A few years ago, we took a vacation I’ll never forget.

          During that vacation, I took the six days off from the 21st century and never once looked at a computer. I didn’t answer anyone’s emails or write my weekly blogs for the last week of the month we were in. I just lived in what I’ll call a techless world. Yes, I was party to using the GPS while we “Yelped” our way around San Diego and yeah, once I talked on Terry’s cell phone. Oh and yes, I used the computer timer on the oven in our condo we lived in for a week, but the rest of the time I enjoyed the real world right in front of me

          One of the highlights of the respite was having lunch with one of Terry’s professors from WSU. Mr. Mott made a profound and lasting impression on my husband. (Thank you Mr. Mott.) Terry has so much respect for the man he can’t bring himself to call him Robert or, God forbid, Bob. Mr. Mott and his wife Edie are in their nineties and both sharp mentally, mobile and healthy.

Guests of Marla and Robert

We spent that vacation as guests of Flylady and her husband Robert. There were times when I felt a little like a beloved family dog. Marla, Robert and Terry spent a great deal of our living room time on their thingamajigs of choice, while I sat and talked to myself, read a little, wrote on a yellow pad and played "retro" Solitaire. (That’s a game you play with a standard deck of real playing cards, dealt onto a real table.)

Did you know the Easter Bunny is going low-carb?

It may not look that way at Walmart, but it’s true. As an alternative to candy, he’s filling the hollow eggs with notes of appreciation, motivation and inspiration and you can do it too.

You know how we all love fortune cookies, well your kids will love hunting for eggs and getting note-after-note of encouragement, fun activities and surprises in the eggs they find.

Your dentist will be happy too! (Well, we hope so anyway.)

Here’s the list we got from the Big Bunny.

        This coupon is good for a foot rub.
        This coupon is good for a back rub.
        This note is good for one download at iTunes.
        This coupon is good for a book, next time we go shopping.
        Your laughter makes us happy.

Easter is April 16 this year!

As we come together to celebrate the awesome miracle of Jesus's Resurrection, the sugar manufacturers have, once again, given us very colorful reminders (if we can make that mental leap) to remember what Easter is really all about. Let those brilliant Peep bunnies remind you of all the people who follow His teachings, and let that collection of multi-colored M&Ms remind you of all of your blessings. Don't EAT them, just let them remind you of how blessed you are and how grateful you are that Jesus did return in love for us all.

With that said, we really need to be careful not to buy into the sugar push in the name of this holy event. We can actually use the ubiquitous goodies to remind us that it's NOT ABOUT SUGAR. Try it the next time you're at the store. The minute your mouth starts to water because you just spied a display of Cadbury Eggs and you remember how much you love them, just swallow, pass the treats and run a quick thank you to Jesus.

I received this email and it's what inspired the subject of my blog today.

        Dear Pam,

What is it really with us women and our appearance? Do we want to look younger or just not look older? When we were children we wanted to be older, that’s why we’d answer, “I’m seven and a half.” But we didn’t think about wanting to look older. I remember being carded in my twenties because I looked younger than 21, but I didn’t have a desire to be or look older, because drinking wasn’t my thing and age really didn’t concern me.

However, at about 35, I started seeing the first signs of looking older, as daring, stray, gray hairs began sprouting at my temples. I paid the kids a penny a hair to pull them. By the time I was 55 my offspring had moved on to better paying jobs and besides if they’d still been willing to work for me, I’d be 2/3s bald.

At 60, I dyed my hair for the first time in my life, but after about four years I let my real color grow out and the gray took over. I also got tired of hearing a wolf whistle, turning around and shocking the life out of some young guy who thought he was going to get the attention of a young chickie only to find an old lady glaring at him. I actually prefer being a “Q-Tip” (that's an appropriate name to describe a person with white hair) because the wolf whistles have stopped and I am officially invisible to the wolves. It’s a good thing. 

My kind of plan!

Are you following a weekly plan that helps you run a cozy, organized home?

When my sister Peggy and I developed the infamous, get organized 3x5 card file system outlined in our book Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise, we created a weekly plan that included a “free day.”

On that special day, we could stay in our pajamas all day, eat over the sink and lounge around and do nothing if we wanted to. I still have that day only I call it My Day. I do what I want and don’t do anything I don’t want to do. I pretend it’s my birthday to get into the mood.

The interesting thing I’ve discovered over the years of enjoying My Day is that I accomplish so much in the name of being selfish about doing what I want to do! It continues to amaze me that what I’ve been preaching about for 40 years is profoundly true.

Your attitude is way more important than fact,

Whad’ya Want?

To Look Younger or Just Not Look Older?

Did you happen to watched the Academy Awards the year Barbra Streisand sang a tribute to her close friend Marvin Hamlisch who had passed away? She sang The Way We Were but she wasn't the way she used to be. It's because she was trying to look the way she used to so she had a facelift and bless her heart, she looked wonderful, but when she sang, her lips didn’t move! 

She's a genius as a singer, actor and producer, so why did she put herself through that procedure? We’re the same age and she definitely looks younger than I do, but at least my lips move when I talk!

How Many Rooms Have You Decluttered?

Okay, before you get all upset that you didn’t know February is National Decluttering Month and here it is the end of February and you didn’t get to partake of the celebration, there’s no such thing as National Decluttering Month.

I just wanted to get your attention. Cheap, I know. 

But what if it were? And what if you focused on organizing your closets, cupboards and drawers in the master suite for a start? Would that make you happy if they were organized and they only held what you love to wear? Here’s an experiment I did today and I thought I’d share it with you because it really opened my eyes and made me happy to find yet another way to get rid of what isn’t making me happy!

Use it or lose it!

Remember when it was fashionable to say, “Lose the belt,” meaning for the person to dump the belt because it didn’t look good or was out of fashion? Today I was in my closet and I spied a pair of leather boots I hadn’t worn for at least a year. That’s when that use of the verb to lose struck me. I decided I’d make a new rule, Use it or lose it.

It's hard to be happy if you don't feel good.

 

When exercise is part of your daily routine, you are healthier and happier than living a sedentary life. But it has to be programmed into your routine or, you know, you won’t do it. Recently Terry and I were surrounded by more than five hundred happy, healthy people who came together for fun and exercise. You can see the health in many who participated and you know they have exercise as part of their daily routines.

On Saturday morning, the day before Easter, we took part in Woodland, Washington’s annual Tulip Trot. We walked 1,968,505 inches from the Holland America Bulb Farm on a loop that took us along the dike that keeps the Lewis River and the Columbia River from turning the tulips into tulip soup.

If you wonder why I used inches to tell you how far we walked, it’s because I wanted it to sound impressive. I don’t think it’s any different than converting miles into kilometers. Runners love to brag about running 5Ks and 10Ks (not because they use the metric system, but because it just sounds like more). A 5K run is only 3.10 miles and it’s just not as impressive as saying 5Ks. You never hear a marathoner say she ran 42 Ks because 26.2 miles is impressive enough and besides, we all know that a marathon is 26.2 miles so she doesn’t have to say anything except the word, MARATHON. And, us non-runners’ brains can’t conceive of running 6.2 miles let alone 20 more after that, so all we really need to hear to be impressed is just the word.

Terry was the self-proclaimed official photographer of this year’s Tulip Trot and the weather was a photographer’s dream, as you’ll see in the photo’s he took. There were some angry clouds threatening to dampen the trot, yet it never happened, and the black and gray clouds against the brilliant tulips were stunning.

Weight Watchers Says I Should Weigh 500 Pounds!

To lose weight and keep it off you must want to lose weight so that you’ll feel better, look better and be healthy. In order to experience the change you want, being aware of what you’re thinking is crucial. I’m working with a young woman who is slashing carbs from her life and because I’ve been through the minefield of thoughts that occur when one cuts addictive carbs (especially sugar) out of one’s diet, I’m able to be a critical step ahead of what she’ll most likely encounter on her journey to stay on a healthy diet and what she’ll confront is her thinking.

Reason 1   If you were on a high fat, low carb diet, you’d never count calories and you could cut the amount of your exercise you do in half and lose weight.

Weight Watchers is good at addressing the psychological issues of dieting and when I was attending those meetings I found that valuable, however I no longer agree with the WW theory of calories-in-calories-out, because it just isn’t true. If it were, I’d weigh about 500 pounds today!

Reason 2 If you are disciplined.

I was a strict disciplinarian with my three children and they learned at a very early age, to behave with good manners, eat at the table like ladies and gentlemen and, mind without a countdown to some unknown penalty. That education I provided for them has served them well.

A few years ago, we took a vacation I’ll never forget.

          During that vacation, I took the six days off from the 21st century and never once looked at a computer. I didn’t answer anyone’s emails or write my weekly blogs for the last week of the month we were in. I just lived in what I’ll call a techless world. Yes, I was party to using the GPS while we “Yelped” our way around San Diego and yeah, once I talked on Terry’s cell phone. Oh and yes, I used the computer timer on the oven in our condo we lived in for a week, but the rest of the time I enjoyed the real world right in front of me

          One of the highlights of the respite was having lunch with one of Terry’s professors from WSU. Mr. Mott made a profound and lasting impression on my husband. (Thank you Mr. Mott.) Terry has so much respect for the man he can’t bring himself to call him Robert or, God forbid, Bob. Mr. Mott and his wife Edie are in their nineties and both sharp mentally, mobile and healthy.

Guests of Marla and Robert

We spent that vacation as guests of Flylady and her husband Robert. There were times when I felt a little like a beloved family dog. Marla, Robert and Terry spent a great deal of our living room time on their thingamajigs of choice, while I sat and talked to myself, read a little, wrote on a yellow pad and played "retro" Solitaire. (That’s a game you play with a standard deck of real playing cards, dealt onto a real table.)