It's January 29, 2019!

Since I write for food, I’m generally not inclined to sit down and write about my husband and me in a Christmas letter to friends and relatives, but this last Christmas I did receive a couple of those brag sheet newsletters that inspired me to write a little about what's going on with Terry and me, not for a Christmas letter but to let my internet sisters in on a recent life-changing event...our great grandson Cassius. 

With the birth of this true bundle of joy last August, I've had such a fresh new perspective. For one thing, I probably won’t get to see him into his twenties, mainly because I don’t plan to be dragging myself around, slobbering all over myself and everybody else at 100. So every visit I have with him is monumental.

This pic was taken Christmas morning. As I look at my daughter Joanna who is the grandma, I see where I was when McKenzie, Cashy's mom, was born. The older we get, a higher view of life is given to us. That better view is primarily available to older souls, but it doesn’t have to be. No matter where any of us has been, all we really have is now and we can experience now from any height we want. When we start giving “now” the power it holds, we get to experience the lusciousness of life moment-to-moment.

In addition to being mindful of now, I'm enjoying winding down! The term “winding down” certainly doesn’t (and shouldn’t) resonate with you “youngin’s” and won’t for another 30 or 40 years. Now this isn’t a warning, it’s just the truth, your next 40 years is going to sling you like a stone snapped through a really good slingshot, and when you land, you’ll be ready to wind down. My prayer for you younger women is to enjoy the snapping. For those of you who are around my age enjoy the winding down.

For everyone, no matter what age, stay mindful as often as you can even when you’re doing something as uneventful as grocery shopping or paying bills. Of course if you do anything expecting to have fun you always do. Have you ever noticed when you feel rushed, stressed, angry, frustrated or worried you take that little cloud with you like Linus in Charlie Brown?

The other day I was frustrated with our internet connection and I decided to leave the house and go to the store. Unfortunately I took the internet aggravation cloud with me and my trip to the store was one frustration after another. From a tantrum-throwing child, whining candy off the shelf at checkout to the store being out of stock on several items on my list, to a cranky and rude check-out clerk, I was bounced from one frustration to another. Just like my advice in “Sidetracked Home Executives,” “Check your hands before you leave a room so you don’t migrate clutter,” check your attitude before you start a new activity so you don’t carry bad vibes from activity to activity.

The Clarence Method 

Some days you’ll be like a car on cruise control and you’ll be happy and positive all day, but some days you can seem to fall out of bed on the wrong side and if you don’t catch yourself you can ruin a perfectly wonderful day. One great way to snap yourself out of a funk is to think of something nice to do for someone else. I call it the Clarence Method. Clarence, George Bailey’s guardian angel in the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life" discovered that secret and saved George from committing suicide by jumping into the freezing water so George would save him.

What could you do right now that would lighten someone's day? A phone call? A smile? An anonymous gift? A quick text to someone saying something nice. Have fun with this.

When I got organized 42 years ago, one of the perks was not missing special dates like birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas. I quit having to send the belated cards and I even caught up on thank you notes that in some cases were decades old. If you have made the decision to get organized in 2019 I recommend trying the 3x5 cardfile system hundreds of thousands have used successfully. It's available as a download or a combo of a CD and DVD. 

 Thank you for reading my blog. I hope you'll share it and I'd love to hear from you.

Love,

Pam

PS Here's a blog about writing belated thank you notes. 

https://blog.cluborganized.com/is-it-time-to-write-those-thank-you-notes