If you'd like to listen to this blog, Pam recorded it so you could get some mindless job accomplished while you listen.
Chances are, if your kids are in a mess it’s because you’re in one too. But there’s hope. Your children can get organized when you make it fun. What will make the difference? Magic! But in order to put magic into the mix, you’ll need to call upon your children’s imagination. Think of the power you have around Christmastime with Santa and his elves lurking around and checkin’ his list. Kids’ imaginations run as smoothly as Michelle Kwan behind a Zamboni. They’re natural imaginers! And that’s where the House Fairy comes in!
My husband Terry loves to watch professional football and I like to watch it with him. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed learning the rules of the game from him and of course I get a kick out of some of those adorable quarterback bodies in their tight uniforms.
Married woman who are organized schedule a weekly date night on the calendar. A weekly date night is essential if you want to remember why you married the guy in the first place. We're like computers and a date night is like re-booting and receiving updates.
If you don't schedule it, you won't do it and you know what happens to a computer that isn't rebooted regularly.
A Magical Date Night
Our son gave us a gift certificate to Andina, a restaurant in Portland, Oregon. We used it last night for our weekly date night.
Because we'd never heard of the place, we had no expectations. Turns out it’s rated as the best restaurant in Portland! Since we didn’t make reservations, we felt lucky to get a table for two even if it was in the bar and squished in between two other tables for two. The place was crowded and bursting with gaiety. The aroma of good food was pleasant torture as we salivated over dishes being brought to various tables around us as we tried to figure out the big menu in Peruvian. There were descriptions of the dishes in English, but they didn’t really help that much. I chose:
ATÚN CON TACU TACU Y AGUAYMANTO Seared yellow tuna sprinkled with black pepper and orange zest, (I was tracking so far) served with traditional lima bean tacu tacu, (I had to ask our waiter what tacu tacu was and he said it was smooshed lima beans; no wonder they decided to go with the tacu tacu verbage) orange wedges, endive spears and salsa criolla, (I figured the criolla part meant hot and spicy and I was delightfully right about that) drizzled with a cape gooseberry-ají amarillo sauce (I was impressed that the gooseberries came from some cape maybe Cod or Canaveral, and I was pretty sure Amarillo was a liqueur I remember liking in my liqueur drinking days). The tuna was scrumptious and the mashed up lima beans were close to addictive.
One of my adult relatives who shall remain nameless has SES (Squeamish Eater Syndrome). I love her in spite of her affliction. As a mother, I’m familiar with squeamish eaters. Out of my three kids, only one was a real squeamer, Joanna. The list of foods that could bring on her gag reflex was endless. The best way to get the gaggers into her, with their valuable vitamins and nutrients, was to buy a food processor and purée the identity out of them. Most children are not as bad as Joanna was and I’m pleased to report that as an adult, she has made friends with many of her childhood food enemies.
I love the Clark County fair! I’ve been going to it since I was nine-years-old. Every summer, my parents used the fair as a bargaining chip with a list of extra chores I could do to make money for the rides. I don’t do the rides anymore, but there’s still something irresistible about the fair all these years later! We can see the fairgrounds from I-5 and as soon as the carnival sets up the Ferris Wheel and the latest rides, my imagination begins to stir.
Even before the fair opens I can smell the aroma of fair food, which is one of the main draws for me. That delicious fragrance of grilled hamburgers, fried onions and deep fried corn dogs wafting through the air carrying with it culinary reminders that there’s the church pie booth and another vendor that makes fresh soft chocolate ice cream. On fair day I get my yearly quota of carbohydrates and grease.
Be Happy Now: Your Problems are a Window to Your Success!
It’s time to love yourself NOW, not when your circumstances are different!
When you deepen your relationship with YOU and take the time to look at yourself with new eyes and truly honor the holiness within you, your circumstances will change with ease and grace. Your problems are a window to your success, whether you’re in a mess at home, in a relationship that’s frustrating, feeling a financial crunch, in a body that weighs too much, whatever, the very thing you call a problem is an opportunity to get to learn more about yourself and love who you are.
I left my husband home alone last week and went to Seattle to babysit two of my grandchildren. I left a freezer full of food, some to cook from scratch (scratch that option, Terry can cook rice and boil eggs) and soups and entrées to simply defrost and heat. I also left salad makings in the fridge and there were nuts and low carb treats in a little basket for him.
It was 2 am and I sat sniveling in my silk pajamas at my computer. I had decided to call my sister in the morning before our families got together for the 4th 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.
The last thing I want to do in my old age, is get grouchy, but if I don’t get this irksome aggravation under control and off my chest, I’m afraid I’m going to snap and get cranky. I don’t want to hurt anyone, because I wouldn’t do well in prison since I have to have my special pillow, I like the temperature at a constant 70 degrees and I don’t think I’d like bread and water or all that inmate noise. I’m hoping if I explain what’s bugging me to you, I’ll feel better and be able to cope with it the next time it happens (which is often).
It's graduation time again, and it got me to thinking about it, which lead me to the idea of celebrating. I looked up the definition of celebration and it said: a joyful occasion for special festivities to mark some happy event.
When we’re young, because we’re growing and changing, there’s cause to celebrate those achievements of going from grade school through high school and college, as well as celebrating the holidays and birthdays.
Happy Father's Day All The Happy Fathers In the World
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, my younger sister 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 I got the disorganized gene from Dad. He threatened to sue me for defamation of character, but of course he was joking and if he really had intended to take me to court, he’d never have gotten around to it because he was a procrastinator.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to go to the dentist. Once I make an appointment and get it on my calendar, it sticks out like a countdown to a jury verdict. Making the appointment to the chair and getting in the chair are not high on my make it fun list, but in the spirit of my motto, Make it fun and it will get done! I try to stay cheerful through the process, twice a year.
I wonder if there are job openings at Microsoft for geeks to help them really respond to the message I get at least ten times a day using Windows 7? Windows is checking for a solution to the problem. In all the years I’ve been getting that message, no one has ever gotten back to me with any solutions.
What I want to know is, is there really a guy in some bank as long as a football field of busy Microsoft operators, receiving a notice that my computer has a problem and is he trying to figure out why it won’t do what it’s supposed to do? I think there’s probably a bank of guys alright, but they’re all just sitting there 24/7 deleting that notice as fast as they come in. Why else would I never hear from anyone, ever? It’s like having a guy say to you after that first date, “I’ll call you.” Yeah right!
When I was young, sometimes my mother would ask me to do something for no good reason. Like, “Pam, please clean out the dog’s dish and feed her before we go.” I was a curious child and I probably wore out the word “why,” because when I’d use it she’d invariably say, “Just because I said so!” I hated that! I vowed when I grew up and had children, that I’d never say, “Just because I said so!” Instead I would explain, lovingly to the questioning child what my reasons were. I’d take time to make sure my children understood. Ha! I probably said, “Just because I said so,” a thousand times more than Mom ever did.
Okay, I’m not a marriage counselor so I probably shouldn’t be going around giving advice to married couples, especially since I’m on my second marriage and so is my husband, but the idea of letting a little gin improve your marriage is really a good one at least for Terry and me and I thought I’d share with you why it is.
You probably should know that Terry is a workaholic because that’s one of the reasons I came up with this idea in the first place. He’s never without his cell phone or IPAD and he looks at weekends as catch up days to finish all the work he didn’t accomplish during the week because of overbooking. It seems when each day comes to an end, his “to do” list is longer because for every task he crosses off, he adds a couple more jobs.
Even in our instant news, instant photos, instant everything society, we still have to wait a lot and we don’t appreciate it. We get antsy when we have to kill time in the checkout line at the grocery store so they created jiffy lines to speed us along. We get cranky and horny (over use of the horn) waiting for traffic to budge during commute times and we sure don’t like waiting for our computers to download, upload, reboot and defrag.
Kristi, my bonus daughter, is like a real daughter to me. We have such fun and yet we’re so different. This fall we spent three weeks together and the time flew! One of the days she and I went shopping and ended up in her favorite bookstore. While perusing the minuscule section on home and family, I heard her squeal with joy a few rows over and found her holding Diana Gabaldon’s latest novel in hardback.
I wish I had more nerve! I remember when those classes called Assertiveness Training were popular; I wanted to sign up, but I didn’t have the nerve. I could have been an extra character in the Wizard of Oz, right next to the cowardly lion; a big yellow, fluffy chicken skipping off down the Yellow Brick Road to see the wizard to get nerve.
The other day I had a half hour to kill before I had to be at my chorus practice, so I decided I’d go to Ross Dress for Less and just browse. I’m sure this isn’t right, but I do it often at Ross; I buy something not because I really love it, but because its original price is horrifyingly high and the mark down is too good to pass up. The first item I put into my shopping cart was a good example. It was pajamas by Ellen Tracy (she’s expensive) originally $70.00 for $21.99! How could I pass up a savings of $48? Never mind the designer brand sleepwear was in a leopard print in purple and lime green and just about the ugliest pajamas I’d ever seen. But in my mind, the $48 savings canceled out the obnoxious look of them. Besides pajamas are worn in the dark and I did love the feel of the fabric.
It was such a scorching dog day in late August that the birds were hot-tubbing in our backyard birdbath. I was wearing my bathing suit and had turned the air-conditioning down another notch despite the green voice in my head that said, ‘You should be ashamed.’ It didn’t help my mood to think about my daughter Peggy, her husband Tyler and my two young grandchildren, Jacob and Sophie working outside in 100 degree weather at a camp for foster children in our community? I admired their compassion and magnanimity to devote an entire summer running the camp and I was glad they were due home that evening.
Attention mechanics: DO NOT read or listen to this essay. At best it’ll disgust you, but at worst, it could make you sick!
I’m a self-confessed car abuser and I’m not proud of it, it’s just the way it is. I’ve abused every car I’ve ever owned including my current one. My organizing skills have kept my cars clean on the outside and on the interior, but when it comes to taking care of what’s under the hood, they are nonexistent. I know, I know, I’m irresponsible. I wait until something happens and then I head for repair. And I know the “ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure,” deal, but I’ve never minded that proverb when it comes to automobiles.
Usually if I wake up with a kink in my neck from sleeping wrong, I can work it out by mid-morning. Last week we were in Boston at our daughter’s home and we slept on our teenage grandson’s super firm mattress which was armed with difficult pillows.
I knew the minute I tried to get up, that there was one very angry muscle in my neck. You know those main muscles that stick out on either side of your throat when you frown and say “EEEK”? That’s the one that got mad. When it comes to pain, I’ve been through my share with three babies and a couple of broken ribs under my belt so I’m familiar with the pain scale of zero to ten, zero being pain free and ten being scalped and begging for Dr. Kavorkian.
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.
My Aunt Tottie was extremely disorganized and was she ever dramatic! My mother was a BOP (Born Organized Person) and she 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. Mom said she looked just like Lauren Bacall.
There’s a huge difference between a drastic transformation and change that takes place as gracefully and gradually as a baby turns into a toddler. But when we’re fed up with our old ways we tend to want an instant and dramatic fix. That’s what impatience is all about. Take weight for example, we want the weight to come off faster than we put it on. We get frustrated with a loss of just one pound in a week, yet if we gained a pound a week, we’d gain 52 pounds in a year. I don’t know anyone who’s done that and you probably don’t either.
If you’re like me, you tend to have that notion: All or nothing at all. When we want to get organized usually we’ve come to a place where every room is laced with chaos. When we decide to fix our finances it’s when the power’s been shut off or we max a few credit cards and sink into financial depression. When we want to lose weight it’s usually because we’ve let it go so long that our pants hurt and we’re scared to get on the scale. We’re not like the frog that stays in the water as it is heated to boiling and cooks to death, instead, we schlep along until we snap.
I have a hard time with “social networking.” I hired a person to help me learn how to use it to spread my ideas for finding joy in everything we do. Unfortunately that joy eludes me when it comes to Facebook. I’ve learned how to get onto my Facebook page for Make it Fun and my husband’s and my personal pages. I’ve been “liking” stuff and “commenting,” but I’m not sure what happens to those likes and comments?
When I got organized in the late seventies, I decided to keep my “project” a secret from my husband, kids, parents and best friend. I’d read that when you want to make a transitional change in your life, keep it to yourself and wait for “them” to come to you and say, “What’s happened to you?” or ”You seem happier and you’re always on time lately, what’s up?”
Today I accidentally received an email not meant for me and since it was very short, I read it before I realized it wasn’t’ for me. It said, (I’m going to use different names) “Hey Mary I got another email about this inner child thing, what do you think about it? Maggie” Attached to the post was one of my Inner Kiddy testimonials. It made me wonder what “Maggie” thought and what she’d say to Mary.
The oldest kid’s room smelled of mold, the middle kid was pasting a sticker book all over the living room walls and the baby was throwing the contents of her bedroom drawers out the window to make room for hide-and-seek.
The kitchen was littered with busted crayons, three sleeping bags reeking of alder smoke were under the dining room table, the parking strip grass was as high as an elephant’s eye and it looks like it’s growing right up to the sky.
Here it is, a few weeks into 2013! Are you through ruining checks by writing 2012 instead of 2013 for the date? Scientists claim it takes 21 days to establish a new habit, so hopefully by now you’re getting used to this fabulous New Year.
What do you want to happen in 2013? Is it the same as what you wanted to happen in 2012, but it didn’t? Maybe you’ve been going at it all wrong.
Men are weird when they’re hungry (especially tall ones). I learned this early in my marriage to Terry. When it was dinner time he used to always be ravenous and, quite frankly, I didn’t like him when he was that way. He was six feet, three inches of uncontrollable hunger and he’d drive me nuts! He didn’t act mean or cranky like some men do; he just acted like he’d skipped his meds. He’s sort of a combination of Cramer (in the sitcom Seinfeld) and Barney Fife (in The Andy Griffith Show). But when he’d get hungry he’d be like those two characters on speed. He’d dart around the kitchen trying to get closer to the pending meal. He’d find difficulty concentrating and our kitchen just wasn’t big enough for both of us, when he’d be famished.
Have you ever noticed that when something starts to heal it can get itchy? I think that’s what happens to us sometimes when we are healing from something intangible like a broken heart. As we start to heal, something reminds us of what happened (that’s the itch) and if we go scratch it, we re-open the wound.
When you start healing from a hurt from the past, you will be reminded occasionally by photos, conversations, music and those reminders can be like scratching the scab off of a healing wound. If you’ve ever had an itchy rash, you know how good it feels at the time to scratch it! However, after you’ve enjoyed the scratching of the itch you are in trouble because you have reversed the healing process.
