My Aunt Tottie was extremely disorganized and she was also very dramatic! My mother was a BO (Born Organized) and she used to roll her eyes over the way Aunt Tottie lived.

For instance, she was a lousy housekeeper, wore baggy clothes day in and day out, and rarely put on make-up, BUT when she did get cleaned up, she was a KNOCK OUT. Mom said when they were young; Aunt Tottie would get all gussied up to go out dancing and she’d make an entrance that would drop jaws.

One time when she and my mom were teenagers, hanging out at Aunt Totties', the future Uncle John dropped by unexpectedly and Aunt Tottie was still in her nightgown (it was five in the evening). Her hair hadn't been washed so it was greasy and she raced to her room so Uncle John wouldn't see her. Ten minutes later she came down the stairs in a cute summer dress and she'd wrapped a colorful silk scarf on her head like a turban. Mom said she looked just like Lauren Bacall. (Oh, and Uncle John looked just like Henry Fonda.)

My aunt loved to get a reaction from BOs like my mom. I remember one time; watching her in her messy kitchen, make orange juice from a can of frozen concentrate while she talked with my mom. She couldn’t find a clean spoon to stir the three cans of water into the orange lump of concentrate, so she just stuck her whole hand into the pitcher and stirred with it. My mother was horrified.

 Set your intention to be happy regardless of your circumstances.

Maybe the guy who invented the thermostat got the idea from his own emotional meter. Instead of temperatures imagine words on a meter with emotions like miserable, overwhelmed, worried, desperate, optimistic, hopeful, happy, and blissful. 

When you think about the happy people you know, does one of the attributes, they seem to have in common, a wonderful outlook on life. Happy people seem to have an emotional meter that’s programmed for joy and contentment no matter what happens to them. Unfortunately many of us have meters set on negative emotions, but we can always reprogram them for happy by deciding to practice being joyful regardless of the forces outside of us. What’s interesting about setting an intention of being happy all the time, is when something pulls you from that place you know it and you can kick in and put yourself back on happy. Abraham Lincoln said: “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Is your meter properly adjusted?

Do you love your county fair?

Have you been going to the fair since you were a child? If you live outside the city, is there something in the air that tugs at your fair heart strings? What is it that you first think of when you think of the fair? The animals? The Ferris Wheel? The food?

There's a booth at the Clark County Fair in Ridgefield, Washington that's run by the "church ladies." They draw some of the longest lines, because the pies are homemade, fresh daily and delicious! Once you have a piece of the church ladies' pie, the memory stays with you forever! 

I love the Clark County fair and have been going to it since I was nine-years-old when we moved to the country.

Every summer, my parents used the fair as an enticement, with a list of extra chores I could do to make money for the rides, and trying to win stuffed animals and other must-have stuff kids want when they try to toss a poker chip onto a plate and have it stay there.

I don’t do the rides anymore, but I still love to watch others spin, scream, wave and occasionally puke up corn dog mixed with cotton candy. 

Stop Watching the News if it's Upsetting You!

If you stopped watching the news could you be happy for it?

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 be (if we choose) 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's 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's 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.

All Kids Need Attention 

My reason for getting organized way back in 1977 was so that I’d have more free time to play with my family. I wasn’t having that much fun in my chosen career as a homemaker and it was mainly because of my disorganization and the messes it created. I knew that my attitude had to change about my life as a wife, mother and homemaker and once I nailed the reason to make the effort to change, everything fell into place (but not overnight).

I met Nelly, (my inner child; that part of me that’s about nine-years-old), in 2002 and in that meeting I realized she was behind my reason to get organized 25 years earlier. Over the last decade I’ve grown to adore her “take” on life. I see myself as her parent, always needing to monitor her thoughts and guide her into cooperating with all my “adult” plans and rules.

We just got back from a cruise with 3,000 passengers. I did a lot of people watching and I saw many well-behaved children and a few who were out of control. In every instance, I noticed that back of every child was a parent with either good or bad parenting skills. The well-behaved children stood quietly in lines at the buffets and the out of control children (they always stick out more) were always issued a variety of useless directives.

We were in line behind Jason (about six-years-old) and his parents and sister Becky (about four) and we watched him hit his sister when the parents weren’t looking, tug on his father’s shirt, kick his mother’s purse and sag to the floor several times in the five minutes we were in line.

But what about the Inner Child?

SHEs are passionate!

SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) are passionate people. There's nothing more true than this statement. Have you ever met a real SHE that isn’t? 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. 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 worth a try! 

You were probably thinking, when you read the title of this blog, that I was writing about drinking gin.

Well, this blog is about the card game called gin rummy. (Incidentally, this is my husband in his winning costume when we went to a Halloween party as Dow and Jones, during the stock market scare.)

Okay, I’m not a marriage counselor so I probably shouldn’t be going around giving advice to married couples, especially since I’m on my second marriage and so is my husband, but the idea of letting a little gin improve your marriage is really a good one, at least for Terry and me and I thought I’d share with you why it is.

You probably should know that Terry is a workaholic because that’s one of the reasons I came up with this idea in the first place. He’s never without his cell phone or IPAD and he looks at weekends as catch up days to finish all the work he didn’t accomplish during the week because of overbooking. It seems when each day comes to an end, his “to do” list is longer because for every task he crosses off, he adds a couple more jobs.

I don’t think guys like tricks played on them.

by Judith Robinson

Before you read Judith's insightful and entertaining blog I want to thank her for contributing such classy writing! She's a SHE (Sidetracked Home executive) complete with a brilliant mind and humility that doesn't always go with one so talented. Just a note: the photo is not of Judith's 40-year-old, (she has three daughters) but of my son Michael at his 40th birthday party. Yeah, I made the hat complete with 40, one-dollar bills (you can see how thrilled he is with his gift). Michael turned 50 this February and like Judith, I've needed parenting books for all my adult children as they continue to grow and change. When were we told that once we're moms we're always moms?

What to Expect When Your Child Turns Forty

by Judith Robinson

That’s the book I’d like to see! 

There’s no shortage of parenting advice for that prenatal crowd. Bookstore shelves are packed with parenting advisers of every ilk. Don’t want to let the baby cry 'till she gives up? Keep looking. Next shelf down it’s nature’s way all the way: family bed, wearable cradles. He’ll never cry. From Dr. Sears to Dr. Roebuck they’ve got all the answers, and they are as different as pink is from blue. 

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.

The Flood of 2014 - Water ALWAYS wins