I love going to hotels because it means that generally I am on vacation. But there’s another reason I love hotels. That’s because they are generally beautiful, clean and clutter free. There’s just something about knowing that someone is there to accommodate you and put that extra special touch like chocolate on your pillows to make you feel welcome.

What if we did this for ourselves at home? What if we play hotel at home? What if we create our own version of a luxury hotel and add treats or whatever on our pillows, tables , wherever to make us feel special.

This game is for especially when you do not want to do housework or when you are having guests over or you wake up one day and realize that your home looks like you went through a hurricane.

Are you ready to play ? Let’s go.

How to Play

1) Decide the kind of hotel you want . (Luxury, cottage, whatever you can afford and upkeep)
– I am going for a country cottage with dashes of elegance and luxury
2) Get your staff. (darn- it’s mainly me)
– I need a chambermaid
– A cook
– A greeter
– A decorator
– A laundress
3) Get to work
– This is time to play Mary Poppins with that spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down thing
– play your favorite music to get you going
– Take pictures of what your ideal should look like
4) Add the special touches (Go wild, treat yourself even if you can only afford one rose)
– For me that’s flowers (mostly real, but sometimes fake that looks almost real)
– pearls on a vine
– playful art work (sometimes very expensive finds splashed in with cheap fun stuff)
– mirrors
– candles
– pretty sheets
– natural scents (lately I’m loving lavender)

You can never ever get good at something you do NOT DO. Inherently we all know this, but we are very good at deceiving ourselves.

We are very good at thinking that we are doing something just because we think about it a lot or have a desire for it.

Last year I proved to myself that I can do anything that I am persistent at. Note the distinction here is – anything I am persistent at – versus anything I want or dream. Last year I started hula hooping. At the beginning I could not even keep the hoop up around my waist. The hoop just kept falling to the floor. But my instructor said all that was expected of me was to try and to keep on trying.

And so I did. I tried and kept on trying. After a couple sessions the hoop started staying up and falling to the floor less and less. Awww sweet success! I could keep the hoop up around my waist, now it was time to try hip hooping, after that leg hooping, then chest hooping, shoulder hooping, neck hooping and hooping around all my 2000 body parts.

It’s been a year and I have come so far in hooping and happily still have so many more tricks and body parts I will learn to hoop from.

Hooping is my line in the sand. Everyone should have a personal line in the sand. Something that you have done or achieve that it looked like you could not do.

Now I truly know I can do whatever I set my mind to doing and persistently try. Hooping as taught me that. Hooping was a lot of repetition and more repetition. Like inventing the light bulb – You try a trick and the hoop instantly drops so you pick it back up and make adjustments. You try ever combination that you can do over time until the hoop stays up.

If I had quit each time the hoop fell I would never have succeeded. I was very lucky to have an instructor who told me that failing was part of the process. Each time the hoop fell I was one step closer to keeping it up. So yeah, I basically had to fail to succeed at hooping.

Now what if I take that mindset to the rest of my life? Or apply this to anything I want to accomplish?

My light bulb moment or Edison moment is that I have to drop the hoop a thousand times before I succeed! So let’s play the drop the hoop a thousand times game.

Drop your hoop a thousand times (or more)
How to play

1. Choose something you want to achieve . (Example playing the keyboard)
2. Start doing the most simple task and only that task (example, learn to identify the note of the keys by sight)
3. Fail at it (That is the drop the hoop part)
4. Try again but make adjustments (that’s the picking up the hoop part)
5. Do this everyday even if for a brief 5 minutes. (This is key. This is where I keep deceiving myself. I really think I am learning to play my keyboard when I have not literally touched the keys in 2 months. Somewhere I lost momentum. Maybe I was trying to learn too many parts at once )
6. Repeat, Repeat until you have some mastery a thousand times if needed. (Thomas Edison taught us that’s how you invent a light bulb)
7. Move on to the next simple step and keep “dropping and picking up the hoop “

Chicken wings can be an easy and tasty dinner. Just keep it simple.
Below is a recipe I have adapted from foodess.com/hot-honey-sauce

Final Wings

Ingredients
chicken wings (can be pre-seasoned)
1/2 stick of butter
seasonings if wings not pre-seasoned

Seasonings (if wings not pre-seasoned)

• garlic powder
• onion powder
• salt
• black pepper
• some kind of store bought seasoning that you like

For wings
pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
put wings on foil and bake for 25 minutes
take wings out of oven after around 25 minutes and rub slices of butter on wings. The butter will melt so just rub the butter on the wings – you can use tongs.
Put wings back in oven for another 20- 25 minutes

Make the sauce
after another 20 minutes in oven use a brush to coat the wings
Put wings back in oven for another 5 – 10 minutes

Sauce- hot honey sauce

• 2 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 lemon (juice)
• 1/2 tsp garlic salt
• a little crush red pepper
• a squeeze of BBq sauce
• 3 tbsp honey
  cook sauce-
  Add all ingredients into a sauce pan and cook at low heat first to melt up butter. Then turn heat up to 4 to thicken. Keep stirring.

I let the wings sit in the hot oven to dry up some of the juices, but that is totally optional. You can also glaze the wings with more sauce if desired.

wings with sauce

Final wings

Top tip to make the wings nice and juicy is the butter!

Every movie theatre has feature presentations, well did you know that so does God? Everyday he goes through great lengths to provide us with fresh new blockbusters. And guess what ? It’s playing right outside your window ! A special feature just for you, right in your neighborhood, backyard or front window.

Sometimes it a sunset, the rain, a snow storm or a blue cloudless sky. It’s a daily endless supply of fresh scenery. I like to think that every day artists that are on the other side get a chance to paint the scenery for our enjoyment.

When you start to play this feature presentation game it will open you up to seeing that there is so much beauty right in front of you. That your scenery is every changing. But you must pause and really take a look and you will see. You will see that no sky is ever the same. No snow storm or rain storm is ever the same. You will be surprised that you may actually see more birds outside your window than when you go out into the woods. Everyday everything is brand new and just for you.

How to play

1. Get a chair and sit by a window. The larger the window the better.
2. Now look outside and see what’s showing today

That’s it! Pull up a chair and don’t miss another feature presentation today.

Glam it up (optional)

To make this even more fun

• Grab a cup of tea in your favorite mug
• Grab a comfy blanket if it is a cold day
• Turn on the fireplace (especially in winter)
• Grab your binoculars
• Grab your favorite book