Menu For This Week

I did it!!! Finally, I wrote out my menu plan for the whole week!

This is what we've had and will be having this week.

Monday~ Dahl appetizer, Vegetarian Chili, crusty rolls

Tuesday~BBQ Ribs, Roasted Rosemary Potatoes, Curried Butternut Squash, Steamed Broccoli

Wednesday~Spaghetti and Meatballs, Broiled Goat Cheese, Tomato and Basil Egglplant

Thursday~ Vegetarian Chili Cheese Nachos with Spinach, Strawberry, Pecan Salad

Friday~ Roasted Chicken with Brown Rice, Green Beans and Carrots

Saturday~ Dinner @ my sister-in-laws (Grilled Salmon, Potato Soup, Ceasar Salad

Sunday~ Whatever, eat up leftovers, make yourself a sandwich.

My goal is to ideally post my menu for the week on Monday. That is what I WILL post this coming Monday.

(Anti-)Procrastination Proclaimation

On Family Day, my daughter and I spent some time together painting, one of our favourite things to do together. I only managed to produce some half-hearted (ha ha) doodles. This is nonetheless, my contribution to this week's Creative Every Day challenge.

And the rest of this post which I had already written, more or less fits as my answer to Jamie's question of "How do you wish to spend your time?" in today's Wishcasting share. Although, most specifically, I wish to spend my time singing and making music while in the company of loving family and musical community!

OK, about this blog thing. I guess I need to develop some sort of routine, some frequency, some rhyme and reason to these posts.

I want to, I do.
I am just a tiny bit of a procrastinator.
In fact, I am writing this post not only because it is truly something that I want to do, but I also have several other things that I *could be doing instead and am avoiding those (dinner dishes, hanging laundry, preparing for work tomorrow...).
*proactive use of could avoids 'shoulding' on oneself.

Anyway, I have decided that there are roughly four main categories of topics that I will be endeavouring to write about/within on a regular basis. One of these topics just happens to be procrastination or rather the antithesis of it. I will write about (and seek encouragement and support for) Staying On Task.

See, I have this great number of Really Great Ideas and Fabulous Projects kicking around and I have the greatest intentions of getting them done, hell, of getting them started even. Which can often be, after all, half the battle.

One of my favourite quotes disputably attributed to Goethe:
Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.

And so, anyone who wishes to join me in the "Staying On Task" or "Getting It Done" Club, by all means, please do!

Here is a short list of projects that have been hanging over my head lately. I figure if I publicly declare these items, it will somehow make me more accountable to getting them done!!

Here goes: (in no particular order)
~type up and print all the completed songs I've written and organize them into a binder

~record my daughter and myself singing and reading some of our favourite songs and stories to send as a gift to the two year old daughter of dear friends.

~organize my guitar songs binder by making an index to make it easier to find the songs I want to practice

~MENU PLAN!!!

~increase my consumption of local goods, foods and services and lessen my eco-footprint.

There. Step One complete. There are many more items on my ever growing list and I'll attempt to tackle a few more of them each week as well as report on my progress for the articles mentioned above.
I invite anyone reading this to share their own procrastination lists and you will certainly have my encouragement and support in their achievement!!

By the way, those other categories I intend to write within? You'll just have to come on back as I will be revealing them gradually (hint: some are contained within the contents of that list up there!)

Th Lat Bls (The Laptop Blues)

You must be wondering so I'll explain.
I spilled tea on my laptop.
Now the top row of letters, except for the t and the y, no longer work.
Hence, I have "Th Lat Bls" (The Laptop Blues).
It is amazing how many words contain the letters w, e, r, u, i, o. (Yes, most of the vowels!) Nevermind the p's and q's!!

So, I have resorted to using my ease of access, onscreen keyboard which is extremely tedious and time consuming! I am hoping I can have it repaired, eventually, but right now it is not in my budget to do so.

Very short blog posts for the next little while!!

Now, for my Creative Every Day submission for this week, I have been working on my Valentines. It was a lot of fun. Some of my results below.

Be Mine, Valentine!

It is our tradition every year to make homemade Valentines for my daughter's classmates. Ever year since junior kindergarten (2006), we pull out the red and pink posterboard or card stock, stickers, heart templates, glitter and glue and craft away! And this year will be no different.
However, this time around we have got an early start (rather than scrambling the night before to finish them up!). We have actually been working on them for almost a week already. Some of them are ready to mail, tomorrow to friends in our old hometown (a nice way to keep in touch).

And this is my first ever share with the group from over at Creative Every Day. And yes, these are my daughter's creations but I will be helping her to finish up tonight and that is when I will be creating the Valentines to send to MY friends.

the organized work station

the finished products
the messy supply station.

Stay tuned for those results of me being "creative every day"!!

Closing My Other Blog

Since I decided to recommence this blog endeavour, I thought that it would be a good idea to try and maintain only ONE blog.

Yes, I did have another one going as well. It was called Om~Mama~Shanti. Today I decided to close it and merge it's content and future posts and followers here in one convenient location.

Here is my final post from over there:

Well, I finally feel like blogging again! It's only been 2 years. What can I say, I was in a kind of writing slump! And so, I have started again, slowly, to write at my other blog (which, without showing any favouritism, I also abandoned two years ago!).

The way I see it now, I was really trying to accomplish too much in attempting to manage two separate blogs. See, this blog was to be my mommy, family, cooking, recipe, book sharing type blog and the other one was more my own personal, seeking, chasing and manifesting my dreams type blog. Well, I now see no reason why the two cannot peacfully co-exist in one shared space. In fact I may actually end up posting more frequently!

It was hard to decide which one to officially terminate. However, my "And a Bowl of Oranges Too" blog was my first and I have a bit more of "me" invested in it. So, this blog will officially cease to be and all future posts for the former "Om~Mama~Shanti" can now be found over at And a Bowl of Oranges Too. So, If you happen to find yourself here, by all means, please feel free to head on over there!

So, if you are a reader here or just happen along, you can allways check out my old blog over there.

Well, So Much For That!

This new beginning only mangaged three posts for the month of January, but it is afterall, a beginning. So I'm not about to beat myself up over it. In fact, I think I will celebrate the fact that I did indeed make three posts in the month of January. Goodness knows, I did an awful lot more than that in the other corners of my life in January. In fact I'm feeling inspired to.... make a list... (drum roll here).

In the month of January I have:

~started walking again! Most mornings, I walk my daughter to school (that only takes about 7 minutes at a leisurely pace). Then, instead of heading directly home, I take a new and different "long way home" which usually ends up being about a 20-30 minute brisk walk (as well as allowing me to become more familiar with our neighbourhood and the many lovely old century homes in the area-we just moved to this town in the summer of 2011)

~really been focusing on my word for the year by committing myself to daily guitar practice. Honestly, a minimum of 30 minutes each day is doing wonders for me. I mean, there have been days that I have skipped, but on the whole, if I can manage to pick it up for at least 30 minutes, I often end up playing for a lot longer than that or returning to it several times thorough out the day. I have several new songs that I can now play to show for it too!

~completed the Morning Pages Challenge from Jamie Ridler. This has been very satisfying. First of all, I love the routine of it. Since I haven't been working much since before Christmas, I need something to get me out of bed a little bit early and the Morning Pages have been my motivation. I have also loved having this little piece of the day in which my thoughts flow into words onto paper and I gain a sense of organization over my thoughts, needs, wants and desires. It gives me an opportunity to send a little message to the universe, a documentation that doesn't have to be a committment, simply a voicing of what is floating around in my head. Finally, it has provided me with the starting point for the rest of my day as I often make a list of my things to do within my morning pages. This has been extremely helpful in acheiving consistency in the two items mentioned above (walking and guitar).

~been working on menu plans and cooking yummy meals. Why, just the other day I made delicious cabbage rolls, something that for some stange reason, I have never made before. I also made a heavenly split pea soup with ham, which has always been one of my all time favourite meals. The meal planning is coming along, I get the ideas in my head for what I'd like to prepare; it's the actual putting it down onto paper part that is still in the development stage.
Perhaps that is something I can develop here on my blog! Oh I love the lightbulb moments!!

~begun to reacquaint myself with my yoga practice. In fact, yoga practice is next on my agenda after completing this post. Which, much as I'd love to write more about my relationship with yoga, I must postpone for another post as I need to get moving onto the actual practice of it and then guitar and then the dishes and the laundry and the rest of the TTD list for today.

And so, I think all in all, January was a pretty good month for me. Now here, three days into February, I am looking forward to even more of the same,but with more hearts and chocolate !!