Last Monday I interviewed Suzie Daggett, publisher of the Insight Directory for the next issue of our newsletter, The Simplifier. One of the things she does nightly is “review and gratitude”. Even though I know these are important, rarely do I take the time to do it.

I was so grateful to get the reminder from her, because, really, the less time I think I have for this nightly activity, the more important it is to my life. Reviewing is for acknowledgment of

• what you’ve accomplished during the day
• what you could have done or dealt with better (and perhaps how)
• things you did or dealt with well
• significant happenings relevant to your values and goals
• any other stuff you want to review or that you’d benefit from getting off your mind before hitting dreamland

Gratitude is for just that, acknowledging all the blessings, good things, reasons you are fortunate, people in your life, positive exchanges with others, and anything else you can think to be grateful for. Gratitude keeps you based in your heart, helps you remember what’s truly important in your life, and lubricates the “good things coming to you pipeline”. Not to be skimped on =)

While I prefer handwriting in my journal this kind of stuff, I’ve been thinking about why I’ve been so sparse in blogging when I’ve got soooooo much to be writing about. And, well, that’s just it. I’ve got so much going on that it’s hard to sit down long enough to decide what to write on. Or, I’ll have a brilliant idea of something to write but by the time I sit down to type, it’s such old news that I can’t bear to bring it up again. Hmmm, time speeding up, over-committed, or what? I’m loving all the things I’m engaged in…

Whatever it is, I’m thinking that if I can do some of my review and gratitude here, then I’ll finish up in bed with pen and paper.

And what a super day to start this! Stopping by the Chamber of Commerce office and talking with President Mary Ann Mueller, secured the pledge of co-sponsorship for a series of workshops that I’ll offer to local businesses in the fall. Yay! Their co-sponsorship will basically mean extra advertising. Before heading over there, I finally finished a flier for “The Inbox Zapper”, a new format for the papers workshop. That flier has been a long time coming, so I was thrilled to get that done. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mark for teaching me the Photoshop skills to do what I want to be able to do.

After eating out way too much last week, today was the second “cook food in rice cooker” experiment. Ended up with a lunch and dinner of rice, lentils, yam, carrot and kale…stew? soup? what was it? The other aspect of this experiment today was integrating it with meditation practice. Since each of the ingredients cooked for a different amount of time, I set my Zen alarm clock to ring every 7 minutes. I’d sit for meditation, the chime would ring and I’d do my best to maintain mindfulness and open heart while doing the next step for the rice cooker dish. Then sit again and repeat. Interesting concept that I think I’ll explore more in the interests of eating home more often and wanting to do more meditation.

What else happened today? Oh yes! I agreed to lead a workshop, perhaps two at the Green Aware Fair coming up August 23rd. I’ll talk about voluntary simplicity, appropriating things for organizing, and generally doing more with less. Fun!

Had an unexplicably excellent mood while running errands today. I had the grocery store clerk laughing out loud because our conversing amused her so much. I left a smile on the face of the Staples checker, too–that felt super good! (plus I now have a back up toner cartridge for when the black ink runs out any day now–love being prepared!) Back at home, I finished editing the first draft of the interview for next newsletter, though still need to write an introduction.

Made a reusable nametag (above image) for the Chamber mixer this evening (can be used for any event) that had my name and Project Simplify + logo. Way happy about that since my handwriting for nametags tends to be, let’s just say, uh, creative. BUT after getting that done just in time, I stuck the nametag in my laptop case and left the house with Mark and Hilary. Mark split off halfway to town to go to his studio. Hilary and I dropped our bags off at Jim’s house (location of evening Farmers Market planning meeting) on our way to the Chamber mixer. Sad, sad, sad! New spiffy nametag stayed at Jim’s while Hilary and I went to the mixer. Dang! Oh schwell.

The farmers market logo was done by artist Louis Buchetto who was our first interview subject in the May 7 newsletter

Time at mixer was brief, time at Farmers Market meeting was long. We did get a lot done–this gathering was focused on day-of-event logistics. I think everyone felt good talking through all the duties needed to get done. (First market is on June 28th–it’ll be here before we know it.) Back at home once again, I thought I’d do some artsy stuff (I want to make a gift journal for a friend we’ll be visiting on the road trip to Colorado coming up) but was sucked into playing with website banner (in Photoshop–thanks, again Mark!!) which has been wanting a change for quite some time.

OK, I’m cutting myself off here. Time to hit the sack.