From the Archives 

It was such a scorching dog day in late August that the birds were hot-tubbing in our backyard birdbath. I was wearing my bathing suit and had turned the air-conditioning down another notch despite the green voice in my head that said, ‘You should be ashamed.’ It didn’t help my mood to think about my daughter Peggy, her husband Tyler and my two young grandchildren, Jacob and Sophie working outside in 100 degree weather at a camp for foster children in our community? I admired their compassion and magnanimity to devote an entire summer running the camp and I was glad they were due home that evening.

This blog was written five years ago and I'm happy to report we both have new bathrobes even though they're not what I wanted.

April 24, 2012

I decided it's time for Terry and me to get new bathrobes. Mine's 20 years old! I bought it at a garage sale. It’s heavy and comfy and if I write too much about it here, I’m apt to talk myself out of dumping it. (Maybe I should keep it as my winter robe. On some of those cold winter nights I have found such refuge in it. I also feel spiritual in it sometimes, because it has a hood and when I put it over my head, I feel like St. Francis.) Okay, okay it’s going in storage until November when my winter sweaters and coats come out of waiting.

Terry’s robe is another story. It's downright scary! It’s blue plaid velour and after the first washing it lost most of its “lour” and because the arms were too long he cut them off and insisted I didn’t need to hem his alteration project. So I didn’t, leaving the ends frayed in strings that grow longer with every washing.

The thing is, I never think to go bathrobe shopping and only when I’m pampered with a luxurious white terrycloth robe in a fancy hotel do I think it’s time to spring for a new “morning” look.

A Saint and a Blue Man

Terry and I have changed our routine this year and I don’t shower, dress and make the bed first thing in the morning anymore.

Is Your Car Maintenance on Your Calendar?

Attention mechanics: DO NOT read this blog. At best it’ll disgust you, but at worst, it could make you sick!

I’m a self-confessed car abuser and I’m not proud of it, it’s just the way it is. I’ve abused every car I’ve ever owned. My organizing skills have kept my cars clean on the outside and on the interior, but when it comes to taking care of what’s under the hood, it's out of sight, out of mind, and the skills are nonexistent. I know I’m irresponsible in this area and I'm doing better with our new car which is a Ford Fusion. My friend Steve said, every time he gets his tires rotated and balanced, he gets his oil changed the same day. I'm at least doing that with this new car, thanks to Steve.

Before this car, I'd wait until something happened and then I'd head for repair. I know the “ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure,” deal, but I’ve never minded that proverb when it comes to automobiles and I've paid dearly.

The Cruise Ship YOU

Just for a minute think of yourself as a ship. Okay, you may as well make it a cruise ship since you love romance, excitement, drama, parties and food. Let’s call this luxury liner the Cruise Ship YOU.

Oh indeed, it’s a marvelous ship! It’s a beautiful ship. It’s a strong ship. It’s like the Good Ship Lollipop but unfortunately it has been caught in a perpetual storm of chaos and clutter. It has lost its direction and has been tossed and thrown by the winds and weather in the sea of life! Whew!!

Now that you are using your imagination let’s imagine that your captain (your incredible mind) has just received information from above (a God Breeze) that there’s some place called the Organized Islands in Always Always Land. Your captain goes on the internet to check it out and reads testimonials from other happy travelers who have voyaged to the Organized Islands and love it there. One of them is Steven Sondheim. (Remember we’re using our imaginations.)

There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Waits for us
Somewhere.

There's a time for us,
Some day a time for us,
Time together with time spare,
Time to learn, time to care,
Some day!

Somewhere.
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere . . .

There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Some day,
Somewhere!

Next stop: The Organized Islands!

Your captain looks at her maps and realizes the Cruise Ship YOU is going in the wrong direction and if it wants to reach the Organized Islands, she must turn it around 180 degrees!

 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.”