In the city of Lausanne in Switzerland there is the Olympic museum. They expose many Olympics artefacts, like Olympics torches.
Entrance of the museum
Okay, this is kind of cheated; the torch was not on fire and I didn’t have to run, I give you that. The good point is that if you happen to travel in Lausanne you can easily do it. And the museum is very interesting.
Today is Earth Day!
To celebrate this special day, we take care of our small “garden” create last year in our balcony. We grow aromatic plants, vegetables and flowers.
It always feel good to do something with you own hands and see your project develop as time pass. In addition having fresh aromatic plant available is quite handy.
Tips learn from last year:
Plants can grow quite a lot, especially vegetable. So don’t be shy in spacing plant.
It’s been a really long time I wanted an aquarium. By watching fishes I get very relax and so do you.
But the noise of the filter or air pump, the price of tank or the fact that the fish are in a place I don’t see often was too much of an annoyance for me.
But what if I could get rid of these inconveniences?
Gold fish can leave in a simple tank. With no need for electricity I can put the tank in my study table and make my work environment more relax. Finding a cheap tall tank was an issue, but walking in Ikea a found the prefect tank.
Cheap as well as vertical so it doesn’t take too much space on the desk, this was perfect.
I was afraid it might break with the water pressure, but after few tests it holds without any issue.
And here is the result for less than 100$ including everything plus 3 months of food.
It’s been now 2 months we have the aquarium and everything have been fine.
One of my 2012 (resolution) Project Actions was to read at least 1 book a month. I manage to read 27 books and wish to share some of the “wisdom” I get reading these books.
Listed in no particular order:
The naked Warrior, Pavel Tsasouline
With high body tension and power breathing we can greatly improve performance in all movements.
How to Learn Any Language, Barry Farber
It’s okay to learn several languages at the same time. When learning a language it’s important to use all dead time to work on the language. It’s become much easier when we see it like a game.
Martial Arts Reader, Randy F. Nelson
“Both ancient and modern martial artists spoken of peace, harmony, and reconciliation as representing the very highest levels of their arts.”
History of Julius Caesar by Jacob Abbott
“To write and speak well gave a public man great influence in those days.”
“Courage and enterprise, in fact, ought not to be expected of the rich; they are the virtues of poverty. “
The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg
“One paper published by a Duke University researcher in 2006 found that more than 40% of the actions people performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits.”
“Habits never really disappear.”
A Sociopath Beside Me, Junie Moon
“It has been estimated that one in twenty-five Americans has shown sociopathic behaviour. This is the sociopath’s greatest advantage. He is invisible.”
“Sociopath does not follow societies “norms”, and is incapable of playing by the rules. He has no rules, nor can he recognize other’s rules. He does not have a conscience. Thus, he has no brake on socially unacceptable behaviour, no boundary past which he dare not go. The sociopath lacks a moral compass. He cannot experience guilt. He knows no remorse. His life is simply endless sinister manipulation of others to feed his own ego.”
“When you see something that doesn’t seem quite right, it probably is not right. Once more, our best defence is awareness and willingness to question.”
“In times of extreme adversity man can be brought to his knees but also show his resilience.”
The Beginning of the End, Manel Loueiro and Pamela Carmell
You can’t hit and run zombie with a car without getting badly injure.
Mud, Sweat and Tears, Bear Grylls
Climb Everest is way much harder than what I imagine, but so much people have made it again all odds and other have died trying.
Adventure is where you find it. Always be prepared in wild.
Bear Grylls eat normal food with his teammate when shooting man VS wild.
The ways history facts, tales and the story mix is fantastic in these books.
Take care first of the one in your close circle.
A song of Ice and Fire tome 2-6, George R.R. Martin
Power resides in perception, and is as volatile as it.
Burn Notice: the Fix, Tod Goldberg
When you make plan, expect to rework them several time.
Burn Notice: The End Game, Tod Goldberg
Yacht race are way too easy to cheat. Never bet money on it.
To My Sons: Lessons for the Wild Adventure Called Life, Bear Grylls
The book is a collection of advises.
“Have a few close friends who you see often—they friendship matters more than having many shallow acquaintance.”
“Always look people on the eye.”
The Hunger Games tome 1-3, Suzanne Collins
To save a life people must sometime risk their own.
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Don’t underestimate children. They see things from different angles and thus have interesting insight.
There is no referential in sapce.
Total Recall; My Unbelievable True Life Story, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Big challenge move people.
Cuban cigars smell like fertilizer.
Sets goals, take risk and work hard.
The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum
Best spy book I have ever read.
Test everything and assume nothing.
What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast, Laura Vanderkam
They track Time and most important of all they have good productive morning habit.
Thank you for following us and reading our posts!
2012 has been an encouraging year for us, seeing the numbers of visitors to our website increased gradually and receiving ‘LIKE’ on our posts. We are driven for continuous learning and sharing 🙂 and you have given us the motivation for excellency!
We have started our 2013 with a bit craziness and lots of fun; currently started our new year resolutions. We aim to achieve many in this year!
Heart-fully wishing our readers and followers a very exciting yet peace-in-heart 2013, a year fills with vigorous energy, abundant love, healthy well-being, fun & happiness, fulfilling personal growth and great achievements!
Stepping into another brand new year, with so many things ahead of us, how could we miss the momentum and the promises of new year resolutions!!?
With our previous post, A new year, a new pair of eyes seeing the world!, we are revisiting and refreshing our on-going projects from 2012 and starting new ones for 2013.
By chance, I have read a brilliant post: “Launch A 365-Day Project In 2013” by Marelisa Fabrega. In her post, she encourages and offers 25 ideas for 365 day project. Some ideas enhance and better our lives, like spending 1 hour or some time everyday with our love (wife, kids), or meditate, exercise or take a walk every day for a year; some ideas focus on create and realize our goals and dreams, i.e. spend 1 hour on writing novel, posts or start own business. There are also some unusual and fun ideas like documenting 2013 with a photo a day, cooking a recipe dish a day or talk to someone new everyday….
No matter what comes to your mind for your 365 day project, enjoy and fun with it 🙂 Take the project from a positive, serving a better you (in relationship, health, wealth, career…) perspective and enriching your every day life. It’s important that what you have chosen to do for the coming 364 day is (are) exactly what you want and strongly desire for; because it takes lasting commitment of 364 days to make it successful!
Hsing’s 365 day project – (a) eating a fruit every day for a year and (b) 15 minutes meditation per day;
Loic’s 365 day project – (a) TBD.
“While every year starts with a new beginning, why not for a change, let’s see the world with a pair of new eyes?”
2012 is heading to an end and 2013 is almost a blink away. What are your plans on celebrating 2012 achievements and on starting goals for 2013?
Remember not too long ago, we were setting our goals for 2012 (Resolutions) Project and now it’s time we reflect on how much we have achieved and by-passed. The goals were there, because they were important to us and bought us a sense of purpose in our daily life. They constantly encourage and challenge us that we may be the persons we want to be and be a better self today than yesterday! We celebrate and be proud of our achievements!
On the other hand, where we underachieved, we try to understand the underlying root causes and our deepest obstacles, with bravery, we face our weaknesses or darkness without self-judgment and accept who we are with kindness.
It is very controversial subject, should we accept who we are and embrace ourselves as we are or should we continuously strike to seek personal excellence and be better each single day. This is a question only for you; only you will know and you decide. What’s important is, no matter what is your choice, be yourself entirely. If you want to run ahead, go for it~ if you want to take a longer rest, so be it. 2013 is your year for being truly and kindly to yourself.
Every year after the new year count down, we start with ‘1st January’. It’s the first date into another year, decade or hundred years. You may already have something new (Christmas specials) or hoping for something new and exciting to happen in 2013 or just simply want a new start and a different year. It’s a great challenge for you and all of us to view our existing environments, especially relationships with our spouse, children, parents, colleagues…etc, and with ourselves with different perspectives and with a new pair of eyes of your own choice.
‘A new pair of eyes of your own choice’ means you take off the glasses you have been wearing in the past years and put on a new pair. If your old pair of eyes used to look at yourself with critical self-judgment, then with the new pair, you’d no longer doing so; if your old pair always showed you the self of a broken heart and powerless soul, let the new pair shows you the abundance of love and spirit full mind. When you start to see yourself, people around you and things with your new eyes, new things appear!
So before you leave with the new pair of eyes, answer yourself the following questions:
I have my pair ready! Waiting for yours, so we see the world together with the new pair of eyes!!
We are changing the way we do our current bucket list challenges!
From now, we are going to share the results of our achievements first, then inviting you to take the same challenges and let us know how you do!
As the year is approaching to the end (2012) and heading to another new beginning (2013), we start to examine our individual and couple achieved and yet-to-be achieved goals & to-dos, to reflect on our personal learning and growth during the year, as well as looking at goals for coming months.
We have engaged just a month ago and there are lots of activities planned for 2013 already, including our lovely wedding!! We have few other bucket list activities discussed too… Definitely for us, we will be out of our comfort zone; the question is then HOW MUCH OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE??!!
We will keep you updated for sure!! And YOU LET US KNOW YOURS?
(Ending Sunday 18th November 2012)
This weekly challenge will be focusing on the food we eat. I won’t ask you to eat less sugar, or more vegetables, but just to write down what you eat. Quite simple isn’t it?
Few people are aware of what they eat and their pattern, so by writing down all the food we eat, it allow us to understand better our food intake habit.
You can think you don’t need to write down what you eat to remember it. But most of the time we underestimate the quantity we eat and easily forget the small snacks or treats we have.The fact of writing down everything we eat a least one time a day for one week have made people to lose weight. And no other action was asked from them. This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health. And they find out that after one week of food tracking many obese people found out some of their bad food intake patterns. For example it can be the urge to snack at 10am. Knowing that, some people now keep healthy food like apple of banana on their desks for this time. This simple action breaks this particular habit resulting in weight loses.
Other people begin to plan in advance their future meal. Doing so, they replace bad meals with healthy ones. Many others behaviours were changed, and the doctor never made any suggestion.
Having a clear understanding of food habit allow the subjects to surgically target the time, place and other trigger that makes us made bad choice about food. So we can replace bad habit with good one with relatively little effort and for great result.
After six months of study, people who kept daily food records had lost twice as much weight as everyone else.
You have few pounds to lose? Do the weekly challenge and test the easiest way to lose weight!
| Challenge: | Write down everything you eat a least one time a day for one week | |
| Extra Challenge: | Share the habit(s) you have seen and how you replace it. | |
| Goals: | Self-awareness of food habit | |
| Time required: | 10 mins a days for 7 days | |
| Energy level: | Low | |
| Preparation: | Pen and paper |
* Encourage and support us by sharing this post with your friends or clicking “LIKE” if you like our post:)
Don’t forget to share with us your experiences and how your life has changed because of the challenge!!
(Ending Sunday 14th November 2012)
Kindness is a selfless act inspired by the love within. It’s a most natural act of love.
Personally I believe we all have a love bulb within us. We have the ability to self-generate the energy and brighten the bulb up any time as we wish. And we all forget about this. In our lives, we have parents, families, friends, colleagues or strangers, people around us who either help us to illuminate brighter or to dim our brightness. We let them influence how bright we are, may be and will be; and neglect the important thing that we are the source of our own brightness.
When the light bulb is on, it radiates warmth and the act of kindness just shines through and takes place itself with abundant love.
The World Kindness Day is coming, on the 13th November! Will you let your love bulb illuminate to the maximum brightness?
Join us!
| Challenge: | join 14 Days, 14 acts of kindness in PERSONAL EXCELLENCE | |
| Extra Challenge: | Extend to 30 Days of kindness | |
| Goals: | Just light up the love bulb inside you and let your warmth shine through | |
| Time required: | 14 days to 30 days | |
| Energy level: | Medium to high | |
| Preparation: | Be kind to yourself first 🙂 |
* Encourage and support us by sharing this post with your friends or clicking “LIKE” if you like our post:)
Don’t forget to share with us your experiences and how your life has changed because of the challenge!!
Bucket List Challenges 