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.