Years ago, when I was experimenting with my sidetracked nature, I tethered myself to the post in the middle of a round oak table using a six-foot rope. I attached the other end to my ankle. I had a dust rag and Pledge and a basket for “put-aways,” so  I could deliver them when I’d cleaned the circle within the radius of six feet. This was all for keeping me in one place until the cleaning was done in that place. (I’d gotten the idea from a goat that lived on a farm near me. She was also on a rope and had cleared a weed-ridden patch into a perfect circle that resembled a putting green.)

In a way that’s what having only one leg to use has done for me. It has caused me to slow down my “action” while my brain remains at its normal output of information. One example happens every time I leave one room to go to another (which I try to keep to a minimum). First I make sure I have a list of what I’ll be doing in the room I’m headed for; sort of like making a grocery list. So going from the living room to the kitchen, my list might read:

If you’re all twirled up in Christmas preparations, it wouldn’t hurt to stop, sit down for a breath and get your perspective back on what’s really important right now. The place where you live is exclusive to you, whether it’s on a ranch in Wyoming, an apartment in NY, a mansion in California or a room in someone else’s home, it’s your space on the planet and it’s precious.

Let Them Eat Fat!!!

"Fill 'em with fat, right off the bat!" When Terry and I decided to live a low-carb lifestyle, eight years ago, I went to a rather famous doctor in Portland, Oregon. She's a psychiatrist who, in addition to caring for children in her psychiatric practice, has a thriving practice helping low carbers understand the science that supports the low carb high fat diet. Her name is Dr. Ann Childers.

She was constantly telling me that she believes the epidemic of dementia, Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's is because our brains need fat and with the craze of low-fat products that have filled our world for the last 40 years, we've deprived our brains of the fat they need. (I'm paraphrasing her.)

I discovered early on with this way of eating that fat is the best food to stop craving and feeling hungry. If your kids are like mine were, they're hungry much of the time, and nothing seems to stop the little munchkins from rummaging around the kitchen like homeless guys in the park. Round and round they go pulling open cabinet, oven, pantry and freezer doors searching for something to eat. 

Low carb, high fat cooking can come to the rescue, because fat stays with your body and gives you the kind of energy that lasts.....through the snowball fights, sledding, ice skating, snowman making, skiing, snowboarding, you name it. I think you'll love this easy, healthy snack that's better than ice cream and it's guaranteed to shut up your craving for junk food! What happens is you gradually weanyourself off of sugar and processed junk foods, because your taste buds change. After being on a low carb, high fat diet for just a month, vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes and broccoli began to have a sweet taste to them and berries taste like candy they're so sweet. Candy becomes disgustingly and spit-outably sweet!

In this video, I show you how to make a snack that'll stop the the whole family (including you) from craving junk food.

Getting through the holidays on one leg!

Most of you know (if you read my posts) that I received a hairline fracture of my kneecap while in New York visiting my son and family over the Thanksgiving holiday. I went to an urgent care clinic where they x-rayed my knee and discovered it was not only the kneecap, but the top of the tibia (that's the long bone that runs down to your foot) also had a hairline fracture. The doctor feared complications and recommended an MRI to see if there was more damage.

My son Michael (seen here at his 40th birthday party wearing a $40 dollar hat I made him) went in with me for the exam and he felt I should check with my doctor at home to see if he recommended an MRI as well. For some reason this doctor couldn't send my doctor the x-rays (..."too big to send") so we just sent the report from the radiologist to my doctor. My doctor said, "Let's wait until you come home and then we'll decide." With that, I was given a brace and told to keep all weight off my right leg or I could do more damage.

When I went to my doctor here in Washington, he took more x-rays and said there were no complications and that I can even put weight on my right leg as long as I have the brace on! That's like getting a leg for Christmas! I've learned so much in the two weeks I've been a "temporary" invalid so I hope you read on and benefit from my misfortune. Plus I'm going to share with you a video.

The Wake-Up Fall

We can learn so much from the so-called negative situations we all have to face from time-to-time in life. Not that we need them in order to grow spiritually, but they certainly help if we let such events teach us something.

While in New York over the Thanksgiving holiday, my son Michael and Lou his golden lab and I took a walk on the second day I arrived. It was a beautiful morning in Brooklyn and the two of them were showing me around their neighborhood. It was obviously a younger community with lots of renovation going on. Quaint, old buildings gutted and remodeled like new, young people walking, jogging and enjoying each other. The sidewalks were all lined with the trees that grow in Brooklyn, each succumbing to winter in its own way.

The Cleaner Guy (Jeffrey Jones) has shown you how to make your own,  toxic-free cleaning products in his series of cleaning videos and now he's going to show you how to clean Zone One. We're following the Flylady Flight Plan (which is the Zone Plan my sister, Peggy, and I developed and gave permission to Flylady to use on her website. So if you get the flight plan every day from her, you know we are now in Week One/ Zone One which is the dining room and entryway.)

Watch The Cleaner Guy cleaning my dining room.

Happy Holidays from the Cheddar Family (a mouse family that lives in Terry & Pam's house).

The Cheddar Family Christmas letter is written by Mrs. Cheddar (Mozzarella is her first name).

Well 2017 has been interesting for my husband Colby and me. For one thing, we haven’t spoken to each other all year! That’s mainly because Colby loves President Trump and I’m really bummed out because Mrs. Clinton didn’t win. Oh, I didn’t need therapy like some of us liberals did (I'm really embarassed about what babies some of us have been), but I really have had a hard time with the loss. In fact, this election sliced my family right down the middle like, well, sliced cheese and Terry and Pam, the humans we live with, didn’t help any.

Holiday food is always fun, unless of course it's your last meal and you're on death row eating it right before Christmas. That can't be fun. Now with that said, to change the subject, what does a log cabin, a snowman, a sleigh, penguins and an igloo have in common? You probably said, "Snow or cold weather." Okay, you're right, but when you're through reading this blog you'll be able to say, "Holiday food."

Let's start with the log cabin. It's a pepperoni log cabin. It was inspired by the witche's words in Hansel and Gretel, "Nibble, nibble on my house, who is nibbling like a mouse?"

To make the cabin, you'll need a loaf of white bread, eight sticks of pepperoni about 12" long, a package of sliced pepperoni, a package of cream cheese and a cup of Fage (Greek yogurt). To make the mortar, mix a cup of cream cheese with a cup of yogurt and season to your taste by adding garlic powder, onion powder and salt (stay away from any colored spices as you'll want the mortar to be white).

Cut the pepperoni sticks in half for the six" logs, cut off the rounded part of two slices of bread for the roof and put them in the oven at 200 degrees to dry them out. Cut the crusts off four slices of the bread and cut them into squares that will fit into the middle of the cabin for support. (You'll need more support for the roof and you can use more slices of bread cut smaller and smaller, or a roll works nicely.) Build your log cabin using the mortar mixture (don't even try to put slots into the logs so they fit together, you're going to eat the thing, not live in it). 

To make the roof, put the dried bread slices in place using the mortar mixture for "glue" and dab a little mortar on the pepperoni slices (shingles) and starting at the bottom of each slice, lay the shingles on in rows right up to the peak. (Be liberal with the mortar.) Use cherry tomatoes to adorn the peak of the roof. Use cauliflower around the cabin (it sorta looks like bushes covered in snow.)

If you’re a cozy person, you probably love being inside in stormy weather.

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 warm and easy person to make a home comfortable. In every warm and comfortable 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 warm and comfortable. Three of her homes that I can recall, were only two rooms. I remember one winter, Mom, Dad, my baby sister Peggy and I, had to live with Granny and Grampa for more than a week. The Northwest experienced what they call a Silver Thaw. I think I understand 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 freezineverything, 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. 

Do you feel as if you’re at a crossroads in your life? This year has taken an unnecessary toll on our emotions as women. All we want is for our families to be safe, healthy and happy. We want to be more organized because we know we'd feel better and live with more ease. We'd love not to have to hurry and have food to cook when it's mealtime. We'd love knowing where everything is because everything would have a place and everything would be in it. We intuitively know that disorganization affects all areas of our lives; our bodies, our work, our relationships and our homes and we know it’s possible to feel good in our bodies, be happy in our relationships, thrive in our work and have a home that is clutter-free, peaceful and welcoming if only we were better organized.

Do you have a sense that everything will work out, because it always does? Even the things you’ve called bad, in time, turn out to be blessings in the whole scheme of things. Everything does turn out, but when we have a calender and a plan, life is so much easier. We all work too hard at this thing called life.

Easier said than done?

It doesn’t have to be. Here’s an acronym for FORGIVE that came to me while writing “How to Live Happily Ever After: Cinderella did it and you can too.” FORGIVE: Focus On Recognizing Goodness In Virtually Everyone.

I shared that thought with my meditation group last night (we meet once a month). Forgiveness was the topic our leader, Klazina Dobbe, started the meeting with and even though I don’t usually share something that will be in an upcoming book (Cinderella will be out in January) I felt moved to share the enlightened thought with them and with you. It caused quite a stir as each person considered the meaning.

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

Here's a great 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, white sheet, some butcher paper (or newspapers) and marker pens. Then sit back and  watch what happens when you let your little artists take over.

Video is 1:32 in length.

It's hard to ignore the fact that the holidays are here! We’re flashed with tons of emails squawking about Holiday Sales on everything from food and kitchen appliances to fake Christmas trees and yard decorations. We get inundated with sparkly catalogs hyping the urge to get new furniture (for holiday entertaining) and glossy pages advising us to consider getting new china for that holiday table and maybe even a new car (red or green of course).

We complain about the commercialism and materialism of the holidays, but put us in our local Starbucks slurping a yummy Caramel Brulee Latte from that festive red and green cup and we brim with excitement and anticipation about spending time with family and friends. Love is really what the holidays are all about.   

Starting with Thanksgiving, a holiday that marks our gratitude, to Christmas with its message of peace, love and joy, it’s a magical time and love is behind it all. The 5 words to remember are:

I'm coming to New York this November! There has been a little confusion about whether the seminar is this November or November 2018, because, well, it said that on the invitation I sent out yesterday. Well it's THIS November. November 28, 2017 Kathy Roberts and I will be doing a Get Organized in 2018 just enough to please you workshop. Actually we'll be in Arlington, New Jersey for the workshop and luncheon as you'll see in the body of this blog. I hope we can get together!

My son Michael and his family moved to Brooklyn last July and I'm going to visit them in November for Thanksgiving. Terry is going to stay home because of finances. (We shot our travel budget this summer going to Italy.) I'm flying on frequent flier points!

About a month ago, I was telling my friend Kathy Roberts (we've done two webinars together), that I'm going "back east" and she said, "Let's do a workshop together while you're here!" I said, "I leave to come home the day after Thanksgiving and doing a get organized workshop the week before Thanksgiving would be nuts!" She agreed, but then she said, "Stay longer and we'll do it after Thanksgiving."

Here's the back-and-forth dialogue after her comment:

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

Good, because this 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.

CLUB ORGANIZED ADMISSIONS EXAM

 Edible "Indoor" Snowman

This is the perfect time of year to serve this hors d'oeuvres at your next party. Imagine a snowman standing more than a foot tall, on a platter surrounded by fresh veggies, crisp crackers and salami. Guests will wonder what they’re supposed to do with him, until they dip into his luscious "snow" or cut into him for a chunk of his insides. Then they’ll keep returning for more, until the poor snowman is left looking like his brothers Frosty or Olaf on a warm day.

Here’s the recipe which is just one of 75 recipes in The Phony Gourmet, which is now 75% off at a clearance price of $5 plus postage and handling. This hardback cookbook originally sold for $15. Just click on the cover of the cookbook and it'll take you to it. 

 Cream Cheese and Garlic Snowman

Serves 15 party animals

I'm coming to New York! Let's get together!

My son Michael and his family moved to Brooklyn last July and I'm going to visit them in November for Thanksgiving. Terry is going to stay home because of finances. (We shot our travel budget this summer going to Italy.) I'm flying on frequent flier points!

I was telling my friend Kathy Roberts (we've done two webinars together), that I'm going "back east" and she said, "Let's do a workshop together while you're here!" I said, "I leave to come home the day after Thanksgiving and doing a get organized workshop the week before Thanksgiving would be nuts!" She agreed, but then she said, "Stay longer and we'll do it after Thanksgiving."

Here's the back-and-forth dialogue after her comment:

1. Face the problem in full light

2. Assess what you can do to solve it

3. Create a plan of action

4. Do at least one action every day according to the plan

5. Be patient and persistent

6. Know you’re not alone

1. FACE IT  

It’s never too late to change your life. When you don’t like something in your life you have to be able to illuminate the cause of a problem and what part you’ve taken to create it in the first place. If you can't see your part in the problem, and blame someone else for it, you have no control over the change. You can’t get anyone to do anything they don’t want to do.

One divorced woman wrote that she’d been married for 25 years and her husband had cheated on her more than once during the marriage and had ultimately left her for another woman. She said she hardly recognized her home or herself and she blamed him. Then she realized in spite of a cheating husband she’d successfully raised two happy children and she needed to stop worrying about what her husband did and focus on what she was going to do.

She figured he probably felt he’d had a good excuse for the affairs because she’d gained a bunch of weight and was not attractive, she hadn’t had the energy or desire to be intimate with him because of her unhealthy body, the house had gotten out of control and she was a full time homemaker and felt guilty for her shortcomings.

It occurred to her if she were to get her act together, she’d get her life back, her body back and her home back. She didn’t mention anything about wanting to get her ex back. It took her a little over a year to reach her goal and she was looking forward to flaunting her new self (in a size eight, mother-of-the-bride suit) at their daughter’s wedding.

William James said "Things are not as they are, but as we are." We really do see differently from anyone else. Every moment is seen from our perspective and that's a great thing. From our perspective, we are the center of our world and from that center, we have the power to choose how we see anything. The gift of freedom to perceive is priceless! It's the key to being happy.

While on a radio show an older woman called in and told that when she was very young a doctor told her parents that she was autistic. The parents had not heard of autism and they thought the expert said their daughter was “artistic.” Their child was obviously not displaying “normal” child behavior, so with all the care and concern of devoted parents to help their child thrive, they proceeded to fill their “artistic” daughter’s life with crayons, paints, art supplies and crafts. The woman is a college graduate, articulate, joyful and successful.

I know there are degrees of autism, but my point is; there is power in labels.

Using the internal timer

How many Novembers have you lived? Does the thought of November bring memories of family get-togethers centered on turkey feasts, or are they filled with chaotic recollections as the holidays loomed? Have you been organized in any of your Novembers? Are most of your November memories good ones?

If you live where there are seasons, you're lucky, because you get to enjoy the winter weather of November. November is a cozy time of year. Time for crackling fires, savory stews, homemade applesauce and roasted walnuts. It’s bundling up time, rosy cheek time and a great time to pretend you smoke because you can see your breath in the frigid air.

Mother Nature has many lessons to teach us in November. She uses this month as her reminder to us to streamline our homes. It’s her month for letting go of last year’s stuff by stripping a lot of her trees bare and putting her plants into a deep, winter coma. November reminds us to slow down, rest, and hibernate a little. She gives us longer nights and shorter days….hint, hint. She also uses November to remind us that life can be harsh sometimes, but it doesn’t last forever.

This photo was taken at a recent Halloween party at our neighbor's home. Read on and you'll find out what we used to make the very realistic beards.

In the video clip in this blog, my sister Peggy and I share some great last minute Halloween costumes and some very good advice.

(You'll notice Peggy has a beard too. In the first segment of the show she demonstrated how to make that beard. You just smear Karo syrup where a beard would be and then roll your face in fresh coffee grounds.) I've discovered a new way to create that beard and it's very "healthy." 

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

You know your kids are going to bring home a pillowcase full of Halloween CANDY, and you know you'll have CANDY left-over after the last witch leaves your porch.

So the question is, What can you do with all that Halloween CANDY?

In this video you'll see what our grandkids did with their haul one year. 

It was 5:30 pm and I hadn’t had a single “savoring moment” in my hour (I try to get in at least four moments per hour), so I asked Terry, “Do you have a few minutes before dinner to spend some “savoring time outside?”

He knows I do this and he said, “Sure!” And off we went hand-in-hand (savoring moment # one)! I wanted to show him our neighbor’s Fire Thorn bush while it was still in the setting sun. (From our kitchen window, it looked like a big, brilliant, red, exercise ball.) We walked to a vantage point on our property where it was in plain sight and I was thrilled to see the sun had continued to spotlight it (savoring moment # two)!

“Oh wow!” he said. (That’s about all I can ever get out of him, when he’s moved to exhilaration.) He ran back in the house to get his camera and shot this picture. 

Once he was satisfied with the shot he got, we left our view of the neighbor’s yard and headed up the steep hill to our drive-way which is 300 feet long leading to the main road. As we walked along the shiny, black pavement from an earlier rain, we both got engaged in the beauty of our little piece of God's earth.

Do you love to make a "To Do" list every day?

When you've established a routine, your daily housework becomes a habit and you don't have to make a To Do list for it or have 3x5 cards to remind you to do it. When you have an established routine, you're hardly ever too busy to do the next thing that needs to be done on a daily basis.

If your kids are grown and you've gotten used to the reduced workload, of raising a family, you've probably forgotten how busy young moms are these days. All it takes is to have one or more grandchildren for a few days and it all comes flying back to you what our busy moms are dealing with today.

One mom of four said, "When my husband comes home at the end of a long day and wonders what I've done all day, I figure if I can account for all four of his children, I've done my part." 

If you're a list maker, do you ever put things you’ve already done on a list, so you can cross them off. That's great if you do. We need all the sense of accomplishment we can get. That got me to thinking, what if we made a list of things we don't have to do today. It'd be very fun and give us a sense of relief!

Today, you don’t have to:

1. Rob a Bank

2. Jump off a Bridge

3. Join the Circus

4. Lock Your Kids in a Box Car

5. Run Off with the UPS Guy 

This is a sweet and inspiring letter from a successful, longtime SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive). It’s so well written, it deserves to be shared (with her permission). Enjoy her humor and SHEness.

Dearest Pam,

You and Peggy came into my life in the early eighties. I sat in the middle of a big, beautiful new house after our tenth corporate relocation, indulging in a well justified tantrum. (I sometimes fear this will be the episode my three now, adult daughters will bring up at my wake.) Not a pretty sight. I enrolled the girls in their new schools that day and took myself to a bookstore for purposes of covert procrastination. It was there where God lassoed me with a copy of Sidetracked Home Executives: from Pigpen to Paradise.  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Through your words and your humor and your stories you mentored me, gave me sanity one 3 x 5 card at a time, and were, well...my
friends. The two of you reflected the relationship I had with my sister, except for the fact that we lived 1500 miles from each other. And I'd found myself again a stranger in a new city. I read every book you published again and again and sometimes remember your stories as things that happened to me. (Not a good sign.)

Why Not Turn Dreary into Fun?

Make memories you'll talk about for years to come.

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 ones.

Yesterday I was waiting for Terry, standing outside JoAnn's Fabric (he hates to go into fabric stores as it reminds him of when he was little and getting in trouble while his mom was looking through Simplicity pattern books). It had been raining hard and the parking lot had many shallow puddles. I watched a young, harried mom with a sleeping infant in her arms and a two-year-old by the hand, heading into JoAnn's. She was hell bent for fabric. The two-year-old was thrilled with the puddles he managed to stomp in from the car to the store. It made me think, 'we're always going somewhere and what would it be like if we weren't?' What if we set out to have fun? Just think how inexpensive it would be to take your kids to a parking lot after a heavy rain and let them play! I wish you could have seen the joy in that child's face with that quick to the store!

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.

COME ON Mom, 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!

The holiday season is notorious for inciting panic in women and if they don’t know how to deal with that shoulder-burdening aspect of this time of year, they’re destined to miss what the holidays are really all about…PEACE, JOY, HARMONY. We need free time to re-charge.

Last year at this time I appeared on a local television talk show in Portland, Oregon, to talk about the free day I have in my weekly plan. To bring up this topic, this time of year when most women who work outside their homes can barely find a free hour let alone a free day each week, seemed absurd!

If you'd like to watch that segment, just click on my little Christmas girl. She's my granddaughter Brooklyn who is now a freshman at Berkeley.

Meet Kathy Roberts, The Tidy Tutor. You've probably seen some of my emails mentioning her because we created a webinar together a few months ago, which sold out.

We're doing another live webinar on October 26 at 9:00 EST (NY time) with the sole purpose of helping SHEs get organized just enough to enjoy the holiday season like a child; from the festivities to the underlying spiritual nature of this holy time (as if all time isn't holy).

Here's an email Kathy sent out to her readers yesterday and her video will help you dejunk your dresser and closet. I watched the whole video (28 minutes) and she touches on every aspect of dejunking in a way that will resonate with you. (I did want her to decide on that scarf she mulls over through the entire video, but remember, she's a SHE.) Kathy also offers an opportunity to sign up for her free video series on dejunking other areas of a home. She's a wonderful teacher!

If she inspires you to action, I'd love to hear from you! Just click on her photo and enjoy this dejunking video!

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 butt. 

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!"

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.

I received an email one day from a woman who challenged my motto “Make it fun and it will get done,” and it caused me to think about what I mean by that. She said something about fun not leading to happiness and since I think happiness is the most important goal we can ever have, (I think it’s more important than being organized) I had to think seriously about my definition of fun.

The word fun can conger up vacations, yachts, fast cars, parties and any of the stuff of brochures luring us to spend money. The brochure brand of fun doesn’t make us happy unless we already are. Don't you know that from experience? This pic was taken at Senior Frogs in Cancun. The Frog definitely knows how to play and get not only children, but adults to have fun if they want to. I remember on that outing one of our grandchildren was upset about it all. It was too loud for her and she wanted no part of it. She was an example that joy has to come from within in order to have fun.

Clooney's Refrigerator

In this video on getting to know your inner child, you'll learn how to talk to her when she's about to put cookies in the cart at the grocery store and how to remind her who's in charge before you even go in the store.

If you're just starting to wrap your mind around this concept of having an inner child, this video will really help!

Here are some questions and some presumptuous answers.

1. Question: Why do you want to be organized? Answer: You know you’ll feel better.

2. Question: What is that you look forward to during the holidays? Answer: Sharing fun, food, celebration and love of God with family and friends.

3. Question: How have those past holidays measured up to your desires? Answer: I wish I’d been more organized.

The answer to question #1 is correct for everyone; we know that getting organized will make us feel better.

When I got organized in 1977 (yes 40 years ago) I knew I’d feel better if I got organized, because I came from a home that was run by a loving BO whose main goal in life was to create a cozy, clean, happy home. My mom accomplished her goal and I was witness to and recipient of the results of what order does for a family.

The holidays can be a really stressful time of year when they really should be so much fun! If we could enjoy the holidays the way children do, every holiday season would be what it's supposed to be...FUN!

Kathy Roberts (The Tidy Tudor) and I are going to help you make the preparations as much fun as the celebration itself. After all if the journey isn’t fun, usually the destination won’t be either!

When you think about it...the events we spend weeks and even months preparing for are over in a flash so why not make all that leads up to them all a part of the celebration so that your efforts will feel well worth it.

I've actually been crowned "Zucchini Queen" in Woodland, WA. Just look at this giant zucchini I took on television yesterday! 

I was 34 years old when I hit bottom. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” Not until I hit bottom did I surrender to my situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender I was reminded that even though I was in a mess, I was in the right place with the right people, I was just fine and the only element I really lacked was direction. Following a direction is a spiritual issue.

In my 40 year career helping moms get organized I’ve come to one big conclusion about being organized: it’s about mind management, not time management. There are thousands of books giving you direction, but until your mind is changed the direction won’t be followed.

Before you read the 7 things to think about when it comes to getting organized, I’d like you to pretend I’m one of your guardian angels and you've prayed to get organized and I’ve been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally is exciting to me!

So, I’m sitting on your chest when you wake up in the morning and I can’t wait to see you open your beautiful eyes so we can start our fabulous day together. But you’re so tired, you miss the joy before you. I should have known that’s how it’d be because you played on the computer until 2:00 am and every time I tried to get you to go to bed, you ignored me. 

When you finally went to bed, I wished you a wonderful night’s sleep, but you didn’t hear me because you conked out before I was finished talking to you. Anyway, now it’s morning and you stagger to the bathroom, tripping over shoes you left in the pathway to the toilet. (I was able to block your fall.) By the way, I love to hear you swear! We don’t get to do it here in heaven, so it’s fun to hear (sort of like when you first tried out a swear word when your mom wasn’t close enough to hear).

As your days progress I try to get a few words in edgewise. Little suggestions like, “Look at your calendar Love,” “Get a drink of water Sweet One,” “That job won’t be that bad, put your timer on for 15 minutes and start Darling,” “Don’t take that comment personally, what he thinks of you is none of your business,” oh and “God loves you,” “I love you,” and “Please be kind to yourself Blessed One.” 

Sometimes you listen and take my guidance, but most times you just don’t hear me or you say, “I’m too busy, too tired or I don’t have time. (I really get a kick out of that last one!  I wish you knew how funny you are when you say, “I don’t have time.” LOL My Adorable One, you have all the time in the world.)

All day, every day I am there and I’ve watched you struggle with this lack of direction for years and years. Your team of angels has led you to the House Fairy and Club Organized and it’s because of us you read, if or when you read Sidetracked Home Executives, and The Joy of Being Disorganized. But I can’t really help you until you let me. Until then I just have to wait, but remember I have all the time in the world too and there is no pressure. 

Mind you, while I wait, I keep myself busy. I’m here to love you and surround you with light which is a fulltime job. Oh, and I’m constantly on the lookout for things that’ll make you laugh, get you to dance, sing and play because when you’re busy enjoying your life you are one with God and that joyful energy lights up the planet.

By the way, you are here to enjoy the ride and I’m like your personal tour guide with wings. Now you can read Pam’s 7 things to think about.

In this video, I explain how the zones work to help you stay on track with housecleaning. Inspired by the "Sidetracked Home Executives," the zones help you focus on one room at a time. Flylady's Flight Plan is the SHE Zone plan. We gave Flylady permission to use it to help you be organized in your home and if you get her Flight Plan but are still confused about how it works, this short video will help.  

Within the House Fairy Program you'll find the Messy Room Rescue series which was a make-over of a real child’s messy bedroom. Sophie, (the child in the video) is my granddaughter and the mother is my daughter, Peggy. Sophie is now a freshman in college and my hope is she’s learned a lot about keeping a neat room. More important than that is that she is an amazing young woman.

Here's video clip from the series.

In order to get organized and run an efficient household you require energy and a desire to follow some kind of plan. A simple 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, feeling good is really important. 

What if you had an indicator that let you know 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? Are you more afraid than feeling safe? 

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.

The only way to establish a habit is to put the action you want to become a habit into a routine. You’ll have to do the action enough times for it to become automatic. In order to do that, you have to focus on doing the action and not be distracted by other options. In other words, don’t give yourself the option of not doing the action you want to have become a habit. 

For example, if you want exercise to be part of your routine, then you have to stop giving yourself options out of exercise. Options abound. Until exercise is a habit, your options will always look better than exercise. But if you’ll stay focused on what it is you want it'll be easier to establish that new habit of exercising every day.  

To really lose weight you have to change the way you eat. Duh!

Recently there was an article that dealt with the psychology of overeating. It told about a couple of studies you might be interested in. One was conducted by researchers with extraordinary credentials from prestigious educational institutions, but the article concluded with this quote: “Ultimately, all this research shows we need to understand the brain chemistry behind overeating a lot better. Until we do, there won’t be any really significant advances in medications to help people lose weight,” Dr. David Herber, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of California, Los Angeles.

You have the power to change your brain chemistry with your thinking and feeling. In one of the studies young women were asked to sit in a brain scanner while drinking a chocolate milk shake. Half the women were told that the yummy treat was a regular shake; the other half were told it was a low-fat version. In truth they all got the same shake!

As the researchers watched their monitors, the reward centers of the shake drinkers’ brains lit up when the women consumed the shakes. But the women who thought they were getting a low-fat shake had much less activation. In other words, “knowing” that the shake was low fat took a lot of the fun out of the experience. Low-fat labels may backfire by making food seem less tasty, according to scientists at the Oregon Research Institute. Nelly (my inner child) can attest to that! She hates those words “low fat” on a label!

Because of these fancy scanners we now know that we have a “reward center” in our brains! I know we can activate that center by having positive and loving talks with ourselves. Here’s an example before I tell you about the other study.

40 years ago Peggy and I were miserable slobs but we developed a get organized system on 3x5 cards that not only helped us find direction in the chaos, it helped millions get their homes organized. Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise is now available on Kindle.

Just click on the cover to purchase the Kindle version.

Did you notice on the cover my name was Pam Brace? Once I got organized I got my power back. I was no longer willing to take any criticism from a very angry husband. My motive was to get organized so I'd have more free time to play and have fun. I got organized, the house got organized but the criticism didn't stop. At that point I realized that I didn't get organized to please someone else, but to please me. Then I was free to ignore the criticism and be happy in spite of an unhappy husband.

A year after I got organized, I was divorced and discovered it had taken a lot of energy to ignore the negative partner, but much of that energy used caused me to grow spiritually. We were meant to have fun in this life. Well being is the natural order and whenever we don't feel that well being, it's only because we've cut off the source of it by getting upset. Learning not to get upset just because someone else is, is a huge and valuable lesson that takes energy! Once you learn a lesson through practice it gets easier and easier. My ex husband was a great teacher and I'm so grateful for what I learned by being married to him.

Here's a recent video of one of my appearances on a popular, Portland talk show. This time I shared some memories of my sister and me on our book tour. Just click on the photo of us way back then.

In our writing career we spoke to thousands of groups and rarely did we have men in our audiences. We even thought about having a seminar just for men, but most wondered if we could have a television there with "the game" on in the background or better yet, conduct the workshop from a tavern or sports bar. Of course we never were able to pull off a How to Organize Your Home exclusively for men, so we did the next best thing. We put some thought into how to get husbands to help around the house. Here we are on television with Gary Collins talking about just that.

 The video has some really good ideas that will help.

When you scoop all you can out of that mayonnaise jar, did you know there's still enough left in the jar to be a creamy part of a salad dressing? All you have to do is add some yummy ingredients, put the lid 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 ketchup bottle and read how many there are.

This time of year church foyers offer tables of free produce brought in by Christian gardener’s wanting to share the abundance of nature’s bounty. One ubiquitous vegetable on those church tables is the GIANT ZUCCHINI. 

It’s not that gardeners let these grow to the size of dachshunds on purpose, rather it’s usually an accident perpetrated by a beginner gardener. (Have you ever noticed zucchini has camouflage skin so it can hide under their big leaves?) Many a gardener has shared with me her horror upon discovering a giant, green, squash monster suddenly exposed by hoeing. The woman holding this one is Missila and she has a YouTube video you might like to watch. Just click on her, but please come back to my blog because you're going to learn a lot!

There are no warning labels on zucchini seed packages and there should be! In fact they should read:

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

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’ll 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.

In this video you'll see my pathetic garden in spite of help from a master gardener who showed me exactly what to do to grow enough to feed the harvest to an entire neighborhood.

WELL, the biggest lesson learned is in this video. Watch to find out.

I will warn you, there are just some things we SHEs should not attempt.

If you have a home-based business (38 million Americans do and $427 billion per year is made by them), or you are a full-time peacekeeper and peacemaker at home, or you’re doing both, this blog is for you.

When you think about it, every institution has its “costume.” Prisons, hospitals, courtrooms, restaurants, car repair shops, beauty salons and the list could go on-and-on. But if you Google, Dress for Success at Home you’ll get a gob of photos of people in offices, outside big city buildings and walking on sidewalks all dressed for success for business outside the home.

Hey, you don’t need to look like a Wall Street tycoon to work at home, but there are some important guidelines for you to follow if you want success and to feel good about your work and yourself. 

When you’re home all day, if you’re not careful you’ll end up in recluse attire! You know, your pajamas. God knows they’re comfortable and cozy and if you don’t have some style boundaries, you could hang out in them for days. That’s probably what’s happened when you see an adult in the grocery store in pajamas. Just remember, this person could be contributing to that $427 billion dollars! 

Actually working at home as a full-time caregiver or an at-home entrepreneur or both, you actually need a wardrobe that changes during the day. Before you panic, the changes are simple, and will save you time, money and peace of mind in the long run.

1.   Pajamas are for sleeping.

Dress in your jammies right before bed as part of your before bed routine. In the morning, get dressed for the next activity which might be exercise, housework, office work, yard work depending on your daily schedule. When you work at home, if you stay in your nightwear, you invariably have that somebody-might-come-over monkey on your shoulder. For your peace of mind, get dressed first thing in the morning.

BOs (Born Organized) could never do what I do in this video. It'd drive them crazy.

But we lucky SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) have no problem doing this.  

Watch this 2.52 video and Pam will show you how to save a lot of time in the next year by NOT folding your sheets. 

Do you like to putter? 

When you have time to putter, it gives you a stage to come up with new ideas! That's why creative people love to putter around. But it's hard to putter when there's too much clutter. So if your only reason to declutter is so you'll have more free time to putter, it's a good enough reason. The best question to ask yourself when you have a decluttering session is:

Would I buy this at Goodwill?

In deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, ask this question: ‘Would I buy this at Goodwill?’” Just that question opens your eyes to the item you’re looking at. If you were at Goodwill, would you buy this? Because when you’re buying something secondhand, you take your blinders off and put your examination lenses on.

I Was Blind and Now I See!  

At home, your blinders allow you to relax in private and not see what you don’t want to see, just like your sunglasses keep the sun from hurting your eyes. Your home isn’t subject to scrutiny until you’re going to have company at which time you get out your examination glasses and see with “company eyes.”

If you'll put your timer on for 15 minutes and spend that time looking for stuff you wouldn’t buy at Goodwill, you’ll probably be able to fill up a box to give away or pitch. As I wrote that sentence, it inspired me to do just that. So, I’ll be back in 15 minutes if I don’t get sidetracked and end up taking a bath or sweeping the deck.

It’s no secret that kajillions 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 40-year career helping moms get organized, the kitchen is the room most picked.) 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!

You've probably heard the cliche, "get off your high horse." We all know someone who's on one and they're not that fun to be around. But if someone can be on a high horse, then being on a low one is certainly possible! Being around a person on a low horse isn't fun either. In my career helping SHEs get organized, I've never had to suggest getting off a "high horse" but much of my help has come from getting a person off her "low horse." Being on a "low horse" is that feeling you're not good enough. Feeling that way can come from thinking you've failed at something and especially when it comes from the subject of being organized.

 
How many times have you made "get organized" be your New Year's Resolution? When it comes to getting organized, it’s such a juicy project complete with visions of peace, joy, beauty and order in your home.

But if you’re not careful, the thrill of the thought of victory can end in the agony of feeling defeated. It’s hard being human, but it’s even harder when you beat yourself up because you're disorganized and didn’t achieve what you set out to accomplish because of it. 

Getting organized just enough to please you is so simple, but being a creative, you can blow the whole project up like it’s a major motion picture.

Because you are creative, there’s nothing you love more than a new project, except for maybe breakfast, lunch and dinner! You get so excited and enthusiastic as you dive into a new mission with astonishing glee. But like the poem you learned when you were a kid, “First came love, then came marriage, then came pushing a baby carriage,” projects have a honeymoon period and then the reality of the situation kicks in and the work can be a drag if you're not careful.

Have you ever been close to a “blue blanket” moment? (If you don't know what that is, you'll learn about it if you read on.) When we got home from Italy last week, at 2:00 am (11 the next day in Italy) we walked into our home, exhausted after 24 hours of travel. The first thing I did was go out on our deck to see if the Wisteria had engulfed it. (It grows up one leg of our deck and completely surrounds the railing on three sides.) While surveying the 20 inches of new growth on that busy bush, a bat flew into our house and for the next ½ hour, Terry and I took turns ducking as it recklessly flew at us from the living room to the kitchen frantically searching for an escape route. (Sounds like a great computer game to play...Bat the Jet Laggers.)

It was a big bat with a furry wing-span of about a foot! (Having a bat in my house is as terrifying to me as having a terrorist in it, leaping from chair to table to counter itching to use his oozy.) At one point the bat's radar must have miss-fired for he and Terry bumped heads! That’s when we decided to leave the sliding, glass door to the deck open with the light on outside, turn off all lights on the inside, hope he'd go to the light, take our chances chipmunks or raccoon didn’t decide to move in and flop into bed, thoroughly exhausted.

Do you remember a long-running Ladies’ Home Journal column that started in 1953, called “Can This Marriage Be Saved?”? It featured real-life couples and the juicy details of their marital issues.

Hello Everybody,

Do you dream about traveling to exotic places? Do you ache to see famous points of interest like the Eiffel Tower, the Tahj Mahal or to meet Michael Angelo's David even though he's naked? When you hear about a friend or neighbor getting to go on a cruise or spending time in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hawaii or just about anywhere short of North Korea, do you find yourself craving to go and feeling bad because you can’t? Do your travel dreams get squashed because of your workload, lack of money, too many kids to take along or a bunch of other reasons?

Mom always wanted to travel when my sister Peggy and I were growing up, but we never got to go very far because we didn’t have the money and Dad couldn’t take time off from work. But that didn’t stop Mom from planning! Bless her little, organized heart; she subscribed to “Holiday Magazine,” a glitzy periodical for the rich (and we weren’t)! It even looked and felt expensive because it was in full color and heavy because every page was almost as thick as the slick cover. Also, it was filled with lots of ads for diamond jewelry and fancy cars in addition to the places it urged us to go. Mom plotted out trips complete with itineraries, destinations for dining, recreation, accommodations and such, and collected them all in her cherished box of travel dreams; her version of a bucket list, where they all waited for the day they’d take us away. We never went.

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

Do you remember seeing Pam & Peggy on television? Every once in awhile we like to share with you some of the highlights Pam and her sister enjoyed with their television friends.They appeared 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.

"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. 

                                       We hope you enjoy it.

What if when you said, "I do," you really knew how much had to be done? Maybe you should have said, "I do, sometimes." Did you know that if you are 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 their 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 wash 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! But who wants to be a BO? Not me!

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 back to school 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?"

When the Cleaner Guy is not focused on house cleaning and making non-toxic cleaning products, he practices law. Please pay close attention to this lawyer when he tells you where NOT to use Vodka as a cleaning and disinfecting agent.

Enjoy the video.

My book The Joy of Being Disorganized is the first book I’ve written that makes a great gift!

I believe there are 10 SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executive) to every BO (Born Organized) and I wrote this book to celebrate our SHEness!

There’s a modified 3x5 get organized system in it that'll really help you get help from your family. Here’s what Allison, a successful banker, had to say:

Dear Pam,

Thank you for writing The Joy of Being Disorganized. I’m a successful banker and am organized at work, because there are systems in place and I handle my staff with understanding, patience and support. But my home has been another story. Somehow, I let my disorganization at home undermine my self-esteem. I didn’t even know I was doing that, until I read your book. What a wake-up call for you to tell me to celebrate my disorder! And how could that possible help me get my home organized? All I can say is that it was a shift in energy!

Back in 1929 when the stock market crashed, we didn’t have CNN or FOX or news or the Internet. Our grandparents (or great grandparents in some cases) didn’t get over-fed the news 24-7. They got a newspaper once a day (maybe) and they listened to the radio (maybe).

Because of this age of information we can (if we choose) be bombarded with bad news because the access is as close as our finger on the clicker or the mouse on our computer. It’s one thing to be aware of what is going on in the world, our country and our community, but it’s quite another to watch the reruns and regurgitated opinions of “the experts” as they re-hash the re-runs while we click to another channel to watch the news covered from a different camera angle.

The GOOD NEWS is that to the media, the only newsworthy material is what is negative AND sensational. Dog Bites Man, is not “news.” Man Bites Dog (and don’t forget to put music behind the story) is. (I learned that from my journalist husband.) It is the extraordinary that makes “the news.” So most everything you see on the news is unusual and extraordinary. IT IS NOT THE NORM. But we in our naivety (or stupidity) allow our sweet minds to watch what happened not once but on the hour until the next day when the next batch of bad news is ready. How many times do you have to watch the bank robber caught on tape? Isn’t once enough?

We cause ourselves needless suffering

I know we’re human and most of us are naturally curious about bad news.

When you were young, did you try to get answers from daisies by ripping off the petals and saying, “He loves me, he loves me not?” Maiming daisies for answers seems a little cruel but there's another way. Have you ever asked a question and gone to a random book, on a random page for the answer? If you've never done it you don't know what you're missing. 

Right now, I’m waiting to hear whether my project is going forward or not. My patience is being tested, because I’m excited to know. So I picked up a book, I’ve been currently re-reading entitled, Think and Grow Rich, which I’ve had in my library since 1968. I opened the book randomly, to a page and closed my eyes and pointed to a place on one of the pages. This is what it said: Faith removes limitations! Remember this when you are ready to bargain with Life for whatever it is that you ask as your price for having passed this way. Without telling you what the news is about, I will say that these words fit perfectly (which is almost always what happens when I do this) with what I’m waiting to hear.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King

When you read that quote by King, can you imagined yourself at a staircase? Would that first step in your imagination see you going up or going down?

I posed this question in 2015 to my blog subscribers just because I was curious. It really doesn’t matter because it’s a metaphor for stepping out on a mission in faith. I spent that entire morning (after I posted the question) fielding the responses and out of more than 100 who responded only three of us picture that first step going down.

You may say I need to “get a life” spending time on this, but I was really interested in the age of people and what they thought. One of the “downers” was 37 years of age and the range in age for the “uppers” was between 28 and 72. There were so many thoughtful responses I'd like to share some of them with you. I really didn’t think it was going to be that interesting, but it sure was! I’ll tell you at the end why I think I envision going down the staircase instead of up.

Martie said:

Because this blog has nothing to do with how to get organized, and everything to do with having fun and relaxing, there's a habit to establish at the end for those who want the organizing kind of information today.

Being organized has many facets and one of those is one we SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are familiar with because it has to do with our creativity. Besides having fun comes naturally, although it can be squelched by overloaded work to be done.

When we’re organized, we make time to have fun on a routine basis. SHEs who get organized get to play way more than SHEs who are disorganized. BOs (born organized) have a hard time playing in the first place, because there’s always work to be done.

We SHEs are creative and it’s that creativity that recharges our energy, just like a good nap does. My youngest daughter, Joanna, has found a wonderful way to relax and play with her artistic gift. 

It all started with a Face Book page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1194501230583751/ and this comment on the page:  

During your day, find as many ways as you can to get housework done so that you can stop at 6:00 pm. Consider it quitting time. Of course your little Snuggle Bunnies will need your love and attention after six, but I’m talking about the household workload.

If you tend to be frazzled in the evening, these 4 tips for quitting at 6:00 and having a leisure evening can be a reality. 

towels, and the change in seasons? Do you like the time when day turns to night, night turns to day, each different day of the week, the growth in goodness of your children and grandchildren, new stuff like cars, shoes, books and such? Don't you love a change of scenery, a vacation, and even “the change of life” has its very good qualities.

Why do you think you have a problem with being organized? Has the problem been with you for as long as you can remember? Could it be genetic? Does it seem to you some people are just born organized and some aren't, and you're one that isn't and you wish you were? 

There seems to be a pill for everything and there is one for SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives), but you don't need to take it, when you decide to get organized just enough to please you. In this blog you'll go on a trip to a place where you'll get organized enough to keep your personal path to joy swept regularly.

Do you try to stay in a good mood as much as you can? 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. 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, you've gotta, “Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Would you agree that happy thoughts run at a higher frequency than say guilty or angry thoughts 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 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. 

You probably didn't know my sister and I had a dance career. Well okay, it was only for one day. After you watch this video you'll probably figure out why.

The name of my sister’s and my first book was called,

Sidetracked Home Executives: from Pigpen to Paradise.

After the book was released we were invited to have a half-hour television show on Christian Broadcasting. The show was called "Clean Up Your Act." The producer got the idea (when she heard the song I wrote, "From Pigpen to Paradise") to have that song be the open to the show. After the open was produced, the head honchos at Proctor and Gamble (our sponsor) didn’t like it and it was replaced by a different open. 

Have you ever spent time on a project and then it never worked out? The television show did work out and we got to do two seasons, but the video you're about to see is a perfect example of something that didn't fly. We saved the footage, even though it never aired on television. Now it's just funny and a little embarrassing. (My sister could have been a show girl with those legs, but at 5'2" my legs are not the kind that make it on stage. 

If you love Mexican food, but instantly think about all the carbs in most of it, you can un-carb any high carb dish, with minor replacements. 

Watch this video from my kitchen as I prepare burritos that'll take you right over the border in a low-carb way.

Olah! Oh, by the way, if you are serious about living a low carb lifestyle, I recommend Gary Taubes' book "Why We Get Fat and What We Can do About it." It was this science writer for the New York Times that completely changed my husband Terry's and my life. Subsequently I took two years to write "The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!" Documenting my switch to a happy, healthy way to eat. Just click on the cover to learn more.

Love,

Pam 

Is your kitchen streamlined, efficient and a joy in which to cook? A couple of years 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 that prity 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. 

Many have a hard time letting go and it really doesn’t have to be that way. Now letting go of a person whom you love and he no longer loves you is a boo hoo, hard kind of letting go and it may take time to get over, but you know the saying: If he doesn't love you, let him fly away, unless you want to play zoo keeper. But the decluttering kind of letting go can actually be fun, because of a test question you can ask every time you get stuck holding onto an item that needs to go.

You'll learn what that test question is in a minute. First, here's a little story. Because of a contest called Project CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) I’ve been in over 100 homes that were crammed with too much stuff. My sister and I would pick a winner in a city and armed with television cameras, newspaper journalists and photographers; we’d go into the home of the winning family and de-junk a room. The “befores” and “afters” were always media fodder.

I remember one specific winner vividly. She was a physician (even doctors can have too much stuff) and she wanted us to help her with her personal, walk-in closet. It was jam-packed with fashions that spanned two decades and four sizes. She dressed well. Her clothes were purchased at high-end dress shops and department stores and most were designer.

If you are a caregiver, do you find it hard to open your home by asking for help to organize it?

If that's a problem for you, this story may help you to ask for help if you need it.

Incidentally, we all need help in areas in which we aren't competent. We get accountants to help with our bookkeeping, and lawyers to help with legal issues and we're willing to get help with electricity and plumbing problems, but for some reason, when it comes to our homes, we caregivers have a crazy notion we should be able to take care of everything ourselves.

 Just one very simple thought that perhaps you haven't thought before will have you opening up your home for help.

When you’re blessed with wonderful neighbors, their presence just adds to your well-being. Shannon, my next-door neighbor, is a gift from God to me and all of our neighbors. (She’s on the cover of “The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!” and she’s always ready to help, even though she’s an extremely busy mom, teacher, spiritual adviser for women in her church, wife and devoted daughter to her parents.)

To help me with ideas for a long car trip with kids for my appearance on "Afternoon Live," a television talk show in Portland, Oregon, Shannon wrote out some fabulous ideas for making long, car trips with kids more fun and easy. Unfortunately, I didn’t see her email until the day after I was on the show! But lucky for you, I’ve put her email in this blog so you can reap the benefits of the wisdom in her wonderful ideas. (I’ve also given you a link to my segment on television about this topic, so you’ll really be ready for a fabulous trip with those little ones. And now, HERE’S SHANNON!

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.

A few years ago my son Michael and his wife Meredith were invited by the FOX network to go to the Super Bowl and Terry and I were invited to babysit our two grandchildren Jack, age eight, and Brooklyn, age eleven. I have such fun with these two! (They're probably 2 and 5 in this photo.

The first night we were with them, when it was bedtime they both wanted me to tell them a bedtime story. Since they slept in separate rooms I sat in the hallway with the light on so they could both see me if they sat up and it was easy for them to hear me. I love to make up bedtime stories because I never know what I’m going to say myself. I guess I should say Nelly (my inner child) loves to hear my stories or maybe she’s the one who makes them up? Whatever, I love to do it.

Here's the story I told that night:

Rabbit Ears, Elephants, and Donkeys

Santa Isn't Where You Think He is Right Now!

What do you think Santa Claus is doing right now? Do you think he’s in some resort, lounging in a hammock, dreaming of sugar plums and listening to Christmas Carols on his IPhone? Nope! 

Santa Claus is organized! In fact, he and Mrs. Claus think ahead, so that on Christmas Eve they can enjoy a nice, leisurely dinner before he sets off at dark to deliver toys and goodies to the boys and girls.

We all know that the holidays require extra time and energy. So why not take advantage of summer leisure and get a jump on the holidays?

1. Stocking Stuffers 

Stuff as you go. Hide a small container, like a shoe box or Zip Lock Gallon bag, for each child. When
you’re out and about and find items that would be good for stocking stuffers, like movie tickets, gift cards, little toys and books, purchase and put in the hidden containers.

Come midnight on Christmas Eve, you’ll thank yourself when you think, ‘EEgad, we gotta do stockings,’ and you’ll have most of the contents ready to stuff.

Who taught you to ride a bike?

Do you remember how different riding a bike was than riding your trike? With a tricycle, you really had to pedal hard to get over bumpy terrain, but with a bicycle you could almost glide over it. As soon as you mastered the skills of riding, you were given the joy of riding fast and easy. Remember feeling like you were flying? To go faster than you could run was addictive and you had the same joy a dog has with his head out the window of a Subaru, fur smashed back by the wind. This photo of my granddaughter, Brooklyn, calls up that feeling.

But what does it have to do with getting organized? Well, wouldn’t you say that every, able-bodied child can learn to ride a bike? Do you remember your pre-biker days? Remember how impossible it looked? Remember thinking, ‘I can’t do that.’? And then what happened? You learned! You could do it. When you were learning, there were basic skills you had to acquire in order to stay on the bike when your teacher let go.

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.

Come along with me to the market as I pick out something I used to be really scared of buying....kale! And if you think I was afraid to buy it, I was realIy afraid to cook it! 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 in this video, I'll help you conquer the kale issue (if you have one) by making a classic Caesar salad with a twist and you won't believe how much you'll love it! Kale Caesar!

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 good parents 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 be happy. 

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.

One of my all-time favorite low-carb cooking recipes is what I call “Cauliflower-oni and Cheese." Who needs that carb-loaded, slimy macaroni when you can cook up a yummy, steamy head of cauliflower and leave your pickiest eater drooling for more? In this fun, how-to cooking video, I share with you the secrets of happy cows from Ireland, and the joys of a forty year old pot. (The kind on the stove.) This is sumptuous, dining, and you'll want to make plenty for the crowds that will be begging for seconds and thirds and the recipe.

This is Bruno the new mascot at Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon. According to his trainer (Kim) he’s number eight in a line of Brunos that have graced the magnificent lodge built in 1937. Bruno just happened to be out with his trainer while we were at the lodge on Saturday. As a mascot in waiting, this day he was there to get used to kids of all ages gushing over him with kisses and hugs, posing with him for vacation memories, whistling at him and baby talking to him. He’s just six months old, but in this photo Terry took, he looks like an adult St. Bernard! He reminded me of one of those huge kids, that by appearance is expected to act older but doesn’t because he isn’t. Bruno was oblivious to all the people and only interested in other visiting dogs, birds, chipmunks, butterflies, flowers and the occasional drift of an aroma of food coming from some human’s lunch sack or snack.

That’s Mt. Hood in the background and Bruno was sitting on a rock wall (the trainer’s husband lifted him up for the photo shoot and said “In another month, I won’t be able to do this, because he’ll be too heavy.”).

Last week I ran the video on how to cut up a whole chicken and I received a lot of mail wanting to know the recipe for chicken salad which I spoke about on the video. So here's the video on how to make yummy chicken salad, along with the recipe!

Enjoy! 

Save money by buying whole chickens instead of buying those pricey parts. In this cooking video, you'll learn how to cut up a whole chicken and you'll see how much money you'll save by using every part of the chicken including the bones!  

Do you remember when we were all scared of fat in our food and skinning chicken, leaving that delicious part because there was fat in it? Thank goodness the truth is finally coming out, although slowly, that fat is not the problem, sugar is the biggy!

As I wrote in my book The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!, “Science is proving that the medical community was wrong all these years in sending us all on a crusade to lower our fat intake, and now were suffering the consequences with an epidemic of people with Alzheimer’s, dementia, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. Our brains need fat.” 

Now, here's the video.

The Magical Power of a Daily Routine

At this very moment, you are creating your tomorrow with your habitual thoughts and subsequent actions. If you love the consequences these habits are dilivering to you, you’re on a magnificent journey through this life you’ve been given. 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 Ordelle Daily is? She’s a fictitious character I drummed up and wrote a poem about to explain what a BO (Born Organized) is. Here’s a letter from a reader who remembered Ordelle Daily

My passport expired and I had to renew it today. Part of the process was to have a current photo taken to put in the new, little, blue book I'll get in about eight months if I'm lucky. When I got to the business where they took the passport photo, the very efficient clerk, told me where to sit, how to sit and the importance of sitting very still, and then she said,

“Are you ready?”

“Yes,” I answered and proceeded to make a friendly smile for the camera.

She immediately took the camera off her eye and said, “OH NO DON’T SMILE! THAT’S NOT ALLOWED!”

“Okaaaay,” I said, recovering from her overreaction to the simple happy gesture I let my lips display. Once again I got ready for the photo shoot, this time with a blank stare void of any joyful, inner emotion.

“Click,” the camera said.

“Good” the clerk said. “What d’ya think of this?”

 The only way to establish a new habit is to put the action you want to become a habit into a daily routine so that you’ll do it enough times for it to become automatic. Before an action is a habit and part of your daily routine, just think of all the options you have. Options are what pull you away from doing something you've decided to do to change the status quo. In other words, you have to learn to be an option stopper, whereby you don’t give yourself the option of not doing the action you want to have become a habit. 

For example, if you want exercise to be part of your daily routine, then you have to stop giving yourself options out of exercise. Until exercise is a habit, your options will always look better than exercise. But if you’ll be an option stopper, one day you’ll realize you have a new habit, you're happier and life is better! 

Have you ever stopped to think that right now your life as it is, is the result of your daily routine? It is. For most SHEs, we have such a developed sense of spontaneity that we're not all that excited about consciously creating a routine...until we get a taste of the freedom a good routine gives us in addition to more free time to play.

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 are victims of procrastination because we want to create just the right words that come straight from our hearts.

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.

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's heated to boiling and cooks to death, instead, we schlep along until we snap.

To do, or to be?

Did you know breads and grains are loaded with sugar?

Eating sugar in all its sneaky forms spikes your insuline and that's one of the main reasons our bodies store fat. Lower your intake of sugar in all of its tricky forms and you'll lose weight. 

In this cooking video you'll see how easy these tortillas are to make.

These tortillas have flour, so they're low in carbs, AND they're delicious!

If you’ve spent a lot of time reading about de-junking, de-cluttering, streamlining and simplifying and the information hasn’t helped you with your issue of having too much stuff, maybe considering this will help. Having too much stuff is a good thing! Think about it. All of your stuff, your books, furniture, jewelry household utensils, food, clothes, and on-and-on are answers to your desires. Even the stuff you inherited or someone gave you; represents the answers to your desires. “Ask and it shall be given.”

It’s likely you are financially better off than your parents and maybe if you experienced poverty in your childhood you’ve had a stronger desire to have nice things, than someone who always has had them.

In the 80s, Peggy and I helped 100s of women streamline their homes through Project CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome). Many were women who had parents who lived through the Depression in the 1930s. Our mom was one who remembered that Depression and while she was always organized and never had too much stuff, she wanted to have nice things and spent her life continually improving our home and its contents.

The following is correspondence between one of our Club Organized “elite” members and me. If you owe thank you notes, this conversation will inspire you to write them now. 

      Hi Pam,                                                                   June 13, 2015

Here it is, almost the end of May and FINALLY we, here in the Pacific Northwest, are getting some sun! In case any of you north westerners have forgotten, the sun is a big yellow ball that's in the sky (which is blue not gray) and it hurts your eyes if you look at it.

It has been so long since the sun has shone through my windows, I’d forgotten that sucker is not only hot, but it’s a revealer of slipshod cleaning. Have you ever noticed that your windows (especially the ones in the kitchen) can look pretty clean, until the sun shines on them? It can be shocking, because suddenly you can see all kinds of streaky schmutz that didn’t show before! I swear that sun is like a priest bringing out a confessioner’s dirty little secrets. Maybe we should wash windows when the sun is shining on them, that way they couldn’t lull us into thinking they’re clean. Just like we’d be way nicer if a priest followed us around 24/7. 

Last week I took a much needed break from work and went to Seattle to be with two of my grandchildren while their parents were out of town. The kids are 18 and 15, so as you can imagine, I saw very little of them. They were out of the house by 7:30 (they go to the same high school) and home by 3:00, so I had seven and a half glorious hours every day with Lou, a four-year-old golden lab, and Sid & See, two pound cats (not in weight, just rescued from “the pound”). The four of us got along peachy as soon as I figured out the rules of their games.

Before I tell you about their games, I want you to know I'm a dog person and I love Lou and he loves me! I'm not ashamed to say we slept together the whole week. In fact, on our last night together, I took these selfies (my first ever).

How to REALLY clean the cabinet under the kitchen sink

As part of organizing the kitchen, 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 cabinet. 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.

To show you how to clean under the sink and to prove to you how clean my kitchen cabinet is, 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 as you'll see in the short video. 

Do you like to go to the dentist? Once you make an appointment and get it on your calendar, does it stick out like a countdown to a jury verdict. Making the appointment to the chair and getting in the chair are not high on most people's make it fun list, but in the spirit of my motto, Make it fun and it will get done! we can try to stay cheerful through the process, twice a year.

Have you had it?

That’s how you can feel living a disorganized lifestyle. It's like living in a continual storm. But when you hit bottom with words like the declarations above, you're in the perfect place to change. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” When you hit bottom you're more willing to surrender to your situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender you'll be reminded that even though you're in a mess, you're in the right place with the right people at the right time. The only element you lack is direction.

DIRECTION! You can deal with that! Direction involves choices! You just need a map to follow and you'll be fine! For me it was the 3x5 card file system my sister and I came up with and the reason we became known as The Slob Sisters.

When my sister and I had had it with our home organization skills, that’s the first time we considered the word “direction” in reference to our problem. We weren’t lazy! Come to think of it, we worked harder than those BOs (Born Organized) who refuse to make work for themselves by being disorganized.

I knew I wasn't crazy! I'd been able to maintain a high level of creativity within my messy lifestyle, have three happy children, continually adjust to the personality of a very unhappy mate and remain stable.

I wasn’t stupid! Come to think of it, NO! I was very smart though my disorganized habits sabotaged my schooling so my grades didn’t reflect my intellect.

So I wasn’t lazy, crazy or stupid even though my messy life could certainly have made it look that way. When I look back on the way I used to live, the only question I have today is, “What was I thinking?”

As Carolyn Myss would say, “If I can talk Angel 101 to you for a moment, consider this.” Let’s pretend I'm one of your guardian angels and you have prayed to get organized. I've been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally in an answer to your prayer, is exciting to me!

Your Angel is With You

This year I’ve turned one of my pet peeves into an advantage. We have a big meadow and every spring the moles convene like they're at a mole convention. Their underground social network seems to put them in our meadow about when the grass starts growing. As I walked through the grass and inspected the hills I noticed how rich the dirt was and I thought, ‘I should use it for potting soil when planting flowers in the beds that have a great deal of clay.’ It really does work! Ask your local nurseryman what you might mix with your mole dirt to make it even better, in your area.

With spring in the air we SHEs are like busy bees around the nurseries where the flowers beg us to take them home like puppies at the Humane Society.

Have you ever seen a honey bee that’s got so much pollen on her thighs that she can barely fly? I often wonder if some of them never make it back to their hives they're so loaded down. Like those bees, we can get carried away buying more than we can plant. We fly home with our trunks full of flats of annuals and the optimism we’’ll plant them all in a day. Often we poop out in the middle of the plant and the remaining purchase is at the mercy of our next planting mood.

A good rule of thumb is the four Ps. Plan, Prepare, Purchase, Plant. If you try to prepare and plant at the same time, you’ll poop out and then those plants that you have taken into your care face possible death. Of course it’s not premeditated, but the plants will be just as dead.

If you’re a mom 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). Unfortunately being a mom is not held in as high regard as it should be.

I was invited to a baby shower/potluck yesterday and I didn't know the woman who was giving it nor did I know the mother who is having a baby. You may wonder why I went. It’s because I’ve finally decided to get involved in a prolife group in Portland, OR. It was the first time I’d taken part in any of their work and I blame my desire to join in, on Abby Johnson who wrote a book called “Unplanned.” It’s an amazing read. She was a big deal in Planned Parenthood who flipped and went over to the prolife side of the fence.

I’m not a political person, but in my opinion this issue isn’t political. My reason for being prolife is very simple. When my mom was pregnant with me, if she had chosen to have an abortion, I wouldn’t be here, typing this blog. Because I’m a big chicken and I don’t like confrontation, you'll never see me with some weird hat on, or holding a sign outside of anything! I don’t protest, and don’t ever plan to. (In fact if you are pro-choice, any negative response to this blog will be deleted and ignored.) I’d rather help on the other side of protest. I went to this baby shower as my first fun step, to meet the people behind Oregon Right to Life.

Today is my granddaughter Brooklyn's (my son's daughter) birthday. She's the girl on the right with her friend Paige. This photo was taken in Positano, Italy last summer. They were both 16 years old. They graduate this spring and Brooklyn has been accepted to Berkeley. 

She was three years old in this video and she froze as soon as she looked up and saw the huge audience of at least a thousand parents and grandparents. We think she was looking for her mom and dad. I remember leaning over and whispering in my son’s ear, “I hope you didn’t spend too much on these lessons.”

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 cabbages, used to decorate my window boxes, ended up being in some very tasty salads. While you're watching this video about my herb gardens, I'm going to be bugging those computer nerds to hurry up and invent “e-smell" so someday you can sit back and take in the delicious aroma coming from my garden and kitchen. Until then...let's 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 villa. 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.

This blog was written five years ago and I'm happy to report we both have new bathrobes even though they're not what I wanted.

April 24, 2012

I decided it's time for Terry and me to get new bathrobes. Mine's 20 years old! I bought it at a garage sale. It’s heavy and comfy and if I write too much about it here, I’m apt to talk myself out of dumping it. (Maybe I should keep it as my winter robe. On some of those cold winter nights I have found such refuge in it. I also feel spiritual in it sometimes, because it has a hood and when I put it over my head, I feel like St. Francis.) Okay, okay it’s going in storage until November when my winter sweaters and coats come out of waiting.

Terry’s robe is another story. It's downright scary! It’s blue plaid velour and after the first washing it lost most of its “lour” and because the arms were too long he cut them off and insisted I didn’t need to hem his alteration project. So I didn’t, leaving the ends frayed in strings that grow longer with every washing.

The thing is, I never think to go bathrobe shopping and only when I’m pampered with a luxurious white terrycloth robe in a fancy hotel do I think it’s time to spring for a new “morning” look.

A Saint and a Blue Man

Terry and I have changed our routine this year and I don’t shower, dress and make the bed first thing in the morning anymore.

Do you 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 cooking video will show you exactly what I do.

In chapter twelve of "The Joy of Being Disorganized" it reminds its readers to “quiet your adult mind long enough to hear your inner child's voice.” Having a clean, cozy, peaceful home includes letting that fun-loving child in you remember what you love to eat! In this cooking video, you'll get a wonderful recipe for bone broth and a tasty chicken salad made from what was left on the bones after making the broth.

Every single tasty morsel of meat is simmered along with some yummy vegetables seasoned just right.

When the voice of your inner child starts on a whiny, crave, it just means you need protein. Having bone broth and chicken salad on hand will stop the craving within 20 seconds and your inner child's voice will stop its belligerent rant.

Have you ever noticed, if you take a plate of deviled eggs to a potluck, they disappear fast? They are such a famous treat and this recipe is really delicious! I don't use Penzey spices anymore and have switched to Savory Spice Shop. They have a better Italian Seasoning! I showed this cooking video in 2015 and I wasn't about to re-shoot it because I no longer use Penzey. 

Spring Cleaning? Start at the Entryway

Usually when we think of spring cleaning we think of getting out the buckets, brushes, rags and cleaners and cleaning the inside of the house. If you want to learn more about that, Google it. My blog this week is about sprucing up the place just before you go inside your home. You’ll have to go outside for this spring cleaning.

Your entryway is the gateway to your domestic life. It gives guests their first impression of your home life and quite frankly a little peek into who you are. After your guest rings the doorbell there’s “wait time,” and it’s a rather private period of scrutiny and judging for him or her. Here are my 8 tips for spring cleaning your entryway. 

Experts claim romantic love lasts from 18 months to three years. Mother Nature must know this, so once she makes a connection, she has to work fast if she wants more babies!

In 18 months she can put out one baby and one on the way (giving the mother a little recoup time) and in three years she can produce three. Done!

That’s what happened to me anyway and I blame it all on Mother Nature. 

This will date me, but I have three children thanks to Johnny Mathis. When he sang Misty and those luscious tones flowed from his lips, “Look at me, I’m as helpless as a kitten up a tree,” bang…I was pregnant with Michael and wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d come out bi-racial I was so in love with Johnny. Chances Are (one of Johnny’s biggest hits) rang in Peggy Ann and Wild is the Wind pulled Joanna from her non-physical place in the Universe to a place in our home. 

Happy Easter! May you truly enjoy the magic of this holy time.

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

Would you buy this at Goodwill?

In a recent blog I wrote about declutteringg I said, “In deciding what to keep and what to get rid of, ask this question: ‘Would I buy this at Goodwill?’” Just that question opens your eyes to the item you’re looking at. If you were at Goodwill, would you buy this? Because when you’re buying something secondhand, you take your blinders off and put your examination lenses on.

I Was Blind and Now I See!  

At home, your blinders allow you to relax in private and not see what you don’t want to see, just like your sunglasses keep the sun from hurting your eyes. Your home isn’t subject to scrutiny until you’re going to have company at which time you get out your examination glasses and see with “company eyes.”

If you'll put your timer on for 15 minutes and spend that time looking for stuff you wouldn’t buy at Goodwill, you’ll probably be able to fill up a box to give away or pitch. As I wrote that sentence, it inspired me to do just that. So, I’ll be back in 15 minutes if I don’t get sidetracked and end up taking a bath or sweeping the deck.

It's time to make room for spring! Mother Nature spent all winter getting ready for this wonderful time of year and we can learn from her. When you let go of the past you create a place for what's waiting to come to you now.

Many have a hard time letting go and it really doesn’t have to be that way. Of course letting go of a person whom you love and he no longer loves you is a boo hoo, hard kind of letting go and it may take more than a season to get over, but you know the saying: If he doesn't love you, let him fly away, unless you want to play zoo keeper. But the decluttering kind of letting go can actually be fun, because of a test question you can ask every time you get stuck holding onto an item that needs to go.

You'll learn what that test question is in a minute. First, here's a little story. Because of a contest called Project CHAOS (Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome) I’ve been in over 100 homes that were crammed with too much stuff. My sister and I would pick a winner in a city and armed with television cameras, newspaper journalists and photographers; we’d go into the home of the winning family and de-junk a room. The “befores” and “afters” were always media fodder.

I remember one specific winner vividly. She was a physician (even doctors can have too much stuff) and she wanted us to help her with her personal, walk-in closet. It was jam-packed with fashions that spanned two decades and four sizes. She dressed well. Her clothes were purchased at high-end dress shops and department stores and most were designer.

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.)

This recipe for homemade, low-carb pizza starts with the most sumptuous, delicious sauce made from frozen tomatoes you freeze when they don't look good enough to put in a salad (even the really crummy looking ones you thought you had to chuck)! Then you'll see in this cooking video, how to get rid of the skins on tomatoes if you don't want them in your sauce. 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 (optional)

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

Simmer for 3-4 hours or more. (More, if you use water.) 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 or freeze it for a long time. 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.

Bake in oven at 400 for five or six minutes.

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

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 in the eggs they find.

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

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

        This coupon is good for a foot rub.
        This coupon is good for a back rub.
        This note is good for one download at iTunes.
        This coupon is good for a book, next time we go shopping.
        Your laughter makes us happy.

 But what if did? Sounds kind of nice, doesn't it? Especially this time of year when you have a deadline looming to get your tax returns done. Just think, if you had a tree that grew $100 bills in your front yard, you'd have to have 24-hour surveillance and security! Oh and if the press every got wind of it, you’d be dodging them to your grave. No doubt you'd worry about how to keep the tree healthy, keep the bugs from eating those precious leaves and how to keep the money in your yard when the autumn winds threatened to blow your crop into the neighbor's yard (the neighbors whose dog leaves stuff in yours).

You'd probably end up a nervous wreck. You'd never be able to leave home, or be able to get all the bills that were at the very top, unless you were a very good tree climber. Maybe it'd be easier to have a hedge fund than a money tree, but you'd still have to guard that too.    

With the advent of credit cards, many of us were tempted into living beyond our means. Those pretty, little rectangles made purchasing stuff so easy, especially when you didn't have the money yet! Before I met Nelly (my inner child) in 2002, I was in big credit card trouble. Because I'm a writer and was able to make a good living writing books, when I wasn't writing and the income wasn't there, instead of changing my spending habits, I used credit cards to pretend I was still making money. I actually looked at credit cards as income. "Oh, goody, the bank just increased my credit limit $10,000!"

When everything came to a head, I was faced with figuring out how to get out of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I knew I had to raise my financial consciousness and get out of debt, but I didn't have a clue as to how to do that. What happened was a miracle and I wrote about it in "The GOOD Book: Get Out Of Debt." 

Hey, come and join me as I play in the kitchen with my 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 have to enjoy them for that reason! 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 as we watch out for flying tips. This recipe is gonna be a favorite soon!

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

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.

Easter is April 16 this year!

As we come together to celebrate the awesome miracle of Jesus's Resurrection, the sugar manufacturers have, once again, given us very colorful reminders (if we can make that mental leap) to remember what Easter is really all about. Let those brilliant Peep bunnies remind you of all the people who follow His teachings, and let that collection of multi-colored M&Ms remind you of all of your blessings. Don't EAT them, just let them remind you of how blessed you are and how grateful you are that Jesus did return in love for us all.

With that said, we really need to be careful not to buy into the sugar push in the name of this holy event. We can actually use the ubiquitous goodies to remind us that it's NOT ABOUT SUGAR. Try it the next time you're at the store. The minute your mouth starts to water because you just spied a display of Cadbury Eggs and you remember how much you love them, just swallow, pass the treats and run a quick thank you to Jesus.

I received this email and it's what inspired the subject of my blog today.

        Dear Pam,

If you're concerned about your sugar intake, this is an especially hard time for us. If we're going to stay off the sugar, we've got to just ignore those carb-loaded, chocolate-filled Easter goodies glaring at us from every woman's magazine cover and store shelf, because they'll just tempt us into buying a bunch of sugar and then we'll eat it! (If we don't buy it we can't eat it.)

With the big sugar push on, I got the idea to think up some sugar-free Easter treats and that idea turned into an Eastery way to serve real food. With a few wooden skewers and clay pots, you can get the whole family involved in making festive, affordable, Easter creations for the dinner table or for some festive hors d'oeuvres, that are so easy and fun to make.

Be sure to watch this video and let me show you what I did.

This year, Lent began on March 1 and will end on April 13. They say it’s a 40 day fasting deal, but if you count Sundays it turns out to be 46 days of giving up something that you love and are in the habit of having.

Are you, or do you know anyone who is celebrating this period of restraint? It takes self-discipline to not eat or do something you really love for ten days, let alone 46 days, and when I look back over my 73 years I’ve always admired those who observe Lent. I never have been that disciplined.

Today, March 22, 2017, we’re smack dab in the middle of Lent, and I received this poem from Judith Robinson, an amazing writer and contributor to Club Organized. When I read her poem, I cried. Okay, I didn’t sob and get snot all over the place, but sweet tears of love for women and our humanity dripped, tastefully down my cheeks. Here's her poem with her permission.

What is it really with us women and our appearance? Do we want to look younger or just not look older? When we were children we wanted to be older, that’s why we’d answer, “I’m seven and a half.” But we didn’t think about wanting to look older. I remember being carded in my twenties because I looked younger than 21, but I didn’t have a desire to be or look older, because drinking wasn’t my thing and age really didn’t concern me.

However, at about 35, I started seeing the first signs of looking older, as daring, stray, gray hairs began sprouting at my temples. I paid the kids a penny a hair to pull them. By the time I was 55 my offspring had moved on to better paying jobs and besides if they’d still been willing to work for me, I’d be 2/3s bald.

At 60, I dyed my hair for the first time in my life, but after about four years I let my real color grow out and the gray took over. I also got tired of hearing a wolf whistle, turning around and shocking the life out of some young guy who thought he was going to get the attention of a young chickie only to find an old lady glaring at him. I actually prefer being a “Q-Tip” (that's an appropriate name to describe a person with white hair) because the wolf whistles have stopped and I am officially invisible to the wolves. It’s a good thing. 

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: Get Out Of Debt."

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, ask yourself this question: "How old have I been acting to be in the predicament I'm in? My answer to that question 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 payed 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 it’s history! Don't miss this video.

This blog is brought to you by Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise! It explains why a SHE is called a SHE:

When my sister and I started teaching our system for getting organized, we knew we wanted to name it something catchy. We loved the thought of calling ourselves "Home Executives." We knew we'd never be home executives like our BO (Born Organized) mom who ironed Dad's underwear, baked everything from scratch, kept her high school figure and "freshened up" fifteen minutes before our dad came home from work every night. We didn't care to be THAT organized. We just wanted to be organized enough to have clean, cozy, happy homes.

We liked the sound of SHE and since we had the HE part, all we needed was the "S." The "S" would have to be an adjective to describe the kind of HEs we were. So what kind of Home Executives were we? Scummy didn't describe us; we weren't sloppy, shifty, sneaky, skittish, sassy or stupid either. (Great names for another clan of dwarfs, but not for us.)

One day we were on our way to teach our first class and we went under a railroad bridge and I squealed, "SIDETRACKED"! My sister was driving and she almost ran off the road!

"Sidetracked, where, what?"

"Our "S" word," I beamed.

"Our "S" word?"

"Yeah, for our company name."

"Oh, that "S" word! Hmm, sidetracked, I like that.

"Yeah it's a word that implies temporary."

"And fixable," she added.

Sidetracked: normal, temporary, fixable

When you’re in a horrible mess and you feel overwhelmed with your circumstances, if you attempted to get organized from that place, you’d be like a person drowning in a lake, begging for someone to throw you a rope, or an inner tube, or a book on “How to Swim.” (If you know how to swim, then you know that this flailing, person is, at the moment, helpless and will probably drown if someone doesn’t rescue him. And you also know, since you know how to swim, that if that person would just calm down and relax into floating and treading water for a little while, he’d move into a better place not to drown.)

So how does this analogy relate to you? Do you feel you need to be rescued or do you have an intuitive notion that you can get organized with just a little nudge? Maybe you were organized once and you know how liberating it is. Maybe you had an organized mother and you remember how much fun and easy it was to live with order. Maybe you know people who are organized and you envy the ease at which they go about life, never late, always prepared, wearing matching shoes, having cash in their wallets, gas in their cars, toting kids that are fully dressed and they’re never in a rush.

An email came in the other day challenging the notion to “Make it fun and it will get done,” and it caused me to pause. The woman had said something about fun not leading to happiness and since I think happiness is the most important goal we can ever have, (I think it’s more important to be happy than to be organized) I had to think seriously about my definition of fun.

The word fun can conger up vacations, yachts, fast cars, parties and any of the stuff of brochures that lure us to spend money. The "brochure" brand of fun is great and it can make us happy for a little while, but it's happiness based on a condition and that brand of happiness is not lasting.

For example, last summer Terry and I won tickets to a Wine and Jazz Festival in a park in Vancouver. The brochure was glitzy! The thought of a Wine and Jazz Festival made me happy, but in reality I only like a certain kind of jazz (much of it reminds me of when I was a young mother with the relentless and repetitious sound of young kids saying, “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama”) and I’m not into expensive wines that you're expected to taste and then buy by the case. It was hot the day we went to the festival and we’d never heard of the person who was jamming up on the stage, so we walked through the park and went home. Wheeeeee! 

Were we happy? Yes, but not happy because of the festival, we were happy because we practice being happy because we're alive and conscious of it. 

In this how-to-clean video, the Cleaner Guy, Jeffrey Jones

and expert on toxic-free living, Kristi Marsh,

talk about the chemicals in our bodies that shouldn't be there. It's worth watching.

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.

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 either 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 another person, the problem is on your end, because the power that created the Universe has your back and there's nothing to worry about. So how do you fix your end of this deal? I’ve come up with 6 ways to be positive 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. It really helps to build a list of thoughts that lift your spirits, so when you get down in the dumps you can refer to it. I call it my First Aid Kit.

Can you think of some ways you've save money, because you're disorganized? We SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are famous for leaving things to do until the last minute. Have you ever gone to Plan B because Plan A failed or there really wasn't any plan in place?

I was, always putting off getting a gift for someone until the day of the birthday or anniversary, or within the hour of the party or shower. 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 and I always have.

This email came from Jill Bowen, one of my Club Organized 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". 

Here's what Jill had to say:

Swamp Thing

When was the last time you thanked your big toes? If you haven’t thanked them lately then you’ve probably never thanked your pancreas. (Out of sight out of mind.) I really don’t know that much about the inner workings of our bodies, but I do know there are trillions of doings going on in them that we can be thankful for even though we don’t know what they are.

We sure don’t need more to add to our “to do” lists, but we can get in the habit of being thankful while we’re doing other tasks. For instance, while you’re in the shower as you wash each body part, love it and thank it. Then, while you dry off your parts thank them again. It’s fun to thank your feet as you put socks and shoes on them and as you dress and groom each part of you it’s fun to fill your awareness with thanksgiving. Thankfulness is a habit and it’s quite fun to mentally become aware of what a gift your body is.

Do you have a reputation for being late? Have you ever thought that to be on time could be fun? If not, maybe that’s why you’re always late! Do you know punctuality is a habit? It is as much as being late is a habit too. I was habitually late until I realized that punctuality is part of gracious living and then I discovered 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

If you drive down any neighborhood street in America, no matter what the cost of the homes, you’ll find at least 50% of the drive-ways have a car parked in them. That doesn’t mean the people in the homes have company, it most likely means the garages are full of stuff and there’s no room for the cars.

I was recently on a television talk show in Portland, Oregon and I talked about how we Americans have too much stuff. The hostess of the show told me she’s embarrassed to pull out of her garage because it’s crammed full. I said, “Well at least you can get your car in the garage!” She said, “It barely fits and it's a three-car garage!”

Once you accept your circumstances as being alright, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong to want to improve. When you're troubled by being disorganized, it can be exciting to know you can get organized if you really want to. If I could get organized, anyone can! The urge to change something for the better is why you're reading this blog. Be grateful you have the ability to change. Be grateful for your circumstances and know that as you change them you'll learn more about YOU. You'll grow in self-respect and love for the awesome woman you are. Once you're organized just enough to please you, you’ll look back on your old circumstances and thank God for them because you'll have gotten to know yourself better.

In my latest book,"The Joy of Being Disorganized" you'll learn about all the famous people who were successful in spite of their disorganized natures. Your path to self improvement has to be your own personal path. You can get ideas from others, but ultimately your successes will come because you end up doing it your way. Take how you fall asleep as an example. If you're a good faller asleeper, your methods won't work for everyone. My procedure for falling asleep is unique to only me. 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 (that goes for getting organized too).

Do you enjoy opening a fortune cookie after a nice Chineese meal? I was thinking about fortune cookies this morning and it tickles me how we all love to open them! I closed my eyes and imagined holding both ends of one and snapping its little, carbohydrate back into two pieces, exposing the secret note written especially for me. I’m not sure why I find such delight in reading those messages, but I always do.

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.)

Fortune Cookie Delegation

Some men are weird when they're hungry....

especially tall ones. I learned this early in my marriage to Terry. When it was dinner time he used to always be ravenous and, quite frankly, I didn’t like him when he was that way. He was six feet, three inches of uncontrollable hunger and he’d drive me nuts! He didn’t act mean or cranky like some men do; he just acted like he’d skipped his meds. He’s sort of a combination of Cramer (in the sitcom Seinfeld) and Barney Fife (in The Andy Griffith Show). But when he’d get hungry he’d be like those two characters on speed. He’d dart around the kitchen trying to get closer to the pending meal. He’d find difficulty concentrating and our kitchen just wasn’t big enough for both of us, when he’d be famished.

When I got organized in the late seventies, I decided to keep my “project” a secret from my husband, kids, parents and best friend. I’d read that when you want to make an important transitional change in your life, keep it to yourself and wait for “them” to come to you and say, “What’s happened to you?” or ”You seem happier and you’re always on time lately, what’s up?”

What I discovered by keeping my mouth shut on my plans was I had more energy! There was a certain excitement in “my secret.” Also, those closest to us have heard us talk about needing to change, wanting to change and planning to change, so to make a chronic announcement, “This year, I’m going to get organized,” “lose weight” or “budget and get out of debt,” your friends and family are liable to say, “Yeah, sure Martha, what’s new?”

I also think there is power in sharing your intentions with those who have the same goal. I’m so thankful for the platform I've been able to create so we can help each other and share our triumphs as well as our failings. I’m just talking about keeping it a secret from our loved ones, until they start seeing results.

There’s a wonderful cartoon by Gary Larson depicting two mosquitos on the skin of a human and one of the mosquitos has her sucker in her victim's arm and her body is swollen up like a balloon that’s ready to pop. The other mosquito says, “Pull out! Betty! Pull out!!! You’ve hit an artery!”

Most of us know that learning lessons from illness is a must if we want to grow spiritually.

During my illness, which turned out to be a virus that had to run its course, I really learned a valuable tool for mind control. I noticed that when I’d start to entertain scary thoughts (mainly of dying) it was like dipping my toe into a stream of thought that if I allowed myself to go there, I’d get swept away in fear.

That’s when the image of Gary’s mosquito cartoon came to me. So whenever I’d start to think a negative thought that could go into a rushing stream of more negative thoughts, I’d say to myself, “Pull out! Betty! Pull out!!!”

So far it has stopped me every time and made me giggle! It was great to put such humor to my situation and I know it aided in my healing. I love the name Betty for a mosquito and I love Gary for his incredible humor.

Actually, cleaning the toilet shouldn't be any more distasteful than brushing your teeth. And just like brushing  your teeth, if you don't do it every day (after every meal) you'll end up at the dentist with the distasteful task of having the plaque chipped from your teeth.

Same goes for the toilet. Keep distasteful away by cleaning the toilet every day. 

In this video, the Cleaner Guy also shows you how to make an environmentally friendly soft scrub that works as good as anything sold on the market.

The Cleaner Guy (Jeffrey Jones) has created a series of how to clean videos just for you. Here he is showing us how to clean the toilet.

Inner Child 101