Have you noticed the moles are out? I don't think they've heard about the pandemic because they're not practicing social distancing. I wouldn't expect a mole to wear a mask, but they could at least keep their holes six feet apart! 

This video will show you how to take advantage of that lucious dirt in their hills. In case you didn't know, moles are carnivores and they dig where the soil is good and consequently where the worms are. If you have moles, it's a good sign! Use their work to save you money!

Here's the video! Plus my 4 Ps for a successful flower garden.

For some reason my 78-year-old-self

woke up this morning with a poem I’d written years ago entitled “I’m Done,” on my mind. I looked it up on my computer and it said I wrote it in 2007, so 14 years ago! It struck me how wonderful it is to be this age! I have loved aging and except for a couple of physical interruptions like getting a new hip and a pacemaker in the last couple of years, life just continues to get better and better.

Have you noticed how setbacks cause us to maneuver through them and come out the other side better? Like COVID. It’s exciting to think of all the joy, relief, freedom, love and appreciation we, collectively will bring to the planet when this pandemic is over! We will never look at another human being without compassion for what they’ve been through. Life will be better for everyone who knows that to be true.

When I wrote “I’m Done” I was reflecting on a period (pardon the pun that reflects the subject of the poem) of my life that was over! Not that I didn’t enjoy that part of my life, because I loved it, but it was just so nice to put it behind me. (I’m going to share the poem at the end of my blog.)

In my upcoming book, "How to Live Happily Ever After: Cinderella Did it and You Can Too," I quote Abraham Hicks: “Happiness is just a string of happy moments, but most people are not aware of the happy moments because they’re too busy trying to get a happy life.” (If we’re going to hoard anything let it be happy moments.)

And now for the poem, “I’m Done.”

Save money by carving up a whole chicken instead of buying those pricey parts. In this cooking video, you'll learn how easy it is and how much you'll save. No need to struggle with removing that skin either, because it’s full of nutrients you need and fat you’ve been afraid of.

As I wrote in my book The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here (low carb edition), “Science is proving that the medical community was wrong all these years in sending us all on a lower-your-fat-intake-program, 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.”

In this short video you’ll meet my two knife friends, Boning and French, as I divide and conquer my way around this beautiful bird. I show you how I might get sued (if I were a real doctor and the chicken was a person) by making multiple cuts searching for the elusive joint in the chicken’s leg. It’s not Dexter, but close and you won't want to miss this one......

From the Archives 

It was such a scorching dog day in late August that the birds were hot-tubbing in our backyard birdbath. I was wearing my bathing suit and had turned the air-conditioning down another notch despite the green voice in my head that said, ‘You should be ashamed.’ It didn’t help my mood to think about my daughter Peggy, her husband Tyler and my two young grandchildren, Jacob and Sophie working outside in 100 degree weather at a camp for foster children in our community? I admired their compassion and magnanimity to devote an entire summer running the camp and I was glad they were due home that evening.

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, if 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 off-the-wall closet organizing project. It just might work for you.

When you see a photo like this, are you inspired to learn how to declutter and have an organized closet? 

What you wear takes up a lot of your energy and when your closet is constipated with stuff you don’t wear (for whatever reason), it becomes a gigantic IPOD (Important Pile of Decisions). Your closet is just like your garage if your car is parked in the drive-way.

What might surprise you is the pile of decisions isn’t a bunch of various decisions like when you have to file papers into a filing cabinet, because 90% of the stuff you’re not making a decision about just needs to go! Good-bye, ciao, ta ta, Cheerio, farewell! How to de-junk is that simple! Let it go!

I helped people get the spark and motivation to declutter for 40 years and have come up with some very creative and fun ways to give you that spark. This one I’ll call Operation Pity Trip.

 4 Ways Not to Be Late

Do you have a reputation for being late? Have you ever thought that punctuality could be fun? If not, maybe that’s why you’re always late! Punctuality is a habit. I was always late until I realized that punctuality is part of gracious living and then I found out 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 some and like Victoria Secret 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

When everything opens up, plan to have fun!

Before the pandemic I was invited to a baby shower/potluck and I didn't know the woman who was giving it nor did I know the mother who is having a baby, actually twins. You may wonder why I went. It’s because I’d finally decided to get involved in a pro-life 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 pro-life side of the fence.

To pee or not to pee, that is the question.

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.