A rainy day and a little motivation

Yesterday, my sister and I had a great conversation about the motivational theory that you can become more organized and more productive by devoting "just ten minutes" to particular tasks that need attention in your life. Small bite sized pieces can add up and make a huge difference. As a bonus, those ten minutes you devote to a task can often (painlessly) turn into "more minutes" once you get rolling.

Today was a rainy, yucky day that had me feeling more like staying in my pajamas knitting all day than motivating myself to do, well, almost anything else. But, the guilt got the best of me and I eventually marched myself into the kitchen to make something healthy to eat. (There have been far too many carbs in this house over the holidays.)

It was really a day for making soup, but since I had all the ingredients on hand to make a Chick Pea Salad, that is what I devoted my ten minutes to.

Chickpea Salad Ingredients: 1 can chickpeas, 1 cucumber, 1/2 red onion, 2 plumb tomatoes, 1 roasted red pepper, 1 tbs. dried parsley, 2 tsp. chopped garlic, 3 tbs. lemon juice, 2 tsp. olive oil, and 1/8 tsp. salt.

Rinse and drain the chickpeas. Chop the cucumber, onion, tomatoes, and peppers and add to the chickpeas. I usually like to use cucumbers with their seeds, but for this I scooped most of them out. It's your preference.

Next, add the parsley, garlic, lemon juice, oil, and salt. Feel free to use fresh parsley and garlic. (I didn't have any on hand today.) Mix it all together and refrigerate for about 1/2 hour to mix the flavors.

While you wait for it to be ready, get out your yoga mat and do 10 minutes 30 minutes of yoga!