Life Tips Daily

Hey, I know you have it in you to succeed! Just keep the hay coming please...

2 blogs ago, I showed you Tom’s garden. I was impressed with the knowledge he shared and so many ideas about gardening. Here is a link and some more information. His site also has links for books, tools, and lots of raw food connects. When I find ideas that interest me, I love to take the next step to learn more.

http://www.rawvegansource.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?display=action&emptyoverride=yes&template=PDGCommTemplates/RVS/Permaculture.html

Permaculture Farms

The Raw Vegan Source store is actually just a part of a larger organization called New Earth Farm. Here at New Earth Farm, we are busy creating Heaven on Earth. We have converted half of our 1 acre property into a thriving permaculture garden.

Our gorgeous garden here at New Earth Farms produces beautiful, vital food that feeds us all for up to 10 months out of the year. That’s right, for 10 months out of the year we rarely visit the grocery store. The essence of permaculture is to intelligently create with nature so it does most of the work. After a few years of ground work, you can have a garden that grows enormous amounts of food without much effort required on your part. In the time it takes you to mow your lawn once a week, you could be feeding your family with vibrant food grown with love.

There is a big shift happening in our world right now – the days of manicured lawns are rapidly fading into history. We envision a massive movement sweeping the country, even the world, in which families convert their non-edible, chemically fertilized Kentucky Blue Grass lawns into abundant food-producing organic gardens. In our opinion, there is nothing more beautiful than a vibrant, nature friendly, bio-diverse garden anyway. We encourage you to sign up for one of our amazing permaculture courses and join us in creating the New Earth in your own backyard!

Permaculture Design Course

At Raw Vegan Source, in Redmond, WA

6 Weekend Intensives, March - August 2009

Instructors: Jenny Pell, Marisha Auerbach & many guests

Join us one weekend each month for 6 months and learn:

Permaculture design principles and methodologies
Reading landscapes, mapping, and site analysis
Patterns in nature
Plant propagation and seed saving
Raw food and nutrition
Six months of garden planning, management, and harvest
Perennial polycultures, edible landscapes, and food forests
Alternative technologies
Water catchment, pond building, and aquaculture
Whole systems theory and Ecoliteracy
Herbs and medicinal plants
Natural building, passive and active solar designs
Urban permaculture strategies, and more…
This course will focus on building hands-on skills for immediate application in your home, neighborhood, and community. We will examine in-depth strategies for local self-reliance, community development, and thriving local economies

Cost: $1,150 - $950 sliding scale; discounted price includes work-trade.

72-hour design certification course features delicious raw lunches, optional Friday night lecture series, & extra optional monthly hands-on workshops at Seattle Tilth Association.

2 birds nests on one cactus!

Watch for the next blog for two recipes of other fine drinks. It’s summer splurge! Oops the next 2 recipes will be on Http://coachingcooking.com

If you just read the similar blog, this was meant to be Part 1.

How to Succ

2 birds nests on one cactus!

http://www.infomarketingservices.net/

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Will your future company provide enough access to new challenges to
keep you sharp –and marketable –in the event of sudden
unemployment?

Peace at last....

I think lately I have become a stress magnet. Some of this is my own fault, which is a strange confession to make when I am feeling rather angry. Yet yes, some of this is true. The rest is HIS fault.

I think everyone has an overshare of stress lately. When all this is ping balling through the air, it is often easier to just explode than to find a clamer way to communicate. I hit the explosion level this weekend which is good for I have been holding back so long.

So what is the best way to handle these powerful emotions? I need a few tips! Yep, I don’t have all the answers this time and I’d be really happy to hear your thoughts.

It was real easy when a customer who was talking about quitting smoking added how he was yelling a lot at his employees. This seemed to be a powerful thing for him to speak, as he began owning his anger, and partially ackowledging that yelling at his employees might not be an effective behavior and that maybe they were the total reason he was upset. (I took him over to Country Life’s Omega Mood, where he also mentioned he was actually feeling depressed)

Well, I want to feel my anger for awhile and express it. I just want to find a safer more effective way of expressing it at the workplace. Today I did great grounding work and thought I was almost over it. I worked in my yard and was excited by all the plants that are growing, and my getting one plot of garden ground ready. Teh a friend called in response to my please help me call. Tears again. Oh well.

So I’ll keep you updated. I am going to do some EFT soon. Please respond. Yes the two guys at work are real jerks too often, and I am fed up with that!

Well my problems are with co workers.

If you spend a lot of time on the computer, either at work or at home, you may find that you become stressed and disorganized when you can’t find files or documents that you’re looking for. The naming system you used made sense at the time, as did the location you saved it to, but now, for the life of you, you can’t recall what you were thinking (or what you were drinking!).

Here’s today’s tip to help you feel more in control of your clutter:

Clean both desktops
There is of course the physical desktop, where your computer keyboard and screen sit upon if you have a desktop computer. Some laptop owners sit at a desk at least occasionally, though that is perhaps not the general rule. Either way, make sure the surface on which your computer rests is clean: no post it notes mocking you with things you have to remember, no empty drink bottles, food plates, no stray pens and pencils everywhere. You may have to bring out some surface cleaner to clean your newly discovered (and likely dusty) surface.

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Last week we looked at some questions about workplace and this week’s Your Turn is no different! What are your answers to the questions below:

1. A coworker has gotten into the habit of telling you all of his or her problems, all because you asked him/her one day how s/he was doing, and listened while s/he gave his/her life story. How do you extricate yourself from this position of constant confidant?
2. A coworker dresses inappropriately for the office (in your opinion). How do you go about addressing this?

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While we’re on the topic of work, Here are some indicators that it’s time to leave your job.

You hate waking up (to go there)
(Of course, the caveat is that you didn’t always hate waking up to go to work). If all of a sudden, the thought of waking up for work fills you with dread, start looking, right away.

Every coworker gets on your nerves. Every day.
We don’t always get along with our coworkers, that is why workshops like “Getting along with difficult people” are offered by a local work training centre where I live. However, if you feel like every coworker exists to annoy you, there isn’t one person you can tolerate talking to, working with or exchanging pleasantries with, it may be time to say sayonara.

You have received multiple warnings about your attitude or your performance
When you are not enjoying your work, you may find it hard to put any effort into it, resulting in a decrease in the quality of your work. Alternatively, you may continue to produce good work, but your attitude, in a word, stinks—you’re sullen, rude and sarcastic and don’t treat others with respect. Perhaps you stopped dressing in an appropriate fashion for work, or your personal grooming skills have plummeted. These are all indicators that you need to leave.

If you find that you are exhibiting any of these attitudes at work, it is time to reconsider your future with the company. However, if you find you have these feelings about all aspects in your life, you may be suffering from depression. Please seek out friends, family or a professional who can help you.

Good morning!

It’s been a while but work has been kicking my butt-both jobs as a matter in fact. It makes me wonder how those people who start a business that eventually moves to being their primary gig manage do it. You know who I’m talking about: the person who works at her full time 40 hours a week desk job, while doing web design on the side at nights and on the weekend, or the person who combines a full time job with a part time job, making their work week 60 hours a week-or more.

Although I have two jobs (Full time job + part time job of 12-15 hours a week), there are people who manage to fit much more into their weeks. How do they do it? I don’t know for certain but here are some helpful tips for those of you who are considering taking on a second job.

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Let’s go back to Your Turn for this week, because I have two work-related questions for you that have been asked by me and others over the last while. What do you think of the following:

1. How much notice should you give an employer before leaving for a new job? Is this answer affected by terms under which you decide to leave? Does your answer depend on what industry you work for?

2. You work in an office where you share some appliances (coffee maker, fridge, toaster, kettle). There are rules in place for the operation of this equipment, including cleaning up after yourself. How do you deal with a coworker who constantly breaks the rules?

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Are you tired of unwanted advances from a coworker? If you are not ready to report a coworker to your office’s human resources department because you suspect he or she is harmless, try the following tips. It is important to try them in the order that they are written, and keep a record of the dates and times you try each step so that if you decide to take your grievance to the appropriate people, you have a logical collection of efforts recorded:

Hint less subtly
If you’ve noticed that all your hints that you are not interested in the conversation you’re currently engaged in go over your coworker’s head, it’s time to be more obvious in your hints. Tell the coworker that you have important work to do, every time he or she approaches you. After saying this, turn to your workstation and begin to work, even if all you are doing is writing “I cannot stand you” over and over again onto a blank screen. After receiving this sort of treatment several times a day for a week or so, your coworker should get the message.

It is important that you keep this treatment up consistently. If you give in and talk with your coworker every second or third time he or she approaches you, you will not be sending a strong message across at all.

Send a frank email
If you think your coworker is not a bad person, you may want to let him or her down firmly but not so aggressively. Send an email that explains how the attention paid to you makes you feel, why you feel it is inappropriate, and what sort of work relationship you would like to have with the person (if at all). Send it from your work email address and save a copy of this email and any replies you receive, just in case.

Tell them straight out
Confrontation is difficult but nothing beats hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth (so to speak). Even if all you do is read the contents of your previous email aloud, do it. Tell your coworker that you are disappointed that your email was not as well received as you wished, restate the reasons why the attention you are receiving is inappropriate or unwelcome by you and ask firmly that the behaviour stop.
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If you find that none of these previous tips work, wait for a couple of weeks. After this time, inform your coworker that you have not noticed a change in behaviour, and that you will be filing a complaint with human resources in one week’s time if nothing changes. And if nothing changes, do it. Most coworkers care enough about their job that they will take your “threat” seriously, at least as seriously as you take it. If you do need to approach your human resources department, you should have at your disposal a well documented summary of how things have progressed up to that point.

coworker, unwanted advances, harassment, workplace harassment

Do you have a coworker who stands a little too close to you when talking, talks a little to often to you, and always finds a reason to be around your desk or cubicle, even when he or she works on a different floor or side of the office? Have you had other coworkers ask if you’re having a relationship with this coworker? Have subtle hints on your part failed to reach your clueless coworker? If any of these ring through, and this person isn’t your significant other (in which case you’d want to follow a separate set of tips such as tip #1: end relationship, tip #2: restraining order), you are likely suffering from unwanted advances from a coworker.

While you are perfectly justified in contacting your office’s human resources department and reporting this behaviour which no doubt leaves you feeling uncomfortable, if you have any reason at all to believe that your new shadow is unaware of how you feel about the advances he or she is making towards you, tune in tomorrow for ways to stop unwanted advances.

coworker, unwanted advances, harassment, workplace harassment

Many Canadians spent yesterday, July 1, at a barbecue or with family or friends (or both) in celebration of Canada Day. Some people had to delay their festivities until today, however, because they had to work. I’m not talking about emergency workers, policemen, or gas station attendants but people who work in the retail sector.

That’s right: many local malls were open on Sunday for Canada Day. According to the federal Holidays Act, when Canada Day falls on a Sunday, the next day is designated Canada Day, which means business may be open on July 1. The problem is few people seemed to be aware of this fact: most treated yesterday as Canada Day and it was celebrated as such, and not many seemed to know that Monday was the national holiday.

I work in the retail sector part time and as a result, I worked yesterday. I was surprised by the number of people who were out shopping and not celebrating, or relaxing at home (though granted, their plans may have been later in the day). Many customers expressed sympathy that I had to work “on Canada Day”. My reply to them was to inform them that the number of customers shopping proved to the mall that it is certainly worthwhile to be open. In response, a couple of customers sheepishly tried to explain why they were out shopping but the point is people like to shop and if the stores are open, they will shop.

I can’t deny I wish we could go back to the days where stores were closed on Sundays.

Canada Day, open Canada Day, shopping on Canada Day

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Good day and indeed the day is more than half over. I like to get an entry out earlier in the day so I can hear what you have to say but I was the victim of an ornery laptop so I am in the library of an educational institution pounding out a few thoughts before returning to my conference.

That’s right, I am out of town, and have found myself unexpectedly unprepared to deal with the loss of my laptop (and internet connection by default), so naturally, I’d like to talk today about being prepared.

While it is not possible to be always prepared for whatever life may throw us, I’d like to make the following suggestions on how to make sure that you are prepared for the unexpected somewhat, using my particular case as an example.

Research what you are going to be faced with
Even if you think you are well aware of what you will face, research it because even though you are familiar with the concept or idea in your particular location, perhaps it is different where you are going. Had I taken the time to research the weather in my locale, I may have packed different clothing: instead of my closed toe shoes and pants, I might have brought capri pants and sandals, and allowed my feet to enjoy a little sunshine. This is a very innocuous example of the benefits of researching your new surroundings, but other examples might include researching a different culture that you will be entering to ensure that your speech, manners, dressing will not be offensive to the inhabitants of where you are going. If you are going on a work trip, you may also want to make sure you are familiar with what will be discussed/covered during the trip, and who the key players are.

If you need any supplies/equipment, be sure to obtain these items well in advance
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Here are five keys to career happiness, as expressed by John Izzo:

*Follow your heart

*Risk more

*Choose the right balance

*Focus on the difference

*It’s never too late

I’m off to read the whole article here!