Have you caught yourself saying, "Duh, that was dumb to do."? 

When we do something without thinking, we usually judge it to be dumb. Some of the dumbest stuff I do is when I'm looking for something. I'll catch myself looking in the same place. DUMB. Or I'll look in some stupid place like the refrigerator when I'm looking for my phone. DUMB.

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

On June 16, I celebrated 41 years being organized. When my sister and I made the decision to go from pigpens to paradise, we were filled with a knowing that we’d succeed. It wasn’t that it was our first attempt. Every New Year’s Resolution had “get organized” on the top of the list. The difference this time was we had a partner and we had good reasons. I had made up my mind to get organized to have more free time to play. Peggy wanted revenge. She wanted her mother-in-law and sister-in-law to come to her home unexpectedly as they often had, only when she got organized they’d be blown away by her immaculate and orderly home.

When it comes to finances, we don't always create happy consequences.

Have you made choices in your lifetime that caused not so happy consequences? We all have and that’s how we learn to be more careful as we grow up. (Second marriages, for example, are almost always better than the first ones, if we made a lousy choice the first time).

I recently took a much needed three-day vacation away from home with two girlfriends who are incredibly wise women. Both women are extremely private people. They both gave me license to quote them, but with no names so I don’t get to give them credit for some of their wisdom.

We were having lunch in a beautiful restaurant in Astoria, Oregon when the subject of self-improvement came up. I explained my theory of having fun with my inner child and they both loved the concept. I told about how far in debt I was after my sister retired and left me with a huge company debt. It was a little embarrassing to admit, because both these women are very wealthy and they were shocked at how immature my sister and I had been with our money.

Here in the pacific northwest we have a chain of stores called Fred Meyer. (We call it Freddies around this leg of the forest.) Freddie's advertising slogan is: What's on your list today?

Northwesterners catch the phrase every time they see a huge Freddie's truck on the freeway. With most people it probably causes a thought of 'what do I need at the store today.' However for me, it serves as a wake-up call to ask me what "list" of thoughts am I focusing on right now. 

In other words it wakes me up to become consciously aware of the quality of my thought at that moment. If you think about it, you can ascribe a value to a list of thoughts running in your mind at any given moment. So imagine you and a co-worker you carpool with are in traffic on your way home from work and you're driving in the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane when a guy driving alone slips in front of you, illegally enjoying a faster ride home, and you start a list of thoughts that goes something like this:

We are so fortunate to be able to eat when we get hungry here in America. Have you noticed that you enjoy being hungry partly because you know there is always food and food tastes better when you're hungry? Because we are fortunate to have an abundance of food, we're able to play with the condition of hunger to our benefit.

I've been fasting every day for 16 hours by having my last meal by 2:00 pm. The hunger usually strikes around 7:00 pm, but my bedtime is 9:00 and as long as I keep my mind occupied with a good book, movie or favorite series on Amazon (like "The Big Bang Theory") those two hours pass quickly. Since I fall asleep fast I don't lie in bed and think about my favorite food and so far I haven't had any buffet dreams brought on by no food after 2:00.

One big lesson I've learned is by not eating after 2:00 my sleep is fabulous. I've had more flying dreams and lots of color in them. When I wake up in the morning I feel so rested! And I haven't needed my usual nap. I've read quite a bit about the benefits of giving our digestive track a rest and because I've had more energy since this fasting began, it's telling me digesting a meal takes quite a lot of energy.

With the title of my blog being "Hunger is the Best Sauce," I wanted to share with you something I wrote several years ago on the subject. 

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.

Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. You don't have to traipse all the way to Scarborough Fair with 

Simon and Garfunkel to get your own fresh herbs. They're super easy to grow yourself! In this video I show you how my purple cabbage leaves are true overachievers and my basil is quite melodramatic.Herbs are like weeds!

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

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

My mouth gets me into more trouble than any other hole in my body. Sometimes it’s because of what comes out of it, but mostly it’s been because of what goes in. That’s why the title to one of my books is “The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!”

"Unless you’re hooked up to an intravenous feeding contraption that continues to pump too much food into your system, the size of your body is entirely due to your mouth’s ability to open and let the food that has made you weigh more than you like, to come in and “accumulate.”  (Except from The Mouth Trap.)

What Day is it Anyway?

I’m not exactly sure why this happened, but last week, when I woke up on Tuesday I thought it was Wednesday. Since it was Wednesday (in my mind) I thought I had an appointment to have my hair cut. In case you don’t know this, I get my farm, fresh eggs at “My Shop” (the place I get my hair cut) and when I walked in, Billy Jo who cuts my hair said, “Are you here to get eggs?”

“No, I’m getting my hair cut,” I replied.

“Oh, okay,” she said.

So I sat in the chair, told her I’d already washed my hair, and she proceeded to spray water on my head so she could cut my hair wet. We chatted and talked about a woman who was supposed to come in before my appointment and hadn’t shown up. While we were chatting and cutting another stylist came up to us and said to Billy Jo, “Evelyn’s granddaughter just called and said her grandma was in Hospice care and they were sorry she’d missed her appointment today.”