Daily Changes

This post is dedicate to those of you who are bored of your daily and routine tasks you do everyday. Or maybe it can be dedicated to those who want to change a bit of your daily phase. I might try to do this and see if I can stick to the changes or not. Changes might be good for you if you do really need one. Don't you think so? Even if it's a small change but if you need it, just do it. So, here are 7 ways to implement daily changes written by Leo Babauta that I found on ZenHabits. 

How to Implement Daily Changes

This method is fairly simple, and if you really implement it, nearly foolproof:

1. One Change at a Time. You can break this rule, but don’t be surprised if you fail. Do one change for a month before considering a second. Only add another change if you were successful at the first.
2. Start Small. OK, I’ve said this two bazillion times. No one ever does it, though. Start with 10 minutes or less. Five minutes is better if it’s a hard change. If you fail at that, drop it to 2 minutes.
3. Do it at the same time each day. OK, not literally at the same minute, like at 6:00 a.m., but after the same trigger in your daily routine — after you drink your first cup of coffee in the morning, after you arrive at work, after you get home, after you brush your teeth, shower, eat breakfast, wake up, eat lunch, turn on your computer, first see your wife each day.
4. Make a huge commitment to someone. Or multiple people. Make sure it’s someone whose opinion you respect. For example, I made a commitment to studying/coding PHP at least 10 minutes each day to my friend Tynan. I’ve made commitments to my wife, to other friends, to readers of this blog, to readers of a newspaper on Guam, to my kids, and more.
5. Be accountable. Taking my programming example with Tynan … each day I have to update a Google spreadsheet each day showing how many minutes I programmed/studied each day, and he can (and does) check that shared spreadsheet. The tool you use doesn’t matter — you can post to Facebook or Twitter, email someone, mark it on a calendar, report in person. Just make sure you’re accountable each day, not each month. And make sure the person is checking. If they don’t check on you, you need to find a new accountability partner or group.
6. Have consequences. The most important consequence for doing or not doing the daily habit is that if you don’t, the people will respect you less, and if you do, they’ll respect you more. If your accountability system isn’t set up this way, find another way to do it. You might need to change who you’re accountable to. But you can add other fun consequences: one friend made a promise to Facebook friends that he’d donate $50 to Mitt Romney’s campaign (this was last year) each time he didn’t follow through on a commitment. I’ve made a promise to eat whale sushi (I won’t fail, because eating a whale is repugnant to me, like eating a cow or a child). I’ve promised to sing a Japanese song in front of strangers if I failed. The consequences can also be positive — a big reward each week if you don’t miss a day, for example. Make the consequences bigger if you miss two straight days, and huge if you miss three.
7. Enjoy the change. If you don’t do this, you might as well find another change to make. If the daily action feels tedious and chore-like, then you are doing it wrong. Find a way to enjoy it, or you won’t stick to it long. Or find some other change you enjoy more.

(article via zenhabits.com - image via favim.com)

Mid-Week Recipe

Nothing can be better for a mid week day to cook something simple but tasty. I was craving for some food with cheese lately..I don't know why. So I was browsing around on food with cheese and found this really great recipe of "Spinach and artichoke grilled cheese sandwich" by Foodie Crush. It's raining here now in my place, and seeing the image of the food on the web makes me really hungry. I think I'm going straight to the kitchen now and make one =)

Spinach and artichoke grilled cheese sandwich

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly

1 cup fresh spinach, chopped roughly

4-6 canned artichoke hearts in water, drained and sliced

1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes, chopped

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

8 ounces mozzarella fresca (fresh mozzarella), grated

4 slices sourdough bread

4 tablespoons butter

Instructions

1. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to a small saucepan and heat over medium heat then add 1 clove of the sliced garlic and cook for 5-7 minutes, lowering the heat so the garlic doesn’t burn but just steeps in the garlic oil and becomes fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.
2. In a small bowl mix the ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese and mix. Add the cooled garlic olive oil and mix in.
3. Sauté the remaining garlic slices in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil for 1 minute over medium high heat. Add the chopped spinach and artichoke hearts, season with kosher salt and cook for about 4 minutes or until spinach begins to wilt. Remove from heat and cover with a lid to keep warm.
4. Spread butter on one side of each slice of bread, then stack the two buttered sides together and repeat with the other 2 slices. Sprinkle the bread with a handful of the grated fresh mozzarella, then a layer of the spinach and artichoke hearts and half of the sun dried tomatoes. Add half of the ricotta cheese mixture and top with additional mozzarella cheese.
5. Place bread, buttered side down, in a non-stick fry pan over medium-high heat. Cover with lid and let cook for 3-4 minutes or until golden.
6. Reduce heat to medium and flip sandwich to the other side and cook for 2-3 minutes or until bread is toasty golden and the cheese has melted. The second side will cook faster than the first so watch carefully. Slice in half and enjoy hot.

(image and recipe by foodiecrush.com)

Timekeeping...

Can you imagine yourself not knowing about what day it is today, what time it is now or even when is your birthday? Below is an image of imagining life without timekeeping. I certainly can't do it. Life for me is always about timing. Living life means you have to keep up with the time you're having. How about you? 

(image via thethingswesay.com)

Think Like A Genius..

Have you ever met someone who is so smart or even genius that make you really wanna be that person? I think we all can be smart or genius, it's all in our mind. What makes a smart person is different from others is the way the person thinks. Don't you think so? If we're able to keep our mind sharp, then we can also be a genius. We have now information overload from the magazine  internet, newspaper and so on that can make us us easier to find information about mostly everything. Here's a short article on "3 Things You Can Do To Think Like A Genius" written by Erika Andersen via Forbes. 

Get curious 

Curiosity is that deep internal impulse to investigate. We all have it – it’s the thing that makes us read People magazine. Children have it in abundance: it’s the source of their endless “why?” and “then what?” questions. Unfortunately, by the time we get to be adults, it’s been largely socialized out of us (except for the aforementioned People magazine reading).  If you want to access and develop your innate ability to see patterns, you have to first re-ignite your curiosity.  One great way to do it is to consciously ask “Why is that happening?” or “How does that work?” in day-to-day situations that you’ve come to take for granted.  For instance, I recently encouraged a client to reflect on why her relationship with an employee had gotten strained.  She came back to me a couple of weeks later, saying that once she started looking at what had changed, she realized that she had fallen into the habit of disagreeing with his ideas in meetings because his way of presenting those ideas was irritating to her – and that she was both ignoring some potentially useful ideas and hurting their relationship as a result.  Voila – pattern recognition!

Be objective.  

My client’s recognition of that unhelpful pattern – and her part in it – required not only curiosity but also objectivity.  Objectivity is the ability to look at all sides of a situation with openness and dispassion. If you go into a situation with deeply held pre-conceived ideas about what you’ll find, it’s unlikely that you’ll see anything new.  The key to being objective is to cultivate the skill of being a Fair Witness, which I’ve blogged about regularly. The essence of being a fair witness is to observe your own self-talk (your internal monologue) to see whether what you’re saying to yourself about a situation is neutral and accurate.  And if it’s not, to change it.  For example, if my client had gotten curious but not objective about the situation – with self-talk that supported her pre-existing beliefs, she might have come to the conclusion that her employee was simply an irritating guy, and that there was nothing she could do to improve the relationship. As happened with my client, being a fair witness quite often allows you to see things in new and unexpected ways.

Pull back the camera.  

Once you’ve gotten curious and put yourself into an objective, fair witness mindset, it’s critical to step back mentally from a situation so that you can see the whole: that’s when patterns emerge. Years ago, I was at MOMA in New York.  When I walked into the room where Monet’s single-panel Water Lilies hangs, I was first struck by its size:  it’s over six feet high and almost twenty feet long.  You have to stand across the room to take it all in at once; from a distance, you can see how wonderfully Monet captured the tranquility of light-suffused water, floating Japanese lilies, clouds overhead.  But when you move in close to the painting, the pattern dissolves, and all you see is a collection of seemingly random brush strokes, in a variety of colors: your ‘camera’ is pulled in too close to make sense of it.

If you ‘get caught in the brush strokes’ it’s nearly impossible to access your own genius. For instance, let’s say that sales are down at a particular company, and the head of sales is desperate to figure out why .  If she ‘pulls in the camera too close,’ she might focus, for instance, only on one or two formerly high-performing salespeople who are missing their targets. Just looking at that one part of the situation, she could assume any number of things: that they’ve somehow lost their edge or are slacking off; that firing them will solve the problem; or, conversely, that if she really leans on them, they’ll get better.  Based on those assumptions, she might let them go, offer them training, read them the riot act, etc….but never see the whole picture and the real patterns inherent in it.

If, instead, she “pulls back the camera,” she might (for instance) find that an important new product line isn’t performing as promised because there’s a slight manufacturing glitch. The high return level is affecting both current sales numbers and customers’ willingness to reorder. The broader view gives a very different perspective, and will almost definitely lead her to a different, more effective, more genius-like response.

(article via forbes.com - image vai weheartit)

Floating Home

I found this really amazing place of a really cozy home. It's a floating home farmhouse. Can you imagine how wonderful the description is? This floating farmhouse is located in Eldred, New York (via)

(images via freshome.com)

New Day, New Wishes

New week, new day and new wishes. Those are my greetings for you on this Monday =) New wishes mean that your previous wishes have become dreams that come true. That means you have to make new wishes. Any wishes that will make you happy can do. My new wish is simply just to have a good week. Have you ever hear about superstitious thing on making wishes on 11.11? I overheard someone said that when you make a wish on 11.11 (the time on your digital clock), your wishes will come true. You can believe it or you can ignore it. But it's a fun thing to know though =) Have a great day...

(image via weheartit)

3D Pen...

I found this very amaaaaazzziiing thing. Oh wow, I couldn't help it. It's a so cool. Want to know what I think is cool? It's a 3D pen. It's the world's first 3D printing pen (via). It's called 3Doodler. Below is the images. What do you think?

(images via thisiscolossal)

Relax and Be Calm

Do you sometimes feel like you need something relaxing? Do you feel like hearing the sound of the sea breeze or maybe the sound of the birds in the morning? Doesn't it feel good when you can just relax and forget about things once a while. But what if you don't have time for a holiday? Here's a little something for a relaxing body and soul. You can even do it at home. It's a calming sound that I found on calm.com. Try it. I bet you'll have a fresh mind afterwards =)

(image via favim)

Simple Monday Recipe

A little something for you to start a new week. Try to cook a simple dish can sometimes boost my mood. I think I will need that to start a good day of a new week. It's a simple recipe of mashed potato by Set Meal. Mashed potato is now become one of my daughter's favorite foods. So, I guess I'm going to try this recipe =)

Mashed potato with roasted garlic and fresh parsley

Preparation: 20 min. 
Process: 1 hour. Yield 4. 

Ingredients: 

• 750 g potatoes 
• 6 garlic cloves 
• 1 Tbsp olive oil 
• 250 ml milk 
• 100 g butter, at room temperature 
• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley
• salt, freshly ground black pepper - on your taste 

Process: 

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Put the unpeeled garlic cloves on a baking tray, drizzle them with olive oil and bake for 30 minutes until tender. Peel the roasted garlic. 
2. Wash and peel potatoes, put them into a saucepan with cold salted water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, 20-25 minutes, or until done - a fork can easily be poked through them. Drain water from the saucepan and set aside. 
3. Chop parsley, heat milk (only bring it to boil). 
4. Add garlic cloves to cooked potatoes. Use wooden potato masher to mash potatoes and garlic until well mashed. While mashing add warm milk and butter pieces step by step. Add parsley, salt and pepper and mix a little. Serve immediately! 

(image and recipe by setmeal)

Good Conversation

The last two weeks have been a busy week for me. And now I am back on the routine tasks. This is why I can now sit in front of my computer and post a little something. I had a great out-of-town holiday last week. We stayed in this really beautiful villa with an amazing mountain view. The weather was so nice and we all enjoyed every minute we were there. Now that I am back here all I want to do now is just relax at home or maybe going on a date with my husband. The second option might be nice =) It's been a while since the last time we went out, just us two. Maybe it would be nice if we can have a little chat a while just like we used too. I love having a good conversation with someone who is connected to me. I found a short article about the importance of having a good conversaiton with your loved one (via). Below is the article...

• Conversation helps you stay on the same page. If you aren’t talking, you aren’t communicating. Great conversations are the only way to make sure that you and your partner are headed in the same direction. You’d be surprised how quickly a marriage can get bogged down in assumptions about how your life has to run without ever actually talking about what is best for your family. 
• Conversation increases intimacy. Real conversations make you vulnerable. You can’t have a real conversation without being open about your thoughts and feelings. Expressing yourself, and listening to your husband express himself, is an important part of the intimacy in a relationship. That’s why great conversation can actually lead to more enjoyment in the bedroom. 
• Conversation contributes to your family’s overall happiness.When you and your husband are communicating clearly and feeling open with one another, it helps you have a more positive outlook on life. And, believe it or not, the conversations you have with your husband make your kids happier, too—it is actually more important for kids to know their parents love each other than it is for kids to know that their parents love them!

(article via experimentalwifery.com - image via weheartit)