Nature doesn’t de-junk and say, “There!” De-junking is an on-going process. Plants grow and make flowers, fruit and vegetables. Today’s salad will be in tomorrow’s sewer. Today’s dirt is yesterday’s plants and animals, and then there’s the tide. It’s all a continual process of acquisition and elimination. We are smart when we use nature as our blueprint. Here’s what I suggest.
Nature’s biggest dumping and streamlining time is autumn and winter when all the leaves fall, and then the stormy winds blow, so let’s use this time of year to focus on de-junking basements, attics and garages. Garages were meant to store the car you know. Note: Nature doesn’t get rid of Her leaves in a day, so don’t think you will clean out the garage in a day especially if the car has been in the driveway all year. Remember Nature takes about two months to de-junk the leaves, so don’t get on a SHE production schedule, because you’ll burn out. Take it easy, and take all the time you need, just keep at it.
Clutter in your home comes from you and your family leaving things out after you are through with them. When Nature is through with something She puts it away. What if every time you have to go to the bathroom (#1) you use that urge as a cue to put something away before you go, and after you’re through and you’ve washed your hands put one more thing away?
I Can Tolerate Wal-Mart. . .But Not at Christmastime!
When I got organized in June, 1977, I’m ashamed to say I indulged in my first gloat shopping that Christmas. I had all my gifts bought and wrapped by Dec. 5, and went out on several gloating expeditions, where I’d watch hassled shoppers paw through merchandise searching for the perfect gifts. I know, I know, not really the Christmas spirit, but I’d spent so many panic-stricken shopping sprees in my chaotic past that it was kind of fun to be free to observe others and be glad that was a part of my painful past.
In this Young@Heart article and video; it’s embarrassing, but I shared it anyway.
Oh Christmas tree, Oh Christmas tree.
Okay, okay our eyes were bigger than our door hole! We are both well aware that a tree in the woods looks smaller than it really is. Hey, we weren’t born yesterday! And since we have been part of picking out Christmas trees for at least 60 years, we never dreamed we’d be off measurement when it came to picking out a tree. But this year we goofed! BIG TIME.
It all started when we went to a tree farm up the Lewis River Highway in Woodland, Washington to cut our Christmas tree. The drive into the wilderness made us so happy. The nice man who owns the tree farm, seeing we were senior citizens, offered to cut it for us. It was muddy that day and not wanting to trudge through rows and rows of choices, we sort of scanned the farm and sent the man off to cut what we deemed to be a beautiful noble fir about fifty yards away (that’s where we goofed). NEVER PICK OUT A TREE AT A DISTANCE! DUH!!
“This one?” the farmer yelled.
“No, the one next to it,” we yelled back.
“Okay! It’s a beauty,” he boasted.
His helpers drug it back and they hefted it into our borrowed pick-up while we blissfully stood in the barn with mugs of hot apple cider and listened to the Carpenters singing, “Frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside, painted candy canes on the tree. . . .”
We paid the man and set off for home, completely unaware of the events that would follow.
When we got home, we were able to get the evergreen treasure off the truck, but once it was down on the ground, we couldn’t budge it. That was the first clue we were in trouble. Our neighbor is big, strong, fit and young so we called him and he was more than happy to help us get the giant in the house. It was so fat it wouldn’t fit through the front door until we tied twine around the branches and cinched it in. Getting it through that door took all three of us pushing and shoving, but we did it! Then we stood it up! Now our ceiling in the living room is 22 feet so we knew we weren’t in trouble that way (the tree is 14 feet) but once we cut the twine and the tree popped into shape it was hard to admit it but there wasn’t room for anything else!
We had to go buy more lights and ornaments and the tree is now trimmed, as they say, but truthfully it looks like crazy people live here! We’d like to send a picture, but we can’t get back far enough to get the whole thing in the shot. We are having a New Year’s Eve Party and our first thought was, ‘There’s no room for the people.’ We’ve seriously thought about taking the tree down or uninviting the guests.
Guess we’ll just chock it up to a lesson learned late. Hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!
In this week's the Young@Heart article and video, you will feel so much better if you follow my advice.
I remember when I was a young mother there was a public service announcement on television that would come on around ten at night and the guy would say, “Do you know where your children are?” I remember thinking, ‘Duh, how could a good parent not know where their children are?’ (Recently I found out my son was often not where he said he was, but [ahemm] that’s not what I’m writing about.) I was interested in one of Flylady’s musing about “dreaming” of getting out of her childhood home as soon as she could and that she realized that getting out of that house only changed her physical location.
Somebody (it was either Shakespeare or Harrison Ford) said, “You take yourself with you wherever you go.” Hey wait a minute, I said that! It’s true and that’s what Marla did. She got out and took herself with her. Only until she realized that the only way to feel loved was to finally love herself was she able to make peace with her past and become a light of wisdom straight from her heart for all of us today.
Everything we can see, touch, hear, taste and smell is outside of us and we make judgments with our five senses about everything in our lives. If we don’t like what we see, hear, taste, touch or smell we have the power to change any of it and judging by the volumes of you-can-change-your-life books on the market (mine included) our society is certainly trying to do just that. The problem with self-help books is they won’t work if you don’t know yourself very well. “Do you know where your child is?” Ah, back to why I’m writing this.
In this week's Young@Heart article and video, I share with you how if you stop watching the news if it upsets you, you’ll be happier for it.
Back in 1929 when the stock market crashed, we didn’t have CNN or FOX or news or the Internet. Our grandparents (or great grandparents in some cases) didn’t get over-fed the news 24-7. They got a newspaper once a day (maybe) and they listened to the radio (maybe).
Because of this age of information we can be (if we choose) bombarded with bad news because the access is as close as our finger on the clicker or the mouse on our computer. It’s one thing to be aware of what is going on in the world, our country and our community, but it’s quite another to watch the reruns and regurgitated opinions of “the experts” as they re-hash the re-runs while we click to another channel to watch the news covered from a different camera angle.
The GOOD NEWS is that to the media, the only newsworthy material is what is negative AND sensational. Dog Bites Man, is not “news.” Man Bites Dog (and don’t forget to put music behind the story) is. (I learned that from my journalist husband.) It is the extraordinary that makes “the news.” So most everything you see on the news is unusual and extraordinary. IT IS NOT THE NORM. But we in our naivety (or stupidity) allow our sweet minds to watch what happened not once but on the hour until the next day when the next batch of bad news is ready. How many times do you have to watch the bank robber caught on tape? Isn’t once enough?
We cause ourselves needless suffering
I know we’re human and most of us are naturally curious about bad news.
One of the best ways to get through hard times is to change your mind. I know sometimes that can seem to be very hard to do, but really we make it as easy or as hard as we choose. My experience has taught me that you can’t think two thoughts at the same time and I have experimented with that truth for more than 45 years and I know for sure it is impossible to do. So what? Well, the bad news is, when you think a “worry” thought and stick to it for a bit of time, your beautiful mind searches your hard drive for more thoughts to add to the initial worry thought. In a few minutes you can be sucked into a pity party of your own making. The good news is the same thing can happen with a “happy” thought.
Remember in The Sound of Music when the Von Trapp children were terrified by the thunder storm? Maria sang “My Favorite Things” to them and they danced and sang and jumped on the bed and had a pillow fight and the storm was out of their minds.
Below I have printed out the absolutely brilliant lyrics for My Favorite Things (written by Oscar Hammerstein II) (pronounced HAM-err-styne), followed by my own lyrics to the same tune. I guarantee that if you were feeling bad when you started reading my essay, you'll feel better when you finish reading Oscar’s words. As you read each line think for a few seconds about what it means to you. My lyrics don’t come near to the poetic brilliance of Mr. Hammerstein’s, but they do make ME feel good! Maybe you can write your own words or at least make a list of your favorite things and carry it with you to read every time you start to feel sad or bad or worried or mad or. . .oh well, you know what I mean.
In this week's the Young@Heart article and video, I share with you how cutting out a few happiness sappers you can easily raise your happiness quotient.
Yesterday, I went to Cramco (Costco). We call it Cramco because we usually cram our trunk full, put stuff in the back seats, in the passenger’s foot space and on the passenger’s lap. After more than seven years of stopping Nelly (my indulgent inner child) from having the big, 12” all beef polish sausage on a bun they sell for just $1.50 with a 20 ounce soft drink, I caved. For seven years I’d drooled looking at the poster of that meal, with mustard, catsup, onions and relish running the length of the dog and I always managed to distract Nelly.
I don’t know what came over me; I wasn’t even hungry yet. I know Nelly was especially attentive the night before when our neighbor told about the wondrous time they had in Leavenworth, Washington this last weekend. Leavenworth is one of the top 10 Oktoberfests in the US. I can’t think the word “Oktoberfest” and not think about sausage! It just doesn’t happen. So perhaps sausage was still on my mind when the poster caught my attention and reeled me in for the buy and subsequent feast.
The food concession at our Cramco in Vancouver, Washington is located on the way out of the store, so I’ve noticed shoppers park their over-loaded, over-sized carts while they order and eat their food before heading home with their treasures. Before I knew it I’d parked and was standing in line. My heart was racing as I looked at the other choices. A chocolate frozen yogurt for $1.35 (another poster I’d drooled over many times).
In this week's the Young@Heart article and video, I share with you the three most important words in my vocabulary when it comes to conquering negative thoughts.
I was watching what I call a “fall” spider make its web on our deck and I wondered if it were a boy or a girl. I guess I could Google which one does that work, but that’s not really the point of my essay today. What really got Nelly (my inner child) and me thinking about was; are there any disorganized spiders? As I watched this busy spider making this masterpiece in silk, as if she’d (I’m going to assume it was a girl) thoroughly studied some manual on some website about web making, I thought back to see if I could ever remember seeing a rectangular web filled with heart-shaped lines or triangular webs with crosses all around or webs in rainbow colors shaped like wedding cakes? I couldn’t, and a God breeze swept over me with the realization that within that busy little girl was genius! I also had to conclude there are no disorganized spiders. (I don’t think they have as much fun as we do.)
First, this spider had to start with a plan passed down from generation to generation. If she didn’t, her web would be different and every “fall” spider web is constructed from the same blue print. I Googled, “How do spiders make a web?” (Sometimes I’m embarrassed to ask Google questions, thinking it might be a stupid question. I’m always happy when I see that others before me have wondered the same “stupid” things. I’ll tell you in a minute what I found out.) Second, she had to follow that plan. What a fresh idea! Start with a tried and true plan and follow it! Buy a calendar and a watch and use them. Mind the flight plan if you follow Flylady.
The spider (and you) have choices to make
Google told me the spider does have conscious choices to make when she’s making her web.
In this week's the Young@ Heart article and video, I wrote about an essay on forgiveness. Last week you saw the result of that essay in the Potato Report.
Is there anything yuckier than a rotten potato? You know that saying, “one rotten apple spoils the barrel”? Well give me a rotten apple any day! One rotten potato would smell way worse than a barrel of rotten apples. One potato would affect the whole bag, but that usually doesn’t happen because of the smell! I don’t think I could let a whole bag “go” just because the stench of one rotten potato is enough for a call to action.
I got an email from a woman who said her teacher (spiritual) asked the students to bring a clear plastic sack of potatoes to class. Each potato representing someone they hadn’t forgiven in life. In class they were asked to write the name of each person they had not forgiven on each potato. Some of the bags were quite heavy.
They were asked to carry their bag with them everywhere, putting it beside their bed at night, on the car seat when driving, next to their desk at work until they could forgive the people the potatoes represented. The woman wrote, “The hassle of lugging my bag of unforgiven people around, made it clear, what a weight I was carrying spiritually, and how I had to pay attention to it all the time to not forget, leaving it in embarrassing places.”
Disgusting gunk
Naturally, the condition of the potatoes would deteriorate to a disgusting gunk if you didn’t let go and forgive. This is a great metaphor for the price we pay for holding onto our grievances toward others.
In this week's the Young@Heart article and video, I wrote about what happened on my journey to forgiving a couple people I hadn’t been able to forgive.
A few years ago I wrote an essay about the challenge I had of forgiving a couple of people I’d had ill feelings toward. In the essay I told about cutting a potato in half to represent each person and carving their names in the halves to keep on my desk until I could forgive them. Here is the report that came after that.
My Potato Report:
February 25: Halves have been on my desk for eight days. They are very scary looking, and are starting to smell like dirty feet or dirty laundry that’s been in the hamper too long.
February 26: Halves are getting soft and dark. I had an Aha Moment! It is as ridiculous to be mad at the potato halves on my desk, as it is to be mad at the people they represent. There is NO difference.
Is it the potato's fault that my office smells like dirty feet and there are gnats circling? No, the potato halves are just being what they are--- rotting potato halves. If I allow them to stay on my desk it’s my fault. Is it the people’s fault (who the potato halves represent) that I’ve been upset and angry? No, they are just being who they are. If I allow the people the potato halves represent to pull me from my joy, it’s my fault. The rotting potato halves on my desk have done nothing to me that I need to forgive, anymore than the people they represent have done anything to me that I need to forgive. There is nothing or no one to forgive, but me for having bad feelings about the potato halves and the people they represent.
In fact the potato halves that represent the people have been taking up way more energy in my mind than the people they represent. That tickles me! It shows me how silly this whole thing was in the first place and is now. Every bit of this has been in my mind! Who can I blame? ME. Who can I forgive? ME! Who loves me? ME.
Potato halves become FUNNY!
March 1: The potato halves are still on my desk only because it is very interesting to observe. It is still teaching me some stuff in a very
In this week's Young@Heart article and video, I wrote about setting our intention to be happy regardless of our circumstances.
I wonder if the guy who invented the thermostat got the idea from his own emotional meter. Consider an emostat. Instead of temperatures imagine words on a meter with emotions like miserable, overwhelmed, worried, desperate, optimistic, hopeful, happy, and blissful.
When I think about the happy people I know personally, one of the attributes they seem to have in common is a wonderful outlook on life. It’s like they have an emostat that’s programmed for joy and contentment no matter what happens to them. Unfortunately many of us have emostats set on negative emotions, but we can always reprogram them for happy by deciding to practice being joyful regardless of the forces outside of us. What’s interesting about setting an intention of being happy all the time, is when something pulls you from that place you know it and you can kick in and put yourself back on happy. Abraham Lincoln said: “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Is your emostat properly adjusted?
There’s no guesswork in knowing your emostat is off. When you realize it consider these four things first; Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I tired? Do I need some fresh air? Usually one of those four deficiencies will affect your emostat. When those four elements are taken seriously and taken care of, it’s much easier to stay on happy.
In this Young@ Heart article and video, I wrote about how passionate we SHEs are and how it serves us well.
There is nothing more true than this statement: SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are passionate people. It’s true. We are! I’ve never met a real SHE that isn’t. Can you imagine Flylady or Kelly as passionless? Not in a million years! Oh! and we like to use exclamation marks too! One of my longtime SHE friends LouAnn was one of my guinea pigs for my Weight Loss book, The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!
She reported to me:
“Who knows, maybe my “passion” for eating is a package deal with my “passion” for other things in life—a passion I would never want to be without. Somehow, I need to trust in the wisdom and love of my Creator to know this was the perfect “problem” for me and be thankful for it. I will never quit trying to look my best and take these pounds off, but I’m going to quit pretending I can do so without suffering.
I cannot. So, I’ve decided to turn this suffering into a prayer for others who are facing something worse. My neighbor works at Ronald McDonald House and has no shortage of stories about suffering far worse than a weight problem. I don’t have a child going into surgery today—but somebody does. My transmission is working—but somebody’s just went out—on the freeway.
So for today, I’m going to think about how wonderful it will feel to wear my “skinny jeans” again and go fill up on steamed cauliflower. I’m starved and lunch is not for another two hours and that’s the pits. But, guess what else I get to do? I get to go hug my two healthy girls in the next room. Zero calories. I’ll take it.”
A woman wrote that she'd been married for 25 years. Her husband had cheated on her more than once and she'd “lost” herself and hardly recognized her home or her person.
It's never too late to change your life! This woman had successfully raised two happy sons and worrying about what her husband did and not focusing on what she was doing could very well have given him (in his dishonest mind) a good excuse for the affairs. Focusing on getting her act together, could erase that excuse and down the road, he'd wonder what happened.
When someone is unfaithful it's his/her problem. It’s only OUR problem if we make it ours.
Have you ever said, "I'm done! I've HAD it! It’s OVER! I wash my hands of it! I give up! UNCLE?"
That’s how you can feel living in a disorganized lifestyle. It's like living in a continual storm. When you hit bottom with words like the declarations above, you're in the perfect place to change. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” Not until you hit bottom can you surrender to your situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender you'll be reminded that even though you're in a mess, you're in the right place with the right people and the timing is right. The only element you lack is direction.
DIRECTION! You can deal with that! Direction involves choices! You just need a map to follow and you'll be fine! For me it was the 3x5 card file system my sister and I came up with and became known as The Slob Sisters.
When my sister and I had had it with our home organization skills, that’s the first time we considered the word “direction” in reference to our problem. We weren’t lazy? Come to think of it, we worked harder than those BOs (Born Organized) who refuse to make work for themselves by being disorganized.
I knew I wasn't crazy? I'd been able to maintain a high level of creativity within my messy lifestyle, have three happy children, continually adjust to the personality of a very unhappy mate and remain stable.
I wasn’t stupid? Come to think of it, NO! I was very smart though my disorganized habits sabotaged my schooling so my grades didn’t reflect my intellect.
So I wasn’t lazy, crazy or stupid even though my messy life could certainly have made it look that way. When I look back on the way I used to live, the only question I have today is, “What was I thinking?”
As Carolyn Myss would say, “If I can talk Angel 101 to you for a moment, consider this.” Let’s pretend I'm one of your guardian angels and you have prayed to get organized. I've been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally in an answer to your prayer, is exciting to me!
It takes practice living every moment of now and being content with it. Yes there are troublesome experiences, but the key is not to be troubled. Can you think of an adult that lives this way?
For most of us, life seems to whiz by and before we know it another day, week, month, season, year has passed and we know we've missed a lot because we were thinking about the past or the future.
It's time to be happy NOW, not when our circumstances are different!
When you deepen your relationship with YOU and take the time to look at yourself with new eyes every day and truly honor the holiness within you, your circumstances change in beautiful ways. Your problems give you an opportunity to learn to know yourself better. So, whether you're living in a mess at home, in a relationship that's frustrating, feeling a financial crunch, in a body that weighs too much or all of the above, let solving your problems start with going within in gratitude for your life (the only one you've been given) and sensing the truth that you're not alone and all is well.
Self-improvement is a lifetime path, but it's a pursuit that doesn't lead to a place where everything is perfect. When you reach what you thought was your final destination, you'll find that you have farther to go. Yippee skippee for that! Think about how fun it is to "want" something you "know" you'll receive. Don't you think that's why it's so fun to fall in love? You want that person and you know you're going to get him because he wants you too. Then you get him. (That's fun too, but never as fun as the getting part.)
You love teachers that let you know in a loving way that having what you want is doable. Having a home free of clutter and confusion is doable. If my sister and I could get organized so can you. Because we got organized that can give you hope. Get excited about the possibility. I can tell you, when you get organized and your home is peaceful, clutter-free and an oasis from the hectic world, it will just be a platform for you to do and be more.
It was 2 am and I sat sniveling in my pajamas at my computer. I had decided to call my sister in the morning before our families got together for the fourth of July festivities and tell her I would not be writing a "humorous" book about organizing household finances with her.
The reason was simple; I had no business telling anyone what to do when it came to money. At the not-so-tender age of 59 I had no retirement, no savings and I was $26,000.00 in credit card debt! The book we were to write together would absolutely get me out of debt, but my ethics would not allow me to be part of a lie. No way could I write a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do book.
That was July 4, 2002 and one of those major pivotal moments in my life. I know how George Bailey in the movie It's A Wonderful Life, felt standing on the bridge contemplating suicide although I was never even close to doing that, I sent out a major request, "Help me God, help me."
Breezes from God
God breezes can come in strange ways. My God breeze came in the form of a question.
A couple of years ago when we had just returned from a much needed vacation, we were greeted by one of our worst nightmares. Coming home with two suitcases filled with damp and smelly clothes from being in the tropics for two weeks had kept my mind focused on a marathon laundry session. There’s nothing worse than a tropical Mt. Washmore!
Walking into our home after being gone so long is always a joy to me. I love my home and I couldn’t wait to cook (after I booted up the washing machine). It’s fun to go on vacation and eat in restaurants, but for a cook-at-heart, there’s nothing like playing in the kitchen when you’ve been gone a while. Before we had had a chance to empty our suitcases I’d headed for the sink, with some vegetables to wash while Terry prepared the Weber to barbeque some hamburgers. “Hi you shiny sink!” I said in a tone I use for only my best friends.
I turned the handle to the faucet and it said, “spokusssh quut, quut, spitchhosssssh schpauchhossssh.” (That’s Faucet for “There’s no water!”)
When my husband Terry and I decided to change what we eat and that diet was going to go against both our physicians who promote a low fat, high carbohydrate diet, I searched out a physician in my area by using Jimmy Moore’s list of low carb docs www.livinlavidalowcarb.com.
Thanks to Jimmy, I found Dr. Ann Childers a child psychiatrist who also works with people like me who need encouragement and knowledge that we are doing the right thing, even though it’s against what the mainstream medical community tells us is right. I’ve said this before, “we’ve been told what’s wrong to eat is right for so long that when we hear what’s right to eat it sounds wrong.”
It was scary at first to eat chicken with the skin on, steak with the fat on, to cook with lard and have four eggs a day if I want to. At first I couldn’t believe I could eat butter, sour cream and mayonnaise (up to four tablespoons each a day) and to shun anything with a “low in calorie” or “low fat” label! The thing I discovered, using my own body as an experiment, was I am so much healthier today than I was a year ago. The list of changes is so long I’d bore you to list them.
Fat Head is a documentary about what’s wrong with what we’ve been told is the healthy way to eat. I interviewed Tom Naughton who produced and starred in it. We were on a cruise together and he was kind enough to give me an hour of his time. (His interview will be on my Make it Fun website very soon.) If you haven’t seen Fat Head and you’re interested in learning more about all the fuss you keep hearing about low carb this and low carb that, it’s available on his website (www.fathead-movie.com). You can also purchase it on Amazon, but if you want to rent it, it’s available through Netflix.
I give a tribute to all the happy fathers including my own lovable dad.
What's the first thing you think of when you think of your father? When I think of mine, I think of his smile. He was so in love with Mom, Peggy and me that he seemed to always have a happy face. If you read Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, you know that we got the disorganized gene from Dad. He threatened to sue us for defamation of character, but of course he was joking and if he really had intended to take us to court, he'd never have gotten around to it.
My dad worked hard delivering gas to farmers who had big tanks to supply their farm equipment. He was so loved by his customers there was hardly a day he didn't come home in his big Standard Oil tank truck without a few treasures. In the summer it'd be produce. We never needed a garden as we were kept stocked in every kind of fruit and vegetable known to Dr. Oz. Sometimes he'd bring home packages of beef, chickens or turkeys and other times jams, jellies, cakes or cookies.
My Dad was The Best Dad
He loved to hunt and fish and because part of one of the farms was Bachelor's Island, a duck hunter's heaven in the Columbia River, he was given the privilege of hunting ducks and geese. Being an excellent shot (Mom said her had the eye of an eagle) our freezer was stocked with wild fish and game. To this day I love the taste of wild goose and Chinook salmon.
Is your inner child craving attention? Don’t miss this.
Attention Is All I Want!
My reason for getting organized way back in 1977 was so that I’d have more free time to play with my family. I wasn’t having that much fun in my chosen career as a homemaker and it was mainly because of my disorganization and the messes it created. I knew that my attitude had to change about my life as a wife, mother and homemaker and once I nailed the reason to make the effort to change, everything fell into place (but not overnight).
I met Nelly, (my inner child; that part of me that’s about nine-years-old), in 2002 and in that meeting I realized she was behind my reason to change 25 years earlier. Over the last decade I’ve grown to adore her “take” on life. I see myself as her parent, always needing to monitor her thoughts and guide her into cooperating with all my “adult” plans and rules.
We just got back from a cruise with 3,000 passengers. I did a lot of people watching and I saw many well-behaved children and many who were out of control. In every instance I noticed that back of every child was a parent with either good or bad parenting skills. The well-behaved children stood quietly in lines at the buffets and the out of control children (they always stick out more) were always issued a variety of useless directives.
We were in line behind Jason (about six-years-old) and his parents and sister Becky (about four) and we watched him hit his sister when the parents weren’t looking, tug on his father’s shirt, kick his mother’s purse and sag to the floor several times in the five minutes we were in line.
I decided it is for Terry and me. My robe is 20 years old and I bought it at a garage sale. It’s heavy and comfy and if I write too much about it here, I’m apt to talk myself out of dumping it. (Maybe I should keep it as my winter robe. On some of those cold winter nights I have found such refuge in it. I also feel spiritual in it sometimes, because it has a hood and when I put it over my head, I feel like St. Francis.) Okay, okay it’s going in storage until November when my winter sweaters and coats come out of waiting.
Terry’s robe is another story. It is downright scary! It’s blue plaid velour and after the first washing it lost most of its “lour” and because the arms were too long he cut them off and insisted I didn’t need to hem his alteration project. So I didn’t, leaving the ends frayed in strings that grow longer with every washing.
The thing is, I never think to go bathrobe shopping and only when I’m pampered with a luxurious white terrycloth robe in a fancy hotel do I think it’s time to spring for a new “morning” look.
A Saint and a Blue Man
Terry and I have changed our routine this year and I don’t shower, dress and make the bed first thing in the morning anymore.
Do you ever stop to think about how honored you are to have given birth? When my first child was born it absolutely changed my life in more ways than one. I did not want to have this baby the whole time I carried it. I was in a very unhappy marriage and with that pregnancy I felt trapped. If abortion would have been legal then, I would not have done that, but I did think seriously that when it was born we could adopt it out!
It's spring and we SHEs are like busy bees around the nurseries where the flowers beg us to take them home like puppies at the Humane Society.
Have you ever seen a honey bee that’s got so much pollen on her thighs that she can barely fly? I often wonder if some of them never make it back to their hives they're so loaded down. Like those bees, we can get carried away buying more than we can plant. We fly home with our trunks full of flats of annuals and the optimism we’’ll plant them all in a day. Often we poop out in the middle of the plant and the remaining purchase is at the mercy of our next planting mood.
A good rule of thumb is the four Ps. Plan, Prepare, Purchase, Plant. If you try to prepare and plant at the same time, you’ll poop out and then those plants that you have taken into your care face possible death. Of course it’s not premeditated, but the plants will be just as dead.
Many struggle with disorganization as I once did. I was in nervous remission for years, but as time has passed I’m not that nervous anymore. I don’t let my messy tendencies get too far out of hand and my home is never more than 15 minutes to “company ready” (and that’s for the whole house).
When every room is HOURS or DAYS away from "company ready" and I HAVE BEEN THERE, it can easily be overwhelming and in that state of mind we can freeze, bust out of the place or retreat under the covers. All those actions make things worse.
I love playing with acronyms! When my sister and I started teaching our system for getting organized, we knew we wanted to name it something catchy. We loved the thought of calling ourselves “Home Executives,” but we knew we would never be home executives like our BO (Born Organized) mom who ironed Dad’s underwear, baked everything from scratch, kept her high school figure and “freshened up” fifteen minutes before our dad came home from work every night.
We liked the sound of SHE and since we had the HE part, all we needed was the “S.” The “S” would have to be an adjective to describe the kind of HEs we were. So what kind of Home Executives were we? Scummy didn’t describe us; we weren’t sloppy, shifty, sneaky, skittish, sassy or stupid either. (Great names for another clan of dwarfs, but not for us.)
I’m compelled to expose the epitome of stupidity here in my beautiful state of Washington. I’m sorry, but for the last 17 years or so, I’ve been appalled at something I think will at least make you shake your head and at best make you go along with my appalation (I know there’s no such word).
This weekend Terry and I went to one of my favorite getaways, Skamania Lodge. It’s nestled off Highway 14, a two-lane road that follows the Columbia River on the Washington, State side. The Skamania Lodge has abulous food, breathtaking views of mountains, a golf course and the Columbia River. They have cool rocking chairs by a gigantic fireplace that burns real wood and rooms with soft beds, luxuriant bath towels and white terrycloth bathrobes that make you feel like a movie star.
Skamania County is wonderful too. It’s deep in the Columbia River Gorge and its natural beauty is beyond comparison. I love the sound of the word, Skamania. I love its people and its restaurants like The Big River Grill, the Venus Café and El Rio Texicantina.
If you can't make it to Heaven just yet - Skamania will do
Many struggle with disorganization as I once did. I was in nervous remission for years, but as time has passed I’m not that nervous anymore. I don’t let my messy tendencies get too far out of hand and my home is never more than 15 minutes to “company ready” (and that’s for the whole house).
When every room is HOURS or DAYS away from "company ready" and I HAVE BEEN THERE, it can easily be overwhelming and in that state of mind we can freeze, bust out of the place or retreat under the covers. All those actions make things worse.
The day before Valentine’s Day this year, my husband, Terry asked me what I thought of having our friends the Lapslys and Geocks over for dinner and to play cards on Valentine’s Day. “It’d sorta be a spur of the moment affair,” he said.
Since I love spur of the moment events and I have a passion for cooking, entertaining and playing cards, I jumped at the thought.
I’ve been crying a lot this week, but it’s definitely happy tears! Wow! I feel like Sally Fields when she received her Oscar and said, “You like me!” Last week I actually asked you to like me on Facebook; a concept that goes completely against the way I was raised. How pathetic it felt to ask you to be my friend!
Well, I was overwhelmed by the response! I received such wonderful comments from so many of you! Many of you told me you thought of me as a friend already because of my books. Many of you used the word “honored” in being my friend. It reminded me of when I was little and we got a whole bunch of Valentines from our classmates in a bag we’d decorated up at school. I am humbled by your love, but now I’m really worried.
I’m having trouble with “social networking.” I’ve actually hired a person to help me use it to spread my word of finding joy in everything we do. Unfortunately for now, that joy eludes me when it comes to Facebook. Right now I know how to get onto my Facebook pages for me and my husband and for my Inner Kiddies. I’ve been “liking” stuff and “commenting,” but I’m not sure what happens to those likes and comments?
I went on my husband’s page to see who he had as friends (he’s never been on his page) and found he had four friends and guess who was at the top of his wanna be friends list? My ex-husband! Now why in the world does my ex-husband want to be friends with my husband? I deleted him with glee. Now that was fun!
I am a reformed slob. I made the decision to get organized on June 16, 1977. I was 35. I learned a lot through that transformation. The most important of which was to understand that before I did one thing to organize my chaotic life, I was alright just the way I was. That backed-up laundry didn’t make me a bad person. That an unmade bed and a sink full of dirty dishes didn’t mean I didn’t love my family or my home. That having to re-inoculate the children because I couldn’t find their medical records when we moved to a new town didn’t mean I was a bad mother.
My challenge to change my ways came from a deep desire to have more fun; to be able to play guilt-free and to feel the freedom of taking care of the routine and mundane tasks that make a household run smoothly, so my family and I could really enjoy this delicious thing called life. My motive to get organized was to have more free time to play.
All Squares are Created Equal
January has 31 squares on the calendar. All squares are created equal and we’re the ones who make some squares more special than others. We tend to make that first square in January special because it can be kind of like the starting gate at a race or the start of a sports game. There’s such energy in “the beginning” of just about everything. But now that it’s close to the end of January I’ve been taking a second look at the squares that are left and I’ve decided to keep that fresh start feeling going in them.
All it takes is a little focus on the wonder of the ordinary. Today I watched an interview on Oprah’s new channel OWN. She interviewed Mark Nepo who wrote The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have. One of his quotes was, “The key to knowing joy is being easily pleased.” I think that’s the key to living each square filled with energy and awe. Have you ever heard the term, easy date? Let’s be easy dates! Let’s slow down enough in the course of each square and make sure we get every ounce of love and joy we can sop up before the next square comes.
Mark reminded us to want less and love more of what we have now. He said, “Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond.” and “God is under the porch and on the mountain top.” We are immersed in a miracle called life and as humans we can get buried temporarily in our problems and forget the truth, but if we can pause and breathe we give ourselves a chance to remember we are loved and life is good.
Be easily pleased in the squares you have left; easily pleased starting with yourself and then your family, your friends, your country and your world. Start now to see good more quickly than you see wrong, understand more quickly than you judge, relax more easily than you get upset and laugh more effortlessly than you complain.
Every square can be January first if we practice being thankful for what we have, loving who we’re with, adoring who we are and spreading light by being kind to everyone we come in contact with.
Have you ever noticed it’s easier to have happy squares when you get enough sleep? Let’s be selfish about getting the sleep we need. Let’s be firm about a bedtime that gives us the rest we need. We can’t start our squares with that fresh start feeling if we didn’t go to bed at the right time in the last square. All squares are created equal, but it’s totally up to us how we’ll get the most out of them.
I think most genetically disorganized people love drama. I know I do.
My Aunt Tottie was extremely disorganized and was she ever dramatic! My BO (born organized) mother used to roll her eyes over the way Aunt Tottie lived. She was a lousy housekeeper, wore baggy clothes day in and day out and rarely put on make-up, BUT when she did get cleaned up, she was a KNOCK OUT. Mom said when they were young; Aunt Tottie would get all gussied up to go out dancing and she’d make an entrance that would drop jaws. She said she looked just like Lauren Bacall.
My aunt loved to get a reaction from BOs like my mom. I remember one time; watching her in her messy kitchen, make orange juice from a can of frozen concentrate while she talked with my mom. She couldn’t find a spoon to stir the three cans of water into the orange lump of concentrate, so she just stuck her whole hand into the pitcher and stirred with it. My mother was horrified.
I think one of the payoffs to being disorganized is the reaction we create. We do love drama and the bigger the mess the more fantastic a clean-up will look. When you keep your home “company ready” you lose the drama of being able to say, “Tah Dah!!!!!” When you look good all the time, you just look good all the time and you don’t get to hear “Wow, you look fabulous!!!!!!!!!” We lose the exclamation marks when we get organized, so we need to get them somewhere else.
There are two places you can get them back. One is your creativity. Being disorganized can seem like a curse, but there is a precious gift in it and that is your creativity. In fact you probably already know that your creativity has gotten you into many messes, because when you’re in creative mode you lose track of time. When you get organized you’ll give up the explanation marks for the contrasts between “before” and “after,” but you’ll get them back with rave reviews from what you’ll create when you have an organized life.
The other way to get your exclamation marks is immediate; by watching movies. I think that’s why we love to go to the show, subscribe to Netflix and buy DVDs. It’s probably why prisons show movies. The inmates get to vicariously partake in the drama on the big screen and get it out of their systems. Part of my success at being organized is because I include watching at least two movies each week into my routine.
Your assignment (should you agree to take it) is to get your drama fix from a good movie this week, not from a real life mess. Make it a weekly must as you have fun getting organized.
Then, when your life is organized you’ll start getting a parade of exclamation marks because the world needs what you have to create.
New Year! New Day! New eyes! I love fresh starts filled with new resolve, but I don’t bust out on January 1 like a bucking bronco that’s just been let out of his shoot at a rodeo. New Years Day for me is always a big rest day. I like to stay in my pajamas and bathrobe, fix a big breakfast and talk about the fun we had the night before at our annual New Year’s Eve party.
Every year since we built our home here in Woodland, we host a New Years Eve party, for the neighborhood, but with a slight twist. We celebrate using Eastern Standard Time. So when the Time Square Ball drops at midnight in New York (we watch it on CNN) it’s nine o’clock here on the west coast and everybody at our party cheers, kisses and goes home! By 9:30 PM we’re in bed!
Back to the first day in January, I like to spend it evaluating. One of my dear friends who came to the party told me that she has a pretty notebook she only writes in once a year on January 1. She gets the book out and reads what she wrote the year before and then she writes the thoughts that come to her throughout the day that apply to the new year. She said it’s so fun to look back and see what her goals and thoughts were for the last year and see what she learned and accomplished and it helps her reevaluate her goals and dreams for the current year.
Sarah Ban Breathnach wrote, “Begin today. Declare out loud to the universe that you are willing to let go of struggle and eager to learn through joy. That’s one of my goals for 2012; to begin each day proclaiming my eagerness to learn through joy.
While I was resolving to be joyful, my new IPhone 4S (I guess that’s really a big deal) Terry gave me for Christmas was quietly charging getting ready to hurdle me into the 21st century’s cutting edge communications system.
Unfortunately, my joyful New Year’s Resolution went right through the window which was almost followed by that piece of uhhhhh equipment I’ve vowed to master this month. The part that really ticks me off is everyone (under 12) says these things are so easy to use. This week I’m going to the AT&T store and give myself another chance to learn with joy. (I’ll text you if that happens.)
