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.