Wednesday, April 10, 2013

After a long time!!



Hi everyone,
It has been ages since we interacted.... have been so busy, sometimes, doing nothing, but most times busy working on my assignments and housework. We now have a maid, here in Mumbai and though she is a dumb 'belle', she is regular... quality of work.... not satisfactory! so, thankfully, am not spending all day, sprucing up the place...

I found this article on Linkedin, and thought I would share it with all... It's food for thought.

so here goes.....


15 Things Successful People Do

“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”
Whether in business or life, there's a fine line between success and failure. Booker T. Washington’s quote highlights the inevitability of obstacles on the path to success. In fact, I firmly believe success and failure go hand-in-hand. Those looking to succeed must first fail or learn from those who failed.
Successful individuals aren’t just born, there’s a lot more that goes into the equation. I've found those who are highly successful have a lot more in common than we may think. If you’re seeking success, these habits may come in handy.
1. Fail. No matter how hard you work, failure can and will happen. The most successful people understand the reality of failure, and its importance in finding success. Rather than running and hiding when you fail, embrace it. Learn from this mistake and you won’t fail in the same way again.
2. Set goals. Those who are successful set daily achievable goals. Find success by solidifying S.M.A.R.T. -- smart, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely -- goals. Stop juggling a mental to-do list of just long-term goals and establish small daily goals to achieve your vision.
3. Don’t rely on luck. Many relate success to being in the right place at the right time. While this is an element of success, there’s also the crucial involvement of blood, sweat, and tears. Don’t hold yourself back by waiting for the perfect timing or idea. Some of the most successful people got there by hitting the ground running, even if timing wasn’t perfect.
4. Track progress. Success comes from regularly monitoring behaviors, strategies, and tactics. How can you make adjustments if you don’t know how you’re doing? Hold yourself accountable by checking your progress as often as possible.
5. Act. Successful people don’t always know the right answer, but the keep moving anyway. Don’t let obstacles stall you when you’re searching for the right solution. Taking action will lead to answers.
6. Connect the dots. Those who are successful have the ability to see the greater picture. They identify and connect the tiny details to get there. Look at things in a “past, present, and future” context to receive favorable results.
7. Display realistic optimism. Those who succeed truly believe in their abilities. This respectfully drives them forward. Assess your abilities to gain a clear understanding of what you are able to accomplish. This will allow you balance yourself through the aid of find someone or something else.
8. Continued improvement. Successful people habitually thrive on self-improvement, whether it’s in terms of learning from mistakes or simply using their weaknesses as opportunities. Channel this habit by continually searching for ways to be better. Maybe your networking skills are rusty or you need some extra training -- set goals for improving your weak spots.
9. Commit. Success doesn’t come without effort. The most successful individuals are often the most committed to what they’re working toward. Throw yourself into your tasks and go the extra mile every single day. Make no exceptions.
10. Be alert. A keen sense of awareness breeds success. If you’re not keyed into your environment, you’re sure to miss opportunities. Do you know what’s being said within your company, feedback from clients, or even in your entire industry?
11. Persevere. Truly successful people never give up. Do they ever fail? Yes. But as times get hard, their stamina to move forward doesn’t wane. Develop a willingness to work through the challenges you encounter along the way.
12. Communicate with confidence. Those who are successful have an ease for convincing others. They don’t manipulate or pressure, but logically explain the benefits. Communicating with confidence will allow you to more easily negotiate your visions.
13. Display humility. The most successful individuals lack an ego. It’s their fault when they fail. Hold yourself accountable for every aspect of your life by focusing on remaining focused and humble.
14. Be flexible. Plans may change. Successful people roll with the punches. Rather than getting frustrated, swiftly maneuver in another direction.
15. Make connections. Successful people often attribute their achievements to the help of others. You can’t and won’t be able to do this alone. Invest in generating mutually beneficial business connections and partners. Even if you have all the skills necessary to run your company, a business partner could complement your weaknesses.
Initiating these habits of successful people will fuel you on your search for achievement.
What do you think is the most important habit of successful people?

Ciao, Mum

Friday, March 1, 2013

Mourning the end of another month in 2013, but looking forward to the next 10......




Hello Fundoos,

So another month has passed us by.... looking back, what have I achieved?
I am happy with the progress.... but at the same time haven't reached all my goals..
What about you?....
On the personal front..... at peace with my self, set a routine.. wake up, have breakfast, say my prayers whatever happens, then get ready for the day and then start working... so sit at my desk by 10.00 am.... get back to lunch, cleaning the kitchen watching TV and then back to work at 3.00pm, get back to kitchen duties at 5.00 pm, and then work until Pops comes home.

On the professional front... very pleased!
 Contacted some of my clients.. have got a good bit of business and most importantly made my first placement!!!  Also now I know exactly how to go about the business, spoke to several people, got several partnership offers.... so that's all good!

Hey listen, this is an open forum and I think you can add your own tits and bits, so just go ahead and add to this...

Saw this passage on Linked in and thought you would like to read this.. Hope this inspires you.

The best advice I’ve ever received was from my father when I was 12 years old and willing to listen. He told me that with my personal characteristics, I could, if I set my mind to it, do anything I chose. This advice instilled in me a great sense of confidence, and despite the fact that sometimes I was a little nervous, I stepped out and did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I think it really often is up to the parents to help build confidence in their children. It is a very necessary part of growing up.
When I look back on the years when I was exploring career choices and discovering my true entrepreneurial spirit, my choices seem rather eclectic. I was barely in my teens when I began taking a bus from my hometown in Nutley, New Jersey, to New York City, where I worked as a model. This work was fun and lucrative. It demanded a certain optimism and a drive that not everyone possesses. Still, by the time I married and finished my college studies in history and architectural history, I was tired of modeling. I wanted to build a career, and I longed to do something more intellectually stimulating.
Armed mainly with my father’s encouragement that I could do anything I put my mind to, I considered my options. I had no capital to start my own business. I did, however, have a great desire to work hard and learn. So I went to Wall Street and joined a small brokerage house where I learned to be a stockbroker. It was an outstanding education in business and often was very exciting, but I never developed a passion for it. I loved houses and landscaping and decorating, so I thought real estate might be a good career for me — but I left the business without ever hosting an open house or buying a single property! However, even my brief time in real estate held an important lesson — I learned that the true work of any job may be much different than what you imagine.
Even before I found my entrepreneurial spirit, one thing I did know was that I enjoyed cooking and focusing on the home. I began baking pies and selling them at a local market. I opened a small gourmet food market called the Marketbasket where I sold my own foodstuffs as well as those I commissioned from local women. Then I took a bigger step: I started a catering business. From the first event, I knew immediately that I had found an enterprise that combined several of my talents, my interests, and some of my business experience.
Catering paved the way for me to find my true passion. If you want to begin the journey to discover your entrepreneurial passion, you must first analyze your own interests, strengths, weaknesses, and desires; and then you must consider carefully how hard you want to work. I have always found it extremely difficult to differentiate between what others might consider my life and my business. For me they are inextricably intertwined. That is because I have the same passion for both. Simply stated, my life is my work and my work is my life. As a result, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because I am excited every day: I love waking up; I love getting to work; I love focusing on a new initiative. There are many, many people who have inspired, taught, influenced, and supported me during the years that I have been visualizing, creating, building, and managing my own entrepreneurial venture — but I’ll never forget the favor my father did me when he instilled in me the tenacity I needed to build a career based on what I love most.
Photo: Courtesy of Martha Stewart

Saturday, February 16, 2013



Food for Thought



Dear All,
 I thought I would copy paste Aarti's blog in this mail in case you dont read her FB message. I was thinking, isnt this what troubles us all the time.
The lack of confidence in one self, the second guessing.

Read it and perhaps it will give you cause for thought  -- there is a message somewhere in that, for each of us. 

I would just like to just talk about myself here.... as I am venturing into something new and my own, the doubts that keep coming in everyday keep destroying those small shards of confidence  I have. And I guess there are two ways I look at situations ...
One, the practical human way..... look at it psychologically, like I normally do.. dissect the problem and try a solution. In this case, I  first think, can I  or can I not...... get tense , stress myself out and destroy all my logical thought processes which otherwise should permit me to just go forward, ensuring that hard work and confidence in myself will take me through. So I plod along and struggle.
Then I look at it in a more spiritual way...... I look at it as temptations and  how the evil one is probably just trying to destroy the rays of hope  and promise coming down from Heaven and giving me this opportunity to succeed in the opportunities that HE has provided me. So it is a battle... that I dont need to fight... So I actually tell the Lord, 'You fight for me..... I ll do what you want me to do.....!" Then there comes an element of peace which gives me the ability to think clearly and go back to a solution, which is in point one.  But this time round, there is no fear and I know even if I fail this time, it will happen, even if I struggle, it is not impossible.. it will happen.. because, The Good Lord wanted it to happen in the first place.

I just thought I would just explain the above so perhaps if you have doubts about yourself or what you are doing........ it helps to just leave it to God , and just talk to him ..... the inner peace resolves everything. 
So you dont have to get on bended knee all the time.... just have confidence in HIM and you will have confidence in yourself.

Hugs and much love.

Mummy Ruth


My Lenten promise this year is two-fold.
One: to write here everyday except Sunday.
Two: to think ONE kind thing about myself everyday.
I am in serious need of some “renewing the spirit of the mind” (Ephesians 4). I realised today that overall, my mind does not say kind things to me. It tends to say things like, “you don’t know how to do that” or “you suck at this” or “you’ll never figure it out” or the very worst, “you’re going to fail and ruin everything”.
Insidious isn’t it? Well, until you actually write it out and realise how silly those thoughts are, huh? You should try it if you haven’t: write out the things those unkind voices say to you. Somehow, writing them out takes all the power out of them! Or at least, a LOT of power out of them.
Anyway, this morning, as I was praying, I wondered aloud how Jesus battled those sorts of thoughts. I mean, talk about bold and confident; think of the things He walked around doing! Imagine ordering the lame man to walk, and then falling flat on your face if he didn’t! With all those people watching!
That takes some serious cojones, my friend.
When I asked Him where He got His confidence, it occurred to me that it wasn’t that He was so confident in His own abilities. It would seem much more like Christ to be confident in His Pappa, in how much He loved His little boy that He would always catch Him before He hit the ground hard (which is why the cross is such a heartbreaking concept to bear). Jesus worked out of that one moment in the river Jordan when God said “This is my Son in whom I am well pleased”.
From Lego Bible
If we’re honest with ourselves, haven’t we heard that in one form or another about ourselves even once?
I’m realising that it’s ok to embrace that, to be proud of that, to own it. God loves me. He’s proud of me. Even though I mess up all the time, He sees my heart and He’s cheering for me.
Because that’s the key.
I asked myself this morning, how would I act differently if I KNEW that God was going to catch me when I jumped?
KNEW.
That it didn’t matter what it looked like, whether there were snakes below me, or roaring rip-tides or just hundreds of feet of nothing… that God would catch me anyway? That if I have given my life over to Him, He has my back?
Woah.
I think I would act a little differently, don’t you?
So, that’s my little message today. For me, for you… renew your mind. And then… jump.
-x-
aarti

3 Responses to Lenten Promise

  1. Carol Suzuki 
    February 15th, 2013 at 12:02 pm
    Aarti, you might like reading “Help Thanks Wow”….
    I have just realized that my prayers feel unnatural because I feel like I’m talking to a stranger, someone who is so high above me that He is unrelatable. I decided this is actually someone who knows me best and who still loves me and I should speak to Him in the same conversational manner that I speak to my Mom who died. But this book helped a lot.
  2. Jana 
    February 15th, 2013 at 1:37 pm
    Aarti. This post resonates with me greatly, as I also battle with lies that the enemy (and my flesh) try to bombard me with. (who doesn’t?) I always am encouraged and challenged with the verse, “take EVERY thought captive and make it OBEDIENT to Christ” (2 cor 10:5) and I am relieved to have the power of God behind me. Thank you again for your open and honest heart. You such a sister in Christ that I am so encouraged by.
    blessings!
  3. Melissa Valencia 
    February 15th, 2013 at 5:04 pm
    Aarti–I love when you write about spiritual things (not that I don’t love your cooking meanderings too!) It is wonderful to think that we have a God who does all this for us–He is our safety net, our cheerleader and it is Satan, the accuser who wants us to think otherwise. Thank you for reminding me about how much God is “in my corner”! Blessings to you!

Tuesday, February 12, 2013




12th February 2013

Hello all you Fundoos,
Writing after a long time...
And I am sure I will send you a newsy message a day or two later.

However, I thought I would share the world's most bewildering news of The Pope abdicating...... I am so shocked and afraid for the future. This is what has been predicted. What happens after this portends ill for human kind..

I urge you, each and everyone, to pray for each of us and the people you know and dont know, for protection and blessings. Pray for Pope Benedict and for the right Pope to come in his place.

PRAY!!!

Here is an article that might be of interest....
 http://www.russellmoore.com/2013/02/11/an-evangelical-looks-at-pope-benedict-xvi/

Love you and bless you!

Mummy Ruth ( Lasa, I like your name for me, dont call me Aunty!)

Friday, February 1, 2013

Prequel to the 1st week in Feb 2013



Hello everyone,

New week for Pops and me but the weekend for all of you...
Hope next week brings in God's blessings, good news, a week filled with accomplishments and a promise of a better week to come!

Our weekend was lovely... Peace and Happiness visited our home... we had planned a Sea Food Bonanza. But as Murphy's law would have it.... there was no "good' fish available! I think the sea is a bit rough and there was no fresh fish available and we had to make do with what we got. So, a planned menu of Crabs, stuffed pomfrets, stuffed squid, and fish curry, changed to..... King Fish curry, Prawns Pattiya, stuffed squid, fried king fish , sprouted moong with coconut and fried Lady's fingers. And I made carrot halwa. It was all so good!

So we had a nice quiet and gentle time. I think we have grown used to each other so it was pleasant and a happy day! Hopefully for Peace and Happiness too. We had hoped to go to the Creek Park and watch the fireworks, but it didnt happen.... full stomachs and laziness probably.

I will send you photos when I can download them, from my camera. And this time round, it is important, as news of our Sea Food Fiesta has reached Europe.....! Actually just Lovi and Kim and I have promised to eat a few extra morsels on his behalf.

So plans for the week are in the offing. Most important being, getting my medicals done with. ON the biz front, contacting some of my old 'boyfriends' and getting some business from them.

So, take care and enjoy the weekend and energize for another week of work and play!

Love and hugs,
Mum











Tuesday, January 29, 2013


TexaCali Turkey Tailgate Fiesta


TexaCali Turkey Tailgate Fiesta Recipe

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Categories:TurkeyQuick & EasyFor KidsHealthy
Collections:The Great Tailgate!
Keywords:PEPPERSburgercilantro,avocadopoblanoaioli
Serves:6
Prep Time:20 Min
Cook Time:30 Min

Ingredients

2 lbground turkey
6 slcturkey bacon, browned and drained
1 lgpoblano, anaheim or red bell pepper
1 mdwhite or yellow onion, diced
2 Tbspolive oil, light
1 Tbspground cumin
2 Tbspground chili powder
1 pinchsalt and pepper to taste
1 pkgromaine lettuce leaves
2 lgtomatoes, sliced
2 lgavocados
3/4 cmayonnaise
1/3 cfresh cilantro
1 dash(es)hot sauce
8 slcpepper jack or cheddar cheese (optional)
1 pkglarge burger buns
2 Tbspspicy mustard
Pinched by darlenediane, and 931 more.
x1
tamie joeckel
Lightly Salted
Katy, TX (Pop. 14,102)
tamiejoeckel
Member Since Nov 2012
tamie's Notes:
I love ground turkey, but I had to come up with a way to keep the lean meat moist and flavorful. Tex Mex flavors evoke memories of home in South Texas. And when my grandkids liked this burger, I knew I had a winning combo! I'll grill up both mini and regular burger patties. The girls love Mimi's "baby burgers" and these made as sliders are their fave! For the heartier appetites of the "real men" I grill thick, juicy patties that make everyone smile. Even the men who only eat beef in my family will devour this turkey burger! And I just feel good serving them.
Comments from the Test Kitchen:
Kitchen CrewYum! A really great turkey burger with tons of veggies, terrific flavor and a scrumptious cilantro aioli! There's no way your team's not winning when you serve this one...

Directions

1
 Heat your grill!
Finely dice the pepper and onion.
Brown the bacon and set aside to drain.
In a large mixing bowl, add ground turkey, pepper, and onion. Take the bacon and crumble it into the mixture. Add the spicy mustard, cumin, chili powder, olive oil, salt and pepper. Mix lightly. Make patties out of the mixture for grilling.
2
 For the cilantro aioli, in a food processor add the mayo, the fresh cilantro (without stems), a squeeze of lemon if you have it and a dash of hot sauce (or two or three...) Mix and set aside in a small bowl in the cooler or fridge.

Immediately before you assemble the burgers, slice the avocados.
3
 Grill the patties and set aside under a foil tent to allow them to cook a little more get juicier!

To assemble the burgers, I heat the buns on the still hot grill and place in a basket.

Set out all the fixings - buns, patties, lettuce, tomato, avocado, cheese, aioli and get set for a fiesta in your mouth!