Give it a Ponder....

Great advice... we should all give it a ponder!

Waste and the Living

Last Sunday while getting on the freeway I spotted a clean looking young man with a cardboard sign "Going Home Atlanta, GA". I couldn't help but imagine what led him to that point in his life. Did he have some tragic past? Was he incapable of holding down a job or getting a car? Did he chose this life or was he trapped by it?

These thoughts were revisited by the article "Is it possible to live a life without money?" in The Guardian (UK based periodical). The author describes how she decided to become, for lack of a better word, a hobo. She squats in empty houses, eats food from garbage, and "skips" clothes, furniture, bicycles and anything she needs. She found that she didn't need money to survive.

"In my first two months as a squatter and a scavenger I spent 54p – less than a penny a day. Ten pence had gone on a sheet of photocopying and the other 44p had bought me a KitKat at my lowest ebb in the first week. It was extraordinary how quickly it had become routine to get through a day without cash." (although later she does find ways to make money off of others waste).

She survives on the fringe not because money is useless but because people are wasteful. We throw out perfectly good furniture, food, and clothes. We throw these things out because we have lost the talent or initiative to reuse. With the hard economic times many people are rediscovering repurposing. Such things as the youtube videos "Depression Cooking", where Clara teaches you how to cook like its the 1930s, are gaining in popularity. Just check out this article from the NYT on canning.

Overall the whole article is very interesting, if a bit preachy at times. I especially disliked how "free and easy" she seemed to find her life of leeching. Granted she is only using that which others choose not to use but I still feel like it is a bit of a cheat. This feeling was only re-enforced by the articles post script:

"Extracted from Free: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful Society by Katharine Hibbert, published by Ebury Press on 14 January at £11.99."

Because it feels a bit hypocritical for someone to extol the virtues of living without money, in a bid to make money.

Best Bread

In my bid to learn new skills I have taken on baking. I am limited on my time and resources-not to mention kitchen supplies. Thus I try to find things that are easy and foolproof (trying to build confidence). I can honestly say I have found the best bread recipe. The Grant Loaf is super simple and came out fantastic the first time. It only takes an hour to go from ingredients to full loaf. (Sorry the picture is so bad it is from my phone)

Here is the recipe:

5 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp. salt

1 packet or 2 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon honey

2 ½ cups tepid water

Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and mix well with your hand. Mix in yeast.

Use your hand to make a hollow in the center of the flour. Add the honey and water to the hollow.

Mix the flour into the liquid with your hand, then mix well for one minute, moving the dough from the sides of the bowl into the center. Mix one more minute until the dough feels very slippery and elastic and comes cleanly away from the sides of the bowl.

Lift the dough into a large loaf pan and smooth the surface with a plastic spatula. Cover loosely with a clean, damp dish towel. Leave in a warm spot for 30 to 40 minutes or until the dough rises to within ½ inch of the top of the pan.

While dough rises, heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake loaf for 35 to 40 minutes.

To test doneness, remove the pan from the oven and remove the loaf from the pan. Tap the loaf underneath. A hollow sound indicates the loaf is done.

Transfer to a wire rack until cold

Best eaten within four days or freeze for up to one month.

Enjoy!

More on China

To go along with the previous post with George Friedman discussing China I offer this article: "China: the world's next economic crash". It is an opinion piece from The Christian Science Monitor. Some favored points:

"Yet however fast the economy is growing, China’s policies are unsustainable. First, the central government will be hard pressed to find the money to continue the spending spree. Budget deficits are going up fast, a constraint on additional expenditures. More important, Beijing’s regulators are concerned that the state banks, the primary source of stimulus funds, are overextending themselves and accumulating bad loans. "

and

"Finally, stimulus spending, as time goes on, becomes less effective in creating growth. The country already has one empty new city – Ordos in Inner Mongolia – and thousands of vacant facilities, especially shopping malls. New factories are underutilized."

Buying For Your Goals

This year I found myself creating a category in my budget entitled "Goals". I spent quite a lot on things that were supposed to help me create better habits. However the things I bought didn't really help. I read this article in June but only when I was reviewing my budget did the real truth of it hit home.

It is a great read and good to keep in the back of your mind when making any purchase.

"Buying Something To Force Yourself Into a New Behavior Doesn't Work: New Rules for a New Routine"

America's Domination in the 21st Century

Just bought this guys book. Looks pretty interesting. I really agree with what he says about China and Russia. I also like the point at the end about Canada.

"Lost" -1 Obama- 0

This February marks the return of the ABC hit drama/sci-fi show "Lost". I was a fan from day one and can't tell you how exciting the final season has made me (it is the little things really). Now I watch episodes online the day after they air. So I had no idea that the State of the Union address had been a threat to the season premiere. If I had known I would have reacted badly.
Obviously I am in the majority here. The CSM article puts it thus:

"when Feb. 2 popped up as a possible date, Facebook and Twitter fan groups revolted. One group, “Americans Against the State of the Union Address on the same night as LOST,” got huge traffic, as did the Twitter hashmark #NoStateOfUnionFeb2."

To me the CSM seems to be arguing that America would rather be "Lost" then face the realities of our nation. I disagree. I think that people are fed up with the government interfering and taking control of things. I think they understand that the State of the Union moving is purely political and that the speech itself rarely results in anything. Should everything shift to accommodate such an event? I don't think so, and neither do they.

The GYM

I hate going to the gym in January. It is always so full of people! All those new year resolutions and good intentions. Often half the people there don't even know what they are doing. Which is probably why they get discouraged after awhile and clear out by mid-February.

So if you find yourself in this predicament here are a few articles/tools that might help with your work out goals. Best part? A lot of these are gym free!

SimpleFit

How to Design Your Own Fail Safe Exercise Program

The Simple Fitness Rules

Stories I Missed

Good article from the Christian Science Monitor on the stories you may have missed during 2009. Of course I haven't been following the news very closely so all of these were a surprise to me.

Favorite bit of news:

"In October, the United Nations named Tinker Bell, the forest fairy from “Peter Pan,” as its “Ambassador of Green.”

article here

My Resolutions (and more on goal setting)

It was brought to my attention that I did not commit publicly to my goals. I did that on purpose because I have tried to keep this blog fairly non-personal. Upon further consideration though I have decided to go ahead and publish my goals.
This month I am focusing on eating healthy and exercise. Specifically 1470-1800 calories per day (which is subdivided into carbs, fat and protein allotments) and 3 days a week of cardio and 3 days of strength training. I am using SparkPeople (and their awesome App) to keep track. The goal is to lose 3lbs per month for the next 6 months.

I am also going to have meaningful prayer every morning immediately after I wake up and just before bed. Additionally I will read scriptures every day after work for at least ten minutes. For the prayer and scriptures I am using a trigger method (see last post and this article).

My other goals include:
Paint a picture
Learn about horses and rodeos
Write a novel
Scrapbook 1/2 my life
Start the 52 photo project
Be able to swim 2 miles (perhaps in a Spudman)
Travel-Visit Vancouver and Mexico
I know that most of those are vague and do not meet the SMART criteria for goal setting (if you haven't heard about Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely goal criteria you should check out the article). But I have decided to plan for each as the month comes up. This keeps it all manageable.

I also know that I am cheating by adding habits on top of my weight loss goal. I rationalize this because both are really things I have been doing I am just trying to routinize them, make them firm.

So now I have committed publicly...well as publicly as this blogs readership of 3 can be!

A New Approach to Resolutions

New Years is always a time when I spend a lot of time reevaluating my life and making a multitude of goals. On average I would say that I actually follow through with 10% of those goals. This fact has often frustrated me. So as I stand at the dawn of a new decade I have decided to take a new approach.

This approach is based on a couple of articles I have recently read.

The first was "The Definitive Guide to Sticking to Your New Year's Resolutions" from Leo Babauta at ZenHabits. Leo breaks down why resolutions fail and then offers his method of keeping resolutions. My two favorite points are "we try to do too many resolutions at once, and that spreads our focus and energies" and "resolutions are often vague...don't contain a concrete action plan". His solution called the 6 Changes Method requires 6 habits and 2 months per habit. He encourages you to take it slow and make the change gradually and easy. A very tortoise "slow and steady" approach.

The next article "Blame It on the Brain" from the Wall Street Journal. Illustrated how scientific studies have shown that willpower is "an extremely limited mental resource" they compare it to a muscle that can reach failure. Below are some excerpts from the facinating article:

"...several dozen undergraduates were divided into two groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember, while the second group was given a seven-digit number. Then they were told to walk down the hall, where they were presented with two different snack options: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit salad.

Here's where the results get weird. The students with seven digits to remember were nearly twice as likely to choose the cake as students given two digits. The reason, according to Prof. Shiv, is that those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain—they were a "cognitive load"—making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert."

"Given its limitations, New Year's resolutions are exactly the wrong way to change our behavior. It makes no sense to try to quit smoking and lose weight at the same time, or to clean the apartment and give up wine in the same month. Instead, we should respect the feebleness of self-control, and spread our resolutions out over the entire year."

These two articles have convinced me that I a have been trying to "run faster than I am able". I am going to focus on one main goal/new habit each month, instead of the laundry list of resolutions from years past. Picking just one thing has been difficult. There is so much I want to do now! But I am confident that narrowing my focus will lead to greater success. I will keep you all posted on how it goes.

*I really encourage reading both articles. Both have great insights on goal setting and habit forming.