because of the “budget” and yes, there actually was one that was adhered to, if we wanted junk food, we had to make it. Cookies, cakes, candy even, we tried tortillas once, but it didn’t look like the Doritos(TM) I had come to know and like.
My sisters had perfected the chocolate chip cookies and double layer chocolate cake, the latter being the “official” birthday cake for many years, which oddly enough, our family still gets together, however, the “official” cake has metamorphosized into a tall fluffy 2 layer “like an angel” chiffon cake with various fruit fillings and sweet vanilla whipped cream as icing. Now my sister Evelyn is the master and keeper of this family heirloom.
Soft Morning Kisses
By Sylvia Fox Bevan
What a beautiful thing it is to see the auburn sun come up and kiss the tender little greenhouse plants, as if to say “good morning my darlings” and they respond by reaching their delicate little leaves up in hopes of getting a hug from the one who gives them life.
Such care and love is given to each and every seedling whether they be practical or supposedly impractical in their purpose. The “edibles” say, oh, we provide a purpose, what do you “do”. Flowers, for some, seem a waste and a lot of work just for the sake of being “pretty”. Who are we to judge the value of a good seed? Who are we to say “you are not of any use, you are just pretty, and therefore you are vein”, yet, that seed was just being the best seed, and grow into the healthiest plant that it was designed by it’s creator to be. It was just simply fulfilling it’s destiny, it’s reason for being planted to the best of it’s ability.
And why is it that with all the care, love and attention that the nice little seedlings get, they are still yet so tender! They are protected, and nurtured along every step of the way, and still, yet, some just don’t make the journey to “plant hood”. Yet weeds get starved, plucked out, no attention, run over and trampled 4 or 5 times and still they grow!
Then there are the plants that seem like weeds, in one area, and yet, in their ideal environment become the pillars of the nutrient chain! So neglected and unwanted in the greenhouse is this little “labelled” weed, almost plucked out a
few times, some of his kind were already plucked out with the unrealized and misunderstood potential of this tender little plant. If only he could be transplanted to a least have the opportunity to become who he really is meant to be! Every “fibre” of his being says “please let me be who I am designed to be… please let me become all that I am to become”. Oh how this would serve the nations, if he were a seed of rice, to make more seeds to be able to feed the world, oh how this would sustain nature if this were a seed that made more seeds that fed the wildlife. Oh how this would be the one who was a haven in the desert and gave shade to the weary sojourner, for without the shade, they would have surely perished. And the shade provided moisture, and the moisture provided water and the water gave life to all who ventured there.
Even a mighty oak tree started out as a tender and vulnerable seedling, subject to the chilly rains and windy nights. Perhaps even a nip or two of frost or hail. Maybe the seed itself had a narrow escape from a squirrel with the munchies, or perhaps the fact that it was struck underfoot by a deer that pushed it into the dark, warm ground which became the fertile soil for it’s new life. Had it not endured those pressures, would it be who it is today? Standing the test of time, perseverance is the compost for it’s journey. What once was crap is now a balm for the feet of the mighty oak tree, weathered and strong, rich in life and strength, reaching it’s leaves up to the morning sky for a kiss from the sun.
~ By Sylvia Fox Bevan
What is it really worth?
By Sylvia Bevan
Have you ever looked around you house and said, how come it doesn’t look like a magazine? It’s probably because it’s too cluttered. Once we add up the knick knacks, doodads, extra pieces of crappy furniture that might be new-ish, but not well made, we might be able to better see things that should “move on out” of our Canadian fortresses.
It is a Canadian phenomenon that we have our 1500 dollars worth of junk in the garage, and keep our 40,000 dollars worth of vehicles out in the driveway with the rain, heat, sleet and snow.
What we don’t realize, is that the moment we purchase something, in it, is a responsibility in and of itself, the responsibility of the purchased item of how it was made, to use it wisely, and the responsibility of it’s disposal is ours too.
It is a Canadian phenomenon that we have our 1500 dollars worth of junk in the garage, and keep our 40,000 + dollars worth of vehicles out in the driveway…
In short we, the “purchaser” are responsible for:
1) the purchase in the first place… was it produced in an immoral, unethical or illegal way, is it biodegradable, is it poisonous, is it made from a realistically renewable source, are there side effects to people, plants, animals?
2) the use … is it needed? will it last, or is it just junk or just more “stuff”? Which leads to the next question …
3) It’s disposal… is it going to landfill and not able to bio-degrade, is it hazardous waste? Did we try to re-use it, or give it to someone else to reuse, or did we just throw it in the trash without regard for where it ends up, because it seemed to be more convenient?
How long did the maker spend on this, and got paid what for it? Was it worth their sweat equity…
How long did the maker spend on this, and got paid what for it? Was it worth their sweat equity when we realized that we …
i) didn’t consider how the product came into being (i.e. sweat shops, etc., okay, so we don’t know about everything, but at least keep your ears open! Perhaps buy stuff made in your home country?)
ii) didn’t need it but bought it anyways
iii) chucked it right out on the curb when we realized it was just stuff.
Is that what someone else’s life is worth? Is that what the environment, what we breathe, eat, and sleep, is worth?
If we don’t buy the product that now no longer meets our standards, there will be no market for it, and there will be no monetary compensation for the company, therefore no more incentive to make the product.
The power is ours, make your choice, and remember that every purchase is your responsibility.
§SB