long term friends

The other day I read the following;


"Every morning when I wake up, I dedicate myself to helping others find peace of mind. Then, when I meet people, I think of them as long term friends; I don't regard others as strangers."

~Dalai Lama~

WOW! Such a powerful thought, to think of every stranger as a long term friend- surely that changes my attitude when approaching my customers every day. This makes me wanna be an even better person in each and every interaction through the day.

Now, practice makes perfect... So all I have to do is, keep it in mind and try to master the art of kindness towards everybody, all day, every day.

I am not saying it would be simple, in fact sometimes the simplest of tasks and actions that require the most use of our soul/heart and less use of our ego, are the hardest one to master, right?

But then when we think about the reward those actions can bring into our life, is when we realize that a life without the purpose of giving kindness and helping others, has no real meaning at all.

So, this weekend I encourage you to think about what the Dalai Lama says, when dealing with strangers treat them as long term friends and perhaps that might even encourage them to do the same or if not give yourself the change to gain some peace of mind. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

what's for dinner?

For those readers that as of today still haven't noticed my new menu options on the top of my blog (under my banner), all I have to say is "shame on you"!

And for those that have and perhaps even clicked on one of the "categories", I am hoping that your experience was amazing!!!

So, now in order to make good use of my this new blog feature I've decided to share with you yet another wonderful recipe that I made a few days ago. Also because, don't you hate it when your day is been very busy, you are about to leave work, or just go back home from running errands, only to realize that you have no idea what to fix for dinner?!?!? Suck, doesn't it?

Well, if I was still single and living by myself perhaps this would be a whole different story, but this is not the case anymore...

So the other day I stumble upon a delicious and super easy Garlic Chicken recipe, I tried it and gave it 2 thumbs up, which is why today I am sharing it with y'all- you're welcome!

Easy Garlic Chicken 

• 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 4 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons olive oil

Directions:

1. 1
   Preheat oven to 500°F and lightly grease a casserole dish.
2. 2
   In small sauté pan, sauté garlic with the oil until tender.
3. 3
   Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar.
4. 4
   Place chicken breasts in a prepared baking dish (lined up with aluminium foil for easier cleaning purposes) and cover with the garlic and brown sugar mixture.
5. 5
   Add salt and pepper to taste.
6. 6
   Bake uncovered for 15-30 minutes

So, if any day you want a simple yet delicious dinner, give it a try, you won't be disappointed... same as if you "navigate" on my new blog feature menu bar thingy... promise!

Now, go home, get some chicken out of the freezer and cook it later or tomorrow, your family will love you for it!!!

Happy Thursday!

where's the sun?!?

Anybody knows where the Sun is been hiding lately?!? I look out the window and this is the 4th day I don't see the Sun around...

Yesterday was still very cloudy and raining pretty hard at times, makes me forget that I live in the Caribbean.

On days like these I can't help but wonder and think about the poor lil' animals outdoors, how they need to find some shelter to stay dry and perhaps warm.

For those that have never been to Grand Cayman, here, we have many many wild chickens all over the place, they're pretty much everywhere, running free and even walking down the streets [no joke], like in this photo taken in town by my sister in law.

photo source G.G.

To us residents, it's a pretty usual sight to have them all over, but tourists some times get crazy taking their photos... just as I was back in Maryland and specially Virginia where instead of chickens they have Canadian Geese.

And duckies!!!

But it's not so much about the chickens that I worry when the weather is this bad or when the hurricane season is coming up, there are lots of iguanas, birds and of course feral dogs and cats that could be in danger when the weather is bad....

So, lately I have been thinking of ordering a cage for our 6 cats, I've looked around and I think this one is the best one I've found so far at amazon.com

I specially like it because of the levels and that it fold down to this...

I'm not sure we will be able to get all 6 cats in there when a storm is coming, but we can at least try, it would be a small space for all 6 but we also have a small kennel and perhaps we could also get a spare small kennel as a back up.

So four in this cage and two in kennels could sound like a plan.

Perhaps we will get the cage and we might never use it or perhaps this is what we need to ensure they will be safe... When it comes to safety for our animals, we really need to be prepared.

Hoping to see the Sun very soon, if you see "him" around, please tell him he's missed!

Happy Wednesday : )

Just Add Rain

My three day long weekend was nice, but it was mostly spent indoors as the weather was pretty crappy (and still is)...

Saturday was overcast for most part of the day but at least it wasn't raining. In the evening we went to have dinner with some friends and then afterwards stopped by to celebrate our friend Simon's birthday and to thank him for taking care of our animals and house while we were away!

Our friend Simon gettin' some LOVE for his b-day (photo by L. De Viers- facebook)

Sunday I went to the 6 month review for the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program, it was a short meeting but I am glad I went because we talked about some important issues and we came up with a plan of how to approach those.

So, when it rains and there's point in going outside, what do you do?!?!?

Well, I spent the day watching tv and working on some crochet projects as I am trying to come up with ideas for my next giveaway which will be coming real soon... (stay tuned!}

I worked on this little Koi Fish Money pouch which I gave to my friend Jody on Saturday when we had dinner with her and her husband, she loved it!

What do you think? You like or not? Is it giveaway material or not?

Out the following bag I found on Pinterest, I got inspired to crochet a little pouch with a new pattern I recently purchased..... (inspiration is on the colors only!).

Unfortunately I took the picture of the finished product at night, so can't really see the colors very well...

Yesterday morning at around 5:30am it started raining with very strong wind gusts and it pretty much hasn't stop raining since, I went out of the house only once to walk the dogs and managed to get a little video so you can have an idea of what our "lovely day" looked like but unfortunately I was unable to upload it.

Hope everybody's has a great Tuesday and our is not too wet!