Author of Get Organized Books runs out of Gas! 

If you're a SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) you can understand how easy it could be to run out of gas and how logical it could be to blame it on a bunch of baby goats! So here's my story.

I can't tell you where we went because I'm sworn to secrecy, but I'll get to tell you some time down the road. For now it's a secret. What I can tell you is what happened at this secret location.

The day started out early in the morning as we drove to Oregon and then up I-84 which goes through the Columbia River Gorge. My heart was broken as we drove through the huge expanse of hillsides once covered in lush old-growth evergreen trees, now scorched and devastated by the wildfire that was started by a teenager last summer.

We live 50 miles from the fire and yet we had to stay inside many days because of the smoke. The skeletons of huge cedars, furs and pines stretched for miles-upon -miles. I cried as it seemed to never end.   

Once out of the forest we headed south on some little two-laner and promptly lost our GPS which was our planned source of direction. The next three hours Terry (my husband) drove and I prayed we were going the right way. We saw the word gulch at least ten times, but I can't remember their specific names. They were like, Frog Gulch, Big Thumb Gulch, Little Indian Gulch, names like that. 

When we arrived at our destination we were invited to lunch at the owner of the "secret" ranch's home. It was a very interesting home, huge and elegant, yet ranchy. For example we sat at a dining table for 20 and one whole wall was floor to ceiling windows looking out over, you guessed it, a horse room as big as a football field.

...you're ready to have one. If you don't live in an organized home, it means one thing, you weren't ready to get organized. Most of us want an organized home, but many struggle with disorganization because we can tend to build it up in our minds that it's a huge undertaking. It's really not. 

When every room is HOURS or DAYS away from "company ready" and I HAVE BEEN THERE, it can easily be overwhelming and in that state of mind we can freeze, bust out of the place or retreat under the covers. All those actions make things worse.

I’ve thought a lot about that feeling of being overwhelmed and I know it’s a state of mind based on true facts and circumstances. But the good news is states of mind can be changed even when the true facts and circumstances haven't. In fact if you’re overwhelmed by a messy house, obesity, indebtedness, an inharmonious marriage, whatever, you have the power to change your mind right now. In fact that’s what needs to happen. But how do you change your mind when you're in the middle of a huge mess, not just in one room but every room?

Very frequently I hear from SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executive) lamenting that they wish they'd used the SHE 3x5 get organized system for home and family earlier. My answer is always the same, you weren't ready and until you're ready you won't use it. It's interesting to find out how much these precious women have achieved in spite of their disorder! It's testimony to how talented we SHEs really are. Here's an excerpt from "The Joy of Being Disorganized" that conveys this thought.

Okay, I’m not a marriage counselor so I probably shouldn’t be going around giving advice to married couples, especially since I’m on my second marriage and so is my husband, but the idea of letting a little gin improve your marriage is really a good one at least for Terry and me and I thought I’d share with you why it is.

You probably should know that Terry is a workaholic because that’s one of the reasons I came up with this idea in the first place. He’s never without his cell phone or IPAD and he looks at weekends as catch up days to finish all the work he didn’t accomplish during the week because of overbooking. It seems when each day comes to an end, his “to do” list is longer because for every task he crosses off, he adds a couple more jobs.

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.)

If you just died, what would you have liked to have been doing today before it happened? Who would you have wanted to be with? What would you have liked to have eaten? What music would you have liked to have been listening to? Where would you have liked to be?

Perhaps the answers to these questions could give you a few clues as to what you should be doing as soon as possible. So many women have a hard time nailing what it is that they want. That’s probably because they spend so much time caring for others; their children, older parents and husbands.

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 the 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 of them taking a "dry" bath.).

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:

Rabbit Ears, Elephants, and Donkeys

December 1, 1963, we were on the second day of our honeymoon, traveling from Vancouver, Washington to southern California. We’d borrowed my parent’s car, a 1963 Ford Galaxie. They wanted us to be “safe” and our car was a ’49 Ford that didn’t show promising signs it could even get to the Oregon border let alone to the southern end of California.

The new car had a bench-type seat instead of bucket seats in the front and seat belts weren’t the law in 1963, consequently this car didn’t have them. We’d stopped at a service station to get gas in Pixley, California and it was my turn to drive, so my 6 ft. husband got in the backseat because I had to have the front seat forward as far as it would go in order to reach the pedals. I’m 5’2.”

It was dark when we got back on the road and the freeway was full of Thanksgiving, holiday travelers. As I drove on the on ramp to Highway 99, I could see it wasn’t going to be easy to merge as cars weren’t moving over to let me in and certainly slowing down is never an option for drivers flowing with the speed of traffic. I came to a full stop about 25 feet from the oncoming traffic and was waiting for a semi to pass when I heard my husband scream, “It’s going to hit us!!” as he reached around me from the back seat and cranked the steering wheel to the right (I had the wheel straight ahead to merge onto the freeway).

T'was the day before...

The day before Valentine's Day a few years ago, my husband Terry asked me what I thought of having our friends the Lapslys and Geocks over for dinner and to play cards on Valentine’s Day. “It’d sorta be a spur of the moment affair,” he said.

Since I love spur of the moment events and I have a passion for cooking, entertaining and playing cards, I jumped at the thought.

My husband is so considerate -

Terry emailed the two guys (no formal invites) and both of them got right back to him. I got busy planning the evening. I pulled out all my Valentine decorations and set a table with red candles in see- through red goblets with different length stems.

We really had a great time! I served a rack of pork and my recipe for Almost Carbohydrate Free Almond Bread and a Caesar Salad. After dinner I went into the kitchen and overheard one of the guys say to Terry, “Thanks for saving my ___. I’d entirely forgotten about Valentine’s Day!“ “Yeah, I forgot until two days ago when I invited you guys,” I heard Terry reply.

- and sneaky!