1. See the sights

October in our state of Washington and its neighbor Oregon is stunningly beautiful now. Take a drive through the countryside and remember, it’s not too late to get one more picnic in.

What are some famous sights in your area? Go check them out. If you have already been to them, try to discover something new about them. If there aren’t any famous sights in your area, then go discover ones that aren’t famous.

2. Take a discovery walk

Things are always changing, but October seems to inspire Mother Nature to order up some drastic alterations. I like to think of her shopping some mystical catalogue, oblivious to what current color schemes are being pushed in fashion news and saying, “Oh, orange, red, yellow, lime green and brown, yes that’s what my trees are gonna wear!”

Have you learned valuable lessons outside of your home life that reflect on what goes on in your house? I'm in a chorus and I love all the women in it; all 110 of them! When I joined ten years ago, it was as if I had an instant set of new friends that shared one of my passions: singing harmony. I’d like to pass on to you some lessons I’ve learned from being in this family of singers that might help you have a happier family life.

1. LOVE

Love is the most important element in any happy group. Every one of the singers in my chorus loves music and loves what happens when we sing together with love as our reason to be doing it. Our supreme goal is to have that love reflected out to our audience, lifting each person and changing the atmosphere in the room.

Of course we love our families and when all of our “To Do” lists are crossed off and our fondest figuring outs are quieted; our love is the most important part of our experience as moms.

Child Locked in Antique Safe

A few years ago, I was at a grand opening of an internationally known bronze sculptor’s establishment. It was held in an historic building that has been restored to its original integrity. After the festivities, a child accidentally closed the door to an antique, walk-in safe, seeming to seal her younger cousin inside! The mother of the child in the safe went nuclear!

She had been one of the main organizers of the event and all the fussing and preparation for the big ceremony paled to the agony of this mother as she stood on the outside of the safe in hysterical horror. As it turned out, the safe had not locked. All it took was a screwdriver and a few minutes to nudge the heavy door open.

What I observed was a mother who was instantly reminded of what was really important in her life. Love of her child. Organizing the event, which I’m sure had consumed much of her time, was insignificant compared to her child’s life in that moment.

2. JOY

So, you want to get organized at home, but you have stuff to do that you don’t want to do it. What’s that all about? I think I might have the answer and with a little bit of help from a friend, I have a 4-step solution for you.

A Little Help from a Friend

This week, I talked to a very funny woman and she was so inspirational, I just had to share her humor and wisdom with you when it comes to being a procrastinator.

Kristina is my Zumba teacher and has agreed to do a series of fun and lively

exercise videos for my Club Organized website. She’s just adorable and so inspiring when it comes to getting herself to take care of things she tends to put off.

Kristina is an amazing ball of fire! Her personal story is compelling. (I keep telling her she has to write a book.) She weighed almost 200 pounds on her 40^th birthday and when she saw the photos from her party, those pictures were the turning point for her. She told me that although she was grinning and looking happy in those photos, she was miserable and she decided to do something about it.

I’ve known her for four years and my guess is she weighs about 120 pounds. I can’t imagine her being 200 pounds, but she has the photos to prove it! She loves to show them to her classes, inspiring women to get fit and be healthy.

When we talked the other day, she told me about her problem with procrastination and how she’s solving it. Although she hasn’t read my books she knows about my inner child Nelly. She hasn’t gotten around to naming her inner child but she’s sure she has one and hers is rebellious and loves to play! She told me she came up with a plan which is really working and it involves her inner child.

Kristina’s Four-Step Plan for Procrastinators

Are you always looking for ways to lose weight and keep it off? To really lose weight you have to change your lifestyle (especially if overeating is part of it).

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.

Sit back, watch the video, then go pick some wild blackberries (if they live by you) and whip up this special treat!

If you want to fully enjoy your life, you might want to eliminate a few things that could be getting in the way of your joy. I call them happiness sappers and with just a few changes you'll eliminate stress and be on your way to the joy you were born to experience.

1. News: News is just official gossip. My definition of an investigative reporter is: an authorized, nosey gossip. I stopped watching or listening to the news after 9/11. I figure Terry, who was a television reporter, will inform me if I need to pack up and head for the hills.

2. Gossip: Since I’ve cut out the official gossip, why would I want to indulge in any unofficial info? 

3. Calendar that’s too small: A big happiness sapper is having a calendar that’s so small you can’t read your personal shorthand. “3pmTk grm Dr. rmb t tk nts.” A month later when you're trying to figure out what the heck you’re supposed to be doing on that day, chances are you'll never figure out you're supposed to take Grandma to the doctor at 3 p.m. and you need to take notes. Say goodbye to little-squared happiness sappers.

After Party Meltdowns

Part of training children is dealing with APM. It can happen after a party, a special holiday or any overindulgence. I’ve seen it played out in all three of my kids and all 12 of our grandchildren. Child psychologists call it over stimulation.

I remember being in the back seat of our Ford family car and coming home from a glorious day at the circus. My sister and I were decked out in new matching dresses and new shoes we’d got just for the special outing and we started fighting over whose circus program was whose (even though they were identical).

The battle triggered a rash of admonishments from both of our parents in the front seat. Dad was first, “Girls, knock off the bickering or I’m gonna stop the car and take the programs away!” Mom chimed in, “I can’t believe you girls are fighting after all we’ve done for you today. Here we take you to the circus, you got brand new matching dresses and new shoes and we let you have hot dogs and Cokes and souvenirs and you’ve been fighting ever since we got in the car!” I recall feeling ashamed.

APM tends to go into remission as children mature, but the potential for its reoccurrence remains even into adulthood and it sneaks out in adults in subtle ways but it’s no more attractive than the episodes children display.

APM can start with just an, “is-that-all-there-is” feeling. It can emerge as a vacation winds down, as we drive in the driveway with a cranky knowing of what was put off in order to have the fun. It can appear in the form of the “full” feeling after a feast, or the frustration of receiving credit card statements in January reflecting the joy of holiday purchases. Acquisition is fun! Maintenance sucks and so do the bills that follow it.

Saving money was never this easy! Carving up a whole chicken instead of buying those pricey parts is what you'll learn how to do in this new video. 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 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......

I was thinking about fortune cookies this morning and it tickles me how we all love to open them! I closed my eyes and imagined holding both ends of one and snapping its little, carbohydrate back into two pieces, exposing the secret note written especially for me. I’m not sure why I find such delight in reading those messages, but I always do.

I don’t think I’ve ever eaten with a group of friends in a Chinese restaurant when we didn’t read and share our fortunes with each other. And why is it, there’s always someone who brings up the rather off-color comment of reading their note and adding the words: between the sheets, to illicit a semi-porny edge to the innocent words? (It’s a tradition I hope our younger generation hasn’t been stuck with.)

Fortune Cookie Delegation

Because the whole fortune cookie concept is universally enjoyed, I decided we could take it and expand on it in the realm of delegating housework.

You could get a box of fcs and replace their notes with jobs to do, like vacuum the living room, dust the family room, wash, dry, fold put away a load of clothes, but I’ve got an easier way, and besides, I use that idea for giving money to grandkids on their birthdays and such. (At the end of the blog, I promise to tell you how to open a fortune cookie without breaking it and how to exchange the note with money.)

My husband, Terry and I took a road trip to the Oregon Coast for our anniversary a couple of years ago and while he was driving I suggested we play a gratitude game. 

“Is this gonna be some lady’s magazine deal?”  he asked with a sense of apprehension.

“No, I’ve been reading Deborah Norvel’s book on the power of being thankful.”

“So Deborah told you to do this?”

“Nope, I thought this game up all by myself. In fact it'd be a great family game.”

“Okay, what do I do?” 

“So, I’ll tell you something I’m grateful for about you and then it’ll be your turn and you have to tell me something you’re grateful for about me and the guy who can’t think of something loses and the other guy wins.”

“What’ll he win?”

“He’ll get taken out to dinner when we get to the beach.”

We probably traded 15 thankful comments with each other and what was very interesting to me was how much I loved hearing his comments for me and I couldn’t wait for the next one. 

I was telling Marla, the Flylady, about the game and she suggested we play it with our inner child. So I had a session with Nelly (she’s my inner child, in case you don’t know). Here’s what happened.