Wednesday, November 24, 2010

November 24, 2010

Great blog title, huh?  Guess I'm feeling a bit uncreative today.

Anyway...

I finally finished reading Eat, Pray, Love.  Or is it Eat Pray Love, without the commas?  What ever.  I finally finished it and am glad I stuck with it.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Love part, mainly because of the varied and kooky characters the author met while in Bali.  I'm not sure what I'll read next.  Probably either one of the many Philippa Gregory books on my list or Point Blank.  After struggling through Eat Pray Love, I feel the need for a quick, fun read.  The Gregory books aren't what I'd call "quick & fun" but I have very much enjoyed all of her books that I've read so far.  Point Blank looks like it would probably be a very quick read, but because of that, I'm thinking I might save it for when the Christmas Madness is threatening to destroy me.  But then, do I really want to have my nose buried in a book for 24 hours straight during Christmas Madness?  Decisions, decisions.

In other news, tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  How on earth did it get to be Thanksgiving already?  I don't even feel like we had a summer this year.  How can it possibly be the end of November?  And how could summer have gone unnoticed when we had record breaking heat just about every day?  Maybe the heat is why I didn't notice it.  I stayed holed up inside the air conditioned house the whole time instead of enjoying my normal summer activities.  But no matter how I feel about it, there's no getting around it.  Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Which means today is baking day.

We go to my sister's for Thanksgiving every year so luckily, I don't have to worry about the turkey and all the trimmings.  I simply worry about desert.  And garlic biscuits.  Paula Deen's garlic biscuits to be exact.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/garlic-cheese-biscuits-recipe/index.html
We love these biscuits & I have to triple the recipe.  My son and I eat the first 12 straight off the baking sheet when they are still so hot we end up with "pizza burn" in our mouths.  The remaining two dozen get eaten at the Thanksgiving table and there are rarely any left overs.  And if there are a few stragglers left in the serving dish, my niece claims them and takes them home with her.

As for desert, I'll be making the traditional chocolate cake with mocha icing, pecan pie muffins and a pumpkin pie.  I'm not sure if the pecan pie muffins will actually be a desert or another bread to serve with dinner.  I've never made them before but I'm intrigued with their name, they look awfully easy & I just happen to have all the ingredients on hand, so....  Here's a link if you'd like to check them out:  http://www.livingonadime.com/pecan-pie-muffins/    The pumpkin pie is at my husband's request and the chocolate cake is basically for my sister & I.  The cake recipe comes from my grandmother.  I remember her making it for special occasions when I was a child and I was SO excited when I came across her recipe while looking through the family records.  I'll post the cake recipe one of these days when I'm in need of blog fodder.   But for now, it's time for me to go destroy my kitchen.

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Destroy the Joy

I sure am having a hard time reading these days and I wonder why.  Is it because I hate to be told what to do and I made that list of 101 things and put, "read the books I already own but have never gotten around to reading" on it?  Or is it that I'm just not enjoying the book I'm currently reading?   Normally, I love to read, but I really don't like to be told what to read.  I once joined a fantastic book group.  The other women involved were great, the books tended to be books I wanted to read, and the food was always excellent.  But from the very first month of joining, I could not force myself to read.  Not even the newspaper.  I finally quit the group after failing to read the book of the month four times in a row.  And promptly went back to obsessive reading.

So, knowing my history makes me wonder.  I'm I struggling to read Eat, Pray, Love because it's on my list or because I just don't like the book that much?  I sort of enjoyed the Eat part.  It took place in Italy and made me want to learn Italian and visit Italian restaurants.  The Pray part seemed to drone on and on and on.  I'd finally decide that life is too short to waste time reading something so boring.  I'd decide to quit reading the book as soon as I got to the end of the chapter and Bam!  The author would write something that moved me or gave me one of those light bulb moments about my own life and I'd decide to keep reading.  After all, it may get better.  What if I've struggled this far through the book and the last part is where it gets really good?  I wouldn't want to miss out on the fun.

I sure hope it doesn't take me another two weeks to get through the Love part though.  At this rate, I'll never make my goal of reading 89 books in 1001 days.  Specially since Eat, Love, Pray is one of the thinner books.  Which is why I chose it to read next.  Well, that and the fact that it happened to be laying on the floor next to the couch when I finished my previous book.

And that leads me to realize that rather than worrying about what I'm reading, I should really be working on that goal of "getting the house clean and keeping it that way."

Monday, November 15, 2010

101 Goals Update

Wow.  I can't get over how motivating having that list of 101 goals to accomplish in 1001 days is.  While I haven't fully accomplished many goals yet, I've been steadily working on small parts of many of them.  I think this 101 goals project is going to fit my personality quite nicely.  I love making lists and checking tasks off as they are completed.  I get a real sense of accomplishment seeing all those little check marks add up.  But, I'm also immature enough to hate being told what to do.  I hate "having" to do something and I'll drag my feet and kick and scream and do pretty much anything to avoid doing what I "have" to do.  But by having 101 goals and the huge, long list of Next Action items that goes along with it, I experience the best of both worlds.  I have a list, I get to check things off and I have plenty of options to choose from.  There is nothing on that list that "has" to be done today.  I'm really liking my list.

And having said that, I can go check off, "Blog at least once a week."  Yay.

If you think you might be interested in starting your own list, visit http://101goalsin1001days.com/about/ for the details.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

101 Goals in 1001 Days

In my constant search for the perfect way to get organized, I came across someone's blog that suggested working on 101 goals in 1001 days.  (http://101goalsin1001days.com/about/) The idea is that you create a list of 101 things you want to accomplish.  These goals should be challenging, but doable.  In other words, you wouldn't list doing the laundry and you wouldn't list becoming debt free if you currently owe over a million dollars.  You could, however, list paying off your Sears card and/or paying off your car.  

Once you have your list of 101 items, you then list the steps necessary to reach those goals.  Or at least the first step you need to take.  Depending on the item, you may not know all the steps.  After you've done that, you make a third list of "Next Action" items.  This becomes your master to-do list.  At least weekly, you should review your Next Action list and check off and add items.  You should always have at least one item on your Next Action list for each goal.  

I'm slightly worried about my list of 101 things.  That original blog I read and the other folks working on their own 101 goals who had linked to it all mentioned that they'd had a hard time coming up with 101 goals.  Me, I had no trouble.  In fact, I had to cut quite a few items.  Several of my goals probably aren't doable.  For instance, I want to read all the books I own that I've never gotten around to reading, and that's a lot of books.  I could list my goal as reading ten of them, but I figured I'd stay more motivated if I listed them all.  And, since I know up front that the goal is not very realistic, I won't be upset if I don't reach it.  Same thing for my yarn.  Another goal is to use up all the yarn I have stashed away.  Well, I could knit 24/7 and not use up all that yarn in the next 20 years.  But I can work towards reaching the goal.  And then there's the debt thing.  Since I'm currently unemployed, paying off my Sears card is about as likely to happen as becoming debt free, but debt free sounds great and you never know - I may win the lottery and be able to pay off all my creditors.  So, I'm listing becoming debt free.  It's something to strive for.

I'd also like to note that on the list you see here, many of the items are rather open ended.  Some things are that way because I don't really know what my goal is.  Take "learn more about i-Photo" for example. In this case, I simply don't know what it is that I don't know.  Hopefully by August 5, 2013, I'll know everything.  For "learn more about the computer," I have a whole great big list of things I want to learn but there simply wasn't room to list it all on the sidebar.  There's also a few items like "wash windows" and "replace light bulbs."  While those things may not be a challenge for you, they are for me.  They are things that have been on my to-do list for over a year.  Hopefully, by putting them on this list, they'll get done.

My plan is to list my 101 goals down the side of this blog and I'll indicate which ones have been completed.  So, in no particular order....