Hello Everybody,

Do you dream about traveling to exotic places? Do you ache to see famous points of interest like the Eiffel Tower, the Tahj Mahal or to meet Michael Angelo's David even though he's naked? When you hear about a friend or neighbor getting to go on a cruise or spending time in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Hawaii or just about anywhere short of North Korea, do you find yourself craving to go and feeling bad because you can’t? Do your travel dreams get squashed because of your workload, lack of money, too many kids to take along or a bunch of other reasons?

Mom always wanted to travel when my sister Peggy and I were growing up, but we never got to go very far because we didn’t have the money and Dad couldn’t take time off from work. But that didn’t stop Mom from planning! Bless her little, organized heart; she subscribed to “Holiday Magazine,” a glitzy periodical for the rich (and we weren’t)! It even looked and felt expensive because it was in full color and heavy because every page was almost as thick as the slick cover. Also, it was filled with lots of ads for diamond jewelry and fancy cars in addition to the places it urged us to go. Mom plotted out trips complete with itineraries, destinations for dining, recreation, accommodations and such, and collected them all in her cherished box of travel dreams; her version of a bucket list, where they all waited for the day they’d take us away. We never went.

Just Another Day in a Basic Week Plan

                but a Very Valuable One...Planning Day

Do you have a certain day each week that you take care of items on this list?

• pay bills
• answer mail
• write thank you notes
• make appointments
• organize your office (filing paperwork etc.)
• do bookwork
• plan fun outings

How would you feel, if all those important elements of your life were organized on a weekly basis?

When you are organized, you are on top of everything from the boring stuff you tend to put off to the fun of not missing out on events that are on certain dates. How many times have you missed out, because you didn’t plan it?

On my Planning Day, my husband and I coordinate calendars so we know about each other’s commitments, if they affect us. I spend from two to five hours on that list above. My Planning Day has developed into a very contemplative day.

For instance, when I pay my bills, I focus on how grateful I am to have the services and objects in my life that make it such a wonderful life. When I write my weeks’ worth of thank you notes, I think about each person I’m thanking and I visualize each one being happy and content. When I file paperwork, I am grateful for the organizing tools at our disposal that make it so easy to be organized. Being organized doesn’t cramp your spontaneity; it sets the stage for you to be even more creative.

When you claim a specific day of the week to plan, and then you stick to that regularly, you’ll begin to see that you can actually set aside tasks that fit into your weekly work schedule. In other words, you can have a pile of papers to file once a week if you’ll do it. You can add to a list of people to thank, if you’ll really do it once a week. It’s only when you don’t do what you’ve piled up for the week, that’ll you get into trouble.

21 Days to establish a habit

Do you remember seeing Pam & Peggy on television? Every once in awhile we like to share with you some of the highlights Pam and her sister enjoyed with their television friends.They appeared on just about every major program whether nationwide or on TV in the largest cities: Oprah, Donohue, Mike and Maty, The Home Show, Regis (17 times), and Geraldo.

"lt's so much fun to have an audience roaring in laughter. It's even more fun when the host doesn't know where we're going next."

This short video from the Will Shriner show is a perfect example. 

                                       We hope you enjoy it.

What if when you said, "I do," you really knew how much had to be done? Maybe you should have said, "I do, sometimes." Did you know that if you are disorganized you’ve done way more work than an organized person who said “I do?” Ask any BO (Born Organized) person why they’re organized and one of their main reasons is that they’re lazy! One BO told me, “I’m basically lazy and I’m not willing to leave the kitchen a mess after a meal because it takes twice as long to wash off food that’s dried on plates, silverware, pots and pans and counters. I know exact times because I have a stop watch and I’ve timed both clean-ups! Twice as long when you put it off.” 

Just think, if you’d been a BO from the time you said, “I do,” until now, you’d have had twice as much time to play! But who wants to be a BO? Not me!

What if you were organized right now? What if your garage looked like an advertisement for storage cabinets for a garage? What if you were ready for back to school right now? What if you were debt free? What if you weighed what you weighed in high school? 

"Where's a magic wand when you need one?"

When the Cleaner Guy is not focused on house cleaning and making non-toxic cleaning products, he practices law. Please pay close attention to this lawyer when he tells you where NOT to use Vodka as a cleaning and disinfecting agent.

Enjoy the video.

My book The Joy of Being Disorganized is the first book I’ve written that makes a great gift!

I believe there are 10 SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executive) to every BO (Born Organized) and I wrote this book to celebrate our SHEness!

There’s a modified 3x5 get organized system in it that'll really help you get help from your family. Here’s what Allison, a successful banker, had to say:

Dear Pam,

Thank you for writing The Joy of Being Disorganized. I’m a successful banker and am organized at work, because there are systems in place and I handle my staff with understanding, patience and support. But my home has been another story. Somehow, I let my disorganization at home undermine my self-esteem. I didn’t even know I was doing that, until I read your book. What a wake-up call for you to tell me to celebrate my disorder! And how could that possible help me get my home organized? All I can say is that it was a shift in energy!

Back in 1929 when the stock market crashed, we didn’t have CNN or FOX or news or the Internet. Our grandparents (or great grandparents in some cases) didn’t get over-fed the news 24-7. They got a newspaper once a day (maybe) and they listened to the radio (maybe).

Because of this age of information we can (if we choose) be bombarded with bad news because the access is as close as our finger on the clicker or the mouse on our computer. It’s one thing to be aware of what is going on in the world, our country and our community, but it’s quite another to watch the reruns and regurgitated opinions of “the experts” as they re-hash the re-runs while we click to another channel to watch the news covered from a different camera angle.

The GOOD NEWS is that to the media, the only newsworthy material is what is negative AND sensational. Dog Bites Man, is not “news.” Man Bites Dog (and don’t forget to put music behind the story) is. (I learned that from my journalist husband.) It is the extraordinary that makes “the news.” So most everything you see on the news is unusual and extraordinary. IT IS NOT THE NORM. But we in our naivety (or stupidity) allow our sweet minds to watch what happened not once but on the hour until the next day when the next batch of bad news is ready. How many times do you have to watch the bank robber caught on tape? Isn’t once enough?

We cause ourselves needless suffering

I know we’re human and most of us are naturally curious about bad news.

When you were young, did you try to get answers from daisies by ripping off the petals and saying, “He loves me, he loves me not?” Maiming daisies for answers seems a little cruel but there's another way. Have you ever asked a question and gone to a random book, on a random page for the answer? If you've never done it you don't know what you're missing. 

Right now, I’m waiting to hear whether my project is going forward or not. My patience is being tested, because I’m excited to know. So I picked up a book, I’ve been currently re-reading entitled, Think and Grow Rich, which I’ve had in my library since 1968. I opened the book randomly, to a page and closed my eyes and pointed to a place on one of the pages. This is what it said: Faith removes limitations! Remember this when you are ready to bargain with Life for whatever it is that you ask as your price for having passed this way. Without telling you what the news is about, I will say that these words fit perfectly (which is almost always what happens when I do this) with what I’m waiting to hear.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King

When you read that quote by King, can you imagined yourself at a staircase? Would that first step in your imagination see you going up or going down?

I posed this question in 2015 to my blog subscribers just because I was curious. It really doesn’t matter because it’s a metaphor for stepping out on a mission in faith. I spent that entire morning (after I posted the question) fielding the responses and out of more than 100 who responded only three of us picture that first step going down.

You may say I need to “get a life” spending time on this, but I was really interested in the age of people and what they thought. One of the “downers” was 37 years of age and the range in age for the “uppers” was between 28 and 72. There were so many thoughtful responses I'd like to share some of them with you. I really didn’t think it was going to be that interesting, but it sure was! I’ll tell you at the end why I think I envision going down the staircase instead of up.

Martie said:

Because this blog has nothing to do with how to get organized, and everything to do with having fun and relaxing, there's a habit to establish at the end for those who want the organizing kind of information today.

Being organized has many facets and one of those is one we SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are familiar with because it has to do with our creativity. Besides having fun comes naturally, although it can be squelched by overloaded work to be done.

When we’re organized, we make time to have fun on a routine basis. SHEs who get organized get to play way more than SHEs who are disorganized. BOs (born organized) have a hard time playing in the first place, because there’s always work to be done.

We SHEs are creative and it’s that creativity that recharges our energy, just like a good nap does. My youngest daughter, Joanna, has found a wonderful way to relax and play with her artistic gift. 

It all started with a Face Book page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1194501230583751/ and this comment on the page: