Here are some ideas to create Christmas traditions that'll turn into family memories you'll cherish for the rest of your lives. But before we get into them  watch this video we produced last week and you'll see a great example of families creating a Christmas memory.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I had one of those days today.”? I call “one of those days” a shell-stickin’ day. You know how some hard boiled eggs refuse to let go of the egg white? If you’re making deviled eggs and you need the white part to be intact as a nest for the egg yolk mixture, you know how aggravating one of those shell-stickin’ eggs can be. I’m sure you’ve had to give up on some eggs in the process, because invariably chunks of the egg white tear off and leave half nests that just won’t work.

I’m the stubborn sort and I’ll go to great lengths to fight a shell-sticker, searching for that crucial place where the thin membrane is holding onto its beloved egg white. In 50% of the cases the egg wins and I either eat the mutilated egg white and throw the yoke in with the batch of other yokes or, depending on how many shell-stickers in the batch, decide to make egg salad instead of deviled eggs. It’s sort of the egg version of when you have a lemon make lemonade. But what can you do when you have one of those shell-stickin' days?

Ahh, the lazy days of summer are upon us. Summer breezes calm us, the lake beckons us to lap in its luxurious warm water, the aroma of barbeque teases our noses and makes our mouths water. No cares, just relaxation.

How in the world can we think about Christmas now? And why would we want to? Well, Leroy Anderson wrote “Sleigh Ride” in July, 1946 in the middle of a heat wave in New England, so if you had a good enough reason to think about Christmas now, you could put your mind to it. We all know that the holidays require extra time, energy and money, so why not take advantage of summer leisure and get a jump on the holidays?

Here are my six best ideas to save you time, money and energy during the holiday season.

1. Stocking Stuffers 

Stuff as you go. Hide a small container, like a shoe box or Zip Lock Gallon bag, for each child. When
you’re out and about and find items that would be good for stocking stuffers, like movie tickets, gift cards, little toys and books, purchase and put in the hidden containers.

Come midnight on Christmas Eve, you’ll thank yourself when you think, ‘EEgad, we gotta do stockings,’ and you’ll have most of the contents ready to stuff.

2. Re-Gift

Have you ever noticed how excited your children are when they find toys they haven’t seen in several months? That usually happens when you start cleaning out their closets.

When my kids were little, I'd box up some of their toys, books and games when they weren’t around. and put them up to the attic. When I’d get one of those stored boxes out, no matter what time of year it was, it felt just like Christmas. That's when I got the idea to wrap them in Christmas wrap and store them away until Christmas morning.

Kids love lots of presents under the tree and they'll love to unwrap stuff you've let hide for a few months of rest. (When items first go missing, they’ll wonder where they went for a little while, but they probably spend a lot of time looking for stuff anyway, if your family tends to be disorganized and eventually they'll get distracted and forget.) 

3. “Do” your Christmas cards in July 

Why not take care of Christmas cards this summer? If you’re like me, you’ve probably got a stash of Christmas cards plugging up one of your drawers. Get them out, pretend it’s Christmas, write a tender note, address, seal, stamp and hold until December 1. Think how easy it’ll be plopping them into the mail that early!

Remember Christmas is about love, joy and goodwill. Make your note to each person about them, not about you. Thank them for being in your life. Comment on how much you love them, how much they make your life better. Wish them goodness in all their days.

Note: I’ve always said, “Unless a person is a really good writer, he or she shouldn’t write a Christmas letter which usually ends up being all about the person writing it.” That's not what Christmas is all about.

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?

You'll be shocked at how getting organized just a little will add great joy to you and your family because:

When it comes to finances, we don't always create happy consequences.

Have you made choices in your lifetime that caused not so happy consequences? We all have and that’s how we learn to be more careful as we grow up. (Second marriages, for example, are almost always better than the first ones, if we made a lousy choice the first time).

I recently took a much needed three-day vacation away from home with two girlfriends who are incredibly wise women. Both women are extremely private people. They both gave me license to quote them, but with no names so I don’t get to give them credit for some of their wisdom.

We were having lunch in a beautiful restaurant in Astoria, Oregon when the subject of self-improvement came up. I explained my theory of having fun with my inner child and they both loved the concept. I told about how far in debt I was after my sister retired and left me with a huge company debt. It was a little embarrassing to admit, because both these women are very wealthy and they were shocked at how immature my sister and I had been with our money.

Here in the pacific northwest we have a chain of stores called Fred Meyer. (We call it Freddies around this leg of the forest.) Freddie's advertising slogan is: What's on your list today?

Northwesterners catch the phrase every time they see a huge Freddie's truck on the freeway. With most people it probably causes a thought of 'what do I need at the store today.' However for me, it serves as a wake-up call to ask me what "list" of thoughts am I focusing on right now. 

In other words it wakes me up to become consciously aware of the quality of my thought at that moment. If you think about it, you can ascribe a value to a list of thoughts running in your mind at any given moment. So imagine you and a co-worker you carpool with are in traffic on your way home from work and you're driving in the HOV (High Occupancy Vehicle) lane when a guy driving alone slips in front of you, illegally enjoying a faster ride home, and you start a list of thoughts that goes something like this:

We are so fortunate to be able to eat when we get hungry here in America. Have you noticed that you enjoy being hungry partly because you know there is always food and food tastes better when you're hungry? Because we are fortunate to have an abundance of food, we're able to play with the condition of hunger to our benefit.

I've been fasting every day for 16 hours by having my last meal by 2:00 pm. The hunger usually strikes around 7:00 pm, but my bedtime is 9:00 and as long as I keep my mind occupied with a good book, movie or favorite series on Amazon (like "The Big Bang Theory") those two hours pass quickly. Since I fall asleep fast I don't lie in bed and think about my favorite food and so far I haven't had any buffet dreams brought on by no food after 2:00.

One big lesson I've learned is by not eating after 2:00 my sleep is fabulous. I've had more flying dreams and lots of color in them. When I wake up in the morning I feel so rested! And I haven't needed my usual nap. I've read quite a bit about the benefits of giving our digestive track a rest and because I've had more energy since this fasting began, it's telling me digesting a meal takes quite a lot of energy.

With the title of my blog being "Hunger is the Best Sauce," I wanted to share with you something I wrote several years ago on the subject. 

As a parent, one thing I always tried to do when my kids were young was to create a sense of wonder and magic in their lives. I rarely heard them say, “I’m bored!”

Summer is the perfect season to make fun childhood memories. My mom was a master at creating memories for my sister and me. Thinking about why my summers as a kid were so special, I have renewed admiration for what my mother put into planning our summers.

She was a BOP (Born Organized Person). She always had a daily agenda for the summer months and it included household chores first and then fun. Attention moms, use fun activities you plan as a reward for getting the mundane household responsibilities accomplished every day.

Limit watching the news and you'll be happier for it.

Back in 1929 when the stock market crashed, we didn’t have CNN or FOX or news on 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 or the thumb on our phone. 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.