The Four Ps

It's spring and we SHEs are like busy bees around the nurseries where the flowers beg us to take them home like puppies at the Humane Society.

Have you ever seen a honey bee that’s got so much pollen on her thighs that she can barely fly? I often wonder if some of them never make it back to their hives they're so loaded down. Like those bees, we can get carried away buying more than we can plant. We fly home with our trunks full of flats of annuals and the optimism we’’ll plant them all in a day. Often we poop out in the middle of the plant and the remaining purchase is at the mercy of our next planting mood.

A good rule of thumb is the four Ps. Plan, Prepare, Purchase, Plant. If you try to prepare and plant at the same time, you’ll poop out and then those plants that you have taken into your care face possible death. Of course it’s not premeditated, but the plants will be just as dead.

Many struggle with disorganization as I once did. I was in nervous remission for years, but as time has passed I’m not that nervous anymore. I don’t let my messy tendencies get too far out of hand and my home is never more than 15 minutes to “company ready” (and that’s for the whole house).

When every room is HOURS or DAYS away from "company ready" and I HAVE BEEN THERE, it can easily be overwhelming and in that state of mind we can freeze, bust out of the place or retreat under the covers. All those actions make things worse.

I love playing with acronyms! When my sister and I started teaching our system for getting organized, we knew we wanted to name it something catchy. We loved the thought of calling ourselves “Home Executives,” but we knew we would never be home executives like our BO (Born Organized) mom who ironed Dad’s underwear, baked everything from scratch, kept her high school figure and “freshened up” fifteen minutes before our dad came home from work every night.

We liked the sound of SHE and since we had the HE part, all we needed was the “S.” The “S” would have to be an adjective to describe the kind of HEs we were. So what kind of Home Executives were we? Scummy didn’t describe us; we weren’t sloppy, shifty, sneaky, skittish, sassy or stupid either. (Great names for another clan of dwarfs, but not for us.)

This week's Young@Heart is brought to you by Sidetracked Home Executives: from pigpen to paradise! Pam explains why a SHE is called a SHE:

I’m compelled to expose the epitome of stupidity here in my beautiful state of Washington. I’m sorry, but for the last 17 years or so, I’ve been appalled at something I think will at least make you shake your head and at best make you go along with my appalation (I know there’s no such word).

This weekend Terry and I went to one of my favorite getaways, Skamania Lodge. It’s nestled off Highway 14, a two-lane road that follows the Columbia River on the Washington, State side. The Skamania Lodge has abulous food, breathtaking views of mountains, a golf course and the Columbia River. They have cool rocking chairs by a gigantic fireplace that burns real wood and rooms with soft beds, luxuriant bath towels and white terrycloth bathrobes that make you feel like a movie star.

Skamania County is wonderful too. It’s deep in the Columbia River Gorge and its natural beauty is beyond comparison. I love the sound of the word, Skamania. I love its people and its restaurants like The Big River Grill, the Venus Café and El Rio Texicantina.

If you can't make it to Heaven just yet - Skamania will do

Many struggle with disorganization as I once did. I was in nervous remission for years, but as time has passed I’m not that nervous anymore. I don’t let my messy tendencies get too far out of hand and my home is never more than 15 minutes to “company ready” (and that’s for the whole house).

When every room is HOURS or DAYS away from "company ready" and I HAVE BEEN THERE, it can easily be overwhelming and in that state of mind we can freeze, bust out of the place or retreat under the covers. All those actions make things worse.

The day before Valentine’s Day this year, my husband, Terry asked me what I thought of having our friends the Lapslys and Geocks over for dinner and to play cards on Valentine’s Day. “It’d sorta be a spur of the moment affair,” he said.

Since I love spur of the moment events and I have a passion for cooking, entertaining and playing cards, I jumped at the thought.

I’ve been crying a lot this week, but it’s definitely happy tears! Wow! I feel like Sally Fields when she received her Oscar and said, “You like me!” Last week I actually asked you to like me on Facebook; a concept that goes completely against the way I was raised. How pathetic it felt to ask you to be my friend!

Well, I was overwhelmed by the response! I received such wonderful comments from so many of you! Many of you told me you thought of me as a friend already because of my books. Many of you used the word “honored” in being my friend. It reminded me of when I was little and we got a whole bunch of Valentines from our classmates in a bag we’d decorated up at school. I am humbled by your love, but now I’m really worried.

I’m having trouble with “social networking.” I’ve actually hired a person to help me use it to spread my word of finding joy in everything we do. Unfortunately for now, that joy eludes me when it comes to Facebook. Right now I know how to get onto my Facebook pages for me and my husband and for my Inner Kiddies. I’ve been “liking” stuff and “commenting,” but I’m not sure what happens to those likes and comments?

I went on my husband’s page to see who he had as friends (he’s never been on his page) and found he had four friends and guess who was at the top of his wanna be friends list? My ex-husband! Now why in the world does my ex-husband want to be friends with my husband? I deleted him with glee. Now that was fun!

I am a reformed slob. I made the decision to get organized on June 16, 1977. I was 35. I learned a lot through that transformation. The most important of which was to understand that before I did one thing to organize my chaotic life, I was alright just the way I was. That backed-up laundry didn’t make me a bad person. That an unmade bed and a sink full of dirty dishes didn’t mean I didn’t love my family or my home. That having to re-inoculate the children because I couldn’t find their medical records when we moved to a new town didn’t mean I was a bad mother.

My challenge to change my ways came from a deep desire to have more fun; to be able to play guilt-free and to feel the freedom of taking care of the routine and mundane tasks that make a household run smoothly, so my family and I could really enjoy this delicious thing called life. My motive to get organized was to have more free time to play.