Emergency Cleaning for the “Surprise” Visit

August 25, 2008

The telephone rings, and it is your nightmare (at least it is, if you don’t have a home that looks like it belongs on the cover of “House Beautiful” magazine). The one person you would least like to have see your home at it’s worst is on the other end of the line. It could [...]

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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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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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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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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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Old Lotions Smell Like Witch’s Brew

June 16, 2008

I know you are glad this isn’t a “scratch ‘n sniff” blog! While sorting in the bathroom, I came across a box filled with lotions and potions. They were expensive beauty products I had bought (I probably enough on them to run a small country for a year), but they had gotten shoved to the [...]

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How Do I Sort These Books?

June 12, 2008

It’s time to remove some books in our lives. I know it’s true, and I have been denying it for years. It’s time to put on my “big girl panties” and deal with it. Since we hope to move to a house that is at least one third smaller than this one, I have optimistically [...]

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Bibliophile or Bibliomaniac?

June 11, 2008

I find them at yard sales, stacked aside in boxes. They whisper to me from the boxes under the tables. Paperback and hardback books for less than a dollar apiece! Oh, Sweet Heavens! I can never resist loading my arms and bringing them home to my house. They need me! Sad, isn’t it? I would [...]

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The Librarian Is Your Friend

June 9, 2008

I visited the home of a librarian in Mexico. A single woman, with her children grown, she had mastered the art of “simple living.” She worked for the American Schools in foreign countries, and found herself moving to a different country every few years. Because of those moves, she had learned to keep her possessions [...]

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Beauty Doesn’t Last Forever, And Neither Does Your Makeup

June 8, 2008

When I was in my twenties, I prided myself on the fact that I didn’t wear makeup. I guess that I was having my belated “Hippie” phase, and I thought I was totally cool because I eschewed such extravagances. When false eyelashes were “in style,” I sneered that they made women look like they had [...]

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My House Is A Nightmare

March 11, 2008

As I bopped out of my local coffee shop gripping my extra large mocha, I saw a familiar looking man standing with a camera crew on the corner of our town square. I had seen his face on television! It was Emeril! You know, the famous chef, Emeril Lagasse! I was so excited I nearly [...]

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