You don’t need to ask me twice! Anything for my Tumblr friend! Please, donate to PPT. She is a fantastic teacher, and an amazing Tumblr support and resource. She’s the glue to this wonderful community, so help a lady out!
PS Briarpatch Goodnight Moon 123 Counting Game is coming your way.
Hey everyone, as you may have heard the recent sequester will impact many government programs and their funding. My program is getting a cut, but it looks like no positions will be cut from instructional staff at this point. However, other parts of our staff may be.
Each year Pre-K teachers get a modest classroom supply fund. This is not much different than the grade level funds that are often used to purchase take home folders, construction paper, notebooks, etc. except that we each individually decide what to spend it on. This year, I spent mine on art supplies, stuff needed for science and math activities (not reusable), and some books. I am guessing that our classroom funds will be very small next year, as they have gotten smaller every year.
As you know, Pre-K kids play hard and at the beginning of the year are still learning a lot of social skills and rules. So books get ripped and toys break. And, I am sometimes able to replace them through classroom funds or my own, and sometimes I am not.
This year’s class has loved every minute, but there’s things from free choice centers that need to be replaced. Also, this year, I put a lot more focus into using rotating centers for all academic centers. While I do have a number of books that need to be replaced or that are still on my dream classroom wish list. I want to focus on stacking up on materials for literacy, science, math, and social studies.
If you have the funds this month or are a billionaire I’d appreciate it if you could take a look at my wish list (linked above). I partner with another teacher to plan a lot of things and we share materials so you would be helping out two classes.
I totally understand that money is tight for many, but all the reblogs in the world are appreciated.
This recording was inspired by my experience volunteering with the Lawn Street Community center Food Pantry, listen now
How would you like some freedom for a moment? Freedom from your heartbreak, your financial troubles, your frustration, your feeling of being trapped in a small town somewhere, or just a general sense of discontent with Life and the state of the World?
Well I am here to give you a suggestion that would bode well for you to follow through with. Well, less of a suggestion, more of a call to action.
It comes from an ancient concept called Karma Yoga, and it has nothing to do with stretching your body in poses. Karma Yoga is defined as the science of Perfect Action.
See if we were taking perfect action, our lives would obviously be a lot more satisfying, so why do we keep taking the wrong actions, making mistakes? How can we take better actions?
People overcomplicate this, but it’s clearly laid out in Hindu Philosophy. If you want your life to be better, you must give service, selflessly, without any attachment to the results of your actions. That means relentlessly working for the benefit of something or someone or a society outside of the Body and Mind you’ve come to know as yourself (more on that in a later Post: Are You the Body, Are you the Mind?).
So not only do we need to do things for others, we have to let go of the results, the “fruits of our labor”.
Look at those who are successful in the world, and you will see this trait of non-attachment. Successful people get to a level where they just do their work to do it. Kanye West doesn’t need to release another album, in fact it’s a risk he takes each time that people won’t accept the new Him, but he does it Selflessly, with a purpose, and that what makes the music relevant. He may expect his album to hit #1, but in order to actually write the music, that’s not what he’s thinking about, he is thinking about a pain, a frustration, or an elation that millions of people can relate to, something that is universal and can’t be described as himself, even though he takes the experience from his own life. He’s built his skills by working relentlessly as a producer for years, serving many musicians on their projects before he attained personal success.
It’s natural to expect, hope for, and demand excellence, but in order to live Life peacefully in ourselves, we have to demand the excellence from our execution of action, not from the results of our actions. That will come, because action is causation, the result of that action is the effect.
Typical example: Boy likes girl, he decides to approach her and really wants her to like him back, so he starts approaching her awkwardly, buying her gifts, smiling at her…what is the reaction? She becomes creeped out. The more this kid clings to the results of his actions the more he pushes away the result he actually seeks.
On the other hand, you have the cool, aloof guy that she is naturally attracted to, yet he doesn’t really care about the situation at all.
It’s just an example of non-attachment vs. attachment as it relates to characteristics of people, we’ve all seen or experienced the situation in some way in our relationships. When we cling to someone, it usually pushes them away.
So here’s my suggestion. Forget yourself, or who you think you are, because in reality you have no idea all that you are capable of. And the only way you will find out is by taking action for a purpose higher than yourself. Higher than your body, higher than your mind, and the entertainment it seeks. Higher than the Life you call your Own.
Start by doing things for other people without expecting anything in return, like cooking a meal for someone. Learn about the concept of tithing, and find a charity to give to, without thinking how your finances will be impacted. These are simple things to do, but it’s doing it with the right Mindset that matters. Taking these acts creates faith in something, but you have to do it regularly. Just like going to the gym, if you do it once it is painful, if you start going 3 times a week you feel amazing and after a few weeks your energy level is so much higher, you are full of vibrance and vitality. So do what you feel capable of doing consistently, with a good attitude, and in a way that’s not too painful.
In fact, the attitude we have to take towards giving, we can apply to what we are already doing, as well as making a conscious effort to do more in the future. For instance lets say you are a waitress, and it’s your job to deliver food to customers. Well a miserable waitress is there thinking “I have to go to work, I have to make money for rent, I need a new skirt, I can’t stand these customers”. The happiest waitress in the world is there to serve people, to serve the business, with a purpose to put a smile on each customers face. Now not everyone would be that way, but we can at least take a new perspective in the mind. If there were more waiters and waitresses that were thinking about the customers happiness, there would be happier customers, who in return would tip more. The result is achieved by focusing on the Service.
So do the best you can to smile your way through the day, make eye contact with people and deliver compliments more often. Make a game out of it if you want to. And devote some of your mental energy in the form of thoughts to the needs of others. ”How can I make this child’s life better, more meaningful, more peaceful?” Even if you don’t have any answers right now, you are rewiring your mind to think on a totally different plane, it may take time but every step of the journey is a step towards happiness.
If you are a Father or Mother, you have countless opportunities to serve each other or your kids, if you are a Son or a Daughter, you have many opportunities to serve your parents, Siblings can learn to serve one another, Neighbors can serve each other, Teachers can serve their students by conveying material with creativity and energy, and students can serve the teacher by remaining inquisitive and open to new knowledge.
But it’s You that has to take the first step, and it’s okay if that step is taken just by a change in perspective. Don’t expect other people to become any nicer or friendlier, just start giving whether you like it or not…that’s Selflessness.
Also, here is a great place to get you thinking about compassion in the next 5 minutes: www.charitywater.org
I eat gluten-free oats for breakfast every morning, but for a while now I have been wanting to explore oats in a slightly different way…also I just got my raw cacao butter in the mail and I wanted a chance to use it!
Step one:
Boil some water, add a dash of salt if you choose
Step two: Add in the oats
At this point, I was getting my coconut oil to melting temperature by leaving it in the pot with the boiling water and oats. This is the best technique! Coconut water solidifies at room temperature if you didn’t know.
Step three: After the oats are done, mix in whatever you’d like!
I used:
A small brick of raw cacao butter
Coconut oil
Two tsp. soy flour
Nutiva Hemp Seeds
Milled Flax Seed
And then I added some raisins and honey for sweetness.
Any suggestions, additions? Let me know. Some cocoa powder would have done nicely with this…I need to get some! I saw a lot of recipes with peanut butter as well…but I just finished off the jar!
Hello all,
And welcome to post #1 as a proceed with my journey to truly lock into wholesome, natural cooking so that I may attain a healthy lifestyle. Aren’t you tired of the price you pay for convenient, lower-quality foods? They may be a few dollars cheaper in the store, but it takes it’s toll in other ways!
I have learned about myself in the past couple of years that I was brainwashed to a certain degree by the school environment as well as TV to think that “vegetables are yucky” and to be avoided, and that what I really want is a burger or a slice of pizza or a chocolate bar or a soda…but time and time again, I’ve realized those fatty, unhealthy foods just make me feel crappy! So end of that story, and let’s begin a new chapter, where I can truly enjoy these natural foods. It’s taken time to get to know them, but now I feel more confident putting recipes together and cooking delicious vegan meals.
One of the hardest things about eating healthy I would say, for me at least, is keeping up with the cooking for each meal. Because I can’t always just heat up a box of ramen noodles or go down to grab a bite at Mcdonalds, I’ve had to learn some cooking basics. The main things I’ve learned: I enjoy cooking way more than I imagined, great spices are essential, vegetables can and should be delicious!
I have been vegetarian now for a good 6 months…this includes spurts of sometimes eating dairy products such as kefir or cheese, and trying eggs a few times. There are times when you just want to feel full and satisfied, and believe me I have indulged! But I feel ready to commit myself further to this lifestyle, and I know that planning my meals is the most important step for me.
Why is meal planning important? Because planning your meals actually begins long before you even have the food in your pantry! I am beginning to plan my meals first and foremost so I know EXACTLY what to get at the store, and don’t run up another $100 bill at Trader Joe’s by purchasing all of the pre-prepared foods for the convenience factor.
The convenience factor can be nice though. Today, as I was planning my lunch, I decided cauliflower would be my starting point, and it was nice to have a bad of pre-cut and washed Cauliflower from Trader Joe’s. Not too much Cauliflower comes in the bag, but I don’t eat (or didn’t eat) cauliflower too often and I was intimidated by purchasing a full one! I don’t like throwing away unused veggies when they rot, so I am trying to get the quantities I will use.
I am not at the point where I know enough recipes to plan a week in advance yet, but an hour in advance is a good start!
So starting with the cut up Cauliflower, I decided to go to the net for a recipe. My family has always served an Indian Cauliflower Dish called Aloo Gobi, and I decided to make my own spin on it.
Spices:
- Turmeric
- Ground Cumin
- Curry Powder
- Fresh Ginger
- Fresh Garlic
- Salt
Oil
- Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
Veggies
- Caulflower
- White Onion
- Green Onion
- Dandelion Greens
- Kale
- Some leftover peas and Carrots
Preparation:
This process was pretty easy. Normally I would probably serve some rice or lentils with this, but I wanted to just focus on making my cauliflower taste awesome.
Step 1:
Wash the cauliflower— put in Microwave for 2 minutes
Step 2: While Cauliflower cooks gently, boil some water for your kale (Good healthy compliment but can be replaced with anything else)
Step 3: Chop up your white onion
Step 4: Throw the Kale in to Boil with some salt and chopped onion
Step 5: Sautee the rest of the white onion till it becomes lightly caramelized in Coconut Oil…best oil ever in my opinion.
Step 6: While onion Sautees, put cauliflower in the Microwave for 1 more minute
Step 7: Sautee Cauliflower and Onion while Kale Boils
Step 8: Add curry powder, turmeric, salt, cumin to Cauliflower
Step 9. Chop Dandelion Greens (or other), along with Green onions
Step 10: Add greens (and peas) to the mix, grate ginger and garlic, and sautee
That’s all there is to it!
10 Simple steps to delicious vegetarian eating. You can add some potatoes to your sautee if you choose, or carrots, anything you want really! Cauliflower gives it a heartier taste and the spices make it absolutely delicious.
His parents expected him to get a job with Mitsubishi. Instead Haruki Murakami married young, bought a jazz bar and began to write. As his new novel 1Q84 is published, Emma Brockes goes to Hawaii to meet the enigmatic author
Living like an artist means using the same mentality and development strategy that a trained musician (or painter, sculptor, dancer, etc.) uses to master the craft in one’s daily life. Artists are the perfect success models because they are constantly creating and developing, as every individual should. Living like an artist will teach you to develop in every aspect of your life, whether it be business, relationships, or intellectually, physically, or otherwise.
Experts in every field create advancements through original thought, and therefore can be defined as artists.
To be a true expert in any field means to truly have a creative knowledge of the field; or in other words, to understand ones field so well that one may contribute to the progress of that field with original and innovative thought. A knowledgeable personal trainer can get you in shape, but an expert will develop an entirely new exercise regime (such as a kettlebell workout) that revolutionizes the way we think about weight training. These innovative leaders in every field are actually artists who apply the Philosophy of Art to truly make a contribution to the world with the knowledge they gain.
Philosophy #1: Constant development and learning. We all know what happens if you take 2 weeks off from the gym to be catatonic. That’s why artists are constantly learning and developing in new and unique ways. The true purpose of art is not to be viewed or appreciated (feel free to argue that point in the comments), but simply to detoxify the creator of excess thoughts. Truly great artists don’t have to schedule 30 minute practice sessions like elementary students— the process comes naturally, almost like the daily morning ritual many of us have for cleansing our digestive system, artists have a similar routine to cleanse our minds and organize our thoughts so that they may be expressed and communicated, and bring us satisfaction.
Philosophy #2: Know thyself Every person from the dawn of time until this very day has had strengths and weakness, triumphs and hardships. This is an essential realization for any person and for any artist, to admit to one’s own weakness and to get rid of any thought of solidarity in hardship. We often feel all alone in our struggles, and try to be strong and push through rather than ask for help. The best thing any artist can do is to begin to recognize his or her deficiencies and how they can be improved. This is true for artists of any level. Once you realize what your strengths and weaknesses are, you have to learn how to use them, when, and in what quantities. For example, Kanye West is a very strong producer and rap artist, but for him to invest time in tap dancing would be a fruitless endeavor— he would never experience the same satisfaction because it would be impossible for him to become the best. I’m a spontaneous performer and musician; I love to jam and play extended solos, get on my knees and get the crowd going…sounds like a good trait doesn’t it? Well it’s the same trait that got me fired from my first full-time paying music gig at an amusement park, just one example of how a seemingly good trait can be harmful to oneself in a particular situation. We learn to hone our intuition from our experiences in finding the balance between showing our strengths and putting certain qualities on reserve.
The “Live Like an Artist” series is an extended blog that will continue over the course of several weeks. Stay tuned for the next article!
We all understand the concept of survival of the fittest, the Darwinian philosophy that the strongest will survive and the weak will inevitably fall behind. What is essential to realize, however, is that this evolutionary process constantly occurs within us, as we evolve into complete different beings as individuals; it also acts on a cultural level, in regards to the evolution of technology, sciences, and the area of my concern, arts.
Imagine an evolving being so conscious of its own changing that a conscious evolution is allowed to occur, some would say revolution. I like to think of it as re-evolution. We are able to deliberately alter a process in real time by riding the waves of change within ourselves as well as within society.
It’s such an obvious fact that cyberspace evolves, those who ride the frontier (Itunes with the mp3 store, or even Napster beforehand) will inevitably command the landscape of an industry. At the moment, it’s the tech-geeks that are running the music industry in a lot of ways, because they are the ones able to envision the future— creating the app store directly changes the music industry; creating an mp3 cloud drive changes the music industry, digital distribution changes the music industry.
It’s time to simplify. In the end, we can remember Itunes as a 10-year fad of protected mp3 files, overloaded hard drives, and incompatible devices. The future of the music industry lies in the beauty of freedom to share, explore, and understand music on deeper levels than ever before. ”True fans” continue to immerse themselves in the lives of artists, enabling much more personal control, but this true fan model must exist on the scale of thousands of successful artists who can maintain complete creative control over their music, retain rights, and generate royalities via multiple streams of income.
In the future, I see no need for the record label or the record. Inevitably, there will not be a handful of artists selling millions of albums, but rather, a direct and real-time exchange that brings success to many.
To me, Amazon mp3 + Rhapsody + Pandora + Pokemon, as crazy as it sounds, is the answer.
The challenge will be coordinating the multitude of sources create the foundation.
The reward: a completely different infrastructure of music, affecting the lives of hundreds of millions, creating new jobs and economies, and bringing a widespread Renaissance and obliterating the cliche of the “starving artist”.
Can it be done? I believe it’s in the works.
