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The last three weeks have been a blur of activity -Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Day, my son finding and moving to his perfect place to live, the contractor finalizing the plans and setting the date for our new kitchen remodeling job, tax season beginning, …. I’m sure there’s more but I think I may have missed it as it whizzed by.

One thing I didn’t miss was the New Year and taking the time to review my goals from last year and to begin writing my goals for 2013.  Each year, I take my time with the goals and give myself a week or so to think them through and write them out. Sometimes my goal list is a little more like a journal or a letter to myself than the more typical list of New Years resolutions. Once I’m all done, though, I’ll go back and pick the most important goals to concentrate on and I’ll write them in a few powerful words so that they will be easy to remember and review.

How about you?  Did you make any New Year’s resolutions?

Here are two tools for helping you to keep your New Year’s resolutions –

How to Achieve Your Goals  – make it simple with 7 steps that nearly insure your success

Automatic Investing – A Secret of the Rich – this is posted on our sister site, The Fat Dollar

I hope that you had a very Happy New Year!

This recipe for Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies has been popular on the Simple Life Corp site.  They are deceptively simple – just five ingredients (including the Hershey kiss) – and require no flour.

If you are looking for a quick cookie to make for a gift basket or for a last minute party, this is an excellent choice.

The ingredients are:  peanut butter, sugar, baking soda, egg, and Hershey Kisses.

That’s it.

Really.

When you taste them, you’d swear they are made with flour and butter and all the standard cookie ingredients.

No one has to know it took you ten minutes to stir them up and put them in the oven.

Get the recipe here.  Simple Life Corp – Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies 

I hope that you found this helpful!

Happy Holidays!

Are you looking for ideas for low cost gifts?  You’d like the gift to have some meaning, yet avoid the extravagances? On our sister site, The Fat Dollar, I’ve posted a long list of gift ideas that will be special, yet still within budget.  Click here to visit the article More Inexpensive Gift Ideas – $10 or Less.

A gift is an expression.  It can be an expression of love, of gratitude, an acknowledgement, an expression of friendship, or just a fun exchange.  What makes a gift special is not the cost, but the ability of the gift to convey to the recipient that they are special in some way and that the giver of the gift has made an effort to truly connect with them and has paid attention to their interests, needs, and unique qualities.

This is why a silk tie with an unusual design would be a puzzling, even disappointing present for most men, yet would be absolutely cherished by a man who makes a hobby of collecting and wearing odd ties.  Along the same line a Mickey-Mouse-driving-a-race-car tie might be a delight for Dad when his four-year-old proudly and excitedly announces that he specially picked that tie himself because Dad had taken him to Disney World last summer.  Of course that still doesn’t mean that Dad will actually wear the tie.

Here are a few of the gift ideas from The Fat Dollar article:

An Adoration or Admiration box – decorate a box and fill it with slips of paper where each slip has one statement about something that the giver loves, admires, or appreciates about the recipient.

Mother Earth News is having a sale of many items less than $10 – bamboo coasters, organic cotton oven mitt, more

Several book ideas for men, kids, and cat lovers.

Amazon has a Leather Kindle Cover for $9.9

Growums has several garden kits for $9.99 each

Reading lights from Amazon and KMart

Bottle of wine – and listed links to help you find a excellent bottle for $10

Zorbitz bracelets – $6.99 to $9.99

And over 25 more suggestions at The Fat Dollar-

Just a bit over two weeks left until Christmas.  How about you?  What ideas do you have for gifts where the expression is bigger than the price tag?

Amazon links are our affiliate link in association with Amazon.com

When something is out of balance in our lives, it can cause other areas of our lives to tilt into what feels like chaos.

As an accountant, balance is a nearly obsessive trait of my profession, especially in the area of bookkeeping.  Ok, ok, maybe balance is more than nearly an obsession.  While that is often confining, like many extremes that we experience, it has taught  me some lessons in dealing with life.

No, no.  I’m not going to insist that each and every part of your life must be in perfect balance in order for you to be happy.  (You’d expect that advice from an accountant, wouldn’t you?)  Maybe 10 years ago I would have offered that, but I’ve stumbled my way through to realizing just how stifling it is to expect perfection with everything, even in the field of accounting.

What I am going to suggest as something that you may want to try is a method that I frequently use in my CPA practice when working with client projects.  When a bookkeeping error emerges and the accounts won’t balance, it can often seem like all the numbers are wrong and the books are just hopelessly out of balance.  When that happens, or preferably before we  reach that point of frustration,  we have two methods that help us to quickly hone in on the problem.

First, we calculate the amount that we are off.  For example, if a checkbook register won’t balance to the bank statement, we subtract the bank balance figure from the adjusted check register figure to determine the dollar amount of the imbalance.  Sometimes this is all that is necessary … we may calculate that we are $23.92 off and glance at the register or the bank statement and see a check or a debit for that amount and zoom right in on the area of the problem.

Second, if we have not already quickly found the issue, we will start matching and eliminating the areas that do balance.  In our same example, we may be able to add up the deposits on the register and determine that the total balances with the amount showing for total deposits on the bank statement.  We continue on with different totals and sections of the check register/bank statement to find out what does balance and to hone in on the section that does not balance. This eliminates the need to go over the register or bank statement line by line to find the problem.

Usually, when we combine these two methods, we very quickly find the pesky imbalance.  Pesky is a mild word sometimes, but we won’t go there right now.  Once we correct the number, it seems almost miraculous to find that all the numbers depending on that one calculation now snap back into place and the books are now in balance.

So how could this possibly relate to the real world?  Or more specifically, to your beautiful life?

Let’s start with the larger picture:  When your life feels chaotic, or totally out of balance, it feels like everything is tilted.  Nothing makes sense, everything seems out of your control, you are exhausted, confused, and demoralized.

In the project of life, flipping the sequence of the above steps may be the answer for helping you get your life back in balance.

First, start backwards.  What is working? Maybe you’ve still managed to eat healthy meals, however hurried. Maybe you are getting to work on time everyday, even though your mind is racing during the whole commute.  Maybe your mom or spouse is being extra supportive, even though there is not much they can really do.  Maybe you have a lovely home that you’ve managed to keep more or less clean.  Maybe the kids are happy with their school and friends.

Once you start setting aside the areas that are fundamentally working, even though your mind has been too frazzled to allow you to appreciate them, then you can begin honing in on the area or areas that really are out of balance.  For example, once you’ve recognized that things are basically fine with your home, your spouse, your kids, and even your mom, then you may realize that it is your job that is out of balance and that imbalance is spilling out and affecting the rest of your life.

So now you can further examine the job.  Do the same exercise: determine what is fundamentally fine with your work and then begin your close examination of the areas that are creating the disruption.

You may determine that you have acceptably good co-workers, a great boss, an easy commute, and good pay.  Yet you dislike the type of work or maybe the workload is overwhelming.

Once you’ve defined the offending areas, now go back to our step one: figure out, as best you can, just how much it is out of balance. You may decide that the workload will be crushing for  just for the next two weeks, or you may decide that you don’t want to deal directly with customers anymore, or perhaps you really can’t stand accounting (gasp!) and you want a line of work that is less rigid.

Now that you know the area that is causing all the unrest and you have calculated a measure of the problem, you can more easily begin to work on solutions.  Maybe you will just endure the next two weeks by meditating or temporarily relaxing your other responsibilities, or maybe you will ask for a shift in your duties, or maybe you will decide to go back to school to train for a different career.

It’s easier to work on the one identified area than it is to have the feeling that you are helpless because you think your whole life is hopelessly tangled.

Now, realistically it may not always be this simple.  Sometimes more than one thing has become problematic.  Maybe your toddler (or teenager) is acting out, you just got transferred into a department with the boss from h*ll, and at the same time the mortgage company just sent you a lovely notice that your monthly payment is going to increase by $203.00 a month.

You can still use the same process when multiple parts of your life seem upsetting .  Acknowledge the areas that are really fine, even though you’ve been too harried to acknowledge them.  Then begin to examine the areas that do need your attention.  Ask your self what might bring your life back in balance.

Start with one of the ideas and figure out the steps you need to take to fix it  You will often  be surprised to find that when one area comes back into balance, that other areas settle back into balance, too.  For example, you may find that once your are at ease because you have determined how you will pay the extra $203.00 monthly mortgage payment,  your toddler (or teenager) may pick up on your cues and relax a little, too.

There is another part of balancing accounting records that you should know:  when searching for solutions, sometimes you need to guess.  Sometimes, we will pencil in the correction that we think will work, and we run the numbers to see if it works.  Hurray if it does, back to the drawing board if it does not.

You will find that sometimes, even though you know the area of imbalance, you will need to take your best guess about what will solve the problem, and then take a step or two to see if it really is the solution.  If you think you need a new career, you may sign up for a class in the new field, or you may spend a day researching to determine which career you may prefer. From there, you can decide to either continue on, or you can start again with a new set of steps in another direction.

And in life, not only is everything not always in balance, but it’s often perfectly ok for a few things to be out of balance or imperfect.  The secret is in getting things enough in balance that you are able to easily flow with the changes and challenges as they appear.

Now, about your check register….

What has inspired me this week? A video from Brian Tracy. Tracy is a life coach, speaker, business consultant, and the author of a multitude of books and audio programs.

This video is only a little over 2-1/2 minutes long, but Brian Tracy delivers a potent message. The message is zero based thinking, a concept of questioning everything in your life. The challenge is what you will do with the answer. Acting on this video would change your life.

I wonder if I have the courage to follow Brian Tracy’s advice.    How about you?

“Do you know that it is perfectly normal to feel resistance or anxiety when you attempt something new? I always feel it. I used to think it meant I should not do the thing I was contemplating.”
~ Lynn A Robinson, M.Ed.

“Most people live lives of quiet desperation.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
       – Thornton Wilder

Some of the most radiant moments of my day are when I write in my gratitude journal.  It takes just a few moments to do the actual entries, but I find myself reflecting back over my entire day as I think of the things that brought a smile or a sense of happiness to me.

A sense of gratitude is something that can be consciously developed and increased. Keeping a journal helps you to develop a habit of being aware of all the things that are positive and supportive in your life.  It clarifies the moments of joy and reminds you to stop and take notice when you realize that you have stumbled onto one of those moments.

I’ve just read a blog post which lists some excellent research into all of the benefits of gratitude – The 31 Benefits of Gratitude You Didn’t Know About: how Gratitude Can Change Your Life – on the Happier Human blog.   I’ve already experienced some of the benefits – help in relaxing, feeling happier, and being more optimistic.  However, I didn’t realize that gratitude can boost your career, help you sleep better, and even keep you healthier, and that’s just a sample of Amit’s list of benefits.

One piece of his research that I found fascinating is Amit’s chart comparing the increase of happiness in winning the lottery vs. keeping a gratitude journal.  Winning the lottery shows an immediate burst of increased happiness that begins a sharp decline.  Keeping a gratitude journal starts an upward curve of happiness that exceeds the happiness of winning the lottery (and continues the upward slope) after just three months. By this chart, if you want to have lasting happiness, you are better off keeping a gratitude journal than you would be from winning the lottery!

Take a look at the article How to Start a Gratitude Journal if you’d like some guidance and ideas on starting and keeping your own journal.

Get a note book out and start noting the things that you are grateful for.  It could change your life … in 31 different ways!

Have you tried a gratitude journal?  What are you grateful for?

In peace,

Patti

“Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”
– Oprah Winfrey

Related post: Start a Gratitude Journal, Love Your Life

I’ve had a life-long battle with an overloaded to-do list.  And yes, I make to-do lists.  Quite faithfully.  I not only make them, I use them, thoughtfully writing down all the tasks, errands, chores, projects, and missions that I would like to complete.  When I’ve finished a task, I feel great satisfaction in making a little check mark next to a completed task and then drawing a nice, straight line through the item on the list. Done.

Over the years, I’ve learned how to get things done, but I’m still a work in progress.  I’ve scoured the virtual shelves at Amazon and Audible and kept a steady stream of book packages and digital downloads on how to get things done flowing to the house.  I enjoyed the simple approach in Leo Babauta’s Less is More, the obsessive-compulsive part of me appreciated the more complex approach in David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

As I started my journey of simplifying my life I became aware that an overloaded to-do list was a symptom of a cluttered life.  Specifically, I realized that sometimes I get paralyzed in completing things on my list because there are just too many things on the list.  Choosing to complete one task meant choosing NOT to do several others. “Which ones won’t I do?” was a much harder question than “Which ones will I do?”  In fact, it was so hard that I would often not even face the decision and in effect the choice was made for me … I did nothing.

This is one area where simplifying your life can have a real impact.  Stepping back to see the big picture of your life and your activities, will first of all make it clear that you will never, ever, really get it all done.  Accepting that can be hard, especially if you are a goal-oriented individual.

But accepting that it will never all get done is also liberating.  The to-do list becomes just an endless scroll with some things accomplished, some erased, and some stubbornly remaining, unchanged, on the list.  As the scroll rolls on, the pressure is relieved from trying to do it all.  You realize that it is not a test; it is not a measurement of your worth or your competence. The things that don’t get done will probably work themselves out. The to-do list flows on.  Nothing more, nothing less.

I still have many moments when I find myself in the frenzy of trying to get every last thing done.  I’m getting better at pausing and realizing that often when I do the one or two most important things, then there seems to be a subtle shift which makes many other things seem to fall into place.  So now I’m working on making my focus be to work on the one or two priorities as though they are the only items on my list.  That can be hard to get started on, but much easier to do once I’ve begin the task and have settled into the flow of working toward completion.

In a later post, I’ll share some of the methods I’ve learned from my reading and following advice on time management and goal setting.  Meantime, though, there is magic in the acceptance that not everything will get done. It makes it so much easier to choose what not to do by choosing what most definitely I will do.

How about you?  Do you make t0-do lists?  Do you get everything done?

In peace,

Patti

When the tomatoes and peppers begin to ripen in my garden, they have a rather distressing habit of ripening all at once.

My area (northern Indiana) has a freeze warning tonight. A freeze warning is a signal of the official end of the growing season. Many of the plants will survive a light frost. Virtually none of the vegetables and flowers in my gardens will survive a freeze. Summer, for us, is officially over.

We brought in two bushel baskets of tomatoes and peppers today, to save them from the freeze.  (Two bushels!)  I’m not even sure what I’ll do with all these, but I know I’ll be busy making tomato sauce and chopping tomatoes for freezing. I’ll also chop up most of the peppers and put them in the freezer.  Apparently many other gardeners are doing the same thing because the Simple Life page on how to freeze fresh tomatoes, the quick easy way has become very popular.

I’ve posted the steps and the recipe for Spanish Rice here if you’d like to try it.

I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did.

Have you been stuck trying to solve a problem or make a decision and finding yourself nearly obsessed with reviewing the pros and cons and possible outcomes?  You’ve done the research, yet still cannot get a clear answer.  You’re frozen, somehow sure that no matter what path you take, a dire result awaits you.  For example, if you choose the new job, you’re certain the new company will fold after six months, leaving you penniless.  If you stay with the old job, you’ll receive small but secure and steady paychecks while your mind grows cobwebs and all hope of a better future becomes covered in layers of dust.

Your mind just keeps going in circles with the dreaded possible outcomes.  You don’t know how to get unstuck.

In an earlier post, Waiting for an Answer – Are You Listening?, we looked at a solution for this offered by Joseph Murphy.  Today a similar, yet with a different perspective, piece of wisdom is offered by Elkhart Tolle from the Oprah.com article Eckhart Tolle: When You Don’t Know What to Do. 

Eckhart Tolle calls this circular thinking “the voice in your head”.  It follows you around, criticizing, predicting all sorts of dire outcomes, chiding you for your selfishness, ridiculing your skills, making you feel guilty for wanting change.

But what if you could stop the voice?  Even for a few minutes?  What if you could just have delicious, beautiful silence, free of the droning racket of the voice in your head?

Elkhart Tolle considers this silence an essential part of finding clarity and making a decision.  Your sensory perceptions increase.  Your presence in the moment becomes fuller.  The movie screen running pictures of all the possible tragic outcomes goes blank.

What happens then? You begin to realize that right now things are really ok, that all along you’ve been able to do things to get to this moment and that you do have the ability to move moment by moment through your life.  You also realize that you’ll be able to see the difference between realistic paths and the overblown drama that the voice in your head predicts.  And you also realize that no matter what you do, in the long run you’ll be ok, that you can handle both expected and unexpected events.  You’ll realize that no choice is perfect and that it’s possible that both are more or less equal and that it will be how you create the outcome that really matters.

Eckhart Tolle tells us to stay present, completely in the moment, and let your  mind stay in stillness.  From there the right solution will often spontaneously appear in your thoughts.

With that kind of confidence and clarity, even though the outcome is not completely certain, you will be able to make a choice.

In peace,

Patti

Do you have a problem with hectic days, yet little seems to get accomplished? I know I often do.

In her book, The Purpose of Your Life Experiential Guide, Carol Adrienne had a quote that caught my eye:

“‘I have forgotten something’, said a man to the Sufi poet Rumi. ‘There is one thing that must never be forgotten,’ Rumi replied. ‘It is as if a king had sent you to a foreign country with a task to perform. You go and perform many other tasks. But if you fail to perform the task for which you were sent, it will be as if you had done nothing at all.'”
~ Harry R. Moody

This profound bit of wisdom relates to our overall dreams and goals as well to our daily lives.

How many days do we have where we are busy, busy, busy but the essential item or two on our to-do list never got done? Have you wanted to look for a new job? Spend more time with your child or spouse? Start a retirement plan? Remodel the kitchen? Call your Mom? Plan a stellar vacation? Set up a budget? Complete an important project? Clean the garage so you can park your car in it?

What is your one task, the essential one that you either must finish or that you long to finish? What is the first or next step that starts the process to get the task done? Choose the task and choose the step and put your energy and focus on it each day until it is done. Make it the relaxed, yet uncompromising center of your focus. When you have a free 5 minutes or 30 minutes, go to the task. Let it call to you and keep the action going, no matter how small. That’s how things get done.

I think I’m speaking to myself on this one.

Patti

P.S.  In case you are interested in Carol Adrienne’s book, here is the Amazon link to The Purpose of Your Life Experiential Guide: The Proven Program to Help You Find Your Reason for Being.  This is Simple Life’s affiliate link,  you can search for it directly if you prefer.  The book is a very in depth, workbook-type book for helping you through a major life change, such as a change in career.  I’ve had it for some time and finally put it on my desk. I’ll post a review once I finish reading it.  Right now, I’m almost through with Rachael Jayne Groover’s book – Powerful and Feminine: How to Increase Your Magnetic Presence  … I’m loving it! See my earlier blog post for more information on Rachael’s book.