1. My new food processor. WOW! I used it for the first time yesterday and made pastry in about 20 seconds! And it is so quiet! 1400w of raw power and it makes no noise at all. Thank you Sunbeam for the Cafe series of appliances, they are awesome!
2. The amazing Curried Pumpkin Quiche recipe I tried last night. It is set to become a favourite.
3. Taking the Star Dogs for a 6km walk along the brook. Wonderful.
4. Antihistamines. People are away on holidays, the lawns aren’t getting mown, the pollens are flying… thank goodness for antihistamines.
5. De-cluttering more documents. PDF’ed and shredded heaps. The filing cabinet will soon be obsolete.
6. An amazing little App called PDF Signer. Download from iTunes for about $10. Allows you to open a PDF document, add text (using a text box) even add a scanned signature to a document. No need to spend $$$ on Adobe when this little sweetheart does the job really well. 4 months ago
Hi bermudamohawk,
Thank you for you comment about de-cluttering. I have been working towards a simpler life for some time now and was greatly inspired by this TED TV talk by Graham Hill http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys0bbBiVWOA
It’s true that the more room we have the more we fill it up.
I have become very Zen with my de-cluttering. By that I mean clean and functional with balance and pleasing to look at.
The study is the most de-cluttered room at the moment and guess what? It’s the room I enjoy being in the most! 4 months ago
1. A fantastic day weather wise. It was hot but there was a nice breeze in the afternoon.
2. The iTunes voucher I was given for Christmas. I downloaded the TV series Revolution. Quite a good little show. Interesting. Makes you think how things would be without electricity.
3. I de-cluttered the bathroom. Went through the cupboards and drawers, threw out all the old medicines and was ruthless with the bathroom junk that had been collected. Who needs 7 contact lens containers?
4. Buying an Epson mobile scanner as part of my minimising the ‘document clutter’ in the house. Digitising the contents of the filing cabinet will be a big job, but will be worth it in the end. I’m aiming to end up with box of CD’s instead of a filing cabinet.
5. The wonderful feeling I get as I see the de-cluttering process really making a difference to the appearance of the living spaces. They are starting to look clean and simple and ‘feel’ uncomplicated, clean, free and spacious. You can actually feel the good energy in the room. They are starting to feel very Zen. 4 months ago
1. A wonderful 6.8km walk with the dogs. It was great. Planning to do the same route again tomorrow.
2. Helping T set up their new Kindle and showing them how to redeem a gift voucher and buy books. They are so excited about having a Kindle, it’s was nice to share that excitement.
3. A fantastic dinner last night. Flat bread topped with salad, Moroccan lamb and yoghurt and cucumber dressing. Delicious.
4. The wonderful storm we had that cut through the humidity and made everything nice and fresh.
5. My little dog Douglas’ enthusiasm for ball games. He has such joy when you through that ball and is so in the moment. A very Zen dog. 4 months ago
Hi KimberGreene,
I also enjoy TED TV
They have some remarkable speakers and interesting topics.
What is your favourite?
This talk is one of my favs becaue I am de-cluttering my life right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8YJtvHGeUU 4 months ago
1. The most fantastic weather. Our summer this year has been wonderful. Just the right amount of sunshine and rain.
2. Another couple of hours of sorting and de-cluttering. Slowly, slowly, but I will surely get there.
3. Peace and tranquility in the house. It is amazing how peaceful and relaxing it has been in the house over the Christmas holidays. Nice :-)
4. A really lovely walk along the brook. It’s such a wonderful recreational area. Just like being in a rain forest.
5. A good night’s sleep.
6. Going deeper into Zen. 4 months ago
I was made redundant in October and so I lost my ‘Free Stuff’ place to give things away. Then I started the garden renovation and then Christmas arrived.
Just before Christmas some 40+ boxes arrived from my storage unit across the sea and I now find myself with much much more than I truly NEED.
Lack of space and the fact that I’m currently unemployed mean that I have the need and the time to do more ‘editing’. Instead of taking things to work I will put a small table with a ‘Help yourself.’ sign on it out on the front nature strip. I’ve done this before and it’s amazing how quickly people take things.
I will also start and eBay account and learn how to sell the more valuable things and then there is the box for a garage sale and last but not least the ‘Goodwill’ box.
I have just done a Zen de-clutter of the study (see post on 5 things I’m grateful for – same date as this post) and instead of just putting things back, I am aiming to keep most of it off the shelves, so will have a lot of office type stuff to give away.
The study looks beautiful. Clean surfaces, totally uncluttered and very peaceful and serene in it’s simplicity.
Edit 365 will resume today. I have a lot of catching up to do. 4 months ago
1. NOT attending the Boxing Day sales.
2. Doing a Zen de-clutter of the study. Instead of working through the clutter to try and lessen it, I did the reverse, I cleared the study shelves and desktop completely and then put back the things I needed there. I was inspired by the quote “Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.” Radical, but beautiful in it’s outcome.
3. Taking the time to write down my values, passions, dreams and hopes, in preparation for my New Year’s resolutions.
4. Enjoying my garden. I am still amazed at the transformation from a brown dust bowl (that was there for months while I worked on it) into this beautiful, lush, green, suburban oasis that I now enjoy on a daily basis.
5. Deciding to work harder at removing the remaining clutter from my life. 4 months ago
1. The most wonderful of Christmas Day lunches. The family, the food, the laughter, the presents, the fantastic weather, the low humidity, the banning of iPhones…it was a truly wonderful day.
2. The $100 Bunnings voucher my son gave me. He is such a generous kid and I love how he puts thought into each gift.
3. Son #2 staying sober during the day. He usually drinks way too much and embarrasses everyone at celebrations, but this year he was really good and stayed sober. Thank you for the blessing.
4. The wonderful ease with how all the food preparation came together.
5. The fantastic Sunbeam Cafe Series food processor that T and M put in for together for my Christmas present. 1400watt motor AWESOME!!
6. The bar fridge outside in the entertainment area. It was so great to have another place to keep food and drinks cool. I don’t run it all the time, but it was very nice to have it turned on on the day.
7. Christmas wishes from friends and family.
8. The wonder of the internet and how technology has shortened the distance between friends, family and loved ones.
9. The joy everyone had about being outside in the beautiful garden. Some lay on the grass and just took in the sun, nearly everyone took the opportunity to take their shoes off and just feel the grass between their toes. It was lovely.
10. The beautiful salad that was made with freshly cut basil, mint and coriander.
11. Love. 4 months ago
1. A great Christmas Eve. Desserts made, nibblies made, bar fridge cleaned and stocked, potatoes cooked for the potato salad. All ready to go.
2. The beauty of the garden. I ate dinner outside last night and it was wonderful.
3. Definitely getting better at Sudoku. I got another puzzle solved and it seems to be getting easier each time. Now to tackle the harder ones.
4. Being reminded of Dr Masaru Emoto’s book The Message From Water. Truly beautiful pictures.
5. Receiving an “I miss you” text from TBT. 4 months ago
1. Early morning birdsong. Even the birds are excited about Christmas :-)
2. A huge 3.8km walk with the Star Dogs. They loved it.
3. Having fun on MapMyRun.com working out some good dog walking routes. Aiming for 3-5km a day.
4. Going out for drinks with J and catching up a little prior to Christmas.
5. Finding Buddhist Boot Camp on Face Book and then downloading Timber Hawkeye’s book of the same name. It should be a great read and I know someone who is on a spiritual search who could benefit from reading his book.
6. My Kindle. I have lots of books that have arrived out of storage but I do like the environmentally friendly Kindle. LOL
7. 4 months ago
1. Getting a lot of pre-Christmas preparation finished. The decorating of the table is decided on, the dessert is being made tomorrow. It’s exciting.
2. Air conditioning. It has been sooo humid these past few days. I’m so very very grateful for the comfort of air conditioning.
3. Kumara Croquettes. I found an old recipe and made them for dinner last night. Served with that amazing sweet and sour dipping sauce and a beautiful salad. Yummy.
4. The great feeling you get when you share something with someone and you can see them light up with excitement.
5. A good night’s sleep.
6. The rain that simply poured down last night, clearing the humidity in the air.
7. Getting better at Sudoku.
8. For being a foodie and following my bliss, without guilt! :-) 4 months ago
1. Cleaning out the refrigerator ready for the Christmas fare to go in. It’s funny but a nice clean fridge always makes me feel like I am less likely to waste food, probably because I can keep track of what’s in there more easily and plan meals around the contents better.
2. Taking the dogs for a walk. It’s been a while and we really enjoyed it.
3. Air conditioning. It was a really humid day yesterday and I was so very grateful for the air con, especially as I was working hard getting the interior of the unit ready for Christmas day.
4. All the vegetarian cookbooks I found in the boxes from storage. I had a ball going through the recipes.
5. RAIN! It finally rained and cut through the humidity last night. My goodness it was so welcome as we must have had about 98% humidity.
6. THE WORLD DID NOT END as predicted. LOL4 months ago
1. A productive day emptying boxes and finding places for the things that have come out of storage.
2. The basil and mizuna seeds I planted only a week ago sprouted in 3 days and are now growing like mad. Gotta love sub-tropical gardening :-)
3. The return of boxes of books from storage. It was like seeing old friends again after a long time.
4. Helping L by getting her Nook up and running and putting some books on it for her.
5. A great HT session with J. All good and the move to Weekday Veg really did make a difference to the treatment. 4 months ago
1. The glorious weather continuing. I think we will have a wonderful day for Christmas Day weather wise.
2. The turf has started to take root and is growing. There has been very little die back and where it did seem to fail, new shoots are starting to pop up through what appears to be dead grass.
3. Finding the perfect anniversary gift.
4. Finishing season two of Game Of Thrones. Love that series.
5. Resolving to be more focused tomorrow. I had a day where I felt directionless and realised that I hadn’t really planned for the day. Being retired you can slip into being a bit blase with life very easily. I realise now that I need to organise each day and make sure I have enough to do or I will become a slob very quickly. Lesson learned. 4 months ago
I now have a fantastic herb garden. I grow basil, coriander, thyme, sage, oregano, common mint, chives, mizura, bay laurel, rosemary… and I use them all every day in my cooking.
It is just so good to be able to go out into the garden and pick the herbs I need, fresh and wonderful. 5 months ago
1. Cinemas, where you can escape the heat and reality at the same time.
2. An evening thunderstorm which refreshed everything after such a hot day.
3. Air conditioning – again. Yesterday and today I am so grateful for the home air con that cools the place down in a very short space of time.
4. Finding my way back to emotional health.
5. Peace. 5 months ago
1. Starting the Family Recipe book that I have been wanting to do for such a long time. Now the garden reno is over I need a new project.
2. Finding just the right title and just the right picture to go with the new recipe book.
3. Blub.com – love love love you for making book making so easy.
4. Air conditioning. I was really really really HOT today and I had to put the air con on. Soooo grateful for cool air.
5. Feeling more at peace with a situation that has been thrust upon me and I have no desire to be part of. 5 months ago
1. A wonderful time at the beach with the fur boys.
2. Afternoon cat nap on the couch.
3. Warm summer nights.
4. Starting the family recipe book. I downloaded an app called iBooks Author which has a recipe book template and will allow me to publish the book electronically to the iTunes store. Look out Jamie Oliver!
5. Having fun being creative again. 5 months ago
1. A beautiful day. Lovely weather and it’s the weekend.
2. My boxes arrived! Now the fun starts, unpacking and fitting things into this little unit. LOL
3. A great night’s entertainment at a comedy show. Had a fantastic time.
4. Antihistamines. Have a little bit of morning hay fever. The paspalum grass is in seed and the pollen is getting to me.
5. Facing the beast, calling it what it is and watching it back down!! Thank you! 5 months ago
1. A wonderful day. Watered the lawn, potted some herbs, got ready for the evening BBQ. An easy day.
2. My boxes are delayed. They won’t arrive until tomorrow. Not to worry, it meant one less thing to do and I had a bit of a Nanna Nap instead.
3. The joy of sharing the new garden with old friends. It was great to catch up with A & H.
4. I wrapped the Christmas presents. I love wrapping things and making them look really really exciting with ribbons and bows.
5. A really great salad with last night’s dinner and the mushroom sauce impressed A very much indeed. 5 months ago
1. Rain. It rained again in the morning. How wonderful for the turf. It is looking green and there is very little die back.
2. Getting all the Christmas shopping done.
3. A CLEAN HOUSE! Finally. The floors have been mopped and it looks fabulous and ready for a weekend of entertaining.
4. Fresh herbs. I’m so happy to have a herb garden again.
5. That fantastic savoury kidney bean recipe that is just so yummy.
6. The joy of being organised. Being disorganised causes so much waste of time. I love having things where they should be and not wasting time looking for stuff in all the clutter.
7. Enjoying this new life.
8. The two Star Dogs who continue to bring me great joy every day. 5 months ago
1. A fantastic day Karchering the front courtyard and back yard entertainment area. The final clean up after the garden reno. It looks amazing!
2. Finally being able to get to the cleaning up properly indoors as well. I cleaned the shower, vacuumed all the rooms thoroughly, dusted, vacuumed all the cobwebs from the cornices. It was a good day of being domestic and very satisfying.
3. RAIN… I have been blessed everyday with rain in the morning which is wonderful for the new grass.
4. Planning for A & H’s visit to catch up and see the garden reno. We haven’t seen each other since the redundancy and it will be great to catch up.
5. Watching stuff on Apple TV. Regular TV programming is dreadful right now and I just love that I have the technology to download and stream to the lounge room TV.
6. Getting the new mattress, for the day bed, from the shed. It is a bright apple green colour and looks awesome. 5 months ago
1. Breakfast at the launch of the new local community magazine. It was a nice event.
2. The repair to the broken sprinkler being so easy. I had anticipated at least an hours work and it took all of 20 minutes.
3. News that the boxes from my storage unit will be here on Friday!! I’m excited as the moving company gave me the impression they would not be here until the New Year. Mega thanks and gratefulness to the universe for getting them here before Christmas.
4. FINALLY getting rid of the old outdoor setting that has been cluttering up the front courtyard!! Yaaaaaay and yaaaaay again!
5. A great easy day planting out the fernery and then cleaning the carpets in the spare room ready for the boxes that will be arriving.
6. Yummy vegetarian nachos for dinner.
7. Finishing season two of The Walking Dead.
8. The good feeling I have from planning tomorrow’s things to get done in order to be ready for guests on Friday and over Christmas.
9. The satisfaction of being being well organized and enjoying how easy life is when there is no clutter and things are where they should be. 5 months ago
1. Rain! Rain rain rain. Just what I need the day after laying the turf. How the universe continues to bless me!
2. A good day working in the shop.
3. Weekday Veg continuing well with a beautiful pumpkin soup for dinner last night.
4. Christmas holiday plans. I’m looking forward to entertaining a little.
5. Taking life one day at a time. 5 months ago
!. The wonderful sense of achievement when the last roll of turf was laid.
2. The fantastic weather that continues to bless us.
3. The ‘Star Dogs’ excitement at having grass, especially with all the Dynamic Lifter that has been spread around, yum yum :-)
4. A good nights sleep.
5. Peanut sauce. I made the most amazing peanut sauce for Gado Gado a couple of days ago and had some left over. The recipe said it would get better if left a few days and to use left overs as a dip. They were right! It was delicious!! 5 months ago
1. Having a wonderful day, weather wise, for laying the turf. Thank you, thank you.
2. The excitement of seeing all my hard work come to fruition. My goodness, it looks awesome!
3. The blessing of having a strong body, made stronger, by all the hard physical labour the garden renovation required. I am truly amazed at what I have done by hand.
4. The love and support of friends and family.
5. The joy of having made a photographic record of the garden reno and being able to look back on it and just marvel at a vision realised.
6. A truly wonderful day. 5 months ago
1. Wonderful wonderful rain!! I’m so pleased it has rained as it’s just what I need for laying the turf tomorrow.
2. Another day of getting fiddly little jobs done.
3. My new gym is open. That is to say, my usual gym has moved closer to where I live, into brand new premises, with brand new equipment. WOO HOO. I went to the opening last night and it is awesome!! And such a timely move. Now that the garden reno is over I will definitely be getting back to the gym.
4. This wonderful life!!
5. Weekday Veg is going really well. I am feeling great and really enjoying going through my vegetarian recipe books. 5 months ago
1. The preparations for laying the turf tomorrow being completed. Everything is ready to go. It’s exciting!!
2. Great company at the pub dinner last night.
3. Being able to put someone better in the picture about a situation.
4. Another good day getting all those little jobs done.
5. The amazing wonderful awesome hot weather. 5 months ago
1. A really good day doing two Christmas displays. One for the shop and the other for the Community Christmas Tree.
2. Playing ball with the ‘Star Dogs.’ It was hot hot hot, but they both wanted to chase that ball sooooo much.
3. The carpet in the study finally drying properly and not smelling so damp anymore.
4. Re-fitting iTV and moving watching downloads into the lounge room.
5. Poached eggs on toast. It was so hot yesterday that eating was truly something that you just didn’t feel like doing, so I opted for a like dinner of poached eggs on toast. Sometimes it’s good to just go back to a simpler time when we didn’t eat so big or fancy. I remember my childhood and some dinners consisted of, baked beans on toast, eggs and chips, soft boiled eggs. We were not so well monied in those days and we sometimes had to eat very simply. 5 months ago
