Happy Halloween Everybody! Hope your day is filled with fun!

SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) enjoy Halloween because we love costumes, decorations and parties. Terry and I will be wearing Trump and Hillary costumes.

Since SHEs don't have a very good concept of time, Halloween can take us by surprise. (My kids never knew what they were going to be until they went out the door, but thinking up last minute costumes was always a fun challenge.) Time just doesn't compute for us, but that's a good thing. 

In my career helping SHEs get organized I've asked this question a thousand times: If you didn’t have any appointments on a particular day, could you spend the entire day not knowing what time it is? As human beings most people live their lives as slaves to time, but we SHEs are blessed by being able move through our days pretty much oblivious to it. That’s because we have no concern for time when we are enjoying our ability to get in the zone and stay there until we’re jolted out.

SHEs are sort of like the animals, birds and bugs. For them life has no time. A bear doesn’t wake up with the sun and call it morning and she doesn’t think about all she has to do and wonder if she’ll have time to do it before the sun goes down. She just lives each day.

Humans are the only ones that watch the clock from morning till night, reducing their lives to mathematical fragments.

Time itself is an invention of ours. Yet few clock watchers feel, as they run in the rat race, that they have time for anything to be really fulfilling. SHEs actually spend a lot of time feeling fulfilled, but they don't keep track of it, like a clock watcher would.

Halloween is wearing a costume. Halloween is scary. But the biggest thing Halloween is, is CANDY.

Let’s face it; the holidays are more a Celebration of Carbohydrates than they are to celebrate our spirituality! As soon as the trick-or-carbohydrate fun is over, the push will start from the food companies to “carbohydrate,” in the name of Jesus and Moses (if it hasn't already begun). (Even the 25-hour fast of Yom Kippur is preceded and followed by high carbohydrate meals.)

If you’re on, or have been on a low-carb diet, you know how hard this festive season can be when you love cookies, pasta, kugels, bread, mashed potatoes and gravy, latkes, candy and a million other holiday treats.

One thing we all learn, as we age, is that life changes and we don’t see it happen, because it happens so gradually. The older we get, we realize how important it is to enjoy every single day to the max. When we were growing up, we were too busy raising our families to think much about savoring each day. Most of our younger years are a blur of hard work, chaos, fatigue and a lot of noise. Gratitude is the major aspect to enjoying each day.

We notice the changes when we look back on photos taken when we were younger, and can think, ‘I looked good. I looked young then, so why did I think I looked old? Why was I so hard on myself?’ Most of the younger women I know are so hard on themselves and I wish I could hug them and remind them that they look just fine. You young moms, be easy with yourselves. Everything’s okay.

Here’s a thought. No matter how old you are, if you want to look ten years younger instantly, the next time you get into a discussion about age, say that you're ten years older than you are and watch the compliments flow to you! If you laughed at my joke, think about what you do to get people to think you are younger than you are. My "real" advice is next.

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 lounge 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 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,

We've Got to Get Organized 

My blog took a typical, SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) turn with an email from a Flybaby and it prompted me to find a very funny article written by a columnist for the Seattle Times who in turn went on to become a very famous food critic in the Northwest. His article gives you the man’s view of a SHE. The article follows this email.

Here’s my letter to Barb,

Thank you for taking the time to write to me. I love hearing from SHEs like you because it just confirms to me that we are one huge, happy family, loving our homes and loving order, but careful not to take life too seriously. I purposely approached getting organized with a sense of humor and joy and that book was the first book on the market written from a reformed “slob’s” point of view.  (Remember SLOB stands for Spontaneous, Lighthearted, Optimistic and Beloved.)

Love,

Pam

Here’s the article, written by John Hinterberger  Seattle Times.

Want to make a delicous, low-carb custard for dessert tonight? The recipe is below.

The video below is one of my low carb videos giving you ideas for reducing the carbs you eat. I have such fun playing with food and I hope this video gives you a good idea! When this yummy, custard dessert comes out of the oven, you’ll impress and delight your family your guests and you. AND this dessert is very low in carbs for dessert.

In my book, The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here! I talk about the journey I took toward better health and vitality by dumping excess carbs from my pantry and life. Join me now as I whip up a new take on this classic custard adventure!

Extra Rich Custard Ricipe

8 egg yolks

One fourth cup sugar

One fourth tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups scalded whole milk

Scaled milk on medium heat allow to cool until lukewarm.

Slightly beat egg yolks and slowly add sugar, vanilla, salt and cooled milk.

Cover bottom of a roasting pan with an inch of water. Pour custard mixture into buttered custard cups and place in roasting pan. Place pan in 325 degree oven for 40 – 45 minutes or until knife when placed in custard comes out clean.

Saved from the Zone

There's a lot written about getting into "the zone," but little about how to get out of it. This is an interesting story about a very successful and famous artist who spends most of his time in the zone and it inspired me to write about how he gets out of the zone.

There’s a bronze sculptor in Eastern Oregon named David Manuel. My husband has been his official videographer for more than 20 years and we’ve gotten to know the whole family as David has become world renowned for his bronzes. This is one in our collection.  

On this visit, we were there to video an historic event, which I’ll tell you about later.

I’ve had the honor of being able to watch David work on his masterpieces over the years. While my husband would be out and about filming something for the Manuel’s marketing program, David would let me watch him whenever I wanted to. During this visit, he was working on the front leg of a horse (knee area). (Do horses have knees?)(Don’t have time to Google.) Where was I? Oh, yeah, David told me he’s such a perfectionist that he could work on one piece into forever. He said that Lee, his wife, has to take pieces away so he can move on.

That’s a lesson we can learn. Since we don’t have Lee to say, “Enough already!” we need a timer to jerk us out of one of those zones (that we love to be in by the way). We SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are just like artists when it comes to hyper-focusing. We get into that glorious zone and time flies while we’re in there, and before we know it we’ve turned five (of the 55, dull, stained, bathroom, shower tiles), into shiny squares that look brand new and it only took two hours! A timer can save you from the zone when you need to be.

Is it time to change your dream?

Are you a day dreamer? Do you like to imagine yourself going to exotic places? Do you love to look at magazines and dream of wearing fancy clothes and jewelry? When you watch movies do you like to look at the back drops and what the characters are wearing and eating and the cars they're driving? Isn't it fun to imagine what it'd be like to be wealthy or slim? Be sure to have day dreaming as part of your daily routine.

We SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are creative, so we spend a lot of time thinking about what it'd be like if....this or that happened. We're really good at visualizing what we want and our lives reflect much of what was in the begining, just a dream. When I was young I dreamed of living in a cozy, happy home on a high hill in the country. I dreamed it into reality, but it took 30 years, but you know how time flies.

If you've had some of your dreams not come true, maybe it's time to change the dream to fit who you are now.

Is Your Car Maintenance on Your Calendar?

Attention mechanics: DO NOT read this blog. At best it’ll disgust you, but at worst, it could make you sick!

I’m a self-confessed car abuser and I’m not proud of it, it’s just the way it is. I’ve abused every car I’ve ever owned. My organizing skills have kept my cars clean on the outside and on the interior, but when it comes to taking care of what’s under the hood, it's out of sight, out of mind, and the skills are nonexistent. I know I’m irresponsible in this area and I'm doing better with our new car which is a Ford Fusion. My friend Steve said, every time he gets his tires rotated and balanced, he gets his oil changed the same day. I'm at least doing that with this new car, thanks to Steve.

Before this car, I'd wait until something happened and then I'd head for repair. I know the “ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure,” deal, but I’ve never minded that proverb when it comes to automobiles and I've paid dearly.