KISS KISS

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I love cooking and entertaining. This is a byproduct of having European parents and a mother who is a splendid chef in her own right (you should taste her strawberry chocolate hazelnut cake and her napoleon!). Well yesterday I invited a friend who I haven't seen in years over for brunch. She was on crutches and drove a long way from the North Shore near Manly (a beach side suburb about 20km northeast of the Harbour Bridge for the overseas folks who may be reading this blog). I usually go over the top with my cooking and prepare about half a dozen if not more dishes which then leave me too tired to socialise. This time I kept it simple. I served a variation on the classic Mexican dish Huevos Rancheros which is fried eggs cooked with lots of red capsicum and served on a tortilla. My interpretation which was sourced from an Australian Women's Weekly recipe book was scrambled egg served on top of a tortilla with grilled tasty cheese and served with chorizo sausage and tomato salsa. The menu also included Mexican hot chocolate, hashbrowns cooked with onion and fresh rosemary, and for sweets – a spiced waffle with stewed apples and sultanas served with ice cream and roasted sugared walnuts. Now usually I have to get up at 5am to do my chores and start cooking, but this time I leisurely worked my way through the each recipe component, set the table, picked fresh flowers and actually had time to fix my hair and put on something decent to wear instead of my usual farm chic. My friend and I had a nice conversation and filled in all the blanks from several years of having missed each other due to heavy work commitments. 

So why do I bring this up here? Well, outside of wanting you to salivate for just a couple of moments, I've decided to apply the same principle to my work life. Usually I overload and multi-task and then only get three or four things done on a list of ten or twelve which leave me feeling distinctly unsatisfied, disappointed and a failure that I didn't have the energy or the time to fulfill the "shoulds" on my  TO DO LIST. I'm going to switch things around now – I'm going to apply the well know KISS (keep it simple stupid) rule and only commit to a handful of daily work tasks. This in turn will leave me with a great sense of accomplishment and feeling refreshed enough to then actually knock off a household task such as ironing or even participate in a recreational activity such as finishing off the day by reading a few chapters from the book by my bedside. Oh my goodness! I am actually doing what normal intelligent people with lots of commonsense do – I'm finding  balance!!!