Are you a day dreamer? Do you like to imagine yourself going to exotic places? Do you love to look at magazines and dream of wearing fancy clothes and jewelry? When you watch movies do you like to look at the back drops and what the characters are wearing and eating and the cars they're driving? Isn't it fun to imagine what it'd be like to be wealthy or slim? Be sure to have day dreaming as part of your daily routine.
We SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are creative, so we spend a lot of time thinking about what it'd be like if....this or that happened. We're really good at visualizing what we want and our lives reflect much of what was in the begining, just a dream. When I was young I dreamed of living in a cozy, happy home on a high hill in the country. I dreamed it into reality, but it took 30 years, but you know how time flies.
If you've had some of your dreams not come true, maybe it's time to change the dream to fit who you are now.
When I was young, Granny used to take my sister and me shopping in downtown Portland, Oregon. We’d catch the Greyhound bus out on the highway, (Granny didn’t drive), and it’d be an all-day outing. On the way home, the bus route always took us past an incredible, grand old theater (the kind people like the Daughters of the American Revolution fight to restore). It had a huge marquis with a gigantic depiction of Mighty Mouse and millions of brilliant lights flashing out the word, “THE BLUE MOUSE.”
It left us spellbound; but we were always tired and on our way home, so we couldn’t stop. Granny would say, “Next time we come to Portland we’re gonna go straight to The Blue Mouse and shop afterward.” The three of us pictured a non-stop medley of Walt Disney features: Pinocchio, Snow White, and Bambi, one right after the other. It would be an animated festival interrupted only briefly by Sylvester & Tweetie. I dreamed about it. I told Mom I was going. I saved for it. I waited, and waited and waited.
Eventually, next time turned to someday. I still thought about it, but not as often. And every once-in-awhile Granny would say, “We’ve got to go to The Blue Mouse!” Years passed. Granny’s feet were bothering her, so just my sister and I went shopping in Portland. We were both licensed drivers by then.
“Wanna go to The Blue Mouse?”
“No, I’ve got a date tonight.”
“You wanna just drive by it?”
“Sure, what street’s it on?”
“It’s right after the bus depot and just past Mannings.”
We saw the flashing lights in the distance. Maybe we could spare the time. As we got closer the lights caught less of our attention than the people lying on the sidewalk.
“Sissy, lock your door!”
The Blue Mouse had become an X-rated adult theater. Next door was a topless bar and a tattoo parlor. Across the street was a bookstore with black windows and a pawn shop boasting, Diamonds-Tackle-Guns. We were devastated. At what point did Pollyanna give way to Linda Lovelace? Granny never knew. We couldn’t spoil it for her. It was a beautiful dream and we heard her tell our children, “Someday, I’ll have your mom take us all over to The Blue Mouse.”
Maybe there’s a Blue Mouse in your life; something you’ve always wanted to do, or be or have and it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe you can take a little time just for the fun of it and re-examine your dreams. Maybe you’ve outgrown some of them.
If you've heard yourself making the same promise to get organized over and over again, maybe you really don’t want to. Maybe you’ve allowed other people, television, magazines and movies to cause you to want things perfect and in your optimism, you were not realistic and you over dosed on the concept of getting organized.
With Autumn in the air it sends a message that it's time to change. We can change if we do it gradually. That's why my sister and I used 3x5 index cards to get organized. Each card is a baby step. You get in the habit of filing each card once you've done the task on the card.
Right now, pick one thing you would like to change. It could be something as simple as "start walking every day." Write WALK on a 3x5 card and add it to the file, if your household chores are on cards and filed for the days of the month. Change takes place so gradually that we hardly notice and can even feel nothing is happening. Be patient. How many times have you said, "Time flies!" What a parodox. Change is gradual as time flies.
Don't let getting organized be your Blue Mouse dream, but you can change the dream to please you. Enjoy who you are, what you're doing, where you live and who you’re with.
Read about my Aunt Tottie, who was extremely disorganized, but lead a happy successful life. Just click on her.
If you want to get organized just enough to please you, please read The Joy of Being Disorganized. It has a simplified version of the 3x5 card file system in it.