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.