Peace of Mind Organizing

A must-listen interview with Julie Morgenstern

3 September 2008

Organizing guru Julie Morgenstern is all over the place promoting her new book When Organizing Isn’t Enough: SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life . I haven’t read it yet, though I’ve read some interviews, including one here at Unclutterer . After I read the Unclutterer interview, I went to my library’s website and asked for the book to be sent to my branch when it’s available, so I can check it out.

Then I hopped over to my friend Aby Garvey’s, Creative Organizing blog and to my delight found that she recorded an interview with Julie about her book. I downloaded it to my iPod and listened the 28-minute interview while I walked my dog, Pip. It’s fantastic! When I got home from that walk, I ordered the book from Amazon.

Julie’s new book is a departure from her past books, like the now-classic Organizing from the Inside Out , in that it’s not about systems. It’s about your relationship with your stuff and how clearing away clutter can help you clear barriers to progress and happiness. At least that’s what I gleaned from the interview.

If that tantalizes you, listen to Aby’s interview, and I bet you’ll be be prompted, like I was, to buy the book.

Great job, Aby!

Healed!

1 September 2008

Just one week ago today, I sat at this computer miserable because my face was all scraped up from a fall.

It wasn’t easy going out in the world looking like that. My appearance generated lots of sympathy, which was very nice. But at the beginning of the week it was difficult to smile, which was tough. I actually had a client email me later to say I seemed “distant” and to check to make sure I wasn’t disappointed in her progress. That certainly wasn’t the case…I think I just wasn’t smiling much because it hurt. Doesn’t that speak to the power of a ready smile!

As the week went by, the oozing stopped, scabs formed and the injured area started to shrink.

Things started looking up on Thursday, when the big scab on my upper lip fell off. Charming, I know. But it made such a difference in my comfort (and appearance). Then on Saturday night, the scab between my nose and lip fell off. Then yesterday — hooray! — the giant scab on my chin fell off, as did the small one on my nose. Now I’m just left with pinkish patches in those places, as well as scabs on my hand and knee.

Here’s a picture that I just took with Photo Booth:

Looking better in just a week!

For comparison purposes, here’s that same face exactly a week earlier:

I have sort of a Charlie Chaplin thing going on under my nose.

I’m amazed (and very grateful) at how well it healed in just a week.

I wasn’t going to post today, since it’s Labor Day, but here I am posting. I’ve got a crazy busy client week this week, but hope to post at least three more times. Hope you’re having a great holiday!

Some great advice on yard sales

29 August 2008

Whenever I have a client who says she wants to do a yard sale, I always groan inwardly. I usually convince the client that a more expeditious route to achieving her goals would be to donate unwanted items or, in a couple of really cluttered cases, get a local auction service to come take away the stuff and sell it for her.

The one exception were friends who wanted to sell some valuable antiques. I helped them organize a yard sale featuring the antiques which brought him a nice chunk of money (close to eight grand). I blogged about it at the time.

On Unclutterer today my friend (and perhaps most frequent commenter), Geralin Thomas of Metropolitan Organizing in Cary, N.C. has contributed a fantastic post called Yard Sales: An unclutterer’s ultimate, how-to guide. As I commented on that blog, if I ever have a client who insists on having a yard sale, I’ll be sure and share this detailed post.

Happy Labor Day Weekend, folks. I’ll be taking Monday off of blogging.

Organize in Style: Blog of the Week

27 August 2008

This week’s blog of the week belongs to Krista Colvin, an organizer in the Portland, Oregon, area, whose blog helps those of us who like to add a little style to our organizing efforts. Organize in Style presents cool products and cool ideas with a great injection of fun.

In addition to her blog, Krista has a program for organized women who want to be more organized called The SheBang, subtitled The Smart Women’s Guide to Doing it All. It reminds me of Flylady, in that it’s very supportive and offers routines and advice, but, to my eyes, it’s intended for a more sophisticated consumer. There are free and affordable premium versions. Check it out.

And that’s not all! Krista and her friend and colleague, Brandie Kajino: have a radio show called “The O Myth” (subtitle: debate + debunk life’s organizing myths). Most recently, my fabulous friend, Aby Garvey, was the guest. (Aby’s blog was my first Blog of the Week.) You can listen to the O Myth live or download past shows from the website.

Krista’s style is warm and chatty and reading her blog or Shebang communications makes you feel like you’re talking to a supportive, non-judgmental girlfriend who’s been where you are and is more than willing to share what she’s learned. And on top of it, she’s stylish and sophisticated. How fun is that?

Knitting Olympics: The outcome

26 August 2008

I have to admit I haven’t picked up the knitting needles since the Olympics ended. As I’ve written here, I achieved my goal of finishing the lace section of the Learn-to-Knit Afghan. I’d reset the goal to include finishing the entire afghan, but I fell short of the mark.

Those last two squares about killed me. I did finish the penultimate square, after a few false starts, but it turned out wrong. The whole thing was sort of askew. I thought I’d followed the directions, but upon rereading them, I left off a key step. And I guess I was watching too much TV while knitting, because I didn’t notice. I restarted that square twice and both times it was twisted, so I need to work on my skill of making sure the stitches aren’t twisted before joining in the round. So I moved on to the final square.

I finished the 63rd and final square on Sunday afternoon, but the deadline was 11 a.m. on Sunday. So I came thisclose to achieving the goal. I still need to re-knit the Square #62.

That said, since I did achieve my stated goal, and then some, I feel I deserved the gold medal I received at Knitty Couture, the fabulous knitting store in St. Louis where I went Sunday afternoon to finish the last square and celebrate the end of the Knitting Olympics. The owner, Thi, and her associates made these adorable pin cushions, in gold, silver and bronze, to serve as truly functional medals. Here’s a photo of the medals, from Knitty Couture’s blog entry on Sunday’s festivities:

And here’s a photo of me holding my medal in place, with my finished squares laid out in front of me:

I have to say that my knitting efforts the last 48 hours of the Olympics were almost heroic. Saturday night when I finally quit and went to bed my shoulders were hurting and my left hand was killing me from gripping the double-pointed needles. (The final square involved starting with four stitches and increasing every other row to create a full-sized square.) I know it’s not smart to knit until you hurt. But it kinda made me feel like an athlete!

Ouch!

25 August 2008

Yesterday I was taking my standard poodle, Kirby, for a walk and I tripped on a curb. Down I went onto the sidewalk, landing first on my knees, then my hands, then, unfortunately, my face (primarily nose and chin). Ouch!

I dropped the leash, but Kirby, being a good boy, didn’t go anywhere. When I touched my face, I saw blood on my hand, so Kirby and I hurried home. I figured it wasn’t good when I walked past a woman who smiled at my dog, looked up and me, and looked horrified.

I have red scrapes on the end of my nose, the area between my nose and upper lip (which I just learned, thanks to Wikipedia, is called the “ergotrid”) and right in the middle of my chin. I also have a fat upper lip.

It didn’t hurt so much at the time and it doesn’t hurt much now, but what is hurting a little is my ego. I’m sort of loathe to go out in the world looking like this. I have to get my hair cut at my fancy salon today and I’m sort of dreading it. And I find myself grateful I don’t have any new clients this week.

I figure I’ll put an adhesive bandage over my chin and that will help. Since I know you’re dying to see it, I used PhotoBooth to take a picture this morning. Here it is:

I have sort of a Charlie Chaplin thing going on under my nose.

Of course, it could have been so much worse. I could have hurt my teeth, even broken my nose. My glasses could have poked into my face. This is all cosmetic and will have no lasting consequences.

With any luck by tomorrow I won’t be obsessed with my appearance and we’ll get back to regular programming here.

Jott: Free no more

22 August 2008

One of my favorite free services, Jott, is now out of beta and is no longer available as is free of charge. Jott allows you to dictate messages via your cell phone that are then emailed to you. I first blogged about it last January and posted a somewhat amusing cautionary note in March.

You’ll now be required to pay $3.95 per month in order to receive the service that had been free. There is a free version, but in order to see the messages you’ve Jotted, you have to go to their website, which (for me, anyway) is practically worthless. I need the in-your-face aspect of having the messages emailed to me.

I know it’s not much money, and I know that these people deserve to earn revenue for their great idea, but it irks me. I’ll probably pony up, because I do find Jott very helpful. And I’m not even using all its features. All I’ve been doing with it is dictating notes to myself or my husband from my mobile phone. In addition, I could be creating to-do lists or calendar items (using Jott apps for Outlook or iPhone if I used those things). I just realized upon exploring the new services offered that I can also call Jott, say “Amazon,” name a product and they’ll email me the Amazon search results for that product. That’s just one of the Jott links they’re now offering.

In addition to the $3.95 a month plan, there’s a premium $12.95 a month plan that allows for longer messages (30 seconds, as opposed to 15 seconds) and includes a Jott for Blackberry application. They also offer a pay-as-you go service, for 89 to 99 cents a minute, depending on how many minutes you buy (10 to 100).

If you used Jott during its Beta phase, you can get a 26 percent discount when purchasing a one-year subscription by entering your cell phone number into the Promo Code box when signing up. That brings the first year subscription down to $34.95.

While it’s hard for me to pay for something I used to get for nothing, Jott really is offering a valuable service for a low fee. I wish their developers success.