Summertime... on the balcony....

The garden is growing, especially the balcony tomato. Some days ago I already had to pre-harvest two of the bigger tomatoes as the plant started crooking like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Today I luckily got a bigger stick for supporting the balcony tomato from a good friend of mine. Here's a picture of the tomato - upright again. :-)

The garden is growing...

Yesterday I made some pictures of the flourishing plants on my balcony. Here they are:

The special "balcony tomato" (hopefully it does not get too big...)



The strawberries (hopefully they get a lot of strawberries :-)):



And... the herbs (delicious with potatoes or in the salad):

Back again... or "vanilla sugar"

As everything is settled again after my move in September I'd like to revive my blog this evening. Ok, to be honest, it took quite a long while to get everything going again. It's now end of November and I just drilled the last two holes in the wall in order to install my oversized pinboard on Friday.

I thought, as a "first" post I'd share my experience of self-made vanilla sugar with you: as Christmas time comes along with baking sessions (not too many, as I am not a baking-queen ;-)) I bought two vanilla pods some weeks ago. This evening I put some sugar in a small glass and opened the pods to get the pulp out. I mixed it with the sugar and it really looks like vanilla sugar right now. And it smells soooooo delicious. Moreover, the whole kitchen is now smelling after vanilla. :-)
I am really looking forward to producing the first "Vanillekipferl" with home-made vanilla sugar.

Two sides of a medal

This evening I decided to ride home through the woods and over the fields - instead of cycling besides the streets - in order to come down from a long working day. I passed an old barn in the middle of nowhere. Last year in autumn I read an advertisement on this barn's door: reserve your St. Martin's goose now! Today there I saw a huge enclosement with some dozens of geese eating, walking over the green grass or just lying in the evening sun.
As I am a vegetarian and I really love animals, my first though was: Damn! Those poor geese won't live to see this winter or next spring. Not considering reality for a moment I really wanted to save them... perhaps by buying all the future St. Martin's roast geese until they are still alive. But where to keep a bunch of goose?
The second thought was then: these geese are somehow lucky - compared to other geese vegetating in narrow, dirty boxes perhaps even fattened in order to kill them soon to produce foie gras. Compared to them those geese I saw have a short but species-appropriate life.

And in my point of view this goose story is only an example of so many things in life that have two sides: a sad one and a lucky one. A serious and an easy one. - The art is to recognise both and to decide which one is the more powerful for oneself.

Do you have any thoughts on this topic you want to share?

The greatest justice we face everyday....

... is that everybody's day has 24 hours. These were the introductory words to the short seminar about "timemanagement" I attended yesterday with some of my colleagues.

The seminar leader pointed out, as you only have 24 hours everyday you can't really manage your time - you only can manage your tasks you have to or want to do during your time. So it is all about task- or even better: selfmanagement!

For me the whole gist was that I have to organise my business and private todos, obligations, wanna-dos, etc. in a way that they conform with my personal values, with my aims and visions I have for my life. Sounds pretty easy, doesn't it? ;-)

Among other things, she recommended a book of Stephen Covey who is one of the founders of FranklinCovey; it is called "The 7 habits of highly effective people". It is not intended to change things quickly but to spark thinking about the whole subject.
She also pointed out the Eisenhower-method (you can easily google it) or the 72-hour-rule. The latter is really interesting; it says that for everything one really wants to do i.e. for an aim or a vision (e.g. running a marathon or even start running at all) one should make the very first step in the next 72 hours. With this rule you don't clutter your mind with things you may do "someday" and you quickly get feedback if you should stick to your aim or abolish it.

So I just ordered the book of the 7 habits online and now I am going to enjoy the sun and the blue sky outside - another essential aspect in selfmanagement: get your mind, body and soul in balance. :-)

I am excited to read what YOU think about the whole selfmanagement thing, how to cope with your tasks, stay in balance, ... so please feel free to comment.