SHEs are passionate!

In this Young@ Heart article and video, I wrote about how passionate we SHEs are and how it serves us well.

There is nothing more true than this statement: SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are passionate people. It’s true. We are! I’ve never met a real SHE that isn’t. Can you imagine Flylady or Kelly as passionless? Not in a million years! Oh! and we like to use exclamation marks too! One of my longtime SHE friends LouAnn was one of my guinea pigs for my Weight Loss book, The Mouth Trap: the butt stops here!

She reported to me:

“Who knows, maybe my “passion” for eating is a package deal with my “passion” for other things in life—a passion I would never want to be without. Somehow, I need to trust in the wisdom and love of my Creator to know this was the perfect “problem” for me and be thankful for it. I will never quit trying to look my best and take these pounds off, but I’m going to quit pretending I can do so without suffering.

I cannot. So, I’ve decided to turn this suffering into a prayer for others who are facing something worse. My neighbor works at Ronald McDonald House and has no shortage of stories about suffering far worse than a weight problem. I don’t have a child going into surgery today—but somebody does. My transmission is working—but somebody’s just went out—on the freeway.

So for today, I’m going to think about how wonderful it will feel to wear my “skinny jeans” again and go fill up on steamed cauliflower. I’m starved and lunch is not for another two hours and that’s the pits. But, guess what else I get to do? I get to go hug my two healthy girls in the next room. Zero calories. I’ll take it.”

It's Never Too Late to Change

A woman wrote that she'd been married for 25 years. Her husband had cheated on her more than once and she'd “lost” herself and hardly recognized her home or her person.

It's never too late to change your life! This woman had successfully raised two happy sons and worrying about what her husband did and not focusing on what she was doing could very well have given him (in his dishonest mind) a good excuse for the affairs. Focusing on getting her act together, could erase that excuse and down the road, he'd wonder what happened.

When someone is unfaithful it's his/her problem. It’s only OUR problem if we make it ours.

Have you had it?

That’s how you can feel living in a disorganized lifestyle. It's like living in a continual storm. When you hit bottom with words like the declarations above, you're in the perfect place to change. Someone said, “The bottom is a great place to be because there’s nowhere to go but up.” Not until you hit bottom can you surrender to your situation and ask for the guidance that’s available 24/7. That’s when miracles happen. In that moment of surrender you'll be reminded that even though you're in a mess, you're in the right place with the right people and the timing is right. The only element you lack is direction.

DIRECTION! You can deal with that! Direction involves choices! You just need a map to follow and you'll be fine! For me it was the 3x5 card file system my sister and I came up with and became known as The Slob Sisters.

When my sister and I had had it with our home organization skills, that’s the first time we considered the word “direction” in reference to our problem. We weren’t lazy? Come to think of it, we worked harder than those BOs (Born Organized) who refuse to make work for themselves by being disorganized.

I knew I wasn't crazy? I'd been able to maintain a high level of creativity within my messy lifestyle, have three happy children, continually adjust to the personality of a very unhappy mate and remain stable.

I wasn’t stupid? Come to think of it, NO! I was very smart though my disorganized habits sabotaged my schooling so my grades didn’t reflect my intellect.

So I wasn’t lazy, crazy or stupid even though my messy life could certainly have made it look that way. When I look back on the way I used to live, the only question I have today is, “What was I thinking?”

As Carolyn Myss would say, “If I can talk Angel 101 to you for a moment, consider this.” Let’s pretend I'm one of your guardian angels and you have prayed to get organized. I've been assigned to work your case. I love the assignment because I’ve always loved you and to work with you personally in an answer to your prayer, is exciting to me!

Your Angel is With You

Be Happy Now!

It takes practice living every moment of now and being content with it. Yes there are troublesome experiences, but the key is not to be troubled. Can you think of an adult that lives this way? 

For most of us, life seems to whiz by and before we know it another day, week, month, season, year has passed and we know we've missed a lot because we were thinking about the past or the future. 

It's time to be happy NOW, not when our circumstances are different!

When you deepen your relationship with YOU and take the time to look at yourself with new eyes every day and truly honor the holiness within you, your circumstances change in beautiful ways. Your problems give you an opportunity to learn to know yourself better. So, whether you're living in a mess at home, in a relationship that's frustrating, feeling a financial crunch, in a body that weighs too much or all of the above, let solving your problems start with going within in gratitude for your life (the only one you've been given) and sensing the truth that you're not alone and all is well.

Self-improvement is a lifetime path, but it's a pursuit that doesn't lead to a place where everything is perfect. When you reach what you thought was your final destination, you'll find that you have farther to go. Yippee skippee for that! Think about how fun it is to "want" something you "know" you'll receive. Don't you think that's why it's so fun to fall in love? You want that person and you know you're going to get him because he wants you too. Then you get him. (That's fun too, but never as fun as the getting part.)

You love teachers that let you know in a loving way that having what you want is doable. Having a home free of clutter and confusion is doable. If my sister and I could get organized so can you. Because we got organized that can give you hope. Get excited about the possibility. I can tell you, when you get organized and your home is peaceful, clutter-free and an oasis from the hectic world, it will just be a platform for you to do and be more.

A wonderful gift: YOU!

My Declaration of Independence

It was 2 am and I sat sniveling in my pajamas at my computer. I had decided to call my sister in the morning before our families got together for the fourth of July festivities and tell her I would not be writing a "humorous" book about organizing household finances with her.

The reason was simple; I had no business telling anyone what to do when it came to money. At the not-so-tender age of 59 I had no retirement, no savings and I was $26,000.00 in credit card debt! The book we were to write together would absolutely get me out of debt, but my ethics would not allow me to be part of a lie. No way could I write a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do book.

That was July 4, 2002 and one of those major pivotal moments in my life. I know how George Bailey in the movie It's A Wonderful Life, felt standing on the bridge contemplating suicide although I was never even close to doing that, I sent out a major request, "Help me God, help me."

Breezes from God

God breezes can come in strange ways. My God breeze came in the form of a question.

Water!

A couple of years ago when we had just returned from a much needed vacation, we were greeted by one of our worst nightmares. Coming home with two suitcases filled with damp and smelly clothes from being in the tropics for two weeks had kept my mind focused on a marathon laundry session. There’s nothing worse than a tropical Mt. Washmore!

Walking into our home after being gone so long is always a joy to me. I love my home and I couldn’t wait to cook (after I booted up the washing machine). It’s fun to go on vacation and eat in restaurants, but for a cook-at-heart, there’s nothing like playing in the kitchen when you’ve been gone a while. Before we had had a chance to empty our suitcases I’d headed for the sink, with some vegetables to wash while Terry prepared the Weber to barbeque some hamburgers. “Hi you shiny sink!” I said in a tone I use for only my best friends.

I turned the handle to the faucet and it said, “spokusssh quut, quut, spitchhosssssh schpauchhossssh.” (That’s Faucet for “There’s no water!”)

August 2012

Fat Head!

When my husband Terry and I decided to change what we eat and that diet was going to go against both our physicians who promote a low fat, high carbohydrate diet, I searched out a physician in my area by using Jimmy Moore’s list of low carb docs www.livinlavidalowcarb.com.

Thanks to Jimmy, I found Dr. Ann Childers a child psychiatrist who also works with people like me who need encouragement and knowledge that we are doing the right thing, even though it’s against what the mainstream medical community tells us is right. I’ve said this before, “we’ve been told what’s wrong to eat is right for so long that when we hear what’s right to eat it sounds wrong.”

It was scary at first to eat chicken with the skin on, steak with the fat on, to cook with lard and have four eggs a day if I want to. At first I couldn’t believe I could eat butter, sour cream and mayonnaise (up to four tablespoons each a day) and to shun anything with a “low in calorie” or “low fat” label! The thing I discovered, using my own body as an experiment, was I am so much healthier today than I was a year ago. The list of changes is so long I’d bore you to list them.

Fat Head is a documentary about what’s wrong with what we’ve been told is the healthy way to eat. I interviewed Tom Naughton who produced and starred in it. We were on a cruise together and he was kind enough to give me an hour of his time. (His interview will be on my Make it Fun website very soon.) If you haven’t seen Fat Head and you’re interested in learning more about all the fuss you keep hearing about low carb this and low carb that, it’s available on his website (www.fathead-movie.com). You can also purchase it on Amazon, but if you want to rent it, it’s available through Netflix.

I wrote about the challenge of summer without sugar in this Young@Heart article and video.

Happy Father's Day all you Happy Fathers!

I give a tribute to all the happy fathers including my own lovable dad.

What's the first thing you think of when you think of your father? When I think of mine, I think of his smile. He was so in love with Mom, Peggy and me that he seemed to always have a happy face. If you read Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, you know that we got the disorganized gene from Dad. He threatened to sue us for defamation of character, but of course he was joking and if he really had intended to take us to court, he'd never have gotten around to it.

My dad worked hard delivering gas to farmers who had big tanks to supply their farm equipment. He was so loved by his customers there was hardly a day he didn't come home in his big Standard Oil tank truck without a few treasures. In the summer it'd be produce. We never needed a garden as we were kept stocked in every kind of fruit and vegetable known to Dr. Oz. Sometimes he'd bring home packages of beef, chickens or turkeys and other times jams, jellies, cakes or cookies.

My Dad was The Best Dad

He loved to hunt and fish and because part of one of the farms was Bachelor's Island, a duck hunter's heaven in the Columbia River, he was given the privilege of hunting ducks and geese. Being an excellent shot (Mom said her had the eye of an eagle) our freezer was stocked with wild fish and game. To this day I love the taste of wild goose and Chinook salmon.

In today's Young@Heart article and video I honor the unrecognized service of mothers. I think we moms should get Maternity Awards!