Hello World!

Well, those of you who know me, know that I especially take the time off from my oh-so-busy-life, and spend it exercising and keeping fit.Being 5″3, weighing in at 43kg, you would think I wouldn’t need any exercise right?! Wrong!! Being a inactive couch potato (i.e. A BUM!) is, and I simply must mention, just as bad as being a smoker.

I believe we need to take care of our bodies and minds equally, though many may consider the former as more important. Let me tell you this, trying to maintain a healthy external appearance, as well as a strong and internal well-being is as hard as it could get when it comes to overall bodily health. Nothing good comes easily!

We need that little extra push to better ourselves. In the case of exercise, we have gyms, with fascinating machinery invented just to keep your butt in shape. You have absolutely NO excuse to ditch your daily workout(and don’t give me the whole “I have no time” alibi-everyone can spare 30 minutes up to one hour a day working up a sweat).

So, this is mainly for the ladies:

I am proud to announce the opening of a new gym *applause*, owned by a close friend of mine. The new gym is called Shapes For Women, located at the following address:

 Jabriya

Block 1A

Street 105

Building 186

 Or you may call at: 5331080

Or check out their website

Your body is your temple people, it needs to be cared for- otherwise you’ll end up with flabby,weak muscles, a malfunctioned heart and lungs, stiff joints(you catch my drift).AND for you smokers out there, life is short-don’t make it any shorter!Cigarettes are cancer sticks, and there are better ways to die.

Be good to your body, and it’ll be good to you.

Hello Everyone!

My little sisters LOVE junk food. So pizza was on our dinner menu for tonight,I have to admit I do have my junk food cravings every once in a while but I usually end up eating one slice or less and thats it, so I decided to make one of my side dishes to go along with it as its my only means of veggies in my main course. I would like to share with you another one of my potato recipes. You will need:

2 large potatoes

2-3 garlic cloves

Butter or margerine(1/2 stick)

full-cream milk

grated cheddar cheese

 salt

*I based my portions as cooking for three people

1. Turn on base oven(160 deg Celcius)

2. Peel potatoes and slice them into 5mm rings

3. Peel garlic cloves and slice into 3mm rings

4. Put butter in pyrex dish and blast in microwave for 1 min

5. Layer the potatoes in rows and sprinkle some of the garlic and salt in between the layers

6. Pour some milk 1 inch from the base of the dish

7. Pop it in the oven for 45 mins

8. Take dish out and sprinkle your cheddar cheese on top, turn on top oven and pop it in for 10 mins until cheese slightly browns

Serve right away but careful it’ll be smokin HOT!!

Enjoy!

Hello World!

I’m not a big fan of chocolate, I do however like the occasional dose in ice-cream, milk or with fruit. I also like it with rice krispies. Heres a favourite recipe of mine VERY easy to make, and very yummy too.

You’re going to need:                                                                                                                      

10 Mars Bars(540 grams)

130 grams rice krispies

1. In a steam pot or water bath, melt your Mars Bars until thick and runny(don’t let any water get in)

2. In a large bowl, add your rice krispies and the melted choco mix in and mix well with a wooden spatula( or use your hands-careful its HOT!)

3. In a pyrex dish, spread the mix and flatten it out as much as you can, make sure the edges of the pyrex are filled in really well.

4. Place in fridge for a half hour or so.

5. Take dish out, and with a spatula try to separate the mix from the edges of the dish until it comes out a big block.

6. With a large sharp knife(not with a raggedy edge) cut(don’t saw its not bread!) the block into long vertical pieces, then for each strip, cut further into 5 square pieces( about 1.25*1.25 inch pieces, I call these MAN-SIZE pieces:)).

7. Place in air-tight jar.

Tip:

•  I’ve known a few who like it a little sweeter, you can add some sugar and honey to the chocolate mix while its melting, personally I think thats as sweet as it gets:)

Hello World! 

We all have our own way of changing our cat’s litter-box. I thought I’d share my method with you:)                                                                                                                                           

You will need:  

Regular Cat Litter

Newspaper

Kitchen roll(4 squares)

Crystal Cat Litter(optional)

Deodorizer                                                                                 

1. Assuming you washed and dried the litter-box, layer some newspaper at the base.

2. Layer on the deodorizer, a thin layer to completely cover the newspaper base. It smells lovely,I found it in Sultan Center, the smell didn’t bother Mouse.

3. Layer some of the crystal litter, I don’t use it in big proportions but if you do then thats fine, but I dont consider it cat litter. I read it can be toxic if ingested, but someone told me that if I really wanna use it I can put it in and layer some kitchen roll on top of it so do that. Mouse, again, depending on the cats personality, wont eat his own cat litter….he whines if I dont change it every week so I very much doubt that he would eat it:)

4. Finally, layer on the cat litter.

5. Done!

Tip:

• I wash the litter-box with Dettol then I leave it outside to dry for a while, it would be a good idea to have 2 litter boxes so you can alternate while the former is drying.

What do you get…A Very Happy Kitty!:)

What is synergy? How do we achieve it?

Synergy is derived from the Greek word, syn, meaning together, and energy. Synergy is the special energy which is created when people work together effectively on a project or problem. This energy is usually stronger and more powerful than the energy created by individuals working alone. The secret to synergy is how people work together. The model below illustrates how teams develop synergy:

In my previous training course we did a group activity with the objective that we reach team synergy in the end. We followed this book called the Black Bear. It goes by a scenario that starts something like this:

We’re a group of hikers on the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, when our Scout Leader gets attacked by a bear. He is bleeding steadily from deep laceratations on his chest,arms,and back from the bears claws, but does not appear to have broken bones.

The trip had turned into a disaster. Some of us are concerned that the Scout Leader is going into shock. All of us fear that he won’t survive unless he reaches proper medical help in within the next  hours. There is also a fog coming.

So what to do?

We have to look at the strategy alternatives and see what should be the best way to go about the situation but first we need to look at the strategies as per:

1. Individual Choice
2. Team Choice

So as individuals we have to work out the best way to get us back to safety and have medical help for our Scout Leader, we were given several choices. Once we established it based on our opinion alone, we work it out as a team and come up with one final solution. We were given a time limit as well to complete this exercise.

Once we’ve done that we need to check our score and see if we used team synergy to come up with the correct solution. The lower the score the better. In my case my individual score was less than the team score(2/6 including me got that result), it should be the opposite. This means that only two of us came up with the most logical decision. But being the introverts in the group we kept quiet most of the time and didn’t voice out our opinions like we should have. So we learned that in order to make decisions under pressure as a team we have to:

It is difficult to practice all the team member actions in the model, even under the best circumstances. Decision-making under pressure makes practicing these behaviours even more challenging. But in high-pressure situations, use of good decision-making techniques become crucial. With practice, I believe these seven actions can help us improve  our team’s ability to make effective decisions, regardless of stress and pressure:)

Hello World!

I know I’m a little behind on my christmas baking I ‘ve just been so busy and this cake in particular needs some free time, I’d love you to try its soo good, does take longer than a regular cake but its worth it:)

Note: You’ll need a weighing scale used for food because I’m measuring everything in grams:

140 grams currants(zante currants are yummy)

170 grams raisins

55 grams maraschino cherries(or mixed glazed fruits)

170 grams butter

200 grams dark-brown sugar(I use Whitworths dark brown soft cane sugar)

2 eggs

200 grams flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp ground cinammon

2 tsp  ground ginger

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon milk

115 grams walnuts

1/2 cup of OJ(Orange Juice)

 1. Take all dried fruit and soak in OJ and blast in microwave for 1 min

2. Preheat oven to 150 deg celcius(Gas 2)

3. Beat butter and sugar together in mixer until fluffy, then beat in eggs one at a time

4. Turn off mixer and add flour, baking powder and spices and mix in with spoon(or with hands)

5.  Add honey and milk to fruit and OJ

6. Mix in fruit with the dough

7. Add nuts

8. Place in oven and cover with foil for 30 mins, then remove and leave for 1.5 hours or so.

Cake tips:

• I used nothing LOW FAT its christmas and a little guity indulgence is permitted:)
• Blast the honey and milk in the microwave for 1-2 mins so the honey will dissolve and thus mix in well with the fruit
• Fresh OJ is always a plus
• You can add some white/dark choco chips to the mix if you are a choco nut:)

A Belated Merry Christmas Everyone! God Bless You All:)

My cat mouse is a ball of fluff. Since I’m at work most of the day I usually come home exhausted and want nothing but to lie down and relax on my bed, only to find a layer of cat fur on my duvet!! Eww. 

Ever heard of a bedskirt?

Bedskirts may have come into vogue to camouflage storage areas beneath the bed,or a more practical purpose for the bedskirt may also be to reduce dust directly beneath the bed, and thus reducing the proximity of dust mites to the bedding itself. In my case I wanna prevent what goes ON my bed not what goes underneath it:)

Bedskirts can be found in a variety of places in Kuwait. Try Sears, Centerpoint or True Value.

So before you leave the house to go anywhere or when you wake up in the morning to go to work, make your bed, cover it with a bed skirt and your cat can stay in your bed all he wants, except this time you won’t find any fur on your duvet:). They also are very easy to  wash so you can wash them every 1-2 weeks.

Washing bedskirt

If you have pets my standard cycle would be:

1. Cycle of water and Dettol

2. Cycle of water and soap

3. Cycle of water, soap, and fabric softener

And if you are environmentally friendly like my sis, here is an alternative way to washing your laundry:)

Happy Cleaning!!!:) 

Hello,

I love potatoes, I like potatoes in salad, mashed, Au gratin, soup, baked, fried, scalloped…etc. They make great side dishes, main dishes…. you name it!

I would like to share with you my famous baked potato soup recipe, anyone who savored it loved it, it can be served as a main dish because its so filling and flavorful. It’s simple to make as well, try it:):

Ingredients:

If you’re cooking for two:

Potatoes (2 large potatoes)
Turkey or beef bacon(3-4 strips)
Garlic powder
Salt
Pepper
Half a stick of butter (or low fat margarine)
Veggie oil (I prefer Canola oil)-for frying the bacon
2/3 tablespoons of flour
Milk (full cream-2 cups)

Begin by dicing the potatoes into little ½ inch cubes and boiling it in water for 15-20 mins with a little salt
Slice the bacon into little squares, fry in a little oil and set aside
5 mins before draining the potatoes make your soupy sauce:
Melt the butter until it sizzles (do NOT let it
colour)
Add the flour and start to whisk- do that for about 2
minutes to ‘cook out’ the flour taste
Add milk a little at a time, until you get the smooth,
velvety texture that you want.
Keep whisking (DO NOT let it get chunky)
At this point, you can add a pinch of salt, pepper or powdered garlic
Drain potatoes and add to mixture
Keep stirring for about 3 mins
Serve soup and sprinkle bacon on top first, then add parsley and grated cheddar cheese, anything you can make it into!

PS. In case you haven’t noticed, the ingredients for the sauce is relatively similar to Alfredo sauce used for pasta and ravioli, I’ve always favoured Alfredo to Marinara (i.e people know them as white and red sauce), I figured it could work as a soup too, so I tried it out and came up with good results:)

Hello world!

I recently came out of my Management training course in Dubai which was FAN-tabulous! And being the geek that I am I thoroughly enjoyed the training courseJ We were trained by instructors who originally are psychologists but are practitioners in human resource development and training. The course invites a lot of people skills, group activities, presentations, and several tests, the one test that did stand out for me which I thought was enjoyable and interesting was the MBTI. The MBTI is a personality questionnaire designed to identify certain psychological differences according to the typological theories and bleh…Boring…basically it states that everyone is characterized into 16 types of personalities (Although we all agreed that Britney Spears is the 17^th type hee heeJ) After taking the test, which consists of 80-something questions I found out that I am…are you ready….an ISTJ! Now you’re probably wondering what on earth that means….me gonna tell you! The MBTI provides a useful method for understanding people by looking at eight personality preferences that everyone uses at different times. These eight preferences are organized into four opposite pairs. When you take the Indicator, the four preferences (one from each pair you identify as being most like you) are combined into what is called a type. The four pairs of preferences, or dichotomies, describe four activities: 

• Energizing-how a person is energized, either through Extraversion(E) or Introversion(I)
• Perceiving-what a person pays attention to, either through sensing(S) or Intuition(N)
• Deciding- How a person decides, either through thinking(T) or Feeling(F)
• Living- the lifestyle of a person adopts, either through Judging(J) or Perceiving(P)

 We were a class of about 25 people and the results were as follows:   

So…why did we take this test, and what’s the point? This MBTI has been applied as a tool for many years by a variety of uses around the globe, including those in:

·        small businesses and large multinational corporations

·        Service industries and manufacturing concerns

·        Consulting and training services

·        Government at all levels

·         Established firms and new entrepreneurial ventures  

In general, the MBTI a functions as a tool that helps people in organizations understand themselves and behaviors, appreciate others in order to make constructive use of individual preferences, approach problems in different healthy ways and thus be more productive and so on.

On the whole its taught me that not everyone is the same, and not everyone fits the MBTI profile 100%, its only said to be 70% accurate, but its definitely opened my eyes to the fact that some people are more feeling than thinking , and more do-think-do than think-do-think. Diversity is what we need to make a team work, if we were all ISTJ’s for example, there won’t be a chance for advancement or new ideas, we’d all be in the same frame of mind J

So as ISTJ’s we are considered to be “life’s natural organizers”:-serious, quiet, we find concentration and thoroughness crucial, logical, realistic, dependable and work steadily (regardless of distraction) . 

PS. This test is NOT for choosing a partner, one guy liked 2 women and is considering marrying one of them so he asked our instructor if he could have a few copies of the test lol. Relationships work because you want them to, and as long there is a communication and compromise between the two of you, you’re good to go:)    

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with the kitchen in the past, but over the past year I have found the kitchen a place of true serenity. This recipe was born from my recent awareness that everything is not what it seems at first, at a glance, this cake looks like a chocolate treat at first, but the deception lies within… it’s really vanilla in disguise!

Ingredients
3 cups sifted cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons butter
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 egg whites

Instructions
Preheat oven to 325. Grease and line 2 9-inch cake pans with parchment.

Sift together flour and baking powder. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

With a mixer on slow speed, add flour mixture to the butter mixture,
alternately with milk. Beat after each addition. Beat in vanilla.

Whip the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold them into the cake batter gently, making sure not to over mix. Pour into prepared pans.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Place cake pans on cooling rack and allow to cool completely before removing from pans.

This is mummys home-made topping:

2 tbsp pure cocoa powder (adjust to taste)
1 stick butter(or you can use low fat margarine)
1 cup of double cream (qish6a)
1 x 400ml can sweetened condensed milk

In a pan on low heat, mix in all 4 ingredients, the cocoa butter depending on how dark/bitter you want the icing to be, use a whisk and continuously whisk until smooth but not too runny, the consistency on the above cake was acheived by boiling the mixture for 2 minutes, keeping the whisk going ALL the time! Otherwise you’ll end up with a mixture of spoilt icing and a pan full of burnt milk!

Ice the cake after it has cooled completely… and dig in!

 I, on the other hand, am what I seem on the outside.. I’m not a chocolate covered vanilla cake.I’m a  fruit jelly:)