In praise of plans (AM)

I used to work with a woman who would always complain about her conservative parents; she thought of herself as very open minded and liberal. She wore red chinoiserie to her wedding. But she used to complain about junkies and youths and other people unlike her in a way that very much reminded me of someone's conservative parents. 

Another of her qualities that could indeed make her seem like an uptight, housewife type was her tendency to plan her weekly meals. She'd cook seafood two nights a week, meat two nights and vegetarian two nights, then she'd plan what she was making and do a weekly shop that she would supplement with biweekly market visits. Although this makes her sound uptight, it is one of the qualities in her I most admired. That and the fact she introduced me to Strawberrynet, a website that used to offer great discounts on beauty products before the Internet realised it could make lots of money in Australia by charging more for things that are expensive here and it became cheaper to buy beauty products from actual shops.

My old pod buddy's meal plans was always inspiring to me, far from creating shackles I think that the meal plan could be very liberating. Rather than pondering daily what to make for dinner and falling back on oft-revisited dinners, the meal plan and subsequent shop would provide a map to deliciousness and newness. I'd be freed from the shackles of pasta and Aussie meals that I fall back on so frequently.

Usually I go to the market on Sunday and that means I buy some fish, LB buys some sausages and that answers a couple of nights' problems, but imagine looking through cookbooks on the weekend, deciding to make things from there, buying the necessary foodstuffs, thereby forcing yourself to make those meals you'd dreamed of. I'm imagining that right now, and I don't know if it's just the energised fervor of the new year, but by god, I'm going to plan my meals next week! And, if I can maintain this new year's fervor, the week after that, and the week after that, and the week after that...

It's important to have goals (PM)

I have to admit I was a little nervous about this morning's post because I've been thinking that I really need to set some goals, but life goals. But despite all this thinking about it I haven't set any! So I really thought the pressure would be on. Thank god we are only talking about low level goals. Right now my goal is to have fun at the world's lamest waterslide park and hope that Baby doesn't realise how lame it is. 

It's important to have goals (AM)

I've never been a big goal setter. I'm more of a 'move in a general direction and take thugs as they come' kind of girl. I've always felt like it's good to be open to different kinds if scenarios and it's worked well for me so far. 

But when you move in a general direction rather than pursue a defined goal, there's less clarity about when you've reached your destination, and therefore less satisfaction when you get there. I was thinking about this the other day and it occurred to me that maybe I'm missing out by not setting goals. In trying to stay open to things, maybe I'm actually missing out. Achieving a goal is rad! I want a piece of that, I decided.

So I've set myself a goal and it's a real rip snorter. I'm going to get all my Christmas shopping done before the end of November. Great idea, right? It will have the twin benefits of getting an important task that I always leave to the last minute out of the way, and because I have identifies it as a goal, I will feel great for achieving it. 

It's a win win. Now you guys try!