June 2008

Simplify The Bathroom: Part Two

June 30, 2008

I told y’all I had begun the process of getting my bathroom organized. Once I had tossed all the unused and excess items that don’t belong in my bathroom, everything had to go back on the shelves! On my first attempt, I put things back where they had been. Then, I realized I wasn’t making [...]

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Simplify The Bathroom: Part One

June 29, 2008

I thought that cleaning, de-cluttering, and organizing the bathroom would be the easiest “beginner task.” After all, it’s the smallest room in the house, isn’t it? That may be so, but it’s also the busiest and most crowded room of the house. It’s not as easy to simplify as it might seem. First of all, [...]

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Soup or Salad?

June 29, 2008

I’ve been speechless on this blog for a couple of days, as I struggled with a story that wouldn’t tumble out. It is what I have wanted to tell, but it didn’t want to be told. I’ve been busy lately. It has been a whirlwind of sorting through the flotsam and jetsam of our world, [...]

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Grocery Shopping Simplified

June 28, 2008

I love going to a Farmer’s Market to choose produce fresh from the farm. Never having been refrigerated, the fruits and vegetables actually smell the way they are supposed to smell! I enjoy going to the butcher shop here in town, where the owners call me by name, and know exactly what I want before [...]

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Water

June 27, 2008

If I were really smart, I could simplify my life tremendously in one fell swoop by drinking water. Then, my recycle bin wouldn’t be filled with soda cans. That would definitely be good for the environment. According to The Container Recycling Institute, “3% of the world’s electricity goes into making aluminum cans.” The hydroelectric plants [...]

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A Change Of Attitude

June 26, 2008

Difficult, difficult, difficult…    Easy, easy, easy… Neither difficult nor easy.           -Zen Buddhism As I work at sorting clutter, I occasionally feel as if I’m floundering. We have so much that is just junk, and I don’t always know what to do with it. I get overwhelmed. I was ready to just give up at about [...]

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Keeping The Memories

June 25, 2008

My brother was overjoyed when I called him earlier this week and asked, “Do you want these old 45s that belonged to Mom?” His voice was filled with wonder and awe, “You still have them? Yes, I want them.” We talked about some of the records that came from the store my mother had back [...]

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Does Anyone Need A Truckload of Pens?

June 24, 2008

Do you think I have enough pencils and pens? Usually these containers are stowed in strategic places throughout the house. I have them by my bed, in several parts of my office, by the sofa, in the kitchen, and at my favorite chair. You never know when you might need to write something down, and [...]

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Anybody With Eyes In Their Head Would Know

June 24, 2008

Ordinarily, an optometrist appointment is not my idea of the social event of the season. On that day in 1981, it was definitely a highlight of my month. I had given birth to my second son just six weeks before, and had been cooped up at home since arriving home from the hospital. I was [...]

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Buried Under Paper

June 23, 2008

I could get buried under all the paper at this house! I could get lost for weeks and miss a meal or something -wouldn’t that be a crying shame? Everything else gets lost around here, that’s a fact. I lose my keys, my glasses, the calculator, the checkbook. A frantic search usually proves that I’ve [...]

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Clutter Begets Clutter

June 22, 2008

Have y’all ever noticed how clutter just seems to grow? It’s true. If I leave one book on the coffee table (instead of putting it back in the bookshelf), within a day it has a mate. Before the week is out, they have a family! I can hang one shirt on the back of a [...]

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The End Is Near For Share A Square

June 22, 2008

I’m so excited! I’m hopping around like popcorn in a pan. Last Friday, I visited at Cook Children’s Medical Center to finalize the plans for the delivery of afghans to Camp Sanguinity. While I was at it, I delivered a cashier’s check for $1229.47 – money that was donated by my wonderful readers. The camp [...]

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Finding New Homes For The Books

June 21, 2008

After you have gone through the painful process of culling books from your shelves, you need to get them out of the house! If you don’t, you will begin looking at them and pining for them. You will pick up one book, and decide, “Oh, I really can’t part with that one.” Then, another and [...]

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Garage Sale Time

June 20, 2008

We are going to have a garage sale in August. I know full well that we won’t make enough money to justify the time, but we will get to turn a little bit of our trash into cash. Anything that is really worth money we will try to sell on E-Bay first. However, as we [...]

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Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall. A Writing Contest.

June 20, 2008

[UPDATE: SORRY, THIS CONTEST GOT CANCELLED!] Have y’all ever spent hours trying to make yourself presentable, only to have the whole process backfire on you? Have you ever used some “beauty regime” that made you feel like an ugly duckling? Maybe you were getting ready for a date with that person who made your heart [...]

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What Do You Save In One Hour?

June 19, 2008

If you had an emergency situation, and had one hour (that’s all) to gather what is important to you, what would you take? That was the question posed in one of my organizing books. I’m supposed to list what those things would be to get an idea of the things that are really important to [...]

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Thursday Thirteen #43. Summer Plans

June 18, 2008

In just a few short weeks, a year long project will be over for me. We are delivering all those lovely afghans I have been yammering about to the kids at Camp Sanguinity. Click on the Flickr badge on the sidebar to see 140 of them! As soon as all those boxes are out of [...]

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Give Someone Else A Chance To Love Those Heirlooms

June 18, 2008

Organizing gurus say that we only use 20% of the items we own. The other 80% is stuff that we keep “just in case” we might need it someday. I freely admit that I have a lot of that “just in case” stuff. The only problem, is that it is buried beneath the other debris [...]

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Mind Your Manners, And The Rest Is Soon To Follow

June 17, 2008

“I think once you stop hearin’ “sir” and “maam” the rest is soon to follow.”~Sheriff Bell (Tommie Lee Jones) in No Country For Old Men Though the Cohen Brothers packed their movie with violence, the most memorable part of No Country For Old Men, for me, was the line above. It’s been bouncing around in [...]

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Just Call Me “Pandora”

June 17, 2008

Many years ago, I read a tip in one of my books about organization. It told me what to do when I have trouble deciding to get rid of certain items while de-cluttering the house. The suggestion was to put the items in a box, tape the box shut, and mark a date six months [...]

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