My Everything and Nothing Blog

Bread making

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 20:10:00 +0000

Hello together ;)

I just read some aritcles and thought I drop some lines here. As I wrote in the last post I'm quite busy getting in shape. One thing that I haven't figured out jet is the nutrition part. Your probably irritated by that but it's the truth. I don't know which of the many opinions is the one that suits for me and my lifestyle. I already tried a lot but I'm still not lean and my passion for chocolate is slowing down the overall progress.
I tried to go low carb but it love pasta, bread, and ohh cake, and cookies and,.......
Speaking of bread, I recently found a great ted talk about bread I'd like to share:

:) I especially love the relation between bread and beer. For the upcoming week I'll try to eat as clean as possible until Saturday and then I'll celebrate my cheat day and eat as much chocolate as I want to.

About the season or where is snow when you need it the most.....

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 15:00:00 +0000

The past weeks had been so incredible fast, insane, and awesome that I forgot about my cute little blog :(. After our holidays in Italy I jumped back on work, studying, teaching and exercising. Luckily I taught most of my classes by now and the general background noise (called work) will soften by the end of next week.
I still cannot believe that I haven’t used my snowboard for more than 3 weeks know. It’s a strange feeling. For the first time in my life I don’t like to switch to the summer season. I guess that’s passion. Hopefully we will go snowboarding once more before as a season closing weekend.
Here is a picture from our last day in Italy. We made some videos as well but I haven’t had the time to load up the good and the worst ones. Stay tuned I will definitively post some.

Let’s talk a bit about the insane part of the past weeks. In January I started to change my habits a bit. I stopped eating at the companies restaurant and started to climb (well crawl up) the stairs to my office. I also started to swim for an hour every week. I was desperate to get back in shape and I also considered it a wake-up call. During the NLP seminar I figured out that also I wanted to be slim I never worked towards this goal with emphasis. It was just a goal but not the goal. Somehow I wanted change but I didn’t want to do much for it.
One of my NLP course mates told me about a program called Insanity where you can have rocking results in only 60 days. I thought that’s hinky US marketing stuff. Being desperate enough I took a look and gave it a try. Here is an infomercial for you:

I’m in week three now and boy I was wrong with most of my assumptions on fitness and the program in general. It really is insane and it really is not for everybody. At the beginning I was struggling through the warm up.
Result wise I’m quite satisfied, I do shape up.

Even though I like the workouts, doing them is not as much fun as snowboarding. Especially now with all the stuff going on I miss the opportunity to leave everything behind me by taking a good ride in the snow.

So apparently I’m stuck for the next six month. I researched a bit about carpet snowboarding but I don’t think that it is an alternative but who knows.

Take care.
Christina

User Experience Design

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:00:00 +0000

Good morning everyone.

I often find it difficult to explain my day job. So I was exited when I found this clip to visiulize what I'm doing most of the time. Enjoy the clip:

CU
Christina

Key factors for success

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 06:30:00 +0000

As you might have guessed from the previous posts I'm really into motivation, nutrition, mental training, and coaching right now.
One possibility to get successful in a specific area is to find a model and to learn as much as possible from your model. A while ago I googled something like "training methods Shaun White" because I wanted to figure out how he learned all the tricks etc. Unfortunately, there was not so much about training routines but I found a really inspiring interview. I guess it's a bit older but the amazing thing is that you can find so much wisdom in interviews if you read them carefully.
So here is a part of the article I want you to take a look at:

We don’t see you bail often, but you did manage to smack your head pretty nicely at the X-Games this year. How do you keep yourself out of the hospital?

A lot of it is just riding within your own limits. You try to push yourself, but if you step to something you’re not ready for... Something I learned when I was really young was to fully commit. When I was 8 or 9, I’d see so many kids who’d want to learn a backflip at the Mt. Hood Summer Camp in Oregon. And every single one would panic as soon as they got up in the air, stop rotating and land on their heads.

And that motivated you to smack your head too?

I just realized at that point that if they’d fully committed, they would have been way better off landing on their butts or their backs than upside down. Ever since then, I’ve never gone into a trick without fully committing to it.

The second I read this I knew why I ended up riding against an obstacle two years ago instead of over it. I wasn't committed enough to just do it but I was too interested to just watch the others. Fear bet excitement and I ended up with some bruises. I'll try to take the obstacle this season and this time I'll make sure that I'm committed for two reasons: first I don't really like bruises and second I just don't like things to be unfinished. Let's get back to commitment in general.
During my time at the university I learned a lot about motivation and success factors both individual ones and those for enterprises. You also heard about commitment being on of the key factors but did this knowledge helped you to get better in anything? Chances are hight that it didn't.
I often searched and willingly accepted other ~~excuses~~ reasons for not hitting the highest score or for not achieving my goals.
When I started thinking about my commitments I figured out that in some areas e.g. nutrition and exercise I functioned on autopilot most of the time. Only when I was close to hit the limits I set myself I started to work out panically.
To be honest it never worked, I intended to finalize my shape last year but got carried away further than I wanted to. I just wasn't committed to my own goal.
Since really getting in shape has been a goal for years now (and I think it is a life long goal for most women) I committed myself to it and somehow everything starts to get easier now.
I'm longing for the summer season to show the results I got :).

Just try it for one tiny aspect of your life commit yourself to have a clean desk or a gorgeous kitchen. Accept that excuses are not allowed and make sure this is a top priority in your life (that even means to stand up earlier to take action).

Take care
Christina

Get Off Your Arse and Lose Weight

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:16:00 +0000

This book is completely different from all the books I ever read. It is written in a straight talking way and the none-sense free approach is an alleviation to my frayed nerves.

There are just too many people believing that one day a miracle will happen and all their issues in live will be solved at once.

So the big question is: why are we the way we are? When it comes to weight and health Steve Miller's answer is because we are lazy lard asses who are not eating what we should and who do not exercise as much as we should.

I really appreciated the way he tackles people who have an excuse for everything. Everybody knows one or more of these people who act that way. Here's a question to think about: can you stand them? Have you ever been inspired by one of these whiners?

Here are my top 5 excuses and I always have to focus on something else to stay the polite person I want to be:

I am too busy to exercise - really? That's hard to believe the proper way to express what these people have in mind is "I'm too comfortable with everything and I really don't want to change that because I know that that could be tough. I also might be forced to admit that the way I lived was not a healthy one."
I have this and that condition (fill in what ever organ you like) - okay that excludes you from a healthy lifestyle? I don't think so. I know people who are really sick and they are capable of maintaining a decent diet and recreational activities although they are challenged. So think again.
Eating X once in a while is okay because I don't do it regularly. - Right but consider all the X's you can possibly think about. Many people have way too many of them and altogether they consume at least one of the X candidates per day.
First I have to solve ... (fill in whatever you want, the ones I like most are medical conditions, jobs, and other assignment) - The problem is that new things to be solved will bubble up as soon as you solved the existing one. That will prevent you from achieving your goals even before you started. If that's your favorite excuse, I'm really sorry for you.
I rather enjoy food than eating salad all day. - I'm speechless. Yeah, go ahead, do whatever you want and leave me alone.

The saying I particularly like is: "If you do not perform in any part of your life as you want to, there is something you don't know yet."

Although the essentials of the book are not very new to me, the way it was written helped me to ban even the smallest excuses I have regarding my eating habits and exercises. I'll try some ideas from the book and combine them with other knowledge I recently gained.

Thank you Steve for broadening my view.

There will be no advice from me today. Enjoy life, as it is, if you like the way it is. If you enjoy excuses and nourishing new ones, feel free to do so but don't ask me to except them :)

Take Care

Christina

Studies on the brain obesity

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:38:00 +0000

Here is a wakeup call. Some days ago a read some articles about brain inflammation and obesity. You might think right now: "Come on girl you are not obese, maybe a little bit too chubby but definitively not obese. So why shout you care". To be honest I care because it scares hell out of me. Two years ago I found out that belly fat increases the risk of diabetes. Although using fear as a motivator isn't the best idea, I shed some kilos and never gained them back.
Let's get back to the original story. Scientists figured out that obese people have a constant inflammation in their brains. That doesn't mean that obese people are less intelligent than others but the inflammation affects areas of the brain that are responsible for self-control.
Isn't that interesting?
I always thought that self-control, motivation, vision, and the right choice of food are the ingredients for a healthy lifestyle. Well, it seems that self-control might be something that's not equally distributed among all people. Thus what are we going to do with this piece of information? In my case I'm going to put it on the "things I don't want to have in my life list". The list is not very long because I usually focus on things I want to have in my life more than the opposite site.
In case you do have a hard time to control yourself in terms of food or exercise, I can recommend you to use the other factors :). To have ha vision is vital; you need to know where you want to be before you get started otherwise it will be hard.
For 2011 I want to regain physical fitness. So I pictured my future self to be fit by no means and I figured out what I could do during the day. Also I knew that walking stairs is beneficial, I always avoided them as much as possible. Now I’m giving it a try and I do walk the stares to my office (9 floors) at least once during the day. Believe me small things can have a huge impact.

Procrastination

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 07:00:00 +0000

Irony of studying psychology. I need to read texts about procrastination which are so boring that I rather procrastinate than reading them. :)

New Gears

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:00:00 +0000

After one year of failure, directly followed by a year full of pain, and a couple of years of fun, I developed a passion for snowboarding. Today I’ll pick up our boards from being prepared and repaired for the upcoming holidays, and recreational days in the Black Forest. So I thought I let you know a bit about the gears I recently bought:

I wanted to have a new binding for a while and waited desperately until the old one looked bad enough to be exchanged. This time I bought a K2 Cassette binding. Until today I didn’t regret the choice.

Another piece that I wanted to buy for a while is a protector vest. Mine is black but the picture was way better in white ;).

At the moment I’m fully equipped for the season and I’m longing to go. Please let it snow!!!

Christina

Happy New Year

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 11:59:00 +0000

Jippiii a new year. From the depth of my heard I wish that this year will be your year, so that you will accomplish everything you want to. The first days of the year passed by so fast and had been awesome!
Last weekend Andreas and I visited our NLP Practitioner course and learned a lot about motivation. Although I never would have thought that I'll be verbalizing this, starting to learn NLP was the best decision I took in the past year.
Unfortunately, NLP skills cannot be demonstrated in a blog post. To compensate for that I like to invite you to take a look at some pictures I took in Berlin:

Take care!

Christina

Christmas time...

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 05:51:00 +0000

... always flies by so fast. We spend the past days at Andreas' mother's home and yesterday we arrived at my mother's home to spend a couple of days too. Christmas has been awesome so far. Due to the wonderful and snowy weather it really feels like winter these days.
Among all the beautiful presents I got was a new camera. Thus we took a short walk through the center of Neuötting to take some pictures of the scenery:

On the second day of Christmas we went ice skating which was fun. Andreas gave his new noise reducing headphones a chance and is quite sure that he will use them.

Although I love early hours I have to admit that I finally feel tired :). So I'll write about all the other things that happened (e.g. trying out a new gear at Reit im Winkel), and some thoughts I had, after breakfast which will be rather later than sooner.

Take care

Christina

Winter here we come

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 05:48:00 +0000

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Childhood memories

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:26:00 +0000

Do you remember all the special sweets and plates you just loved as a kid? I do and once in a while I like to just try some of them. Unfortunately, somehow our tast changes a lot and the good old things aren't so good anymore. The strawberries above are really interesting. I used to love them but to be honest they are gross. The tast is awfully artifical and they are not really sweet. Either the manufacturer changed the recipe or all the deliciouse healthy food I ate changed my internal "like-list".

How to receive a gift!

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 17:35:00 +0000

This time I'll talk a bit about receiving because I figured out that it's often an issue of discomfort. Just remember the time when you were a kid. Every-time when you got a present your parents probably said that you should say "thank you". Quite easy isn't it. The reason why children tend to forget to say thank you is because they are either thrilled by the gift itself and want to try it out now, or because they are overwhelmed from all the impressions around them.
As kids we don't question peoples' intentions we just assume that there is someone who likes to give something to us and we just receive it. Once grown up the world is different. We learned how to play the game. We know the rules of society. Really?
I read a lot about cultural development and personal development during the past weeks and I observed how people act. Think about your loved ones and the not so loved ones. Why do you like one part of your family and why not the others? Maybe it's because the first ones honor and respect your ideas and make you feel comfortable whereas the other don't believe in you or trust you? How did you figured out who's on which side? Normally people don't say specifically that they don't value you as a person but there are ways to convey that message. One for example is to spoil the process of receiving presents. The best place to try that one out is Christmas! Here are idiot prove phrases that will make sure nobody is ever going to prepare something special for you:

That really wouldn't have been necessary.
You really shouldn't have spent so much money for a present.
For Christ's sake are you mad making me such a gift?

Perfect! You can be sure that you will receive a bunch of crap as birthday presents because nobody will be in the mood to do something special for you.
Receiving a gift is easy isn't it? What most people forget is that making a gift is only a way of communication. Since communication never is a one way channel you should think about your response! Someone makes a gift to someone to show love, gratitude, or respect and the last thing that person wants to hear is that is was not necessary to do so. Thus to make both sides happy practice to receive gifts. Sometimes old parental guidelines are not the worst way to react :). When I heard about this strategy I was quit irritated but I practiced receiving for a week by just saying "thank you" for every complement or gift no matter how big or small it was and now it feels great.

Try it, there is still enough time left (43 days) until Christmas.
Cheers Christina

Relaxation

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 20:14:00 +0000

Guess what :) I had a fabulous weekend. Although we took a course in communication, and had not been home much I am relaxed, and motivated. I even got most of the stuff for the university done but that's less important than the fact that I nearly finished my sisters' christmas calendars.
Do you want to have a preview? Here's a picture:

I'll post some more as soon as I am ready with both calendars. I started wrapping the gifts this morning at 6:30 AM, or something like that. As I already stated a very productive weekend. There is something else I finished today:

I was caught by Andreas when I filled the beanbags and he asked who is supposed to leave the company this time, which reminded me that I'm crafting too many farewell gifts. These beanbags are not really a farewell gift because I am sure that I will spend a lot of time with the one who will receive them.

Greetings from Christina,

who cannot wait any longer to finally go snowboarding again.

Knitting Projects

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 17:30:00 +0000

I wrote a while ago, that I finished the summer project. Why do knitting projects always tend to get ready when the season is over? It's probably destiny, or the lack of interest once there are three of four parts finished. It's the same with my winter project. I only need to put in the sleeves and the main zipper but I really don't want to work on it at the moment.

So I stored it in my closet. I sewed last weekend but not on that project. You know it's going to be Christmas soon.

Cake :)

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 17:59:00 +0000

I really missed being in the office. Well, that's not really the truth, I didn't miss all the uncool stuff like priority shifts etc., but I missed the colleague who always knows where to find cake. Thus I had to make cake on my own. I decided to do something with apples. The decision wasn't caused by our strong longing for apples or anything related to the nutritional benefits "eating apples" might have, it was due to the fact that we had a massive amount of apples.
I decided to try something new and so we had "French Apple Pie". Please don't ask me why it's called "French", it's really not that special, apart from the rather complicated process of baking parts of it twice.

Today is All Saints Day and we used it to do (more or less) recreational things. I spent the day with Christmas preparations, sewing, and bread baking. Andreas fixed his PC and Rolf eliminated tones of paper :), as I said more or less recreational.

Thus today we had raisin bread instead of cake. To be honest I just can't stand apples anymore. I tried to mix them into our meals as often as possible but I'm still not a hugh apple lover.

Here is a picture of the bread and the orange butter:

The Wall - part two

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 23:22:00 +0000

Facing the most horrible three hours of its life the wall knows that you never ever should trust comforting silence. The ones from upstairs really had the nerve to put in a door.

Before they finished the door they also made other strange things. They brought metal things and green stuff downstairs. There must have been a source of that green stuff upstairs.

After bringing these green stuff downstairs they started to put all these things together:

In the end there was a new wall. The ones from above argued about sockets, they weren't sure yet were to place the sockets.

The wall felt released at least the ones from upstairs were done with it. It wished the new wannabe wall good luck and decided not to worry anymore.

Once upon a time...

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:38:00 +0000

... there was a wall.

The wall was bored being a wall. The thoughts of wall had been: "how lucky I am, I am a wall. Well, a useless wall, which has nothing to carry but indeed a wall. I live in the basement and nobody is there to disturb me. The ones from above already pierced me to hang up a picture, so nothing can happen to me now".
The wall was wrong :)

Now we proudly own a new door in the basement. Tomorrow we will put up a wall and soon there will be sauna waiting for us to relax.
Stay tuned, there will be a lot to look at soon.

Handbag

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:56:00 +0000

I soon will be famous for my handbag. We are preparing a webinar with a "how to session" at work at the moment and one of my colleagues asked me if he could have my bag to use as a demo item. The upside of that project is that it's quite different from what I usually do at work, and of couse that I got a nice picture of that purse ;). I'm really curiouse how this whole webinar thing will turn out. Apparently, webinars seem to be a big issue in the US. They do exist in Germany too but I couldn't find noteworthy ones :(.
It's odd to start this weeks post with work related topics, because I am on holiday. Well, we decided to use a full week for construction issues in our home. To show all the changes we already made we took some pictures. I'll post some as soon as Andreas converted them ;).

Until then take care.
Christina

Autumn

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 16:54:00 +0000

As you can see autumn arrived with all the great and not so great aspects. The world got quite colorful, well, if you can spot anything due to the fog. Although I enjoy every day as much as I can, my mind is already preparing for Christmas. I guess that's because of all the cookies and stuff in the supermarket. To be well prepared for Christmas this year I already started to motivate my violin teacher to pick up some pieces :). Somehow he is not as motivated as I am.... but I'm not the only Christmas maniac at the moment. Some colleagues from work are already enjoying Christmas cookies like cinnamon stars, and "Dominosteine".

Apart from Christmas, I'm longing for the next snowboard event. I don't know why but I missed it so much.

Let's go back to reality, it's autumn and that's fine too. We did cool things during the past days and weekends. One of the most interesting thing we did was visiting the maize maze at night. Just imagine a field of corn with aisles inside which form a maze. We had to find six hidden places and we found them all.

We used some kind of algorithmic trick to master the maze. Unfortunately it didn't work out the way we wanted it and we had to use our gadgets to find the last place.

To sum it up, maize maise is fun! Hiking boots are an advantage, and don't believe everything a computer scientist states.

Autumn also brought us fruits :). Both of our apple trees had apples this year. Yippii I threatened the bigger tree because it tends to grow instead of being productive. How do you threaten a tree, you might ask yourself. I learned this particular way of dealing with plants from my mother in law and I really never believed in it but I thought it's worth a try. Basically you threaten trees exactly the way you would threaten a human. Just tell them what you are going to do to them if they don't full fill the desired state. For my tree it was something like this: "no apples this year and I'll cut you down". Worked! Here is a picture of Andreas harvesting the apples:

Craft wise there is nothing to post yet. The summer sweater is still waiting for a union of the body part and the last sleeve. I started a winter project but I'm still in the middle of it. I played piano a lot in the past and I practiced singing. I guess the seminar caused the change. I listened to great classical pieces and I want to be able to sing them all. Due to a small cold I'm not hitting the really high notes at the moment but soon I will.

Normality restored!

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 18:23:00 +0000

Hello fellow readers :),

normality returned during the past days. Last Monday I wrote my exams and after that I took the week off. Well, not really, I went to work and did a lot of stuff but I used my spare-time only for actions I really wanted to do. To give you a hint most of the time I spent sleeping, watching star trek, or practicing singing.
The weekend prior to my exams had been an eye- , more an ear-opener, for me. I picked up a masterclass seminar in classical singing. The place where it was held is plainly beautiful:

I don't remember why I had that seminar on my annual resolution list but it was worth it. My emotions ranged from pure fear up to real happiness. I learned that apparently I didn't learn how to sing, or practice singing properly during the past 3 years. That might sound a bit harsh, but somehow it's true. I finally understood some of the fundamental techniques and I do know how to practice. Apart from singing related topics I also learned a lot about myself. Thus I do not regret any second of that weekend. Maybe I'll be visiting that masterclass next year again.

What else? I should have made some notes on what happened...

Some colleagues are going to leave the company or have already left. So the atmosphere is frosty at work. According to a Dutch proverb is every goodbye the birth of a memory. Maybe that's why we celebrate every going-aways. Such moments are always a chance to be creative and prepare a gift.

For the last one I sew 8 beanbags, one for each remaining team member to sign. Here is a picture of the bag I made for the beanbags:

This weekend is a somewhat odd. The weather had been stunning but still something is missing. I knitted my summer sweater and I'm nearly done. I know some 4 month to late. Well, at least I'll be ready for next summer. I'll post a picture as soon as possible.

Enjoy the day and take care.
Me.

Life is like...

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:30:00 +0000

I love life is like posts. I think I had one on life is like a roller-coaster already. Today the theme is "life is like a high school cafeteria". This simile applies to all aspects of life but especially to business. Having had a conversation lately that amused me I was reminded that I wanted to write another "life is like" post. So here it is:

Let's pretend you are a carpenter (it's just an example, hopefully far enough away from everything you are doing :). Let's further pretend there is a tool that can help you to assist you with your work. The tool itself is rather complicated and expensive but it's also impressive. All in all, the tool itself will not do your job but it can help you to strengthen your results. It also will aid to your professional reputation once you've made the investment.

Now, fellow readers we opened up the doors to the high school cafeteria and you'll never find a way out of it again. Do you remember how people divided themselves into groups? Yeah that's exactly what I mean. Our carpenters will split up into at least two groups those who have the tool and those who haven't. Their argumentation will probably be the following:

Those who own the tool aka the geeks: They will advertise the tool and it's usefulness. Eventually (in business not eventually but more certainly) they will find people (C- level executives) who credit their ideas and value the professionally.
Those who don't own the tool and discredit the results aka the purists. These people are great, they try to convince everybody that the tool is just an unnecessary tool, because you can gain equal result with fewer resources. Even if it is true, this group will face tough times. They have to market their ideas even more than the carpenters who own the tool because they are lacking a unique selling point and professional recognition. People will always question the credibility of this group.
Those who don't have the tool but know about the strength and weaknesses of the tool. I guess these carpenters have a good chance to get along and keep their profession value up. By knowing the price for the tool and the limits they can propose cheeper studies without appearing as whiners or people who don't grant other success.
Those who don't care.

Thus what can we learn from the high school cafeteria? It never paid of pissing of other fractions in high school, didn't it? First you have to search for weaknesses then you have to find people who will support your ideas etc. At the end you will end up with a mess of accusations, believes, and ideas. You waisted time, and energy and got where? Nowhere you're still in the same cafeteria. In the business world being stuck somewhere is the worst you want to achieve. So take care of the "purist's moments". Question yourself why you are thinking in that way. Maybe it's just because you would like to have that tool, the possibilities, the marketing skills? Once you've answered these questions honestly it's easier to think like the third group of carpenters, and still be successful ;).

Me watching people facing their "purist's moments".

Birthdays .....

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:00:00 +0000

I forget birthdays all the time and I especially hate to be reminded of them by caring others. It always makes me feel like being an idiote. I nearly forgot my neeces birthday as well. I really need to feed my online calendar with the birthdays of loved ones and friends. Maybe with a reminder 5 days prior to the date so that amazon has enough time to ship something ;).
Needless to say that I forgot another birthday again, I'm here to write about the first aniversary of my beloved blog. What an amazing year! 128 posts. Sometimes I just browse through the entries to remeber what happed during that time. All the thoughts, ideas, and emotions in one place combined with videos and pictures.
Starting the blog project as a self experiment and forcing myself to post everyday I learned that there is something worthwhile to notice in every day. Sometimes these little aspects are rather nice ones, or sometimes they are rather ones that set me of. Either way this is it and it's your decission whether you want to read the entries or not.
During the year I figured out that posting on a daily basis is not working for me. I also figured out that it's way to stressful to check google analytics every second day and to invest thoughts about the amounts of readers or their global distribution. Once I stopped doing so blogging started to be more fun to do. I lately figured out that I also don't need the comments section. So the big change for this year is that I will simplify the blog and post only if I have the time to do so and if I have something to share. Apart from that I really hope that this year will be as exiting, frustrating, out of my compfort zone, cheering, calm and interesting as the last one was.

Weekend creativity

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:04:00 +0000

It's remarkable how mind works. I'm preparing for my exams at the moment and yet my mind pops up fresh creative ideas. Normally I do write them down or just doodle the idea in my idea book, but this weekend I wanted to give one of the ideas a try. As you can see from the pictures, I succeeded :). I'm now a proud owner of 10 brand new juggling balls ;). As a side-effect I juggled a lot today. Tomorrow I'll attend the juggling training again. Maybe I'll find someone who can explain 4 ball juggling, if not I'll be tossing clubs around unsuccessfully for an hour as I did the last time.

Speaking of unsuccessfulness, I read a new book. It's called "secrets of the millionaire mind" and is basically a comparison between the mindset of middle class people, millionaires and those who will never have enough money.

One insight I probably wouldn't have stated the way the author does is that to be really good at something you have to suck badly at the beginning. After thinking that one though I have to admit that he is right. So if you think you suck at something, may it be financial issues, business, recreation, math, PE, or what ever don't be frustrated it might as well be just the beginning of becoming an expert in that area. The key is to keep going and to follow the Ferengi's seventh rule of acquisition:

"Keep your ears open!"

Take care.

Me.

Simon's Cat

noreply@blogger.com (me_myself_and_I) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 16:30:00 +0000

I rather would like to have a dog but I love Simon's Cat. It great. The designer really knows how to observe cats. It's enlighting and really funny to watch the clips. Here is one of my favorites:

I'll do math now. Finals are comming up. :(

Chreers,
Me