Menu plan Monday - 16 July 2007 & good mail!

Look what I received on Friday from the Organising Junkie herself - good mail! What a lovely thank-you card all the way from Canada. I am already using the bookmark in my Bible.


Thank you so much, Laura - this made my day. I had been having a rather blah kind of day and this perked me right up :-)






Now, onto my menu plan for the week...


Monday
Pork chops, sweetcorn & potato bake (recipe below) and carrots

Tuesday
M – out at work function (I’m told they will feed us)
D – chilli & rice

Wednesday
D – burgers
M – leftover pizza (if you have not yet tried Sandra's pizza, do it. You won't regret it!)

Thursday
Pasta with chickpea & vegetable sauce, topped with cheese

Friday
Chicken burgers and fat-free chips

Sweetcorn and potato bake
4 medium potatoes
1 can cream
style sweetcorn
salt, pepper, Italian herbs to taste

Scrub the potatoes with their skins on.
Dice into fairly big squares (about 2cm).
Throw into a microwave dish with spices and microwave on high for about 5 minutes (nearly but not quite done)
Now add the can of sweetcorn and stir the whole lot, to thoroughly mix.
Microwave for a further 2 - 3 minutes until potatoes are done.

There you go - done!

If you want to be decadent, you can top with cheese. I don't, but I do add some more pepper. Yum.

For more Menu Plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

I've been a bad commenter this last week because we had power cuts on two of the nights so I've been prioritising and doing the absolute basics, like sending out my newsletter and responding to emails. Got to practise what I preach, right?! :-)

Ask the organiser - was I always organised?

Chandre wrote to me and asked me a really good question. I told her that it’s so good I’m going to answer it on the blog :-)

Were you always organized? I don’t necessarily mean as you are now, but did you have lists before, or put in petrol before it’s on empty, etc…

It seems easier for someone who already is a bit organized to get more organized, but tips for someone who's not at all, seems a big mission.

Here’s my answer:

The truth is that my personality does tend more towards organisation than not. But organising is a skill anyone can learn.

People always ask, “are leaders born or made?” My answer is “a bit of both, although leadership skills can be learnt”.

We all know wonderful leaders who are just so natural at it. Then we know some people who have been put in a leadership role and get better and better at it as they go along.

It’s the same with organising.

For the most part, I do come by it naturally but certain aspects have been harder than others. If I don’t take control of my time, I am shocking at it. It’s because I want to squeeze too many things into my day.

I learn very quickly that I'm not Superwoman and I also only have 24 hours in a day :-)

However, I went through some coaching a few years ago (2003), learnt the principles of good time management and have been sailing ever since. I go through hectic busy periods too but I know how to get it all back on track. And for the most part, quickly.

For me, spaces are easier to organise because you can see the finite proportions of the space, and things either fit or they don’t.

And generally there are a couple of principles you follow when organising anything – time or space – with a couple of tweaks here and there to suit your personality.

So, Chandre, I'd say yes, I've always had lists (love lists!!!) and I do put petrol in before the car's empty (but I do get quite close to the end because I like living on the edge :-) )

It will take time to start implementing some organising systems in your
life - you can start building good habits in just 15 minutes a day.

And like I've said before, organising is a means to an end.

The end is more peace, less stress and more time for what matters most to YOU.

Wordless Wednesday - files!

Gorgeousness galore - these were spied on a colleague's desk.

Does this not make you happy? Beautiful bright , colourful folders, neatly organised?

Tackle it Tuesday - blogging photos & filing

1. This week, I decided to tackle a sub-folder that has been in my Blogging folder for months - photos to blog! When I download, I immediately sort and make separate folders and if I have time, I compress them all to website size. I'd done this already.

So I published all the photos on our personal blog (there were 3 posts and now there are 9) and I made lots of draft posts for this blog and the other one (check tomorrow for some Wordless Wed posts on both blogs).

2. While the photos were uploading to Blogger, I decided to use the time constructively by doing some filing. Some good multi-tasking going on. Upload 2 - 3 photos, punch papers, file, take file back to cupboard, rearrange photos and type captions, publish.

Before

After

What did you tackle today, or what do you need to tackle?


Share in the comments!

Menu Plan Monday - 9 July 2007

Thank you for all the comments on the "biscuits" issue last week! I wanted to try make them this weekend but the recipe I have asked for buttermilk. I've just gone and done another search again and found another recipe without buttermilk so I will try that one next weekend.



Anyway...here is my menu for the week


Monday
Brown rice with sundried tomato (Tastic - delicious!), chilli and carrots

Tuesday
Sweet & sour chicken with noodles - Lorie, aren't you glad I'm finally making your recipe? :-)

Wednesday
Baked potatoes with chickpea & vegetable sauce

Thursday
Chicken nuggets, fat-free chips (french fries) and freshly-sliced tomatoes

Friday
Grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches and tomato soup


For more Menu Plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.

Partial or full RSS feeds?

This week Ariane changed her blog set-up and started publishing full feeds instead of partial feeds.

Now I can’t comment on Typepad blogs 95% of the time so I didn’t leave a comment but I made sure to email her and tell her THANK YOU! I’m sure she thought I was a raving lunatic.

Why should you publish a full feed?

Most people are busy and only have a certain amount of time to blog surf.

I am one of those people :-) and if I am pressed for time like I am most days, I only read the partial feeds from my Google Reader and I don’t click through to read the full feed unless I am absolutely dying to read the rest of it (mostly I don’t).

I also only click through onto a blog (even when the full feed is published) if I want to comment. I read somewhere that less than 10% of people comment and based on my own experience, I think this could be true.

When I was setting up my blogs, I chose to publish full feeds because I figured that I would rather people read what I’m writing and not comment (although those are very, very welcome and much, much appreciated) than skip ¾ of my writing through a partial feed.

I’d say that although I always click through on some blogs, I only do so for about 10% of the blogs in my Google Reader.

So what do you think?

1. Do you publish a full or partial feed?
2. How did you decide?
3. What % of the time do you click through to read the rest of someone’s partial feed?
   

Is anyone else having a problem with blogger where it doesn't want to let you put your cursor in the title field to type a heading? If yes, please tell me how you fixed it. Thanks!!!

Addicted to blogging?

70%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Mingle² - Online Dating

I saw this on Annie's blog in last week's weekend reflection and had to do it!

Thursday 13 - 13 self-care ideas

Did you know you can organise your self-care?

Now and again, you need to put yourself first, even if just for a day.

Here are 13 self-care ideas:

1. Have a nice bubble bath.


2. Give yourself a manicure or pedicure.


3. Get your hair done.


4. Relax with a favourite book and a cup of tea or coffee. This is my favourite form of self-care



5. Get takeaways.


6. Buy some flowers - hey, sometimes, we’ve got to do it for ourselves!


7. Watch a chick flick


8. Take a 30-minute nap


9. Start simplifying your life


10. Bake a cake, some muffins, etc.


11. Organise your clothes!


12. Burn a fragrant candle and just relax


13. Write in your journal for 30 minutes

Get out your planner and book a date with yourself at least once a month, preferably once a week or even once a day.

If you don’t schedule it, it won’t get done!

How often do you have self-care time?

Tackle it Tuesday - reading list (Excel)

We were at the library last weekend and I stood in front of the Cathy Kelly section, trying to remember which books I'd already read. And I couldn't.

Stuff like that freaks me out so I decided that I had to update my reading list in Excel. I do it in Excel so I can sort by author, print it out and take it with me to the library.

I've just realised that I read The Mummy Diaries twice - can't remember reading it at all :)

I have to do the whole of 2006 (about 70 - 80 books) and half of 2007.

Wish me well - I will come back and tell you when it's done

edited to add - I am officially done! That means 73 books for 2006 and 39 for 2007 so far :-)

Go visit 5 minutes for mom for more great tackles. And while you’re surfing, say hi to a blogger today!

Menu Plan Monday - 2 July 2007 & organising your menu plan visits

Biscuits and cookies

One of the things I LOVE about blogging is learning about different parts of the world.

I asked Anne and Sandra last week about “biscuits”, and while I still don’t get what they are, I think I’ll have to try and make some to get the proper idea.

We call cookies “biscuits”, you see. And biscuits? Well, I don't know. So it gets very confusing – please forgive all the questions on your blogs!

Organising your MPM visits

While I was blog surfing last week, someone asked "how do you get around to all the MPM blogs?"

1. The short answer is I don't. I am forced to be really disciplined with blog reading and commenting because otherwise nothing else in and on my business would get done. By the way, I'm two!

2. I usually surf the MPM blogs for about 20 - 30 minutes. Now I only follow the links to the blogs which are not in my google reader.
Because I'm going to read the others anyway.

3. My goal is 10 blogs every Monday. I try and pick a couple of new-to-me blogs so that I get out and socialise (don't we all like to sometimes stay in our comfort zone?!). Sometimes I get sidetracked so I don't get around to all 10 in one sitting. But then I just come back later when I have a few minutes.

4. If I find a good recipe, I have a document called "blog recipes to try" and I paste the recipe in there. When I try it, I print and put in my recipe file (if a keeper) or just delete if we didn't like.

We didn't like the pizza pancakes but we loved Sandra's pizza.

Anyway, hope you liked hearing my ways of organising MPM.

Monday
Stirfried kidney beans, veggies and noodles (vegetarian because I was not prepared to face the end-of-the-month traffic at HyperMeat)

Tuesday
Oven-baked pork chops, carrots and potato bake

Wednesday
Chicken curry and rice

Thursday
Pasta with chickpea & vegetable sauce, topped with cheese

Friday
Homemade soup and cheese rolls

For more Menu Plan Monday participants, go on over to Laura's blog.