You'll be shocked at how getting organized just a little will add great joy to you and your family because:

1.   You do 50% less work

2.   You know where everything is

3.   You keep appointments

4.    You’re on time

Merry Christmas! Hope you truly enjoy the magic of this holy day.

This is a delicious, company breakfast dish that's so easy to make ahead you won't have to get up extra early in the morning to fix your Christmas guests' breakfast. So please enjoy this shart cooking video. 

One of my joys in life is to take a different tack on something famous.

With Christmas in just a couple of days, could you use some last-minute, clever gift ideas?

Get a pen and paper, sit down with your favorite beverage and think. Your creativity is one of your special gifts and that super mind of yours just waits for times like this to come to your rescue. Knock and it will answer.

Here are just a few of the last-minute ideas I’ve come up with over the years.

1. Give gifts from your kitchen

Since I love to cook and I make all my salad dressings from scratch, I’ve often given the dry ingredients along with the instructions to add olive oil and vinegar (you can provide those too, but let the recipient shake them together later for a fresher gift). I save glass jars and quart jars are the perfect size for the recipient to add the oil and vinegar to the dry ingredients. You can also use those wine vinegar bottles for the oil and vinegar and put the dry ingredients into one of those cute little jars that sample jellies and honey come in when you have room service at a hotel.

Gifts from your kitchen are always welcomed. See what you can whip up to give. 

 2. Give money

Download Everybody Loves Money from my website for ten fun ways to give cash using stuff you’ve got around the house or from the grocery store.

I bet my friend Ina Scott will put a smile on your face. You'll probably see yourself in her writings.

"Yesterday Glen and I had our first really smooth, Thanksgiving dinner ever,

thanks to the marvels of list-making and doing as much as we could ahead of time. Even so, I cooked and washed dishes all morning long, but it was a peaceful time, and shoot dang, I was fresh out of the shower, dressed, and putting my hair dryer away as my guests rang the doorbell 4 minutes early, not that I was counting
much—okay maybe I was counting, but definitely not obsessing! 

Outside of the improved organization, I had a few breakthroughs that seem minuscule but are actually huge because they represent such a shift in my thinking.

First, as I was getting ready to cook pasta for Mac & Cheese (the meatless option on our Thanksgiving menu); I looked at the pasta and thought maybe it was the wrong shape. Visions of running down to the grocery store for a bag of the “right” shaped article danced in my head, but they were interrupted by a little voice saying, “Don’t doubt yourself. You decided on this pasta and it will be just fine.”  

This lovely Christmas poem was written by Judith Robinson for her Christmas card this year. She gave me permission to share it with you. She also asked me to make this notation: 2015 Judith Robinson (inspired by Rob Brinkley)

Oh those magazines can trip us SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) up!

Their glossy pages taunt us and make us want the impossible.

Although this song I wrote and am sharring with you, does exaggerate a bit, it’s very close to what can happen if we’re not careful.

Do you want jewelry for Christmas? If you do, why?

Have you ever thought about it? Why do women like jewelry?

Is it because we need attention? Jewelry can certainly do that. After all, it always tells some kind of story.

When you see a big diamond on a woman’s hand, do you assume she’s rich? When you see a diamond necklace or bracelet on a stranger, do you think it could be fake? When Marilyn Monroe sang Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend, she made us want them to be our friends too, even though they can’t talk or listen like a real friend can. The slogan Diamonds are forever implies that at least they’re loyal and not like a dog that goes off and dies on you.

Humans can be so mean and cruel

and we’ve seen enough of that truth in just the last few weeks.

With that said, humans can also be loving, kind, compassionate and empathetic.

Stories of kindness abound, they just don’t make it on the news like mean and cruel stories do. 

If you’ve been focused on all the latest newsworthy cruelty, take a break and spend some time reading wonderful stories of kindness. The official website for Random Acts of Kindness will fill your head with happy stories of kind people who acted in kind and unselfish ways and changed other people forever. Your creativity will kick in and you’ll reignite the angel in you that loves to be of service to others.

Most Christmas bows you buy at stores are so lame!

DIY and deck your packages with beautiful bows. 

I have a reputation for great Christmas bows and right now I'm going to show you how to make them in this DIY video.

The first one will be the most difficult but after that you'll be able to create an  "oooh"  "ahhhh"  bow in under five minutes.

Here we go! 

Helpless in Fresno

(A true, never before told story)

• Step One: Know that you are in exactly the right place right now.

• Step Two: Know you can have a clean, cozy, peaceful home.

• Step Three: Know that you’re not alone.

• Step Four: Know that when you take a thought, add feeling to it and take action, you can’t fail. 

                                   Here’s one woman’s story:

After a routinely chaotic, scavenger hunt for matching sox, clean underwear, clothes, shoes, coats, books and lunch money, her son, a third grader and her daughter a first grader missed the school bus.

That was pretty much the Brace Family routine. 

For breakfast, Mrs. Brace had served them apple pie and ice cream, telling herself it was healthy and contained all the food groups.

The baby (16 months old) was happily playing in Pico’s (a Doberman, Labrador mix named after the cul-de-sac they lived on) water bowl with the head of one of her sister’s Barbie Dolls. 

You KNOW things can change.

Would you like to save money, but still make happy memories your family will never forget?

Just because money is tight, doesn’t mean your creativity is in a recession. Now’s the time to call on it to kick in and come to your rescue. Here’s something I did one Christmas and it just might give you an idea or two.

This one particular year when I was a single parent and didn’t have very much money to spend on Christmas, I got the idea to fill the living room with balloons to cover up the fact that there weren’t
 many presents under the tree. The idea to make Christmas morning seem more spectacular than it really was cost me a package of 100 multi-colored balloons.

Christmas Eve

After the kids were fast asleep, I began my Christmas Eve blow-up. I blew until I’d get dizzy, take a break, get some air and blow some more. The room began to look very festive and I was quite pleased that my idea was going to work! However, halfway into the project, I made the dreadful mistake of letting Suki (our big white with black dots cat) in for the night.

Suki was a year old and had never seen balloons before. Much to my surprise when he came into the living room, he was fascinated by their floating action. He ran at a cluster of the hollow balls and the air from his rush sent them bobbing across the carpet like a flock of fat, flying pigs.

Don’t forget about yourself during this busy holiday season.

I hope you watch this short video from me telling you to get your rest.

It’s truly the best gift you can give for yourself and everyone who has to live with you.

Every year as I'm getting organized for Christmas, I start looking for the Christmas letter from the mouse family that lives in our house. Mrs. Cheddar (her name is Mozzarella) is the one who writes it and I’m sure she’s disorganized because I usually receive it in February. I’m always amazed that she finds the time to write at all, considering how busy she is with all those kids. 

Well, the letter came today and as usual I love sharing it with everybody (with her permission of course). 

Merry Christmas

Dear Friends,

Merry Christmas from Washington State! We hope you all had a great year! As most of you know we live in Terry and Pam’s house. Last year I told about living in their piano (until Pam discovered she couldn’t play the one and only Christmas Carole she knows, because we built our nest on some of the keys and when she hit them the notes didn’t play and of course we were busted!

Thanksgiving was last week and if you traveled over the river and through the woods to visit “Grandma’s house” you're probably back home and have been gradually tapping the final stash of leftovers from the take-home goodies Grandma gave you: turkey, gravy, dressing, cranberry sauce, rolls, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.

But if you're the grandma you've probably got a Ziploc bag of leftovers in your fridge screaming at you to be creative with its contents. But what do you do with one dried out turkey leg, part of a wing and bits and pieces of light and dark meat? Most of the good stuff went to your kids and their families.

That's what happened in my house, and I questioned myself why I didn't give it all away. I'm sick of turkey!

I asked Nelly (my inner child). 

“So, are you the one who decided to keep some of the turkey when I was making up the “to go” boxes?”

“Yep!”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Because I like the drumstick and I didn’t get to have one on Thanksgiving because you said the real kids would want them and then they didn’t even take one but Pa Pa Gary ate one.”

“So, when you saw the other one was left, you put it in the bag to keep?”

The following is an account of a disorganized Thanksgiving Day (from experience) and an organized one. Hopefully it'll makes you smile and plan ahead.

A MUST READ!! 

Be Organized

ORGANIZED SCHEDULE

6:00 a.m.   Exercise, shower, fix hair, put on make-up and dress in festive clothing.

7:30 a.m.   Say prayers, read inspirational material.

8:00 a.m.   Make bed, dress, eat a hearty, bacon and egg breakfast (no toast or potatoes) take a walk, and check appearance of the front door and entryway.

9:00 a.m.  Stuff turkey with stuffing prepared yesterday, have children set holiday table. (Silver was previously polished.) Boil potatoes (they were peeled yesterday and have been soaking in cold water overnight). Make pies(pumpkin filling, apple filling and dough were made yesterday and refrigerated).

10:00 a.m. Listen to holiday music; check table, centerpiece and candles. Bake pies. Whip potatoes and set aside to be micro-waved just before serving.

11:00 a.m. Put turkey in the oven.

Noon  Prepare a light meal, soup and salad for family.

15 EXTREME things to do to remember how blessed you are!

November is the month of gratitude and with Thanksgiving just a couple days away, it’s the perfect time to be more thankful.

Even though we’re bombarded with reminders to be thankful this time of year, it’s probably a good thing, because it’s so easy to forget how blessed we are.  

Hey, we’re busy! Who has time to write in a gratitude journal when you’re going to have 25 people over for Thanksgiving? How does Oprah do it? She must be the busiest woman in the world yet she’s always talking about her gratitude journal and how she starts and ends her days being thankful.

For some great ideas for a stress-free Thanksgiving, take a couple minutes to watch my sister Peggy and me on the Chuck Woolery show with some short-cut cooking tips.

Are there people in your life whom you have not forgiven? Do you think you’d be happier if you could forgive them?

Nelson Mandela said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.”

Would you like to read about a simple approach to forgiveness that has worked for many, who tried it? To find real peace and joy in our lives, we need to forgive those who have hurt us. I shared this timeline in a blog many years ago and if you truly want the freedom that comes with forgiveness, this approach could help. 

February 17:

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, with 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.” 

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 smells way worse than a garage 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 of potatoes rot, because the stench of one is enough of a call to action. 

If you’re a cozy person, you probably do.

Now that winter will be coming soon, do you get the urge to cozy up the place? Webster defines cozy as: enjoying warmth and ease, marked by the intimacy of family or a close group. It takes a cozy person to make a cozy home. For every cozy home, you'll find a happy family.

When I was growing up, our house was always cozy, but as the holidays came closer, the coziness factor seemed to rise. Do you think it could be genetic? If it is I got my cozy gene from Mom who got hers from Granny.

Every home that Granny made was cozy.

Three of her homes that I can recall, were only two rooms; two cozy rooms. I remember one winter, Mom, Dad and my baby sister, Peggy, had to live with Granny for more than a week. The Northwest experienced what they call a Silver Thaw. I think I nderstand what happens when one hits. First of all, the air nearer to the ground is below freezing and the air a little higher up is above freezing. When the precipitation hits the freezing air, it turns to ice. The super fine ice collects on everything, turning the landscape into a sugary, slippery wonderland. 

Before the Silver Thaw, it had snowed about six inches. When the ice storm hit, it covered the snow with such a thick layer of ice that we could walk across the snow and not crunch through. The ice collected enough to pull huge trees over. Power lines were powerless to escape the accumulation of the frozen water and electricity was cut off for more than a  week. That’s why we went to Granny’s. Our home was all electric. Granny had a wood stove. 

Sometimes things can get a little hectic during the holidays, especially if the gathering is at your house.

Here's a grand idea using children's imaginations to keep them busy for an hour or so before the feast is served. AND you'll end up with a festive holiday tablecloth that'll end up a valued keepsake.

All you need is a twin-size flat sheet, some butcher paper (or newspapers) and marker pens and you'll see what can happen in your home. Watch this short video and let your little artists take over.

Watch this DIY video and see how fun it is.

Imagine eating a chilled, ripe, juicy watermelon.

Imagine the taste of the sweet juice as you chew the imaginary fruit. Did your mouth water as you ran the thought through that beautiful mind of yours? If you swallowed, it’s physiological proof that you have a great imagination and your body responded viscerally to the thought. 

Think how powerful your imagination is! You can use this power to solve all kinds of problems, like this one, for an example. Say you want to make Wiener Schnitzel and most recipes call for one inch thick, boneless pork loins to be flattened to a quarter of an inch thick. What if you don’t have one of those wooden hammers you see in fancy kitchens? What could you use? 

If you are a happy person, you know your very presence among others lights them up, even if 

they’re in a bad mood.

That old saying, “Misery loves company,” implies miserable people love to be with other miserable people, but it could just as well mean misery loves happy company. Now there’s scientific proof that happiness can be spread just like the flu!

There was an article in the paper about a study MIT and Harvard jointly conducted. The two prestigious schools discovered by using a formula that tracks the spread of infectious diseases like the flu, it could track the spread of happiness or sadness. They concluded both emotions spread like disease! We already know that laughter is contagious and I know I can cry when I see someone else crying. What this study can mean for us is we can spread joy or misery; it’s completely up to us.

Five years ago Terry’s daughter Kristi and her family came to stay with us for ten days. At the time the children were seven, nine and 12. The day they’d spent flying across the country from their home in Boston to our home in Woodland, Washington sent them straight to bed as soon as they arrived. Their bodies were still adjusting to the three hour time difference the next day. That morning I suggested we have what I termed a “being,” not a “doing” day. 

"the criteria for my kind of being day, is to love what you’re doing"

This might look like a traditional Thanksgiving dinner but there's an intriguing

twist and it's so easy.

You'll never guess what it is. Watch this video and you'll see!

KIDS GROW QUARTERLY

and with winter and the holidays coming, a new supply of warmer clothes and of course toys,
books, games and such will be coming into your home very soon. This is a great time to organize the children’s rooms.

Children are much more likely to keep their rooms neat if they don't have constipated drawers and closets and too many toys, books and games. Parents have to be the laxative here, because kids can't do it alone, it’s too overwhelming for them.

We’re already a month into another calendar quarter and if the weather hasn’t hinted at a change in clothing, it will. The House Fairy

Take some department store shopping bags from your stash and with your child in tow, go into his/her bedroom and play like you’re in a store to buy clothes. That means your child will try on questionable keepers. It’s a quick way to see what is not being worn. Also bag up all the summer clothes (they won’t fit next summer) along with the stuff that doesn’t fit now. 

They gutted his room (including the closet and dresser drawers) of almost everything. 

What if when you said, “I do,” you knew how much had to be done? You probably didn’t think about that when you fell in love.

But did you know that if you were disorganized you’ve done way more work than an organized person who said “I do?” Ask any BO (Born Organized) person why they’re organized and one of the main reasons is that they’re lazy! One BO told me, “I’m
basically lazy and I’m not willing to leave the kitchen a mess after a meal because it takes twice as long to work off food that’s dried on plates, silverware, pots and pans and counters. I know exact times because I have a stop watch and I’ve timed both clean-ups! Twice as long when you put it off.” 

Just think, if you’d been a BO from the time you said, “I do,” until now, you’d have had twice as much time to play! Oh well, what can you do about it now?

What if you were organized right now? What if your garage looked like an advertisement for storage cabinets for a garage? What if you were ready for the holidays right now? What if you were debt free? What if you weighed what you weighed in high school? 

"Where's a magic wand when you need one?"

Peggy and I were known as the Slob Sisters and appeared on hundreds of TV shows. On CBS Morning news we demonstrated the crazy ways we came up with last-minute Halloween costumes for kids and how fun they were to throw together.

As usual, our television talk show hosts were somewhat speechless (that happened a lot!) when we'd shove coat hangers into tights and smear our faces with Karol syrup and coffee grounds.

The important lesson here is when we become more organized we set the stage to play with our creativity. We become creatives! Clutter gets in the way of our creativity.

Decluttering and ending your "stuff management" days will pave the way to fun, creativity, new adventures and excitement on Halloween as well as all the days of the year!

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy our ideas for Halloween Crises Costumes!

Do you like getting a fortune cookie after a nice meal in a Chinese restaurant? Does it tickle you how we all love to open them to see what our fortune will be, even though we know it's not really true? Close your eyes and imagine holding both ends of one and snapping its little, carbohydrate back into two pieces, exposing the secret note written especially for you. 

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten with a group of friends in a Chinese restaurant when we didn’t read and share our fortunes with each other. And why is it, there’s always someone who brings up the rather off-color comment of reading their note and adding the words: between the sheets, to illicit a semi-porny edge to the innocent words? (It’s a tradition I hope our younger generation hasn’t been stuck with.)

An Old-Fashioned Sunday

“A Relaxing Afternoon that Seemed to Stretch Forever,” that was the title of a magazine article I didn’t have time to read, but wished I did. I was just too busy. Still the idea haunted me throughout my hectic day and on into the packed weekend.

“Don’t you just love this sentence,” I asked my friend as we put the lids on the last canning jars of applesauce, “An afternoon that seemed to stretch forever?”

“That all depends if it's a relaxing afternoon you’re having!” 

She’d just spent a nerve fraying, toxic weekend camping out in a leaky tent with a wild toddler and two cranky teenaged pubicydes belonging to her husband’s relative.)

If you are serious about reducing the amount of sugar you and your family eats, Halloween candy can present a big problem. We know that sugar isn't good for us and most of us eat too much of it, but the candy push is in full swing and dog dang gone it, trick-or-treating is FUN. 

In this DIY video clip, you’ll find a solution to that huge influx of candy that’ll be coming into your home on Halloween night. 

Our granddaughter Kaytee proudly demonstrates her abilities as a contractor. With the help of her staff (her two older brothers) she shows us how to create a magical gingerbread house using that stash of Halloween candy that'll be saved from going into your children’s tummies.

Watch this fun video.

I just had to share this email with you from one of the House Fairy's Snuggle Bunny graduates, twelve year old Brady Main.

It is so touching. 

Dear House Fairy:  

This was my clean room when I was four years old. I remember getting really excited when my mom first told me about the house fairy coming to visit. I started cleaning my room a lot more too!

When I grew older, I realized that my mom was the actual house fairy. When my parents had my little sister, I began telling her about it one day when I was describing how not to smack when eating! 

We all laughed and decided to see if we could find that video again.

We are getting ready tonight to introduce my little sister to you, so thanks for the good memories!

Brady Main

Thank you Brady.

I have the feeling you've learned lessons from the House Fairy that will last your entire life.  Maybe your little sister will learn those lessons as well.

To see the smacking video Brady mentioned click on the House Fairy.  

Love,

1. See the sights

October in our state of Washington and its neighbor Oregon is stunningly beautiful now. Take a drive through the countryside and remember, it’s not too late to get one more picnic in.

What are some famous sights in your area? Go check them out. If you have already been to them, try to discover something new about them. If there aren’t any famous sights in your area, then go discover ones that aren’t famous.

Living in the northwest, we learn early on, we can’t let the rain dowse our fun outdoors. Just make sure you all have play clothes, so you don’t have to worry about messing up your good clothes.

Whether it's just misting or pouring cats and dogs make the most of the wet weather  and play with your kids in the rain with these family-tested outdoor activities.

1. Puddle Play

Mom, you usually discourage your kids from jumping in puddles, so they’ll be shocked and excited when you suggest a splashing contest. Get your play clothes and rain boots on and head out looking for the biggest puddles you can find. Let your kids get soaking wet! Let the child who makes the biggest spray, get to pick the movie the family will watch or be freed from some chore. Give points for the one who gets the wettest. If you’ve got dancers in the family, have them practice some steps they’ve learned.

Mom, come on; get in the puddles with them! Motherhood is not a spectator sport. Let your kids splash you. All it takes is saying, “Don’t you splash me,” in a way they know you’re daring them to do it. Oh and just think how good a hot shower will feel after the fun!

At this very moment, you are creating your tomorrow with your habitual thoughts and subsequent routines. You’ve been given the magical power of habit and if you love the consequences of these habits, you’re on a magnificent journey through this life you’ve been given as a SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive).

But if you don’t particularly like the way your life is going right now, you have the power to choose new thoughts that’ll create wonderful consequences for your tomorrow.

Do you know who Ordell Daily is? She’s a fictitious character I drummed up to explain what a BO (Born Organized) is. Here’s a letter from a reader who remembered Ordell Daily. 

 Dear Pam,

I read your books in the early 80s, did your 3x5 card organizing system at least five times with great success every time, but over the years, I’ve felt like a failure because I’ve never been able to be consistent with the system.

Then I read your new book because, once again I found myself in a humongous mess. While reading it, I realized why I’ll never be like my mother who was an Ordell Daily. I’m ME and there’s only one of me with all my creative inconsistencies! Thank you for shining a beautiful light on who I really am!

Dana

 (See the full size image of Ordell at the bottom of this blog)

Ordell is a powerhouse of habit. Here’s a poem I wrote about her. I’ll warn you ahead of time, it’s got a sad ending.

If you are a chocolate lover, you love the smell of chocolate! 

This DIY video shows you how to make your own, inexpensive cocoa scrub, that'll leave you refreshed as it makes your skin smooth as a baby's tushie. 

You can make it yourself with ingredients you have in your cupboard. What's fun is this healthy scrub is loaded with carbs, but they're for the outside of your body, not the inside and while you use it in the shower, you'll feel like you're at the bakery!

Watch Karen (my bonus daughter's neighbor) show me how to make this fabulous scrub. As they say in restaurants...."Enjoy!"

A healthy, low-carb diet will help you lose weight, but staying sugar-free this time of year is tricky.

It's that time of year when the candy companies are gearing up for one of their biggest campaigns of the year and if you are on a low-carb diet to lose weight, this is a hard time of the year for you to succeed because they are out to trick and treat you.

Just think, your mouth is the gateway to your stomach. Ultimately, if you don't put something in your mouth, it won't go into your stomach. It's so simple, and yet we gain weight just because we are able to go unconscious when we're tempted. Candy company executives have a secret credo and it's tattooed on every exec's chest: the mouth trap:the butt stops here! 

If you're a chocolate lover and you're not careful, you'll eat way too much chocolate this month. So I've come up with a solution to help you stay relatively sugar-free.

My husband and I went to a neighbor’s surprise birthday party last Saturday night. It’s always exciting to go to this home. The couple is exotic. The birthday man was a concert pianist and opera singer, turned executive of a large company. He has an adorable French accent and is movie star gorgeous. His wife, who is also stunningly beautiful with a tall, slim body crowned by a head of flaming, (not from a bottle) red hair, was an opera singer turned wife, homemaker and mom. The house is enchanting. It actually looks like an Italian villa perched high on the hill overlooking its own vineyard (all the neighbors are wondering when our resident herd of 36 elk will decide to frisk among the rows of pinot gris grapes). 

We arrived with our donation to the potluck, hot chili from my freezer. I always make double batches of stews, soups and chili and freeze half. For this party I mixed three different batches (no two are ever alike) spanning three different seasons from last year. The combination was an interesting melting pot of past chili feeds.

Michelle, one of our neighbors brought a homemade German Chocolate Cake for dessert. She’s the best baker in the neighborhood and the cake looked alluringly attractive. Nelly (my inner child) said,

“We can have some can’t we?”

“No, sugar is poison, remember what we read in Why We Get Fat?”

Wanting What Others Have Hurts You

“You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.”

That quote is by Vernon Howard and he was probably never dazzled by brochures for fancy vacations or a catalogue from William Sonoma. We are continually tempted to buy what we don’t need. 

There was a recent ad on the Internet hawking the latest autumn purses (referred to as bags). It said in the email subject line: 9 Bags You Must Own This Fall. With suggestions like this, it’s no wonder we can hardly move in our closets!

Really the only thing we need to buy regularly is food and gas. Vernon would not be happy with some of my purchases. Like this crab hat my granddaughter Sophia is wearing. What was I thinking? I know, ‘I’ve gotta have it!’

Vernon’s quote resonates with SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) because we’ve experienced the clutter and resulting chaos that comes with not learning when enough is enough and being tempted by advertising. Yeah, we have duplicates of many items but that’s only because we lose an item and have to buy another. And yeah, we have more babies than BOs (Born Organized) because we never pay much attention to a calendar.

I remember the day Marla Cilley called our Sidetracked Home Executives office and poured out purple puddles. She wanted to help other SLOBs like herself. 

If you’re a parent you have the most valuable job in the world.  

You are raising citizens of the United States of America (or put in the name of the country where you live).

It’s no secret that countless families are deluged by household clutter.

Flylady says; “The most common clutter hot spots are children's bedrooms, home offices, attics, and garages.” What does it take to create a clutter-free space? Here are my 10 best home organization strategies straight from my book, The Joy of Being Disorganized.

1. Stop Homelessness

One of the main reasons stuff piles up on counters, dining tables, coffee tables and floors is that it’s homeless. When an item has no "home," it gets added to an IPOD
 (Important Pile Of Decisions). The free chapter I'm giving you has great information about the IPODs in your home and how to eliminate them. That’s why it’s important to make sure everything in your home lives somewhere. “Homing” items in the room where they're used, helps ensure that they get put away when you're finished. For example, I keep a sewing kit in a drawer of an end table in my living room, because I like to mend garments in that room and not in my sewing room in the basement.

2. Stop Clutter at the Cash Register

Use that, waiting-to-buy time when you’re standing in line at the cash register, to re-think what’s in your hands or cart. Imagine it as clutter. What you buy today can turn
into clutter tomorrow. The better you are about keeping things out of your home, the less likely you’ll be to create IPODs when you get home.

3. Baby Step your Way to Clutter-free

Start with the room that’s bothering you the most. (In my almost 40-year career helping moms get organized, the kitchen is the room most picked by baby-steppers.) Marla Cilley, the Flylady
says, “Start by shining your kitchen sink.” That’s so brilliant! In order to keep your sink shiny, you have to keep it empty. In order to keep it empty, you and your family have to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher. In order to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, it has to be empty!

We want a happy home.

We intuitively know there is peace when there is order. We want our homes to be peaceful, organized and a joy in which to live, love and play.

In a book called The Tipping Point, the author, Malcom Gladwell, really grabbed my attention when he wrote about the Broken Window Theory. It was the brainchild of criminologists James Wilson and George Kelling. Kelling wrote, “Crime is the inevitable result of disorder.” Getting organized reduces crime.

I’m not saying because your house is a mess you’ll inevitably rob a bank or shoot your husband, but it’s a fair guess you’ve been late for church because you couldn’t find your car keys and broke the speed limit to get there on time, or you’ve been pulled over for driving under the influence when really you were just trying to put a little lipstick on while getting to your meeting.

Wilson and Kelling claim, “If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge.” They tell about the horrible crime in the New York Subways in the 90s and that by cleaning up the graffiti on the outside and inside of the cars, crime plummeted! A cluttered room, among other things is like graffiti. It’s symbolic of the collapse of a system. It sends a message that no one’s in charge and no one cares.

Here are 6 simple household tasks that convey the same message as the graffiti-free subways did.  

Is there a broken window in each room?

Let’s use the metaphor of the broken window in each room of our homes and make “repairs” that will take you less than five minutes each. That means that in about 20 minutes you can fix five windows and you’ll show yourself and your family that you are back in charge and that you care.

We’ve got a whole basket of clever gift ideas in this funny video clip of a national television show way back in the nineties. You’ll laugh at the prices quoted in the piece (like the cost of popcorn at the movies), but the ideas still work today.

This video is from when Peggy and I were on the Mike and Maty show. 

Enjoy!

For most of us, to lose weight has been an ongoing...and losing..battle.

For four years I have maintained my weight right where I want it....okay, okay close to where I want it....and have eaten delicious food. 

To lose weight, cut out anything wheat, white or sweet. Here's a recipe that cuts out the wheat and the sweet, and you and your family will love it.

It's for delicious, healthy low carb flourless tortillas.

They'll chop out about 60 carbs from your day.

That'll help you lose weight and that'll help you be healthier.

This is just one of many of my low carb videos.

Learn a Life Lesson from it and It’ll go Away!

Your clutter has something important to tell you.

If you follow a religion, do you think the guy who started yours had too much stuff? Of course he didn’t. Jesus, Moses, Mohamad, Buddha, Krishna, none of them was bothered by owning too much stuff! So here you are today, sick of your clutter, trying to find peace and joy in your day, as you fight over clutter, look for it, stash it, rearrange it, dust it, and cage yourself in chaos and frustration.

Your clutter will continue to get in the way of your peace until you learn a very important life lesson, letting go.   Here’s an excerpt from my latest book, The Joy of Being Disorganized:

Our lives are hectic in this 21^st century, which makes establishing peace in our homes more of a necessity than ever. We need a sanctuary from the frenzy. When our homes make us feel safe and cozy, they become a refuge where we can recharge our spirits that can get pulled in so many directions out in the world.

Peace is a personal matter. What defines peace for me may not come close to your definition. When I think of peace, a lot of “R” words fly around in my mind—like release, rejuvenate, refresh, relax, and rest. Whatever your definition of peace, consider that you are not just a homemaker or a housekeeper, you are a peacemaker and a peacekeeper. The tone of your home rests in your hands. That’s a tall order, but when you reduce the clutter in your home, it’s much easier to keep the peace.

You have the right to live in it “joy” fully and “peace” fully.

Family members don't pick up after themselves? This FREE game will stop that!

Have you heard about the SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) 3x5 get organized system for your home and life?

It certainly has had resurgence in popularity in the last few months! It’s an amazing 3x5 cardfile system and millions have successfully set it up including Flylady.  

If you set up the SHE system and it worked for you and your family, but then you quit using it, YOU’RE NORMAL! Nobody sticks to anything forever; it’s just not possible unless you’re a librarian.Things happen. Life happens. And by your very nature, you get sidetracked by those “happenings,” and life presses you on and pulls you in many directions.

Here’s a video clip of Flylady telling about how successful she was with the SHE get organized system when her child was young and then what happened.

Many people have a hard time decluttering, even when their stuff doesn’t bring them joy.

Have you been holding onto stuff that you really don't care about, and it's cluttering up your life?

Would you love to have a turn-around about how you feel concerning your stash of stuff? Did you know it's easier to get organized when you don't have a lot of stuff?

Read what Emily York did that soothed her fear of letting go and gave her the courage to be free of it. All she did was change her mind and she saw her stuff with a new perspective.

Dear Pam,

As I was watching the S.H.E. De-Junking DVD and I heard you or Peggy say that people tell you all the time they are afraid to let go of their stuff because as soon as they do, they will need it. At that point I said to the television screen, "Amen sisters!" Because that is exactly how I felt. THEN one of you said, "You can let go of your stuff and never have to worry again, because it is at the Goodwill and you can go there and buy it back or just visit it!!"

      I realized I'd been running my own personal

                      version of a Goodwill Store!

You’re,

Probably in your jammies or you slept in workout clothes 

You’ve got “rooster” hair and raccoon eyes and you don’t smell like a rose 

You played Candy Crush Saga until midnight, or one

It’s amazing how the time just flies when you’re havin’ fun 

Does your mouth get you into trouble more than any other hole in your body?

Your mouth is pretty important. You use it to communicate and it’s really your means for survival! No wonder it’s such an important hole! How do you manage yours on a scale of one to ten? There are two indicators of your successful use; the number of friends you have and the size of your body (and I don’t mean tall or short).

When I lost 35 pounds six years ago, I set up elaborate ways to reward my good behavior. I knew my inner child Nelly had (she still does), a sweet tooth and unless I kept her happy, I
would not succeed with my goal of losing the 35 pounds. In The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here! I give the reader ways to play with her inner child in a fun-loving way to get the results she wants with losing weight and this blog is a great resource: http://blog.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com/lose-weight-fast 

You can’t get a person to do anything unless that person wants to do it and that includes yourself. How many times have you wanted to lose weight and then some part of you sabotaged that desire and you ate what you said you wouldn’t? If you’re like me, you’ve been on many diets and probably attended a few Weight Watcher meetings. But unless you commit to staying with a weight-loss program, you’ll gain it all back and then some.

I still dream about desserts and buffets loaded with delicious dishes high in carbohydrates.

How to REALLY clean the cabinet under the kitchen sink

Do you clean the cabinet under your kitchen sink once a month? Happiness is a clean kitchen, but the old saying, Out of sight out of mind can really be true when it comes to this cabnet. If your knees had eyes, they'd see under the sink when the cupboard was open and you’d be down on them with a bucket of sudsy water and a brush at least once a month to clean under there.

This is not an April Fool's joke, I really did this! I decided to show you how to clean under the sink and to prove to you how clean my cabinet was, I got into it! Actually when we shot this video Terry didn’t think I could fit in the cabinet, and I wasn’t about to let him think that! The rest is history. 

15 Negative Words to Ignore to Be Happy

So many of you resonated with my blog, (A Daily Routine to Deal with a Cranky Hubby) on living with a critical person, that I thought I should write a little more, since I lived with a very unhappy and critical man for 15 years and received advance studies in the field.

Aristotle said, “There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”  Hmmm that sounds fun! Let’s all go into comas!

The truth is we women have been dealing with criticism most of our lives. We’ve been conditioned to not rock the boat. We want to be liked and throughout history a woman’s life depended on it. Many of us don’t voice our ideas or pursue our most important work because of our fear of criticism. We don’t take risks or speak our truth because we’re afraid of criticism and dependent on praise. The truth is, whenever we look outside of ourselves for validation, we’re looking in the wrong place and if we allow anyone to cause us to doubt our ability to succeed, it’s our own fault. That was the main reason I wrote The Joy of Being Disorganized. I wanted women to understand their value in spite of being disorganized. 

Turn a deaf ear to negative words

I decided to look up the negative words our society uses to describe women, especially in the workplace. For example, if a man forgets things easily he’s called an absent minded professor. If a woman is forgetful she’s called a ding bat. Here are the words used to describe women and what I came up with to describe men who exhibit the same characteristics.

Hormonal

Both men and women have hormones, so why don’t we ever hear someone say of a man who has just thrown a temper tantrum, “He’s hormonal.” But it’s commonly used to describe a woman’s outburst and especially in conjunction with PMS (which my sister’s husband thought was an airline). 

Running a clutter-free, efficient household requires energy and a consistent desire to follow some kind of simple plan. A plan that directs your days and establishes a routine and habits that serve you, not drag you down. But it’s very hard to follow any plan if you’re down in the dumps. So if you want to stay on top of things, being happy is crucial. 

What if you had a meter that measured whether you were flying high or sinking into despair? You really do. It’s just invisible to the eye, but you can always stop and “check in.”                     

For an example, where would you rate yourself right now. Are you more happy than sad? Are you more anxious than content? Are you more angry than loving?

There’s really little guesswork in knowing how you feel, because you’re wired to know in any given moment. Unfortunately it’s so easy to ignore the signals. We can get so busy we neglect taking time to check in with what’s going on inside.

Establishing a habit of checking in with yourself is such a powerful tool. Take a few minutes daily to be still. You can learn so much from your body. It’s constantly telling you what you need and what is or is not working. But if you don’t listen, if you don’t pause to hear those messages, you’ll be missing out on the most valuable information you’ll ever receive.

If you think you’re going to have a stressful day, checking in with yourself on the hour could really change how your day goes. It helps to talk to yourself and comment on the moods you catch yourself in. Often, I’ll say, “Well aren’t you a happy girl!” Or, “Hey little one, what’s wrong? What’s up with the sadness?”

You have the power to be mindful of how happy and content you are and when you feel yourself going down, there are four things to ask yourself before you head for the tavern, the chips, the candy or the pill bottle:

An important part of being organized is being prepared. BO (born organized) women are always thinking ahead, especially in the kitchen. They know the value of hors d’oeuvres when it comes to men.

Men are weird when they’re hungry (especially tall ones). I learned that truth early in my marriage to Terry and we’ve been married 26 years. When we were first married and 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 as I worked in the kitchen!

He didn’t act mean or cranky like some men do; he just acted like he’d skipped his meds if he were supposed to take some. He’d sort of be a combination of Kramer (in the sitcom Seinfeld) and Barney Fife (in The Andy Griffith Show) 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.

A famished man definitely acts differently than a famished woman. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Swanson didn’t name their large-portioned TV dinner, Hungry Woman Dinner, even though an average lady can put one away with no problem. No one addresses the idea of a hungry woman because, quite frankly, we never are. That’s because we snack.

From the time we’re youngsters; we spend more time in the kitchen and therefore have more access to food than men do unless they’re cooks or chefs. If we women work outside of our homes, we carry with us snacking patterns gleaned from generations of female snackers. I’d bet that more business women have snacks in their drawers at work than men do. And men don’t have purses (a natural snack pouch) in which to tuck treats.

I think if Terry thought he could get away with it, he’d barge into the kitchen, from a snackless day at the office and head straight to the nearest open container of food. He’d wolf down the main course right over the frying pan and slop the sauce de jour all over the front of himself. He’d cool his burnt tongue in a stream of cold water from the kitchen faucet and continue his dishless forage leaning over the sink as he crammed. He’d stuff his already packed mouth with a variety of miscellaneous edibles within reach and wash the remaining side dishes down with a pot of soup he’d missed in his initial culinary attack on the kitchen. He wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t think, he wouldn’t even taste, but he’d be full. It would take about five minutes.

So what’s the answer? Hors d’oeuvres! That thought hit me right between bites one night while I was fixing dinner. I suddenly realized something that could ultimately save 75% of couples who think they want to divorce, from the agony of disillusionment. (It might have even salvaged my first marriage, but that was too long ago to even think about. I’d decided I was going to apply it to my new husband.)

Men love hors d’oeuvres!

Would you like to be happier in your marriage? 

For 15 years, I was in a very unhappy marriage. My husband was an extreme critic and I gave him plenty to criticize. I was disorganized, our three kids were disorganized and the house was buried in clutter.

I lost my joy until a minister gave me the most remarkable exercise to practice that allowed me to avoid being affected by this cranky man’s emotional issues! But the exercise did way more than that.

In our session together (I really only needed one to get me on track), I wept and shared how miserable I was because of HIM. I spewed my well-rehearsed criticism of HIS faults all over her office. Her response, “You are so lucky!” How could she say something so absurd? LUCKY? Give me a break! Well actually, she did give me a break.

If I'd been with an easy going man who didn't mind the mess, I never would have done the soul searching and growing that I was fortunate to do, and I never would have written any books to help others. Sometimes it blows my mind that if I didn't go through what I went through, there wouldn't be Flylady and you wouldn't be reading this blog.

(By the way, if you'd like to get organized just enough to please you, read my latest book, The JOY of Being Disorganized. It'll change the way you see your disorder, but more important, it'll change the way you see yourself.. 

That minister went on to tell me to imagine I had secured my spot in an elite training course that I should take full advantage of. “Every time HE does something to upset you, it’s the perfect time for YOU to practice letting it roll right off your back and work on your problem of being so disorganized. If you’ll set the intention of being happy no matter what HE does and get to work on your own issues, you’ll acquire one of the most valuable lessons there is to learn in life.”    

What’s interesting about setting an intention of being happy all the time and working on your own issues, is when something tries to pull you from that place, you can kick in and put yourself back on track to being happy and organized. Abraham Lincoln said: “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” He didn’t say much about being organized because rumor has it he was quite a messy fellow.

 When was the last time you smiled at yourself in the mirror?

Do your children like to be read to?

Have you heard people say, “The kids today have short attention spans because of electronics and quick-paced television for kids”? It’s true they’re used to watching three to four-second bytes and they enjoy fast-paced computer games, but to date I’ve never met a kid who doesn’t like to be read to. 

As I sat in the Kelso, WA Amtrak station waiting for a train that was 38 minutes late, I watched a grandmother read Curious George to her five-year-old grandson.

From my vantage point, she appeared to be a rather listless reader, void of expression, sound effects and lifted eyebrows accompanying some of Hans’ and Margaret’s incredible thoughts, yet the child was glued to his grandma’s side listening to the story! 

When the book was finished, I thought for sure he’d get up and run around the waiting room, but instead, he pulled another book from his backpack and she proceeded to read it in the same dreary way. The train turned out to be an hour late and the child remained interested in books the entire time. So much for short attention spans and quick-paced actions to keep a child’s attention.

So here are what I believe are 7 benefits of reading bedtime stories to your children.

Now that visual stimulation is served up via television, IPads, IPhones, Xbox etc., children rarely get to tap into their imaginations unless we read to them, or until they can read. As a child, I loved radio (it was before we had television) because my imagination provided the visuals. Because we don’t have kid radio, unless we read to our kids, their ability to use their precious imaginations and be able to visualize will weaken. 

I remember one Christmas, my daughter Peggy bought a bunch of children’s books at a neighborhood garage sale and recorded reading them on a cassette tape recorder for her non-reading cousins as gifts for Christmas. As adults, those cousins still speak of how they loved her gifts of being read to.

My husband Terry and I recorded books on CDs, the same way Peggy did with a cassette recorder. This way our grandchildren could listen to us read the books we gave them as gifts.

2. Creates a Bond

I received this email from a SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) and it’s so inspiring I had to share it with you. I think we can take some advice from Heddy and I‘d like to thank her for sharing it with us. I’d love to hear about the fun you’re having! We do need to have more fun!

Dear Pam,

I let my inner child play MOST of the time because "I" never had a childhood.

I figure if all the email forwards from friends are "regrets" about not playing more and worrying too much, and not burning the pretty candle and wearing the special underwear, then "I'M not THAT girl!"

I'm NOT going to wait until I'm old to wear purple and if you haven't read that poem, Google it! [Pam here: Sorry to interrupt Heddy, but I included it in this blog.]

"I DO use the good china and I often eat my dessert first"

I wear my pearls ALL THE TIME, even when I'm jackhammering, or so I was reminded by a
Home Depot employee who looked at me with awe and admiration. I hadn't been aware of it, but I DO use the good china and I often eat my dessert first. I mean, it's NOT just a bumper sticker about life being too short...it IS and I dance in the rain (often naked) because I can. Ok...I'll admit it was on 7 fully fenced and VERY private acres, but hey, it was great when I COULD do it because now that we're living in suburbia it's not likely to happen without me being arrested, so...NO REGRETS! I DID IT! 

And I continue to DO the things that others only wish they could.

The House Fairy not only encourages and inspires your children to clean their rooms and keep them clean...she also helps with good manners. This video might even enlighten some adults you know.

It's so much fun getting to know some of you on a personal basis through the consultations I’m now doing through the summer. I’ve learned so much about how alike we all are in our SHEness (Sidetracked Home Executive-ness). To learn more about a consultation please go to www.cluborganized.com  then to the Get Organized tab.

I recently talked to a very fun-loving and brilliant SHE named Pat, who emailed an update a few weeks after our talk. She has been gracious to let me share her thoughts. 

She said, “I enjoy creating a mess. That's part of the trouble I had a long time ago; I couldn't understand why I should clean up such tiny messes, when it felt so fun to clean up a big mess. Unfortunately, after a while I just kept putting off the cleaning up until it was too big a mess to clean up!”

When I read that comment, it made me think about the Ta Da affect we SHEs love. I thought about what Pat said about liking to make a mess because it’s fun to clean up! I liked it too. I remember when Mr. Cranky (my first husband) would go on the road (he was a traveling salesman) I’d let the house unravel. It was soothing and relaxing to have him gone. He’d be gone four days at a time and that’s enough time to create some very big messes that verged on scary!

Give it up

When my sister and I got organized, we both discovered we had to let go of the need for a Ta Da moment. There’s no Ta Da in a little clean-up, so we have to get used to mini Ta Da moments.

1. If your home is immaculate and running like a well-oiled clock.

2. Your family begs to help with household chores.

3. You’re happy with your weight.

4. You’re wealthy and debt free.

5. You have a team of professional housecleaners who come and clean daily.

6. You are ecstatic with your marriage.

7. Okay, I thought of another one, you’re never late.

If these reasons aren’t yours, read more. Disorganization affects every area of your life; your finances, your health, your relationships, your stress level and I’m sure you can think of more ways it affects your life.

A Little Organization Goes a Long Way

Getting organized just enough to please you, is the goal. The only reason to get organized is so that life doesn’t get in the way of YOU. When you’re disorganized, you let life run you as you stomp out fires caused by your disorganization. But a little organization goes a long way. Just getting in the habit of looking at your calendar every evening and then again in the morning will increase your level of organization tenfold!

What can be discouraging is trying to get organized when you’re in a huge mess and you don’t know
where to start. That’s like trying to waterski under water. If you’ve ever waterskied you know getting up is the part that takes the most effort, but once you’re on top of the water that’s when the fun begins. It’s exactly the same with being organized in your life. Once you’ve established just a few good habits and you get into a routine that serves you, you’ll glide along with ease. It’s the establishing part that takes a little extra effort. 

Where Should You Start?

Is your kitchen streamlined, efficient and a joy to cook in? A couple of weeks ago, I took you on a pity trip and so many of you went with me! I loved all your responses and I think the “trip” helped many pare down the contents of their clothes closets! You all are so fun! If you didn’t take the pity trip with me and if your clothes closet contains more than what you love and wear today be sure and read my blog, Let’s Take a Pity Trip .

Today I’m throwing a pity party and I hope you’ll have one too.This exercise is designed to help you dejunk your kitchen. Let’s pretend we’re going to throw a huge dinner party, only, just like on the pity trip you have to pretend you’re disadvantaged and this party is going to be as wretched as you can make it. 

You’ll be Serving Bad Food

First, you’ll need to search in the cupboards and freezer for old food. You know any cans or packaged products with words like “best by 7/14,” and frozen stuff you don’t recognize (and never will). Of course all the bad food needs to go in the garbage, but there’s nothing stopping you from pretending you’re going to make a giant and disgusting casserole out of all of it for the big pity event. 

Second, you’re going to look at all your serving dishes with new eyes. Are there bowls, and plates that you never use, not even during the holidays? Are your glasses foggy from age? A good way to look at your stuff with new eyes is to pretend you’re at a thrift store and ask yourself, as you look at each plate, bowl and glass, “would I buy this?” See if you can fill a big garbage bag with kitchen utensils, silverware, glasses, mugs, chipped bowls and plates, and pans you haven’t used since 7/05. 

On the 4^th of July of this year, Terry and I had a dinner party for two other couples. As I was looking in my kitchen cupboards with entertaining in mind, I realized there were so many serving pieces I just don’t use anymore and I promised myself that after the party, I was going to dejunk my kitchen of them. That’s when I decided to pretend to have a pity party. It helped me get to the bottom of why I wasn’t using a lot of what I passed over in preparing for the 4^th.

Go Backwards

WHAT??!!  How can I possibly be suggesting things to do NOW for Christmas...it's just under 180 days away?

And that's exactly the point; start doing things now and you'll have the smoothest, easiest holiday time you've ever had.

I asked one of our sister SHEs, Greta Heddy,  for some help. Here's what she wrote: 

I know it seems early for us SHEs, but you might want to start now so you'll be ready for Christmas or Chanukah. If you’re like me, you have a vague idea of what to do, but never get around to it until December is upon you. Here are seven things you, I mean, we can do right now to be organized for Christmas!

1.  Gifts  List everyone you want to give gifts to. Family, friends, letter carrier, hair dresser, whoever. If you know what you're getting them, great! (Consider cash and use Pam’s Right on the Money Stickers. Write it down beside each name. Organize any gifts you already have. Get boxes, label them, and hide them where no one will find them except you. Wrap and label each gift when you buy it.

2.  Budget  Set a dollar limit for each person. My husband and I always had a $100 limit for each child. As I shopped, I knew when to stop. It made buying and looking for bargains much more fun. Oh – and add in extra money for postage and shipping. If you are traveling this December, remember the cost of plane tickets or other travel expenses. budget

Do  you ever wish your kids would simply hang up clothes or put them in the laundry rather than dropping them on the floor or tossing them over a chair?

If your kids are three to ten, the House Fairy can help you help your kids get chores done and get out to play.

Watch this short video and see if they like what the House Fairy has to say about helping Mom and Dad.

 4 Ways Not to Be Late

Do you have a reputation for being late? Have you ever thought that punctuality could be fun? If not, maybe that’s why you’re always late! Do you know punctuality is a habit? Of course you do. I was always late until I realized that punctuality is part of gracious living and then I found out it’s actually fun to get there early! There’s just too much stress in being late but you already know that. The good news is, tardiness is an easy habit to fix! Here are 4 ways not to be late.

1. The Victoria Secret Technique

Have you ever had a super bra? Victoria Secret has an amazing one. It literally takes all the fat from under your arms, and I think some of it from your back and pulls the excess fat into its cups! Voila, whatever cup-size you are, they get overloaded and you’ve got cleavage! What does this have to do with being punctual? Well, time is like fat. We all have it and we can manipulate it to our advantage.
 

Here’s how it works. Say you make a dental appointment for 3:00; put it on your calendar for 2:00 (be sure to write what it’s for). By the time the appointment rolls around, of course you’ll have forgotten your “Victoria Secret” and you’ll get to the appointment at the average time you run late (you do have an average) so say around 2:14.

The Victoria Secret Technique has just given you several gifts, including 46 minutes. First, you get the exhilaration of being early! If you’re always late you just don’t know what it feels like to be early! Second, in order to follow through with this gift from the secret, you need to have a BUT bag (BUT stands for Back Up Tasks). So, in that 46 minutes, you’ll have time to take care of tasks you’ve put in the bag to do while you wait. Your cup over-floweth with time!

Punctuality is showing high esteem for other people and their time.

The Victoria Secret Technique will help you fix your relationship with time and improve your relationships with those you’ve caused to wait for you. After all, punctuality is showing high esteem for other people and their time.

Contents of my BUT Bag    

1.Small note pad and pen for writing down brilliant ideas Nelly (my inner child) or I come up with

2. Needle and thread (white, black and beige), scissors and items to mend or hand stitch as they present themselves
3. Thank You Notes/envelopes/stamps
4. Inspirational book
5. Manicure kit
6. Dental floss
7. Magnifying mirror and tweezers

8.Cell phone (has addresses in it)

9. Back up projects

2. The Cheap Ugly Watch Trick

A week ago I posted a funny video clip from when Peggy and I were on the
Will Shriner Show.

It brought an avalanche of wonderful comments about how it brightened
people's day.

You can see it here.

http://blog.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com/will-shriner-couldnt-believe-what-we-did-on-his-show

Because it struck such a nerve I thought I would show you a clip when we were 

on the Mike and Maty Show.  

I hope you enjoy it

It’s Not Your Fault ~ Blame it on Mother Nature

If you have a sweet tooth, you have an inner child. While you’re out and about today, notice how kids light up when given sugar! That delight in sugar comes from a natural instinct. (If you’ve ever tasted human breast milk, it’s sickeningly sweet.) Mother Nature used sugar (lactose) to get the baby to suck. And the rest is history!

Fast forward to what you are now…an adult who loves desserts, cookies, candy, cake, pie, ice cream etc. If your mouth is watering just reading that previous sentence, and if you’re overweight, my guess is that sugar has a hold on you.

Sugar is addictive whether you want to admit it or not.

I got an email the other day from a lovely woman who has decided to cut out all processed sugar from her life and she’s asked me to help her. She messed up over the weekend and said she didn’t know why she caved and she asked what she should do now?

Here’s what I told her and I know it’ll help you if you struggle with eating too much sugar.

An off-the-wall closet organizing project. It just might work for you.

When you see a photo like this, are you inspired to learn how to declutter and have an organized closet? 

What you wear takes up a lot of your energy and when your closet is constipated with stuff you don’t wear (for whatever reason), it becomes a gigantic IPOD (Important Pile of Decisions). Your closet is just like your garage if your car is parked in the drive-way.

What might surprise you is the pile of decisions isn’t a bunch of various decisions like when you have to file papers into a filing cabinet, because 90% of the stuff you’re not making a decision about just needs to go! Good-bye, ciao, ta ta, Cheerio, fairwell! How to de-junk is that simple! Let it go!

I’ve been helping people get the spark and motivation to declutter for almost 40 years and have come up with some very creative and fun ways to give you that spark. This one I’ll call Operation Pity Trip.

Every once in awhile I like to share with you some of the highlights my sister and I enjoyed over our career.

I think we were on just about every major program whether nationwide or on TV in the largest cities: Oprah, Donohue, Mike and Maty, The Home Show, Regis (17 times), and Geraldo (Ooh..do I have a story to tell about him at another time). The list goes on and on.

lt's so much fun to have an audience roaring in laughter. It's even more fun when the host doesn't know where we're going next.

This short video from the Will Shriner show is a perfect example. 

                                         I hope you enjoy it.

If you really want more happiness, start by stopping your complaining. 

Most people don’t realize how often they complain because it has become a habit and, like all habits, it tends to be so familiar that it becomes invisible (like that box of stuff in the entryway to take to the donation center).

Studies show that complaining can be brutally harmful to your health, efficiency and life in general. That’s because complaining is negative and it takes a toll on your energy and your happiness. People who are always complaining tend to have poor health, are disorganized in their jobs and at home, and have relationships that are not good and don’t last very long. And they aren’t that much fun to be around!
 

This is a photo Terry took in Cancun when we were there on vacation. As you can guess, everyone left the beach because of the on-coming storm. Grumbling about inclement weather is probably one of the most common complaints and maybe it's because we can't do anything about it. Here in the state of Washington it rains a lot, and most Washintonians do not own an umbrella or rain boots, we just know how to dash and we're Olympic at finding shelter.

An important message from Flylady.

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.

Last Friday, my video showed a great gardener showing me exactly what to do to grow enough to feed the entire neighborhood all summer with the abundant produce I would reap.

WELL, the biggest lesson learned was.....I think I'll let you watch the video to find out.

I will say this, there are just some things we SHEs should not attempt.

JoAnne, who failed to look at a calendar and celebrated Father’s Day one whole week EARLY. She is here by awarded the Club Organized Freedom Award! Here’s her story in her own words.

If we’d just look at a calendar every day as part of our morning routine, we’d always celebrate events when they’re supposed to happen. Of course there is something very dramatic and fun in rushing around, thinking we’re under the gun only to find out the gun is a week away! Truth is, we SHEs are addicted to adrenalin, and an episode like this gives us our fix!

 I think JoAnne and her daughter are onto something very big! We could decide to celebrate every event (except Christmas) one week early. We know we’ll be racing around to meet the hour deadline, but we’ll have bought a whole week of time and so what if we don’t quite meet the hour deadline!

Could there be other ways to get that fix?

10 Fun Summer Activities for Kids

As a parent, one thing I always tried to do when my kids were young was to create a sense of wonder and magic in their lives. I rarely heard them say, “I’m bored!”

Summer is the perfect season to make fun childhood memories. My mom was a master at creating memories for my sister and me. Thinking about why my summers as a kid were so special, I have renewed admiration for what my mother put into planning our summers.

She was a BOP (Born Organized Person). She always had a daily agenda for the summer months and it included household chores first and then fun. Attention moms, use fun activities you plan as a reward for getting the mundane household responsibilities accomplished every day.

Sometimes I feel like you're my baby ducklings and it's my duty to teach you the most valuable lessons in life.

Since I'm one of the original SHEs and have almost 40 years of SHEness under my belt, I know I can help many of you.

Today is the first of a two-part series to hopefully help you from making a huge mistake.

I always wanted my own garden. A couple years ago I called on a friend, Bob Youngs, who always has fabulous gardens for his expert advice.

Here's part one.

How it Feels When You Stop Procrastinating

One of my dear Club Organized members wrote a wonderful blog for me to share with you. Do you see yourself in it?

by Greta Heddy

My daughter says she's the queen of procrastination. In that case, I'm the Queen Mother. I even put off things I want to do. The things that I'm afraid to do, or don't want to do, get put off even longer.

Here's a short list of some of the tasks I didn't want to do from the recent past, with the number of months I procrastinated doing them in parentheses:

    - switching bills to my husband's name at our old house and taking over         the phone bill (4)

    - opening some of the bills from my daughter's appendectomy last fall (8)

    - signing up for a free membership to a gym though my health insurance       (2)

    - putting away boxes from my move (5)

    - changing doctors to get better care for my shoulder (1)

    - taking my car to the dealer because the fix they did last fall didn't work        (1)

    - starting various healthy habits: eating correctly (4); getting enough               sleep (2); exercise (years)

I'm not here to tell you how to get yourself to stop procrastinating. I'm not going to tell you about the negative consequences of putting things off. You know these. I'm going to tell you how it feels when you finally do the things you've been avoiding.

I’ve been asking my Club Organized members to give me examples of going to Plan B either because there was no plan in the first place or Plan A failed. My example was, always putting off getting a gift for someone until the day of, or within the hour of the party. That’s how I came up with more than 100 funny ways to give money. In the end, my disorganization saved me time shopping, money for driving to the mall and my sanity. I always knew I could come up with something I’d put off until the last minute. For more information on this great tool click the box at the bottom of this page.

This email came from by Jill Bowen, one of my charter members. (You can join the club if you can answer “YES” to at least five scenarios on the admissions exam.)  To take the test click on the word "YES". 

Swamp Thing

This is your lucky day!

You get two super delicious recipes:

Yummy guacamole and a low carb bread that will NOT cause you to gain weight.

It’s Never Too Late to Say Thank You!

I was talking to a good friend of mine who is definitely a BO, and I asked her, “Have you ever not written a thank you note for a gift or for having a meal at someone’s house and such?” She answered immediately, “Oh no! Never! Energy drain!” She’s a massage therapist and has studied a great deal in the holistic health field. She went on, “If I didn’t take care of a thank you as soon as possible, I wouldn’t be able to get my mind off the person. Why would someone not take care of it right away?”

Well, Miss BO, here’s why! We’re creative. Our creativity gets in the way of getting a quickie thank you (it takes less than five minutes to write a thank you note, address an envelope and put a stamp on it) off in the mail.

We were devastated!

 Years ago, my sister’s neighbor was killed in a freak accident (a tree fell on him in their backyard) and we were all devastated. His poor wife was left with three small children and our hearts were broken for the family.

 My sister spent an hour at the Hallmark store looking for just the right sympathy card, but none seemed to fit the situation. She went home and called me saying she’d like to write her own sentiment and could I help her. Of course I was moved to be part of a thoughtful note to convey our sympathy. I told her to write something and I would make it rhyme.

Great ways to put joy into boring household chores.

Have you ever noticed that most household tasks are rather mindless? You know, how much thought goes into chopping vegetables for a stir-fry? Not much, except maybe to keep your fingers out from under the knife. Making the bed? Not much. Folding clothes? Not much. Scrubbing the kitchen floor? Not. Vacuuming? Ho hum.

If you really want to make it fun, so it will get done, these tips will help.

1. Listen while you work

Llistening to audiobooks is one of the best ways to actually enjoy housework. The time virtually flies.

Listening to music also helps and the faster the tempo, the faster you’ll get the job done. Try putting on some Spanish music. OLE!

2.  Watch a movie

I still iron. I love that pressed look, but I don’t love to iron, unless I watch a movie while I do it.

I set up the ironing board in the family room, pick a movie I’ve seen before (so I don’t have to keep looking up like I would if it were the first time I’d seen the movie) and before I know it I have it all done and my room smells like fresh laundry.

3.  Race against time

These aren't just for kids. They are great for grownups who feel they need a little "pick me up" in the afternoon but don't want sugar!!!

Married 43 years. Divorced 39. Still owes thank you notes!

One of the common threads in all the responses to a recent admissions exam for Club Organized was regret and guilt over not sending thank you notes.

One woman was so sorry and guilty for not sending them for her wedding 43 years earlier and she’d been divorced for 39 years! I can't help loving this woman!

The amazing thing we do to ourselves when we don’t thank someone is remember it forever. Every time you use the toaster you think of Aunt Sally and how she never got a thank you for it, and now she’s dead. It’s so easy to put off writing thank you notes, by thinking we just don’t have time and when we do have time, like when we’re waiting at the dentist or the DMV, we don’t have the cards to write.

Let’s fix this problem now. Here are two easy answers.

One is to read about my BUT Bags which hold more than just thank you notes and come in handy when you have to wait. (BUT stands for Back Up Tasks.) http://blog.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com/young-heart    

No More All or Nothing at All

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 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 50 pounds in a year. I don't know anyone who's done that and you probably don't either.

As SHEs we 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 it has our attention. 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.

To do, or to be?

In his breath-taking book Many Lives, Many Masters, Dr. Brian Weiss M.D. (a renowned and highly reputable psychiatrist) said, "The steady day-in and day-out pounding of undermining influences such as a parent’s scathing criticisms, could cause even more psychological trauma than a single traumatic event. These damaging influences, because they blend into the everyday background of our lives, are even more difficult to  remember and exorcise.

A constantly criticized child can lose as much confidence and self-esteem as one who remembers being humiliated on one particular, horrifying day. A child whose family is impoverished and has very little food available on a day-to-day basis might eventually suffer from the same psychological problems as a child who experienced one major episode of accidental near-starvation. Those day-in and day-out poundings of negative forces have to be recognized and resolved with as much attention as that paid to the single overwhelmingly traumatic event."

I loved what Dr. Weiss said and I’ve realized, because of my daily attention to Nelly my inner child, I've been able to neutralize the day-in and day-out poundings of the past by becoming aware of her against the background of my daily life that’s going on now. When we shine our attention daily on the inner child, and confront negative feelings in the moment, 

using love, understanding and compassion, we can almost be like our own psychologist helping ourselves to remember and exorcise the source of negative experiences from the past.

Loving yourself is NOT a selfish notion!

Whether you use a griddle or a pan, cook your eggs slowly so they don’t brown and crisp up. I cooked these eggs on the same griddle I fried the bacon on and used the fat from the bacon to cook the eggs in. I added a little salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the whites are white before turning. Some prefer eggs over easy, some over medium and some over hard and that has to do with the yolks being runny or not.

The big secret to wonderfully tasty eggs is buying them from a local farmer where you’ll get fresh eggs with yolks that are bright yellow and so yummy. Eggs in stores can be easily several weeks old. You'll pay a little more for local eggs but they’re worth it.

Do you like to be on the receiving end of a surprise?

A “little” surprise is like being outside on a chilly, spring morning without a coat when the sun pops out from behind a big cloud and warms your back. Like Mother Nature executing one of her random acts of kindness. Here's a trio of daffodils getting their little backs warmed. Just getting this photo from my photographer husband was a little surprise that made me smile!

Most people don't like those big deal birthday bombshells where you walk into your house and the whole neighborhood yells “surprise,” or those horrid surprises on your credit card statement, right after Christmas. 

This blog is about the times when your husband comes home from work with a single rose for you or your child surprises you by doing a chore you didn’t ask him or her to do.

If you thought to yourself, ‘Ha, Carl’d never come home with a single rose for me,’ or Jenny wouldn’t lift a finger if I didn’t ask her to, maybe you need to ask yourself when was the last time you surprised Carl or helped Jenny with a chore?

1. You are denying disorganization is affecting your life in a negative way.

2. You are comparing your organizational skills to reality show hoarders. 

3. You are blaming your family for the mess you’re in.

4. You are minimizing the problem and the gifts you possess to solve them.

In Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) it speaks of the four defenses an alcoholic uses while he/she continues to drink. In Get Your Act Together, I wrote how SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) use the same defenses to remain in a mess.

There is really no difference except for the outcome… drunk or disorderly.

Like an alcoholic, once a SHE stops using the four defenses, she is then able to change. Could one of these defenses be holding you back from the life you want to live?

Denial 

You probably don’t deny you’re in a mess, but I know when I was living in chaos, I acted like it didn’t bother me. Haven’t you heard the classic messy person’s excuse for a messy desk say, “I know where everything is on my desk!” Yeah right! Denial! 

I also remember a constant desire to get out of the house and go play. My three kids and I spent much of our time outside where I didn’t have to face the mess in the house. While at the park it was easy to deny I had a problem, but I always had to come home to the truth.

Rationalization

What better way to start your day than with a bacon and egg breakfast.

In this video I show you how to fry bacon and I give my delicious concoction to take the place of hash browns because they’re so high in carbohydrates.

Once you’ve tasted my onion hash browns, you really won’t want to have hash browns made from potatoes. Especially because potatoes are LOADED with carbs. If  you did nothing more than cut out ALL potatoes you would start losing weight.

On September 29, 2015 we officially opened Club Organized.

Would you like to be in Club Organized and get organized just enough to please YOU?

Good, because I’ve started an exclusive club for you, and not just anyone can join. You'll have to pass an admissions exam. As long as you can answer yes to at least five of the scenarios in the exam below you can be in the club. No BOs (born organized) allowed.

Of course we won’t ever have meetings (we’re all too busy and we'd only forget when they were!) and there won’t be dues or uniforms or secret handshakes, but we’ll all know we belong.

And we just might start having an annual convention here in Woodland, Washington. We’ll be a sisterhood of SLOBS (remember SLOB stands for Spontaneous, Lighthearted, Optimistic and Beloved) and we’ll be bound together by our love for our families and our desire to have clean, cozy, peaceful homes.

Here’s the test I promised you. Don't forget, if you can honestly answer yes to five of these SHE scenarios, you’re in the club! If you can answer yes to 10 of them you're eligible for admission into the highly coveted DE status (Deficiency Expert) of the club and you’ll receive all the goodies that go along with it (as soon as I figure out what they’ll be).

CLUB ORGANIZED ADMISSIONS EXAM

Okay, this ratio is not scientific, but in the 40 years I’ve been helping disorganized women, I’m pretty sure it’s very close – maybe 11 to one.

I believe for every BO (Born Organized) there are at least ten SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) and I know the reason why God did this. If it weren’t for us SHEs, the BOs of the world wouldn’t have much to do and they’d get depressed and start re-washing stuff.

 I’m smack in the middle of starting an exclusive, new club for the disorganized (no BOs allowed) and I’m calling it CLUB ORGANIZED. (Well, actually, I’m just changing the name of my website from www.makeitfunanditwillgetdone.com to www.cluborganized.com but in the excitement of being able to get this perfect name for my website, I started thinking about having a real club for us!)

CLUB ORGANIZED

Because you subscribe to my blog, you can be one of my charter members! Of course we won’t have meetings (we’re all too busy) and there won’t be dues or uniforms or secret handshakes, but we’ll all know we belong.

We’ll be a sisterhood of SLOBS (remember SLOB stands for Spontaneous, Lighthearted, Optimistic and Beloved so don’t go getting a kink in your hanky because I called you a SLOB).

Oh and I just might start planning for an annual retreat and you can join me in Woodland, Washington!

Why is it when we collect clutter we don’t want to let go once something is ours, and even though the four reasons I came up with are positive, the results of holding on are always negative.

1 Creativity

Because of our creativity, we often get things we think we’ll use, but end up not wanting to follow through with our clever thoughts. Often, we’ll keep something, just in case we’ll need it or can think up another use for it. I noticed when I was getting my gardening tools ready for spring, that I still have all the stuff I bought to bonsai some trees. I got the soil, the cutting tools, and the precise kind of planters for my bonsai projects. I was also on a honeymoon with the idea of having bonsai plants in my yard and gardens.

Six years ago, I took one lesson at Tsugawa’s Nursery that has the most beautiful bonsai trees I’ve ever seen. They’re master bonsaiers! Their little Christmas Village trees are way out of my price range! Who can pay $679 for a teeny, weeny cedar tree, even it is 216 years old?

Since I have old growth cedar trees that throw their babies everywhere on our property and I’m always pulling them up like weeds, I decided I’d start bonsaiing them! I should have known, I was in over my bonsai head, because I knew the people at this nursery are steeped in bonsai tradition, and it sure didn’t come naturally to me like it does to the Tsugawa’s.

I killed every one of my cedar victims, but did I get rid of my stash of bonsai tools? No, because in the back of my mind, I figured I just might get a Tsugawan urge to try again!

You’ll be glad to know I’ve boxed up the stuff and it’s on its way to the Salvation Army where it will soon be in the hands of someone who has a knack for miniaturizing trees.

2 Optimism

It's hard to be happy if you don't feel good.

 

When exercise is part of your daily routine, you are healthier and happier than living a sedentary life. But it has to be programmed into your routine or, you know, you won’t do it. Recently Terry and I were surrounded by more than five hundred happy, healthy people who came together for fun and exercise. You can see the health in many who participated and you know they have exercise as part of their daily routines.

On Saturday morning, the day before Easter, we took part in Woodland, Washington’s annual Tulip Trot. We walked 1,968,505 inches from the Holland America Bulb Farm on a loop that took us along the dike that keeps the Lewis River and the Columbia River from turning the tulips into tulip soup.

If you wonder why I used inches to tell you how far we walked, it’s because I wanted it to sound impressive. I don’t think it’s any different than converting miles into kilometers. Runners love to brag about running 5Ks and 10Ks (not because they use the metric system, but because it just sounds like more). A 5K run is only 3.10 miles and it’s just not as impressive as saying 5Ks. You never hear a marathoner say she ran 42 Ks because 26.2 miles is impressive enough and besides, we all know that a marathon is 26.2 miles so she doesn’t have to say anything except the word, MARATHON. And, us non-runners’ brains can’t conceive of running 6.2 miles let alone 20 more after that, so all we really need to hear to be impressed is just the word.

Terry was the self-proclaimed official photographer of this year’s Tulip Trot and the weather was a photographer’s dream, as you’ll see in the photo’s he took. There were some angry clouds threatening to dampen the trot, yet it never happened, and the black and gray clouds against the brilliant tulips were stunning.

I'll barbeque anytime of the year. In fact, when there are howling winds I think my BBQ delights are even better. I know they are appreciated more. 

But it isn't the weather that brings me rave reviews every time. It's the secrets I use in cooking over the grill.

I have seven secrets I am ready to share with  you.

Put your jacket on and come on out on my deck.

Weight Watchers Says I Should Weigh 500 Pounds!

To lose weight and keep it off you must want to lose weight so that you’ll feel better, look better and be healthy. In order to experience the change you want, being aware of what you’re thinking is crucial. I’m working with a young woman who is slashing carbs from her life and because I’ve been through the minefield of thoughts that occur when one cuts addictive carbs (especially sugar) out of one’s diet, I’m able to be a critical step ahead of what she’ll most likely encounter on her journey to stay on a healthy diet and what she’ll confront is her thinking.

Reason 1   If you were on a high fat, low carb diet, you’d never count calories and you could cut the amount of your exercise you do in half and lose weight.

Weight Watchers is good at addressing the psychological issues of dieting and when I was attending those meetings I found that valuable, however I no longer agree with the WW theory of calories-in-calories-out, because it just isn’t true. If it were, I’d weigh about 500 pounds today!

Reason 2 If you are disciplined.

I was a strict disciplinarian with my three children and they learned at a very early age, to behave with good manners, eat at the table like ladies and gentlemen and, mind without a countdown to some unknown penalty. That education I provided for them has served them well.

How would you like to attend a funeral for the death of your credit cards? That was my goal in 2002, when I faced $26,000 in credit card debt. I’d fallen victim to the lure of fake ownership and the do-it-now-pay-later trap! I’d been having real financial difficulty because my sister was ill and I falsely looked at my credit cards as income, hoping she’d get better and we’d be back in business! I wrote all about it in The GOOD Book.

It was during that time that I got real familiar with the “voice” behind my spending behavior. If you are suffering from credit card debt, how old have you been acting to be in the predicament you’re in? I discovered I was nine years old!

Please Attend an Official Credit Card Funeral

I actually had a funeral for my credit cards because I mourned their death and I wanted closure. They’d become friends that paid me when I didn’t have the money to get what I wanted. Flylady attended, joined by her husband, Robert, who is a real judge and who officiated. So not only did I get the funeral, it was official! And there’s more!

My husband videotaped it! I decided at the time, I should open the funeral up to other mourners and allow them to officially bury their credit cards and the rest is not only entertaining and enlightening and it’s history!

Did you know that a daily routine that directs your day and leaves you organized with lots of free time to be spontaneous and play, is filled with good habits? It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? Of course the opposite is true too.

A day that lacks a collection of good habits and is filled with a bunch of bad ones will leave you frustrated and pooped at the end of the day. But once you’ve established a daily routine filled with good habits, you’ll see how fun and easy it is to be organized.

Once you see how making a good habit is so easy (it just takes time), you can handle more than one new habit at a time.
Baby stepping into change is good, but there comes a time when you have to grow up, if you intend to thrive. Once a bird learns how to fly, it flies; it doesn’t flutter and flop around for years complaining to its flock that it struggles to fly.

If you’ve told me or Flylady you’re fluttering, it’s time to stop it and find out what’s wrong with your wings. I can tell you, most likely your wings are fine, it’s what’s in your head that needs changing. There are thoughts you’ve collected in your life that have become habitual thoughts and they’re the ones that wear you down and keep you from succeeding. They are thoughts you’ve thought so often you don’t even realize you’re thinking them.
 

Do you like the taste of marinated meats? Since I’ve been living in the low-carb world, I’ve been marinating a lot. My low-carb physician is the one who suggested it. As the years have passed, I came up with the idea of using the pickle juice from my favorite pickles. If I like the pickle, why not put that flavor into chicken, pork or fish?

So I always save my pickle juices and use them on the meat of the day. Since I love Bubbies Dill Pickles, I love the brine and it’s especially delicious for chicken. This video will show you exactly what I do.

Set Priorities Learn to Say No!

Life is really, really busy for all of us. Whether you’re running a business, going to school, dealing with keeping the house clean and enjoying family, friends and loved ones, it’s important to learn how to prioritize. That’s why being organized, just enough to please you, starts with knowing what’s important to you.

Prioritizing can be difficult because it requires you to be aware of what you really want out of life. It requires you to be mindful of what’s important and have the ability to say no to what isn't.

In Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, I wrote:

We were afraid to say no for fear of being stamped uncooperative. We needed the approval of others, and saying yes was one way to get it. In that first week of soul-searching, we made the astonishing discovery that we needed to give others the opportunity to be praised. By leaving some of the work for others, we also were leaving them a chance to get the credit. So, charitably, we posted a sign by our phones that read, in capital letter, “SAY NO!” and from that day on, we rejoiced in our freedom to decline.

Personally, I still dislike saying no. I want to help everyone. I want to be everywhere. I don’t want to miss out on something that could be a really good opportunity. But in order to be a loving wife, mother and friend and an inspired writer, I HAVE to say no.

In The Joy of Being Disorganized, I had this to say about saying no.

Is an oak tree organized?

That might seem like a dumb question, but I don’t think it is. It’s just that we don’t think that an object that appears to do nothing could have any organizing qualities.

Yet this tree runs on an unwritten agenda that follows a brand of order we can’t even begin to imagine.

This tree may look a little disorganized with her branches going every which way and broken limbs dangling in disrepair. But she isn’t bothered by appearances and it has nothing to do with her organizing skills.

This tree doesn’t need a watch to know what time it is or a calendar to know what day it is. Quite frankly Scarlet, she doesn’t give a damn because she’s organized in a way that would take volumes of To Do lists to accomplish what she does. Of course this tree is organized and just because she appears to do nothing, doesn’t mean she’s not busier than we ever stop to consider.

In chapter five of “The Joy of Being Disorganized,” I talked about meeting Oprah and what fun it was to find out she was a self-confessed SHE! It was a moment where a real life celebrity became just like you and me. Why can't eating be like that? You don't have to dine at the tables of Paula Deen, Rachael Ray or Giada to savor gourmet tasting food.

You can make it yourself! In this video I show you one of the easiest ways to bake salmon-- that heart healthy source of omega-3 fatty acids. Doctors call it “brain food” but you'll just call it delicious.

Throw in a sprig of rosemary and you'll transport yourself to an outdoor table overlooking the Mediterranean sea dreaming about what you'll do with all of those extra years of healthy living you have stretching out before you. Bon appetite mon ami, you're in for a treat!

The Farewell Wearing Ceremony

Spring is what I call ex-husband season. Mine was always unpredictable and the only thing predictable about him was his unpredictability. Before you unconsciously store the warm sweaters, knits and jackets that are for colder days, to make room in your closet for your spring clothes, remember how ex-husbandy spring’s weather can be and join me in a few Farewell Wearing Ceremonies.

What’s a Farewell Wearing Ceremony? It was coined by my good friend Krista. She’s very organized and she always looks great in her clothes. I see her once a week because we sing in a chorus together. She shared with me this fabulous idea she partakes in regularly to keep her wardrobe reflecting just what she loves and therefore wears. I just had to tell you about it, before you unconsciously store your warmer clothes that perhaps have seen better days. 

Krista is always looking for items of clothing she doesn’t wear regularly (those articles in your closet or dresser drawers, you keep passing over for various reasons, ending up picking something you really want to wear). Say she chooses a sweater she hasn’t worn in a couple of months, she puts it on and wears it for the day. (She often wears such garments to our chorus rehearsals and had a jacket that was being worn for its Farewell Wearing when she told me about this.)

During the day of wearing the sweater, she remembers as much about it as she can; where she bought it or who gave it to her. She thinks about all the times she has worn it, and if there were special occasions, she pulls up specifics about those events and relishes the fun she had.

She also talks to it and thanks it for its service. 

 Saved by a Compliment

The Magic of Habit

           Do you know how valuable it is to have a daily routine that directs your day and leaves you organized with lots of free time to play? I’m sure you do, or you wouldn’t be attracted to Flylady and me. But there are some daily routines that direct your day right into the ditch and you wonder what happened. That kind of daily routine is fueled by sneaky habit patterns of thought that disrupt your day and cause you to experience less than what you deserve.

 What Do You Think You’re Doing?

                                                  Remember your mom asking you, “What do you think you’re doing?” Usually when she did, she’d probably caught you doing something you weren’t supposed to do. That’s what moms are for and we ask that same question of our children when we catch them being sneaky. Now that you’re an adult, have you noticed that you can catch yourself doing something you don’t want to do? What do you do then? Do you let yourself carry out the action or do you stop yourself? 

 Habits, Good or Bad Cause Circumstances

Whether We Like Them or Not

We shot this cooking video last fall, because chili is such a fall comfort food.

However, the last few mornings, we’ve been waking up to temperatures in the 30s and I thought that chili sounded like it would really hit the spot, so I had Terry dig the video out of the archives.

A few years ago, we took a vacation I’ll never forget.

          During that vacation, I took the six days off from the 21st century and never once looked at a computer. I didn’t answer anyone’s emails or write my weekly blogs for the last week of the month we were in. I just lived in what I’ll call a techless world. Yes, I was party to using the GPS while we “Yelped” our way around San Diego and yeah, once I talked on Terry’s cell phone. Oh and yes, I used the computer timer on the oven in our condo we lived in for a week, but the rest of the time I enjoyed the real world right in front of me

          One of the highlights of the respite was having lunch with one of Terry’s professors from WSU. Mr. Mott made a profound and lasting impression on my husband. (Thank you Mr. Mott.) Terry has so much respect for the man he can’t bring himself to call him Robert or, God forbid, Bob. Mr. Mott and his wife Edie are in their nineties and both sharp mentally, mobile and healthy.

Guests of Marla and Robert

We spent that vacation as guests of Flylady and her husband Robert. There were times when I felt a little like a beloved family dog. Marla, Robert and Terry spent a great deal of our living room time on their thingamajigs of choice, while I sat and talked to myself, read a little, wrote on a yellow pad and played "retro" Solitaire. (That’s a game you play with a standard deck of real playing cards, dealt onto a real table.)

You are Your Own Best Teacher

Could you teach another person the best way to fall asleep? I don’t think so. I’m an expert at sleeping, but my procedure for drifting off is unique to only me. Terry says I fall asleep within four or five minutes from the moment I put my head on my pillow. If I tried to impose my falling asleep techniques on you I would be remiss. 

Only you can figure out the best way to fall asleep. Sure I could give you some suggestions like, don’t have a television set in your room, turn off the lights and don’t have any electronically glowing digits announcing the exact time, but as far as the ritual that will put you to sleep, it has to be yours alone.

I could not fall asleep in the nude (I’ve tried it and every time, I’ve ended up putting pajamas on.) Mind you I didn’t say nightgown. I can’t sleep in nightgowns because the thought that it will end up all bunched up around my sweaty armpits by morning keeps me awake. I have to have pajamas on and the waist can’t be too tight and I don’t like button up tops because the buttons get between my breasts and bug me.

Eat healthy food.            

Have healthy children.    

                    Have happy children.      

Come and join my bonus daughter Kristi Marsh and our two adorable grandsons Tanner and Kyle as we all explore what is called a CSA, or just simply a shared farm! Kristi and the boys show us how much fun it is to actually see where your food comes from and take part in growing it. You'll never have to wrangle your child to the floor again pleading “one more bite of green beans!” when they actually pick them themselves. Your kids will love the fresh taste that just can't be found in the supermarket aisles and will leave them loving the crunchy, sweet taste of sun washed fruits and vegetables. For more great ideas on ways to live a healthy life be sure and visit Kristi's website at choosewiser.com!

Did you know the Easter Bunny is going low-carb?

It may not look that way at Walmart, but it’s true. As an alternative to candy, he’s filling the hollow eggs with notes of appreciation, motivation and inspiration and you can do it too.

You know how we all love fortune cookies, well your kids will love hunting for eggs and getting note-after-note of encouragement, fun activities and surprises to find.

Your dentist will be happy too! (Well, we hope so anyway.)

Here’s the list we got from the Big Bunny.

        Redeem this not for a foot rub.
        Redeem this note for a back rub.
        This note is good for one download at iTunes.
        Redeem this note for a book, next time we go shopping.
        Your laughter makes us happy.

Are you thinking about Easter? 

Do you have visions of sugarplums dancing in your head?

Does your mouth water at the luscious looking Easter candy being displayed at your grocery store?

If so, I think you’ll find this very enlightening.

I received this email this morning and it became the subject of my blog.

        Dear Pam,

Just say goodbye to those carb loaded chocolate filled Easter baskets glaring at you from every woman's magazine cover and store shelf and say hello to playing with your food! With a few skewers and clay pots you can get the whole family involved in making festive affordable Easter basket creations that are remarkably easy and impressive.

Take something ordinary and turn it into something magical. No special tools needed—just you and your inner child's imagination. Watch this video and then “hop to it!”

Feeding Babies Healthy Food

Leanne Ely, The Dinner Diva asked me if I’d like to write for you all and I felt like I was back in school and got an assignment from a favorite teacher. Her assignment: Write about feeding little ones.

 I was at a neighborhood block party and one of my neighbors was there with her nine-month-old (he’s seven now). This was a baby that was delivered at home with the help of a midwife. No anesthetic, no doctor, no problem. My neighbor was in labor one hour! She brought the baby to the party in some kind of a hammock hung from her neck and he was in a fetal position as he happily slept through the first half of the party.

When it came to feeding time (I love to watch babies eat) the mother hauled out a Tupperware container full of the most ghastly looking green gruel from her diaper bag. (I’m sure that by the time the concoction went through the baby’s digestive system, it looked exactly the same in his diaper as it looked going into his mouth.)

Going green can make dinner time delicious and Nelly Tested!

 Toss aside those bad memories of soggy green lumps on your plate and take a new look at Brussel Sprouts. These tasty treats have been around since ancient Rome and are loaded with, nutrients, flavor and crunch.

In my book, The Mouth Trap:the butt stops here! Low-Carb Edition I talked about Nelly, my inner child sometimes wanting to sabotage my efforts to try healthy new foods.

Well, I am pleased to report that this recipe is Nelly tested and will surely make a believer out of you and your inner child. Watch this video and see how this tasty treat is a snap to prepare.

Enjoy this video of me cooking Brussels Sprouts and the recipe.

Just Another Day in a Basic Week Plan

                but a Very Valuable One...Planning Day

Do you have a certain day each week that you take care of items on this list?

pay bills

answer mail

write thank you notes

make appointments

organize your office (filing paperwork etc.)

do bookwork

plan fun outings

How would you feel, if all those important elements of your life were organized on a weekly basis?

When you are organized, you are on top of everything from the boring stuff you tend to put off to the fun of not missing out on events that are on certain dates. How many times have you missed out, because you didn’t plan it?

On my Planning Day, my husband and I coordinate calendars so we know about each other’s commitments, if they affect us. I spend from two to five hours on that list above. My Planning Day has developed into a very contemplative day.

For instance, when I pay my bills, I focus on how grateful I am to have the services and objects in my life that make it such a wonderful life. When I write my weeks’ worth of thank you notes, I think about each person I’m thanking and I visualize each one being happy and content. When I file paperwork, I am grateful for the organizing tools at our disposal that make it so easy to be organized. Being organized doesn’t cramp your spontaneity; it sets the stage for you to be even more creative.

When you claim a specific day of the week to plan, and then you stick to that regularly, you’ll begin to see that you can actually set aside tasks that fit into your weekly work schedule. In other words, you can have a pile of papers to file once a week if you’ll do it. You can add to a list of people to thank, if you’ll really do it once a week. It’s only when you don’t do what you’ve piled up for the week, that’ll you get into trouble.

21 Days to establish a habit

My kind of plan!

Are you following a weekly plan that helps you run a cozy, organized home?

When my sister Peggy and I developed the infamous, get organized 3x5 card file system outlined in our book Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, we created a weekly plan that included a “free day.”

On that special day, we could stay in our pajamas all day, eat over the sink and slouch around and do nothing if we wanted to. I still have that day only I call it My Day. I do what I want and I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I pretend it’s my birthday to get into the mood.

The interesting thing I’ve discovered over the years of enjoying My Day is that I accomplish so much in the name of being selfish about doing what I want to do! It continues to amaze me that what I’ve been preaching about for 40 years is profoundly true.

Your attitude is way more important than fact,

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You don't have to traipse all the way to Scarborough Fair with Simon and Garfunkel to get your own fresh herbs. They're super easy to grow yourself! In this video I show you how my purple cabbage leaves are true overachievers and my basil is quite melodramatic. It can be like raising teenagers that can't talk back! While you're watching this video about my herb gardens, I'm going to be bugging those computer nerds to hurry up and invent “smell it internet” so someday you can sit back and take in the delicious aroma coming from my garden. Until then...get planting!

I was lucky enough to visit Italy for a week. One thing I noticed was every little restaurant had an herb garden right outside. We stayed at a bed and breakfast. They  had a huge garden and when they needed something they just stepped outside and picked it. Oh, my goodness. "Magnifico" flavors just burst out. Take 25 seconds to watch this video my husband shot.

Now if they do that, why don't we?  I do and I want to show you how easy it is to grow your own herbs.

Don’t you just love the idea behind the rosary? My granny was Catholic and she taught me the rosary prayers and I loved hearing her recite them as she felt each bead. When she handled her sacred strand she did it with such humility and she treated it like it was a gift from God.

I’m not Catholic, but I’ve always loved the idea of using a tangible item to remind us to be thankful, to be joyful and to love and praise God for our blessings.

Who thought "this little piggy" could bring you thankfulness?

That’s how I came up with the idea to use my feet like a rosary! Why not? So combining the This Little Piggy Went to Market poem we perpetrated on our kids and really makes no sense when you think about it, I decided to start a new morning routine using my toes while I’m still snuggled under the covers.

Here’s what I came up with, and I’ll tell you what happened after I did my rosary toes.

Starting with my big toe of my right foot, I held each toe the same way Granny held her rosary beads, and said the following:

After I did the toes on my right foot, I did the same thing with my left ones. When I finished with them, the thought came, ‘Why stop there?’ So I took a hold of both my feet (I was still under the covers) and I thanked them for all the places they’ve taken me and where they’ll take me today. Then I moved my hands to my ankles and thanked God for the miracle of swivel. It made me be happy.

Getting rid of clutter leads to finding peace within.

Years ago I wrote about being mindful of the interrupting thoughts that come up when you’re doing boring housecleaning jobs like folding laundry or vacuuming and dusting. Using “make the bed” as an example of a boring job, I set my stopwatch and began making it, ready to catch that first mental interruption.  Six seconds in, the thought came, ‘there’s pie in the refrigerator.’

In the course of the four-minute job, my mind came up with 17 suggestions of other things to do! Here’s a similar result from Debra Biddle Linn, one of my readers:

Pam, I did the experiment of starting a boring job and seeing how quickly my mind was interrupted by wanting to do something else. I was folding laundry, the whites. I suddenly wanted to go online and find some T-shirts and order them for my husband to replace some of the old holy ones he has. I made myself stop those thoughts and keep going. Then I thought of a trip some friends went on recently, and wanted to go look online and find information about a tour for ourselves. (Stopped that one too). I think it will really help to start becoming aware of how my mind acts when doing routine housework.

We're going to Italy! We're going to Hong Kong! No ticket needed, or standing in long security lines with your shoes off.

We're going to take two chickens to two different countries for a wonderful taste adventure. Did you know the more you marinate something the juicier it gets? You'll love the rewards of this convenient technique that I'll show you in this video.

You don't need Rosetta Stone to learn the language of these delicious meals that are packed with flavor and fun. And the best part? No prep work and no washing bowls. Just call me the zip lock bag lady and watch how easy we'll set up meals for the freezer or to enjoy right away.

Happy taste travels!

It’s Time to Do it Again!

When I set out each morning to write my blog for the day, my main goal is to be lighthearted and joyful and to fill my screen with words that uplift and hopefully bring positive joy and inspiration to those of you who have graciously given me your email. I can’t do that today! I’m sorry in advance. I guess once in a while a guy just has to let negative thoughts eke out.

First off, I feel just like a cow in a herd of Holsteins who’s been thoughtlessly following the herd. At least in my scenario, I’m an American cow with rights guaranteed to me by the Constitution. I’d almost rather be cow, because if I were, I wouldn’t have to pay any attention to the issue I’m going to write about… Daylight Savings Time (DST).

I should really love DST because if it weren’t for it, my sister and I would not have written Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise. We were stuck in a motel in eastern Washington, because we missed our flight due to the time change. Flights went our every three days, so we were held hostage in a very creative way. Knowing us, we would never have been focused enough to start writing that book. It would have been an eternal down-the-road project, but in that three days, we wrote three chapters and as they say, “the rest is history.”  

Key # 3 Plan of Action

Now that you’ve got the first two keys to being organized (if you didn't get a chance to read them just click on them here  Part ONE,  Part TWO ),  making a decision to do it and becoming committed to that decision for the right reason(s), the third key is a plan of action. 

The simple plan is in 3-Ds:

Declutter, Delegate and Do it!

Declutter

Just like Flylady says, “You can’t organize clutter,” the sooner you get everything out of your house that doesn’t make you feel good, the better. On the subject of what makes you happy, here’s a good exercise to try.

Pick a room, any room and focus on one part of that room like a shelf or table; something that’s holding stuff. Pretend the room is on fire and in your mind, make a note of what you’d take with you (pretend you only have about 10 seconds because the flames are leaping at you and threatening to swallow you up).

As I wrote this I looked at a shelf in my office and discovered about five things on it that would   not   be worth saving. I'll get rid of them.

Putting your stuff through the fire test will help you sweep your home clean of the stuff that doesn’t make you happy. 

 Delegate

Glove up--It's chicken surgery time in the kitchen! Dr. Young’s operating room is ready and she’ll show you how easy and fun it is to take a whole chicken and cut it up yourself.

In chapter eight of her book, The Joy of Being Disorganized, she talks about an overachiever named Janine who couldn't say no to people and went overboard in Martha Stewart-like fashion. Don't worry---cutting up your own chicken is not going to throw you in the crazy cook follies. It's a handy way to save lots of money and gives you the bonus of making delicious and nutritious bone broth to help take the chill off those frosty winter nights. Watch this video to learn how!

3 Keys to Having an Organized Home

Part two

As I said earlier, but it bears repeating, in the 40 years that I’ve been helping women who were desperately disorganized, there has been a common thread that connects them. It’s a thread of love, caring, compassion and creativity and a desire to have an organized home and a happy family. Many have told me personally they didn’t think they could get organized. Many had given up, until a light went on in a blessed AHA moment.

Be sure to read Key #1 Decision if you haven’t already. 

This blog is about commitment. I hope you’ve done the assignment for Key #1 and are ready for Key #2. The women I’ve met over the years who suddenly realized it was possible to have a clean, cozy organized home, discovered a dormant spark just waiting to be ignited. The spark is usually flamed because of commitment.

Key # 2 Commitment

Once you’ve made your decision to have an organized home, be committed to it. The best way to stay committed to anything is to go into it for the right reasons. If you got married because your husband was a good dancer and he looked like George Clooney, you’re probably not still married to the handsome hoofer.

I was 35 years old when I finally made the decision to get organized for the right reason. All my futile attempts prior to that were based on trying to make my husband, my mom and my friends think well of me. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You wouldn't worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

Shake it baby!

Nope, we're not at the disco we're back in the kitchen saving time, money and carbs. This time we're talking about one of my favorite subjects—mayonnaise. When you get to the end of a jar, you're going to add some yummy ingredients, put the lid back on and shake it! Voila-- you've just created a creamy, gourmet salad dressing good enough for a fancy five star restaurant. Who knows.....after you blend up this flavorful masterpiece you just might decide to open one!

And for the heck of it I'll toss in a LOW CARB white sauce that's delicious. Also, since I no longer eat sugar-laden catchup I make this instead.

If you don't believe me about the carbs, look at the back of a catchup bottle and read how many there are.

Stop the habits that got you to this place where

you want to lose weight.

 When you decide to lose weight by eating healthy; until you establish the new habits to support the lighter body you want, you’ll have to stay alert to the way you were eating and what you were thinking when you created an overweight body. In other words, you have to stop the habits that got you to this place where you want to lose weight, and establish new habits that’ll get you that healthy body you want.

 I had to strip my kitchen of the stuff that was making me fat

I was 65, when I lost 35 pounds, so don’t give me any guff that you’re too old to lose weight. I knew I’d be trying to talk myself into my old ways of thinking (and subsequently eating) every time I opened the cupboard or the refrigerator, so if I wanted to eliminate that constant self-bickering, I had to strip my kitchen of the stuff that was making me fat. (For me, carbs were the culprits.) I dumped all the sugar, flour, rice, pasta, ice cream, corn and any processed foods like bread and cereal. That way I removed the possibility of those arguments and reduced the chance to talk myself into eating something to one place, the grocery store!

You can’t eat it if you don’t buy it

Many give up on getting organized,

then a light goes on in a blessed AHA moment!

Over the next three weeks, I’m going to share with you a major key to having an organized home. You won’t want to miss any of them. Each key has a simple assignment, I hope you’ll follow. Each assignment will prepare you for the next key and in the process you will have that AHA moment

In 42 years helping women who were desperately disorganized, there has been a common thread that connects them. It’s a thread of love, caring, compassion and desire to have an organized home and a happy family. Many have told me personally they didn’t think they could get organized. Many had given up, until a light went on in a blessed AHA moment. Flylady was one of those women.

They were moms carrying the burden of being disorganized, and having low self-esteem because of it.

With the 3 elements to success in this series of blogs, you will have that AHA moment. These women I’ve met over the years who suddenly realized it was possible to have a clean, cozy organized home, were stay-at-home moms, moms who worked outside of their homes as doctors, attorneys, writers, bankers, artists, teachers, nurses, singers, computer geeks, ministers and a thousand other vocations. These were moms who were successful at jobs outside their homes and successful at being wonderful mothers. But they were also moms carrying the burden of being disorganized, and having feelings of low self-esteem, desperation and worry.

Key # 1 Make the Decision

With a decision to have an organized home, it’s good to know what you think that means to you. If you want perfection, you already know that’s not going to work for you, so give it up! If you want immediate change, you know that’s not going to happen either. So how about a decision to gradually get organized just to please you?

"I don’t know where to start!"

This cooking video shows you how to make low carb tortillas. Enjoy!

6 Romantic Ways to Spark up Your Marriage (Part II)

To me romance is all about creating magical moments in your relationship that will take little time out of your busy schedule. Stop thinking you’re too busy for romance. Remember you chose to spend your life with your husband, so enjoy him.

Here are 6 more ideas I’ve collected from some very happy couples as well as some tried and true ideas from yours truly. (Please note: I’m on my second marriage.)

1     Crockpot sex

I use my crockpot a lot in February letting it’s savory scents waft throughout the house. The aroma goes straight to a primitive part of my husband’s brain that tells him all is well. Remember that old saying, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach? I’ve found it’s true and the kitchen has proven to be a very romantic room to most men. (Not that they want to “do it” in that room necessarily, but they appreciate good cooking.)

2    Be selfish

6 Romantic Ways to Spark up Your Marriage (Part I)

To me romance is not just about sex. It’s all about creating magical moments in your relationship that will take little time out of your busy schedule. Stop thinking you’re too busy for romance.

 Here are 6 ideas I’ve collected from some very happy couples as well as some tried and true ideas from yours truly. (Please note: I’m on my second marriage.)

1.   Use your calendar

I know Flylady would agree with me that most of us SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are romantics at least in the literary sense of the word. We both advise having a date night once a week. We love books and movies about romance and we both know that being organized helps in the romance department. (If you don’t shave your legs regularly, you’re not going to want to be romantic and your mate probably won’t be either.)    

Just a little bit of planning will pay off. Plan a romantic rendezvous during the month. You can get a room at a local hotel or plan to have the house all to yourselves. Just the anticipation of being together in this way will add spark to your romantic life.

As you read the ideas in this blog, write the ones you like on your calendar and don’t plan on doing all of these in one month. Spread out the ideas throughout the year.

Maybe you’ve thought, ‘how can romance be put on a calendar?’ Well, you’ve got four Saturdays this February and one of them is Valentine’s Day, so go get your calendar and put a heart on every Saturday this month and let your creative mind come up with some great ideas for each one of them. If date night has sort of fallen off your radar, now’s a good time to start over and reinstate it.

2    Let the pros help

Don't let your anger

rob you of your peace and joy

How would you like it if everyone in your life could read your mind? Would your family and friends like what you sometimes think of them and about them? Would you like to know what they think about you? Yikes! This is getting to be a scary thought. Would you want to know?

I was furious!

I thought about this today when I got mad at a person who will remain anonymous. Have you ever been so mad your lips press white, your teeth clench, your eyebrows wrinkle into a frown as your nostrils flare out like Louis Armstrong’s did when he’d play the trumpet? And the thoughts! Well, today mine made me wonder if clairvoyant people ever stay married.

We would really have to monitor our thoughts if our friends and family could read our minds! Does just thinking about that make you want to be nicer with what goes on behind your mouth?

For now, let’s just be grateful our thoughts are ours and they don’t get out without our permission. Oprah said, or maybe it was President Trump, “Count to ten.” That really does help, but maybe counting backwards from fifty would be better. That way the mind will get distracted from thinking mean thoughts and by the time it gets to the number one, it can think nice thoughts again.

But what can we do when someone makes us mad? We have to acknowledge it. We’ve read so much psychobabble to know stuffing our feelings isn’t healthy and most of us don’t want to hold a grudge and carry our grievances around forever. The sooner we can get over our bouts with anger the better. Here are five things to do when you get mad.

1. Admit you’re angry

There's nothing wrong with being angry. So give yourself a break. Have you ever had someone ask you, “What’s wrong?” If you answer, “Oh nothing,” you’re missing an opportunity to get your anger out in the open and resolve it. Don’t be an oh nothing martyr. 

My mouth gets me into more trouble than any other hole in my body.

That’s the very first line in my book The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here! Thank goodness we only have one mouth. How many times have you wished that you didn’t say that, or didn’t eat or drink that?

I’m sure there’s a legitimate reason why we were made with one mouth and two ears, instead of the other way around. Maybe there’s a clue here to the ratio of use. What if, just for today, we listen more than we speak? How do you think you’d feel tonight when you go to bed?

We’ve been blessed with the precious gift of speech, but this gift (as with every gift) can be abused and come back to bite us. Balancing speaking and listening will serve you in great ways. I’m suggesting we use our mouths half as much as we use our ears (just for today).

Here are 6 benefits to speaking less and listening more. At the end of my blog, I’ll share how I stopped nagging as a young, single mom of three children ages 4, 9 and 12.

     1.   Accomplish more

 As long as your goal is to make your world a better place, doing will always beat speaking unless you’re Oprah. When your focus switches from talking to doing a household chore, you’ll accomplish so much more. When you speak less, you naturally do more. If you could hush up for five minutes a day, in a month you’ll have given yourself two and a half hours of quiet action time. Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, so is a hug, a home-cooked dinner, a clean bathroom, fresh laundry and a hundred other acts of love.

      2.   What’s important shows up

You’ve got a smart phone, so who’s the smartest, you or the phone? You’re the smart one if you limit your use to what serves you and uplifts you. Information overload created by the Internet is a choice. You get to decide how much of your time is going to be spent on the Internet or yakking on the phone. The next time you start to call someone, ask yourself, “Is this really important or will I be talking just to hear my own voice?” If it isn’t important or you miss hearing your voice, hang up and write a thank you note to someone you love and as you write, say the words out loud.

      3.   Reduces stress

Think of something you can do with your family, in silence. See what happens if you and your mate go for a walk without talking or watch the sunset without comment or eat a speechless meal. Terry and I play a card game with friends that involves dealing many different hands starting with each person getting one card up to one hand where each person gets 13 cards. One of the hands is declared a silent hand and no one is allowed to speak until the next deal. It always ends up in laughter and it’s usually a woman who breaks the silence!

Terry and I love to watch professional football and I love to snack while I watch! So I’ve always made sure we have “football watching snacks.” Our snacks used to always include what the advertisers were able to entice Nelly (my inner child) into buying i.e. chips, dips, beer, pizza AND PLENTY OF IT!

I ask myself why? Why do I have to eat while I watch football? The answer was impressive: Just because we do. Now I’ve known Nelly long enough to know when she’s in the room. An answer like that is obviously one from a child.

I love it when Nelly has my attention because that’s when I get the most wonderful ideas! So I said,

My experiment during the game was most enlightening. Terry got his chips, but I also made deviled eggs and had a lot of fresh vegetables cut up for him too. Nelly and I just had celery. (My surprise was a train ticket to Seattle to see my grandchildren who live up there.) I chose, just celery because I wanted this experiment to be drastic and I wanted to keep my attention on Nelly.

Beware of sharks when you shop for Kale!

Just kidding, but come along with me to the market as I pick out something I used to be really scared of buying....kale! I even had to sing the theme song from Jaws as I threw a bunch into the cart and swam it...I mean drove it home. Kale is one of those vegetables that looks pretty and scary at the same time when you don't know what to do with it. But it's a super food! Packed with vitamins and nutrients that can't be found in that chocolate bar you have up in the cupboard or under the bed (the House Fairy visits adults too!) So together we’ll conquer the kale by making a classic Caesar salad with a twist and you won't believe how much you'll love it! Kale Caesar!

Men love hors d’oeuvres!

That’s because hors d'oeuvres send a chemical message to the male brain that tells the animal there’s food ready to eat, NOW. My husband Terry told me that when he smells the aroma of food cooking, his nose is unable to decipher when that food will be ready to eat. A plate of hors d’oeuvres, on the other hand, goes straight into the blood stream, assuring the organism that everything is going to be alright. Now you might ask, “Why do you think men like hors d’oeuvres more than women do?” Well, women like hors d’oeuvres too, but they don’t need them like men do. When I fix dinner I’m hors d’oeuvring through the entire cooking process. Many times I’ve hors d’oeuvred myself into a bloated stupor before I’ve sat down to the dinner table.

Have you noticed men are weird when they’re hungry (especially tall ones)? I learned that 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’d sort of be a combination of Kramer (in the sitcom Seinfeld) and Barney Fife (in The Andy Griffith Show) 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.

A famished man definitely acts differently than a famished woman. It doesn’t surprise me at all that Swanson didn’t think to name their large portioned TV dinner, Hungry Woman Dinner, even though an average lady can put one away with no problem. No one addresses the idea of a hungry woman because, quite frankly, we never are. That’s because we snack. From the time we are youngsters; we spend more time in the kitchen and therefore have more access to food than men do. If we work outside of our homes we carry with us a snacking pattern gleaned from generations of female snackers. I would bet that more business women have snacks in their drawers at work than men do. And men don’t have purses (a natural snack sack) to tuck treats. 

Back in my SLOB days I answered "yes" to each of those questions, but I changed! In fact, I’m Flylady’s mentor and if you’ve followed her you know our connection, for she openly shares the fact that it was my sister’s and my books that changed her life. 

The zones in her flight plan were created by my sister and me and they were what ultimately gave us clarity and focus. Flylady and I have worked together and helped each other over the years with our main goal to help you get organized just enough to please you.

We’ve often talked about the primary purpose of our work, which is to help you love the miracle you are and secondarily show you the basics to be organized.

Which brings me to the question I posed in the title of my blog; would you rather be organized or be happy?

So here is my challenge. My deviled eggs against yours. Anytime. Anyplace.

You might say, "Hey, boil the eggs, moosh them up with mayo, and you're done."

Not mine. I have secret ingredients that make them the most delicious for miles around.

Whadaya say? Are you up for my challenge?

Just one condition. My husband is the judge!!!

You are alright just the way you are right now.

I am a reformed slob. I made the decision to be organized more than 40 years ago. I was 35. I learned a lot through that transformation. The most important of which was to understand that before I did anything 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 unmade bed and a sink full of dirty dishes didn’t mean I didn’t love my family or my home. 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 reason to change my ways came from a deep desire to have more fun; to be able to play guilt-free. 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. 

I think being organized or disorganized is ultimately a choice, but I also think we each have a natural inclination to be one or the other. My mom was born organized. My dad was the donor of my disorganized gene.

I had three children and two received my penchant for mess and one was washing the floor at 18 months old. Once I asked her if she wanted a doll house for Christmas and she replied, “Oh Mom, it would just be one more thing to keep clean.” You know where you fall on the scale of order: one is a Martha Stewart without a staff and ten is the person who can’t dust or vacuum because she doesn’t have clear surfaces.

 A little organization goes a long way.

3 Keys to Sticking to Your New Year’s Resolutions

Okay, it’s January 21 and I’ll bet you’ve fallen off the wagon when it comes to the New Year’s resolutions you made for 2015. Don’t feel guilty! Most of us haven’t been true to the personal vows we made as we woo hooed our way to an exciting new year.  

The most in-depth study I could find on the science of New Year’s resolutions was conducted by researchers at the University of Scranton. It showed a sharp drop off in how long New Year’s resolutions last. Seventy-seven percent of the woo hooers studied, made it through a full week, then 55 percent of those stuck with their goals for a month. Six months later, only 40 percent of those who had made a New Year's resolution were still losing weight or not smoking or being nicer to their kids. I question this research! I don’t know what percentage of those in the study were SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) but I’ll bet my nose and both my eyes that they were all BOPs (Born Organized People). If they’d surveyed SHEs, who are genetically disorganized, 75% would have quit in a week instead of hanging on, and by June, 99% would have bit the dust!

Think about it. A genetically disorganized person would NEVER sign up to be in a study like this in the first place. If you’re a SHE you know you love the drama of a grand vow just because it’s more exciting to think big and choose a huge make-over than to say something like, “In 2015 I’m going to keep the laundry off the couch,” or “I’m going to lose five pounds,” or “I’m not going to leave leftovers from restaurants in the car.” (I’ll tell you my resolution and why I’m still sticking to it, later on in this blog.)

So here are the 3 keys I chose that I think can help us with our desire to do better.

1. Pick just one goal. Here are some great examples to choose from.

Get more sleep

Cut out sugar

Have more fun

Eat more vegetables

Cook more at home

Let go and let God

Walk outside

We all have emotional ups and downs, especially if we have young children. This might help.

We want to get organized for several reasons. We think that if we get organized, we’ll save time, money and energy. That’s true. Disorganization causes us to spend time looking for our stuff, more money because we buy stuff we already have but can’t find and energy just being overwhelmed, discouraged, and angry with ourselves.

By establishing just a few simple habits, we can train ourselves out of many of our messes and save time, money and energy. Our brains were wired for establishing habits, and when we have a healthy brain, it takes about 21 days to establish a habit. So I think it’s logical we should take care of our brains first.

That’s why I chose these 3 important habits to establish, because they’ll lead to health and a healthy body makes for a healthy brain and a healthy brain leads to well-being.

1   Go to bed early

Do you think you’d be happier if you got more sleep? Do you think the world would be a happier place if its residents all got more sleep? Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Three of The Sidetracked Sister’s Happiness File entitled Early to Bed Early to Rise. It’s a letter from Napoleon’s teacher.

Eiffel Elementary School                                                  June 6, 1777

7312 Rue des Hors d’Oeuvres

Paris, France 10046

 Dear Mr. and Mrs. Bonaparte:

I think you are probably aware of some of the problems we are having with Napoleon at school. I believe they began early in the year when some of the other boys teased him about his size. I have spoken to the other children and their parents about the importance of being kind to those who are different. However, I don’t believe that the teasing is the main reason for your son’s troubles. I think Napoleon needs more sleep.

During class I often see his head on his desk, and although he stays on task and has no problem understanding the work, he is often listless and irritable. Perhaps you, as his parents, could see to it that your son gets to bed at a reasonable hour so that he will be able to cope better in class and on the playground.

Sincerely,

Morrie Chevalier    (Third Grade Teacher)

P.S. Napoleon is a good leader and when he gets the other boys on his side he is able to make them do whatever he wants. (Good or bad.) I truly believe that more sleep will help him to blossom into a fine citizen. Perhaps this summer you can establish a routine bedtime for him.

Think of how the course of history might have been altered if the Bonapartes had heeded Mr. Chevalier’s advice.

Are you like Napoleon and not getting enough sleep, either? I’ve found that the best way to get more rest is to have an earlier bedtime and make it a habit. You can purchase the Happiness File by clicking on Napolean.

Throw on a chef hat and get ready to go gourmet. You’ll love discovering what Italians have enjoyed for over 900 years....balsamic vinegar. Once you try my classy fresh salad dressing you won't ever want the store bought bottled stuff again. Of course, I wouldn't want you to think I come from a family of food snobs or anything—in fact in chapter eight of my book “The Joy of being Disorganized” I tell about my Aunt Tottie making orange juice and using her hand to stir it when she couldn't find a spoon. It's just that good food can be so easy to create and makes you feel so special because you know what you make at home is unprocessed and healthy for you and your family. So hurry and try this incredible recipe.....you deserve it!

One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to stay in a good mood as much as I can and what I’ve noticed is that first you’ve got to catch yourself in a bad mood and then you have to want to get out of it. I discovered, sometimes it’s just plain fun to wallow. But wallowing never helps the reason for the wallow in the first place. Sooner or later, like the line in that old song says, “Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Would you agree that happy feelings run at a higher frequency than say guilty or angry feelings do? Have you ever noticed when you’re happy you’re kinder to others, more compassionate and understanding and you have way more energy?

Staying in a good mood takes living in the moment and watching how you feel and being selfish about how you feel. So here are 7 ways to get out of that bad mood as soon as you find yourself in one.

1. Pick out a happy feeling and feel it

When you’re in a really bad mood, take a minute and think of a happy time. You have many to choose from, so just pick one. Once you’ve picked one, dig it up. Remember the people and the circumstance. Hear the laughter and feel the love. We SHEs have such a grand ability to pull into our mind’s eye any occasion we wish to re-experience. 

How to stop worrying and doubting.

When you doubt, you’ve stopped trusting the power that created the Universe. Such a silly thing to do when it’s put that way, don’t you think? If you plugged a lamp into the socket, and the light didn’t go on, you’d figure the bulb was burned out or you hadn’t paid the electric bill. In other words it would be something on your end that caused the light not to work. You would never doubt that the power of electricity was no long effective.

So when you doubt yourself or have doubts about some event or other person, the problem is on your end, because the power that created the Universe has your back and there is nothing to worry about. So how do you fix your end of this deal? I’ve come up with 5 ways to get rid of doubt so you can stay hooked into the joyful source of your life and see the truth that all is well.

1. Put yourself first

The most important thing to do when you feel doubt is think something that makes you feel good. Sometimes it helps to go outside to summon happy thoughts or read spiritual material that fills you with positive energy, or look through a travel magazine and focus on a dream vacation. Only you, know what will cheer you up.

Let the tips fall where they may.....

Hey, come and join me as I play in the kitchen with my new low carb friend the artichoke. Not friends with Arti yet? You will be! Did you know that artichokes have more antioxidants than any other vegetable, are high in fiber and even are good for the liver? Some people actually use artichokes for a hangover remedy but of course I hope you don't need to try that one out! The ancient Greeks and Romans even considered artichokes a delicacy and an aphrodisiac. Who are we to argue with Aristotle? We'll use a few sharp tools and cut our way around the bright green leaves snipping off the pokey ends like a pro. Watch out for flying tips, this recipe is gonna be a favorite soon!

So come on into my kitchen and watch me cook them.

I hope you read Part 1 yesterday on ways to stop being a loser. The losers I wrote about here in Part 2 take a little more thought.

I think you’ll love my recipe for homemade, low carb pizza. It starts with the most sumptuous, delicious sauce that I make from my own tomatoes-- even the crummy looking ones you thought you had to chuck! Then, of course I show you the secret way to get rid of the skins on tomatoes just like you were a master chef at the Ritz. And the crust? Wait ‘till you see how we'll make one without rolling out any dough. It's so simple and fun you'll wonder why you thought the only way to serve pizza was to take or bake something in a cardboard box. Never again! Ummmm, the smell is heavenly when it's baking and the gobs of sausage, salami and olives are too yummy for your family to resist. It's time to say "ciao" to the best ristorante in town...your kitchen!

Low Carb Pizza

Fresh Tomato Sauce

About twenty frozen tomatoes

¼ cup water

Penzey Italian spices or taco seasoning and Lawry’s Season Salt and salt and pepper if you wish

Simmer for 3-4 hours or more. Skins pull off tomatoes easily when done.

Blend sauce in a blender when it’s cooked down. You can keep tomato sauce in fridge for a couple weeks. Fry a pound of Italian sausage and drain.

 Crust

Two cups parmesan cheese

½ half cup almond flour

Mix together and fry the mixture on medium high five to six minutes on each side. Cool on a rack.

Build the Pizza

Put crust on a cookie sheet, smear sauce on crust. Put on Italian sausage and other items you choose. Salami, pepperoni, olives etc.

Top with cheese if you wish.

Bake in oven at 400 for five or six minutes.

You can also make bread sticks or croutons out of the pizza crust.

Wanna know a secret? You don't have to give up your favorite foods to go low carb! I'm an international kind of gal and I like to taste my way around the world with the best cuisine of Italy, China, Greece, and especially bright and sunny Mexico.

Of course, as you know our south of the border friends love tortillas. They're in so many delicious entrées from burritos to tacos to quesadillas, you name it. Luckily, I'm going to show you a fabulous low carb tortilla recipe that will knock your sombrero off! It's easy and fun and will really impress the food snobs you might have over for dinner. Oh, and it wouldn’t hurt to put on some tunes like Bailando by Enrique Iglesias.

Recipe:

Low-carb Flour Tortillas

8 egg whites

one half cup water

one quarter tsp. baking powder

one quarter cup coconut flour

Beat egg whites until blended, but not stiff. Stir in water, baking powder and coconut flour.

Over medium heat, pour one quarter cup of batter per tortilla in a non-stick fry pan and flip when cooked on one side (about a minute). Cook the other side and cool on cooling rack. Yields about 16 tortillas.

Now watch me make them.