I REFUSE

It was November 29th and I was walking around my neighborhood.  As I was walking, I saw several houses completely decorated for Christmas and several neighbors out decorating.  I started hearing this little voice in my head start to clamor for my attention:  

Peggy, you are already so behind.  You don't even have the first Christmas thing out of your attic. 

Peggy, look at how pretty that house looks decorated.  You decorate the same way every year and your house needs painting and your roof needs fixing and you should use fresh greenery and, and, and.......

Well, as I continued to walk I decided to take hold of that voice and replace it with my own real thoughts and truth. 

Peggy, you are not in a competition for how your house looks at Christmas or any other time of the year.   Is your home welcoming?  Does your home have good memories?  

You will eventually get your decorating done, it doesn't have to be done today, tomorrow or even the next day.  There are no Christmas police that will come knocking on your door to ticket you for not being decorated.  

Peggy, your home is not their home.  It does not have to look like theirs, it doesn't have to look perfect; it has to look and feel like you and your family. 

Peggy, stop comparing.  It is a dead end street.

So, all this to say, I REFUSE, to let the joy of Christmas be taken out of me by the voice in my head. I REFUSE to let that voice be in control.  I CHOOSE to listen and think truth and keep my priorities and values in line with who I am, where my life is right now and my schedule. 

Are you comparing yourself with others lives or perceived perfection?  Are you allowing comparison to be the thief of your joy? If so, pull those thoughts out of your head, replace them with truth and live a freer, less stressful and simple life as a result. 

One side note:  I do want to be the Christmas police in February when people still have their wreaths on the door......just saying. 

My Struggle

In order to do my best to remain transparent, I want you all to know that I struggle, too. There are several things I struggle with, but I want to share my biggest struggle at the moment and the biggest struggle I have had for years - losing 10-15 pounds. Those that know me and have seen me in person, would not say I have a weight problem and medically speaking, I really don't have to lose weight, but the clothes in my closet are saying something totally different.  

While a 10-15 pound weight loss might not sound like a real struggle, it has been a consistent struggle for me and it is real.  All of our struggles are our struggles.  They don't have to be worse than someone else's struggle to be real. 

So, what changed?  Why am I all of a sudden going to attack this and be very intentional about the weight loss?

1.  I began to see the scale slowly creeping up, but I attributed it to many other things.

2.  I am 56 years old and weight is going to be harder and harder to fight.

3.  One of my life goals is to be as healthy as possible and carrying any extra weight does not align with that goal.

4.  PFF - Pants Fitting Factor!  My pants and skirts are telling the real story.  

How am I going to achieve this goal?

1.  Little by little.  I am making small changes in my eating, my activity and my thinking.

2.  I will celebrate the small successes and give myself grace when I don't do as well as I should for a day.

3.  Keep the end goal in mind.  Fitting into my clothes and health! 

Do you have a struggle?  What is your plan of attack?  If you don't have goals or a plan, how about picking one goal and working on your plan of attack.  We all have something we need to change, what are you going to focus on? 

Are You Listening?

In my business, I have to spend a lot of time listening.......and not talking. Whew, for this magpie that is a difficult thing to do and sometimes I just don't do it as well as I should. However, listening is one of the most important things you can do, day in and day out.  What is the old saying.....that is why God gave you 2 ears and one mouth.  Research says we remember only about 25% of what we hear.....that is not a lot of remembering, therefore that is not a lot of listening.  

Active listening, implies doing just that....actively listening as opposed to passively listening. Active listening is something we all need to get better at doing because we can glean so much more information when we are really listening.  So here are a few tips for you and some great reminders for me!

1.  Focus on paying attention.  I know that sounds silly but you have to be intentional about listening.  

2.  Mirror back to someone what is being said so they can know they are being heard and being heard correctly.

3.  Maintain eye contact, nod, use vocal cues like "nice", "yes", "I see", lean forward a little bit and watch your body language.  

4.  Don't spend your "listening" time figuring out what your response is going to be (although at my age I am afraid I am going to forget what my response is going to be!)

5.  Don't interrupt (yikes - I think I might have that problem but working on it!)

6.  Don't start daydreaming, thinking about your own personal problems, your grocery list, etc.  

7.  Lastly, try to listen "non-judgmentally".  It is difficult to listen without putting your own history and frame of reference on what the other person is saying but this is an important component to listening. 

So, with all that being said, what did I just say??  Were you really listening?  
It is a fun experiment to see how actively you can listen and how actively people are listening to you.  You may find you are just talking to hear your own self talk!  
Now go use those ears and close that mouth!

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The Next Step.......YOU Have To Take It

As I work with clients, as an organizer and a life coach, I find one consistent issue, not taking the next step.  Let me show you a little bit about what the next step looks like in my life and see if there is anything you can apply to your own life.  

The towel on the floor

Next step:  hang the towel up - time taken: 1 second

Husband's clean socks on the floor

Next step:  socks matched up and in the drawer - time taken:  3 minutes

Hair Dryer and Straightener on Bathroom Counter

Next step:  Put hair dryer and straightener in drawer (even without wrapping the cord or making it look beautiful!) - time taken:  2 seconds

I have a goal I want to reach this year and I have it written down.

(photo: freedigitalphotos.net/stuartmiles)

Next Step:  Schedule a few action steps that will help me reach my goal - 

Time taken: 5 minutes 

(photo:  freedigitalphotos.net/stuartmiles)

The biggest problem with next steps.....YOU have to take them.  No one else can take them for you.  You have to commit to doing what you have to do to get to where you want to be. 

Next Steps - the best way to reach your goals in life and in 

organizing your home. 

It takes less time than you think but it will take you less time if you do it now rather than taking all the next steps later.  

My Love Hate Relationship - the FITBIT

I have a new love/hate relationship in my life........my FITBIT.

My son and his girlfriend gave me a FITBIT for Christmas.  I had been looking at them and thinking it would be a really good thing for me to have and lo and behold I unwrap my Christmas present and there it was, in all it's glory. 

Now for those of you that are not as UBER cool and up to date on this stuff as I am, let me tell you all about a FITBIT.  

A FITBIT is a fitness product, in the form of this beautifully stylish bracelet, that tracks my steps, distance and calories burned.  If I tell it to, it will track my quality of sleep......I have not told it to yet, that feature kind of freaks me out a little bit....not sure why, it just does.   Below is a picture of my bracelet.

Now, you have to know that while I am UBER cool I am confounded by the fact that this thing on my arm knows when I am taking steps and knows what I am doing while I am asleep but it does.

The reason I love this thing is I need accountability.  I get to the end of the day, exhausted and I am sure I have walked and moved at least 1000 miles but I look at the steps and I am at 3000 steps (1.5 miles) for the whole day!  The goal for each day is 10,000 steps which translates to 5 miles a day.  

I am busy and moving everyday but apparently I am not calorie burning busy!

The reason I hate this thing is I have accountability.  Yep, the reason I love it is the reason I hate it!  You can't unknow what you know and now I know I am not moving as much as I need to.   Since I was tired at the end of the day, it was easy to make myself think I was getting more exercise than I really was getting but alas, the FITBIT does not lie. 

The reason I love this thing is I earn badges when I reach certain levels.  Anyone, who knows me well, knows I am a competitive soul and a badge telling me I have reached a goal is right up my alley!

Yippee!

You've walked 5,000 steps

And made it look easy breezy. Congratulations on cruising your way to the first Fitbit daily step badge—the Boat Shoe! Keep up the good work

The reason I hate this thing is I have to work really hard to achieve the goal of 10,000 steps per day.  I really, really don't like to exercise but I know I have to do it to live the life I want to live.  I know I have to exercise to be fit and healthy, however I get bored easily and I find it hard to work into my schedule, on a regular basis.  All that being said, I will continue to exercise, well, just because it is what I need to do and I want/need more badges!

So, if you will excuse me, I have to go walk some more, the FITBIT is calling my name (not literally but it feels like it could!)

My New Project Organizing Tool

I have several different projects going on each year and I finally gave in and realized I am a paper project planner girl.  I have tried to plan projects digitally and it has not worked so I found this gem and I am so happy!  

This is the ARC system from Staples.  It is a notebook you can modify - adding pages, dividers, and other contraptions you might need to keep yourself organized.  It also allows you to buy bigger discs to enlarge the notebook, as your notes and project expand.  There are different colors to choose from but for this particular project I chose this oh so pretty pink! 

These are the pages that come with each notebook.

These are the "add ons" I put in my notebook to organize. 

I have pocket dividers for smaller papers and papers in which I don't want holes punched.  

Tab Dividers are essential for dividing your content into different categories. 

This zip pocket add on will be great for pens and other things that need to be contained. 

I printed out and added this calendar.  How did I add this calendar, you might ask? Well, look below and I will show you my secret!

First, I had to buy one of these specialized paper puncher things.  This is not your standard 3 hole punch.  The ARC system has 12 holes so you need the special 12 hole puncher.  Staples sells these, 

with the ARC system, but the cost of the one they 

sell is around $42.  I did not want to spend that much so I checked around and found this one sold by Levenger for $17!  It doesn't punch as many pieces of paper at one time but that was not an issue for me. 

So, I took my handy dandy new hole punch and punched the holes I needed into my calendar and inserted it into my oh so pretty pink notebook.  

Now I am all ready for my project planning in 2015.  

Taking Down the Christmas Tree and a Little More

The final step of Christmas "take down" is the tree.

The first step is to remove all the ornaments.  I lay a towel out so I can see them all on my oriental rug.....some of them can get lost in the pattern of the rug.  I sort them, on the towel, by kid's ornaments, fragile and non-fragile.  Then I start boxing them up.....wrapping the fragile ornaments in tissue paper and then placing them in a Ziploc bag.  The other ornaments are placed in their original boxes or in an ornament box I have.

Each of my children's ornaments is organized in their own box and labeled with their name. 

When the time comes, they will easily be able to take their ornaments to decorate their own tree.  

After the ornaments are all packed up snug in their beds, it is time to remove the lights from the tree.  

By this time you are ready to throw the lights in a box and be done but when you open that box next year, you will be sad you took that approach. 

I take each light strand and wrap them around these "wheels" I purchased several years ago.  

Each wheel holds 2-3 light strands.  They then fit nicely into their handy, dandy carrying case.  On top of the wheels, I place the cord that houses the "on/off" button for the lights. 

Then the tree goes out the door to where my Christmas elf takes it to dispose of in our woods in the back.  Therefore leaving me with mounds of pine needles to vacuum.  Years ago, I stopped up my regular vacuum cleaner by using it to vacuum up said mound of needles.  After that, I purchased my Shop Vac and it has done the job from that point on.  All that being said, no matter how much I vacuum, I will still be running into and finding pine needles in this room throughout the year......hard to get rid of those pesky needles! 

Here is the "and a Little More" part of the subject line.  In my last post I failed to tell you about my Christmas serving dishes and how I put them away.....so here

 is the rest of the story. 

Each of the dishes is wrapped in a Christmas Dish Towel to protect them while storing the Christmas towels......a two 

for one! 

AAAAAHHHH, finally the Christmas decorations are put away and stored safely in the attic.  And just like every single year, I walk downstairs celebrating and find the one.  There is always one decoration I seem to miss every single year, no matter how hard I try.......there is still ONE!  This year's winner......the pillow.

So I grab the pillow, put it in its place and then know I am done until next year, with the way time flies it will feel like next week. 

Now on to 2016!  Make it a great year!

Taking Down Christmas Decorations - Step by Step

It is that time of year.....you have enjoyed the Christmas decorations but now it is time to take them all down.  

Here is a step by step process of how I attack my "take down".  Hopefully you will find something here you can use while putting your decorations away. 

 Gather all your "like" items together. Your "like" items will be boxed together so it makes it easier to attack one box at a time when you are putting them up this year and when you are ready to decorate again next year. 

 You can see, from the pictures below, the "like" items I have:  Santas/decorative items, stockings/pillows/tree skirt, Nativity sets, framed Christmas photos and plaques, dishes, books, window lamps, window greenery, bows and outdoor spotlights and cords.     

Then it is time to box each of the items into their "labeled" boxes.  I wrap the fragile items in tissue paper I reuse each year or tissue paper I keep from the pile left over on Christmas morning.  
The bulbs of the window lamps are separated into a ziploc bag to protect them.    

Each year, as part of my Christmas decorating, I use decorative ribbon tied to lamps and candlesticks. To store my decorative ribbon, I wrap several pieces around a toilet paper roll or a cut paper towel roll and secure the end with a paper clip.  I then store them in a ziploc bag to keep them fresh 

from year to year.  

Lastly I attack the tree.  That is in my next blog post.....so go get the decorations done then come back and read about "tree take down"!