Training to be A Mind Alchemist with Steve Aitchison

February marks Chinese New Year, which is an occasion of gathering with family and friends, and the start of a new mindset-changing course that I have signed up with Steve Aitchison, Mind Alchemy.  He is the owner of the blogsite, Change Your Thoughts, which focuses on positive-living.
The big reason that made me want to become a Mind Alchemist, although I feel I am pretty much a positive-thinker, was that lately work stress had begun to get to me.  I am certainly not living the life that I could, given this little nagging uncertainty from work that is always at the back of my mind, and I have many a time thought that I want to give up.  I want to change my mindset, to understand how there are so many aspects of life, and whether in the end I could overcome this setback, or accept this with contentment.
Steve started Day 1 with the Wheel of Life, which analyzes the 8 aspects of life.  Then on Day 2, he went on to show us that our effort towards gaining an outcome are either driven by positive or negative motivators.  I found out that I have a mixture of both, but perhaps I need to shift to more positive motivators as it would be easier for me to get to the outcomes that I want.
Day 3 sees us ticking off vigorously on the values that we have or want to strengthen, or would like to have.
Just these 3 days of work has made me rethink my goals in life and I am so glad I am working towards living the life that I really want.
I am a little behind time in my homework, due to the Chinese New Year and all, but I am trying to catch up and do my homework diligently.  I want to make it work, and having done it all, I want to give Steve some feedback so that he could refine the course for future Mind Alchemists.

Pudacuo National Park, Shangri-La, China

Sometimes I think I am such a whiner.  My life is almost perfect.  It is just that we always focus on the negative and it grows bigger than who we really are.  And that is why I am so thankful that I have ever stumbled upon Steve's blog to grow everyday to be a better person.

Reunion Dinner

Ok this post is made by popular request of 1 person, J.
He said, "Aren't you going to take a picture and write about this in your blog?"
I gave him a look that said: "You're weird."
I think he was very happy with our simple reunion dinner tonight. As usual we have our seafood steamboat.  This year, he added a side pot of instant Korean noodle soup.  And all of us enjoyed it, except Yuan (who only have the plain soup) & the baby.  The baby just sat in her highchair at the table, happily munching bread.

CNY 2011 at Ikea

Ikea is really an inspiration to me for one of my favourite pastimes - interior decorating.  So on a lazy Sunday morning, we took all the kids to Ikea, and landed right into the atmosphere of Chinese New Year.

It is amazing that just with some simple colours and contrast, you could transform a space into a cosy room with a very CNY feel, like the model living room above. The kids just parked themselves on the red, high-pile carpet and almost refused to leave.  Cosy, cosy.

Blowing on a Whistle Milestone

Baby Xin, 1 year old

Baby Xin was playing quietly at her toy corner when suddenly, we started to hear whistle sounds.  She had finally picked up her toy trumpet and learnt how to blow on it.  It was a messy affair with lots of saliva, but she managed to do it all by herself, without coaxing.  It's amazing how babies learn.  The toy trumpet was a gift to Wei.  I remember at 11 months, he also learnt how to blow on it.

Wei at 11 months, 2002

Yuan's Rabbit Artwork

This evening, Yuan threw a huge temper tantrum because I asked her to complete her art homework.  I saw the half coloured piece lying around. However she was reluctant to do it, citing that she didn't know if the piece had to be handed up to the teacher.
Anyway after about half an hour of the drama and with me threatening to throw away the artwork as she didn't want to do it, she settled down and was willing to finish colouring.  Sometimes I wonder, same household, same parents, how come such a big difference between the temperament of the brother and the sister? It ended with a hug from her and apologies for bad behaviour.  Wei even played the good guy and retrieved the "thrown" artwork for her.
Here I want to showcase her masterpiece.  I don't know what the theme is, perhaps it is symbolic of the Rabbit Year.

Goals for 2011

I know that January is almost ending, and I have yet to put into action some of the plans that I said I would make this year. However I am thankful to come across this newsletter, which I would post the contents here to remind ourselves what sort of goals we should pursue.

Below excerpt from Daniel Scocco's newsletter.

2011 just started, and as usual people are setting new goals and 
making resolutions. But are you setting the right goals? Below
I'll talk about 3 goals I consider particularly important.

GOAL 1: Learn new things

If you want to stay competitive, regardless of your field and
profession, you should always be learning new things. And I am not
talking about opening a magazine and learning about what is going
on in Egypt or how many calories a hamburger has. I am talking
about learning new technical things related to your field.

If you work full time on the Internet, for example, you could set
the goal to learn one or more of the following things in 2011:

-HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SEO, PHP, MySQL, Apache 

 GOAL 2: Move closer to your ideal lifestyle

One of the things that certainly adds to our happiness is living 
a lifestyle that we like. This includes things like living in a city
you like, sleeping/working during the times you like, having the 
flexibility to make the activities you like and having the time to
spend time with the people you like.

In fact many people consider this more important than money. So 
instead of aiming to make as much money as possible in 2011, aim
to get closer to your ideal lifestyle. 

 GOAL 3: Work on projects you love and are proud of

We all need to work on stuff we don't particularly love to make 
the ends meet. That is fine. Over time, however, you should be
gradually doing fewer of those "pay the bills" projects and more
projects in areas you really love, doing things you'll be proud of.

Getting this started is really easy. You could simply dedicate one
hour of your nights to working on such a project, and as it grows
you start putting more work on it. 

If you pursue these 3 goals I am sure you'll end 2011 in great shape! 

 Best wishes for this new year,
Daniel Scocco
http://www.onlineprofits.com

______________________________________________________

My Goal #1: Learn more about property investments and doing it right.

Yuan's work, created Mar 2010, 6+ years old.

My Goal #2:

I use one of Yuan's pictures drawn with "Paint" to remind myself to live a lifestyle that includes spending more time with my babies, playing with them, encouraging them and teaching discipline.

Exercise twice a week with J to keep healthy.

My Goal #3:

Work at home interiors - whether it is my own home or my rental properties. Contribute my time to my Sunday Class projects at the temple. Work at updating my blog regularly, and support & promote children's projects.

Bed Upgrade for Baby Xin

Baby Xin has outgrown her baby playpen cot that she has been sleeping in for the past 1 year.  The cot was actually a hand-me-down when I had my first son, so altogether 6 babies had slept and used it, and it is probably 17 years old.  Good old sturdy playpen cot.
But Baby Xin is big now and can climb out of it - onto my bed which is next to it.

Baby Xin wears boys clothes reminiscent of her brother's era, but has a hairpin to show she's a girl.

So we restored the Ikea cot-convertible-to-child-bed, and now Baby Xin sleeps in a bigger cot.

Ikea convertible cot that we bought for Wei, 3 babies have now slept in it.

 Somehow, I feel a bit of nostalgia over this milestone, when we dismantled and stored the playpen cot away. Time flies....