The route home

I dislike it when the streetcar is so full that you are pushed against the window when some unthinking fellow traveler forgets to take off their knapsack.
I want to place huge ads on every streetcar, bus and subway showing people squished flat against the windows.

Well there you are my little rant for the day.

Today

Still trying

Test

Trying to get the phone to post.

Getting back

I have time to learn to use my smartphone to post. Every time I try the post fails.

Day 2 - Write 31 Days

I have already discovered the flaw in my plan. 
I had based my constrictions on having time within 60 minutes of getting out of the house to jot down notes, take photographs and start stringing words together. Three days a week I am on the streetcar unless my lovely neighbour gives me a lift to Roncesvalles and I then walk to Dufferin. This morning we had a good natter about books. She is reading The White Pearl by Kate Furnivall - it sounds like a great page turner. She is waiting for the new Tim Winton to arrive. I told her about Isabelle Allende's book Maya's Notebook and how I devoured it over the weekend. 

By the time she dropped me off a half hour had passed and I had had no time to plan a post. During the ten minute walk to work I found myself dodging slow walkers 

I arrived at the Studio only to turn around and zip off to a clients - no time to plan but I did take photographs. We are looking at driveway layouts - who said design is exciting. 

Tomorrow will be interesting as I drive to work with my husband Mondays and Fridays. He drives, I knit we talk. I will spend the drive planning the post and the return trip knitting. Win win all around.

31 Days - Outside My Front Door

If you click back in my posts you will notice that I get all gung-ho about writing and posting and photographs and then - it all peters out after a couple of days. 



I am taking a leap of faith in myself and I have publicly joined - 

The challenge is to write about one topic for 31 days. I could talk about healthy food for 31 days as I plan, cook, assemble 3 meals plus snacks every day of the week but so do so many great bloggers. I could write about my grief but it is still to raw to make it so public. I could take pictures of my knitting though theses days I am mostly frogging. As I drank my coffee the streetcar I remembered what I would say to people during the dreadful spring of 2013 - at least I made it out the door.
That thought is my jumping off point "Outside my front door", what happens to me in the first hour I walk out of my house.

It sounds like a huge topic and in some ways it is. By restricting  myself  to the first hour of leaving the house I narrow down my options and push myself to look closer at the mundane.

This is day one - and a photo of how I got to work. 


At least I made it out the door,
Kate

The challenge of my phone.

Just learning about posting from my phone. Something new!

Is this working?

Just a check to see if the app is working.

The haunting of my brain.

It all started late. I was late, the kids were late and the dog would not get out of bed. The same thing happens every year. I make plans, lists and comments and still I am behind. Way behind. To behind to catch up to where I want to be.

I was having morning coffee with the boss and she said something that resonated with me. "why do we put such pressures on ourselves" You know what, I don't know. I know that I have an asperational view on life. Not for more money, fame or fortune but for a clean house, tidy cupboards, washed floors, meal plans and clean windows.

I have been spending more time inside my brain trying to work out how I can achieve these dream goals. All I can figure out is the crazy amount of work that I will have to do, then I get depressed, then I want to go to bed without brushing my teeth or letting the dogs out for a pee.

So, you ask, dear reader, what is she going to do? Will she go to bed or will she put on a load of laundry and drink a cup of tea?

The laundry won and so did the cup of tea and I will be staying up just that much longer to get a few little things done.

And let the dogs out.

 

Posted with Blogsy

DAY 26 OF 365 - 52

Well, I would say that was an epic fail. Start a 365 post about getting more planning and routines in my life and don't post for 26 days. That is almost a month. 

Jumping up and jumping in.

I have been using my timer to get more done. Last Sunday I started and finished a page turner book and removed 2 bags of weeds from my garden. I spent 5 hours doing the " work for 15 minutes, rest for 15 minutes" routine. Yup, it works and I used it again to get some laundry done. Though it was more like 45 minutes of reading, 15 minutes of flipping the laundry, folding the laundry and putting the load of laundry away.

I will not let my natural inclination to do nothing stop the forward push. Change is in the air and change is on my mind.

Thursday, Day 1 of 365 - 52

Today is supposed to be plans and routines that have worked.
Well it is Day 1 and I have fallen off the cleaning wagon but...
I did walk 5 km this morning as I do every (or almost every weekday morning, more for my waistline then the dogs health) So that routine works.
I did flip the laundry before my walk but I did not fold or put away the clean clothes. So I guess that only half worked and the family will continue fishing for clean underwear in the overflowing baskets.

This is Cindy, one of the two lovely ladies I walk with.

You can see the state of my main floor along with all the clean laundry spread out on the diningroom table.

Today  The Flylady says we are in Zone 2, The Kitchen. Well I was in my kitchen too. Making coffee and lunches. Trying to multitask before leaving the house to multitask at work. But back to the kitchen. I do not have a clean and shiny sink every night. There I said it out loud. I have to work on this routine, and work on the invisible  people who leave dirty dishes in the sink and not in the dishwasher. I will find you, you can not hide forever. You will get hungry.

The Time Has Come the Walrus Said

The times they are a changing.

I am entering into middle age. In two months I will be 51. Now, no longer a newly minted middle age woman. The mother of four and I have kept my original Husband and no I am not trading him in anytime soon.

Events have pushed me to face the need for change.

         My kids are getting older, their needs are different. High school, college and university students live very different lives to those in diapers, junior and middle school. I need to move them forward, to be better workers at school, in the house and at their jobs. Changes to chore expectations have to be made, both my actions and their actions.

         I am tired of my cooking – dinner is uninspired and food shopping is boring, boring, boring. My vegetable garden is bland– except for my herbs. I love fresh herbs on everything.

         We bought our house as a fixer-upper, well it has been seven years and it still needs fixing. I am not going for the deco-porn look or the monster home on our street, I just want the little jobs finished. Baseboards replace, quarter round installed. Broken glass repaired. Caulking around the windows. You get the picture.

         Housework. I have never been very good at cleaning. I always seem to leave a few things undone for days, okay for weeks, I know of a couple that have been undone for years. I want to change. I want to jump back onto the Flylady’s ( flylady.net ) band wagon, get my routines down, get my control journal up and get my laundry moving.

         My body. This is the one area that I am feeling comfortable in. Over the last three years I have lost and kept off thirty pounds. I want to continue to move. Make more yoga time. Reduce my wine intake and up my healthy food. I will add the ups and downs of epilepsy as  my youngest daughter is newly diagnosed.

         My craft – I knit, I knit lace, I lurk on all those amazing sites wishing, hoping and wanting. I will make my sweater this year.  The whens, whats and wherefores have to be planned out.

Amazing – that gives me 6 areas to explore every week. What a treat. Now I have to plan just a little bit. As we all know “Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

Here is the basic layout - I am thinking of doing a 365 - 52, I like a day off a week. 

Monday - Housework/Not just mine

Tuesday -  Food/Shopping/Planning /Recipes

Wednesday - My Body/Epilepsy

Thursday - Plans and Routines what has work/not. 

               The small changes we put in place

Friday - Fun/ Knitting/ What I found around the web/Pictures

Saturday - The house, small changes, big moves

There, I have put together a plan. A plan I can start with, we all know it will be tweaked, twisted and teased over the next year.

Stay with me as I learn to blog and make the small changes that lead to big changes. 

Kate

Money, Time, Home

Is this how you feel stuck inside?  You can see the beautiful blue sky but the inside world is obstructing your view? And every time you look out the window the material world reminds you why you work – to pay the bills. To keep up with the Jones and the Guptas?

I don’t have a Utopian dream of never working, I like my work. I know myself well enough to know I would go crazy stuck at home – I did go crazy when the kids were little and work was my release.

Yesterday I wanted the choice to stay home. To know that our finances all able to handle me not working a few days a month.

I am Making A Change

I am making a change. A change in attitude, a change in style, a change in thought, a change in work.

I am making a change in me.

For months, no years I have been following a number of  blogs trying to inspire myself into moving forward.

I have been a follower of    flylady.net  for years and years. She has helped me keep the tide line down. The laundry still gets out of hand and my sink does not get shined every day but the house is better.

Now I am searching for more. More from  me. More from my life.

12 in 2012

Yup, I am jumping in.

<a href="http://www.ohhellofriend.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/nn206/ohhellofriend/personal/1212banner2.jpg" width="75"/> </a>


My list will follow soon.

Secret Slower Cooker - "Rotisserie" Chicken

Today is about the joy of a slow cooker – yup I have jumped on the band wagon or at least I am finally coming out of the closet about my love of the lowly slow cooker.

For years I have used my slow cooker to make the easy-peasy vegetarian chili that was the staple of Tuesday nights in my house. You know the night when some are off the Scouts, some off to higher learning and some (me) off to grocery shopping.

Two weeks ago I decided to jump in with both feet and try new recipes. I had a failure with the Rice Pudding and it took two days to soak/clean the stone ware. The Tortellini casserole was a gluey mess, tasty but very un-pretty and almost rejected by the family.

I sniffed out a number of versions of the “Rotisserie “ chicken and came up with one that my family love.

1          5 – 8 lbs. Roasting Chicken - defrosted

2 T      Brown Sugar

2T       Soya Sauce

A good pinch of salt and pepper

Aluminum foil

Cut 6 – 12inch lengths of aluminum foil. Crush each sheet into a lemon size ball and place in the slow cooker

Wash the chicken inside and out. Pat dry.

Mix brown sugar and soya sauce together and smear over the chicken – again inside and out.

Place chicken on top of the aluminum foil.

Cover and cook on high for 6 hours or low (my favorite) for 8 hours. The chicken will be falling off the bone and ready for any cooked chicken dish.

Make a quick gravy with the juices (1 T flour, 2T juices, cook one minute over a medium heat until combined. Add a little more juice, water or left over black tea – up to ½ a cup)

Serve with rice and your favorite steamed vegetables and salad.

Bean Salad and Cottage Food

Yup, that is a picture of the cottage group, out on the dock, watching "Big Brother". That's me knitting.

I took up my favorite summer salad. Bean Salad. Packed with protein, tastes better the next day and even better the day after and does not wilt in the heat.

The base of the salad is always the same -

3 cups of beans ( canned, soaked, your choice)
1/4 good oil (oil, canola, vegetable, what ever you have)
1/4 vinegar (your choice - I use a lot of Balsamic)
1 medium size sweet onion
1 medium size green or red pepper

Mix together, place in fridge and let it meld.

You can add anything to this salad. When my herb garden is bursting I add a little bit of everything, Thyme being my favorite.
You can add lemon or lime juice.
You can add any vegetable you want  just cut the pieces small enough.
I have even added cold cooked rice and lasst nights cooked veggies to the salad.

I sent this of with my eldest son and his friends for last weekends cottage fun - it was the first dish finished.

High in protein, great source of fiber and so far enjoyed by all. Easy peasy vegetarian - even vegan!

Ennui

I have hit the wall, a wall, a well, a well that I can not get out of.

There is nothing I want to eat, to cook, to knit or to read.

There are no plants I want to plant, no weeds I want to weed.

I have a major case of early rainy spring ennui - nothing interests me. My cooking is boring and yet nothing in the recipe books or on the food blogs and sites that I follow can make me rattle my pots and pans.

Knitting  has lost its thrall - other then the streetcar socks that I always have in my bag.

Spring is slowly coming to my front garden. The rain has chased the cherry blossoms away. The squirrels did not get all the bulbs and the colours are coming back.

I truly believe that when the sun comes out to play so will I.

Making Dinner

Have you ever noticed that it is easier to prepare a formal or celebration meal then cook everyday food for the family.

I have hit the the February food blahs. I can not get excited about anything that is in my current cycle of cooking. I say it is because I am waiting for the lovely fresh fruit and veg from my garden but it is not that. I am bored - I sound like one of my kids. But I am bored. I need a change in food.

I have spent days surfing the web looking for something, anything that will tickle my funny bone.

The house is very busy in the spring, all the school activities, the need to play in the garden and the lengthening of days. I have decided to cook two meals a week in the slow cooker.

I will photograph and keep you informed.

"In Dreams"

Unique Sheep Eos " Big Sur Twilight" 

In Dreams Mystery Shawl

by Susan Pandorf

 

The Mystery KAL starts Feb 4. I can not wait!