Peace of Mind Organizing

Making homemade dog treats

23 December 2015

It’s a little late in December to be offering up gift ideas, but perhaps this is a gift you can give to your dog (and yourself) without needing the excuse of a holiday.

It’s the You Bake ‘Em Dog Biscuits Cookbook, written by none other than yours truly. This cookbook is the last book I had published a dog writer before starting my organizing business in 2005. Ten years after publication it’s still selling.

Making your own treats for your dogs has a number of benefits:

• You control the ingredients
• You control the size of the treats
• You bake love right into the treat
• You have the pleasure of doing something for your dog (or his friends or your friends’ dogs)

I developed the 50+ recipes in the cookbook (some were originally developed by me for a prior, smaller cookbook published by the same company). I’m lucky that my husband, Barry, who works from home right off the kitchen, is a culinary school graduate. He gave advice, when asked, as I was working on the recipes. My own dogs at the time (Pip and Kirby) were taste testers, but I farmed each recipe out to at least one willing dog lover to test that the recipes work and to test that the dogs liked them.

I encourage you to give yourself the gift of the warm heart that goes along with making dog treats for your dog. If you try any of the recipes, please let me know!

Traveling on an airplane with a puppy

17 December 2015

If you’ve wondered why I haven’t blogged in a week or so, I have an excellent excuse.

Allow me to introduce Bix.

He’s an eight-week-old standard poodle puppy who joined our family on December 13. Tomorrow he’ll be nine weeks old. He’s absolutely adorable, smart as a whip and well behaved (for a puppy). He’s endlessly amusing.

Here’s a picture of Bix and me, taken by Dianne Janczewski, Bix’s breeder.

Bix came from Clifton Standard Poodles in Clifton, Virginia. I live in St. Louis, which means that I brought Bix home on an airplane. I enjoy planning such things and I gave the journey home with Bix a lot of thought. I had flown with a puppy once before, a dozen years ago, when we brought our departed poodle Kirby home from the breeder in New Jersey. But I didn’t really remember the fine details.

I did a lot of googling but I did not find a whole lot of helpful information. (The most helpful exception: Dog Jaunt.)

So I thought I’d detail a few things here that I did right and wrong in hopes of helping others faced with traveling with a little puppy on an airplane.

First, let me reassure you that Bix flew in the cabin of the airplane, under the seat in front of me. I flew Southwest and purchased their branded carrier so that I knew it would fit. If my puppy had been a small breed, I might have purchased a higher-quality carrier, like the Sherpa or SturdiBag, but I knew I’d be using this carrier for a very limited time and I felt the peace of mind of knowing it would fit was important.

Overall, everything went very well. My biggest worry had been that Bix would cry and disturb other passengers by whining or barking or that he’d eliminate in the carrier, which would also disturb passengers. He did neither of those things. He just slept, raising his head a little at the noises during takeoff and landing. He was a very good boy and didn’t even seem stressed.

Here’s a picture of him in his carrier on the plane.

What I didn’t anticipate was that he would get motion sick in the car on the way to the airport. My dear friend, Patti, was driving us in her new car and didn’t seem to blink when Bix threw up three times. Luckily, I had some pee pads with me that caught much of the mess, but it was still pretty gross. (He threw up in my car on the way home from the airport, too.)

So based on my experience, I’d like to share some things I did right and some things I did wrong:

Things I did right to prepare for my puppy’s first airplane trip

1. I paid attention to the airline’s regulations and bought a carrier that fit.
2. I booked a non-stop flight.
3. I made a reservation for Bix.
4. I bought some DryFur Pads to line his carrier and absorb any messes (which in his case was vomit).
5. I bought some Adaptil dog-appeasing-pheromone wipes and wiped down his carrier. That may have contributed to his calmness in the carrier.
6. I brought along four pee pads, though I wish I had brought more (see below).
7. I had a friend drive me, rather than taking Uber or a cab to the airport; given the vomiting, that would have ratcheted up the stress level for both of us.
8. I had my husband meet me at the airport so that we could take Bix directly to the pet-relief area once we landed. He really needed to pee.

Mistakes I made in preparing for my puppy’s first airplane trip

1. I didn’t anticipate car sickness. If I had, I would have brought along paper towels and more pee pads.
2. I didn’t insist on a private screening from TSA. I had read that I could request a private screening, but I was refused one by TSA. I should have insisted, because I had a difficult, stressful time getting Bix back into his carrier, which opens only in the front. In a private room, it would have been less stressful.
3. In retrospect I should purchased the higher-quality Sherpa carrier, which would have been easier to get him in to and out of. The Southwest carrier was taller, which I found appealing. But since Bix was lying down in the carrier, that wasn’t really relevant. And the Southwest was difficult to use and of shoddy quality. And it cost nearly as much as the Sherpa.

I hope if you’re faced with a trip like this one that you’ll find this post helpful. Based on my experience, I wouldn’t hesitate to do it again (though I’d correct the mistakes I made). Certainly getting sweet Bix home to us was well worth the effort!

Here he is on his second day in our home. He was and remains happy and comfortable and not the least traumatized by his travel experience, thank goodness.

Worth repeating: Keeping the clutter out of holiday gift-giving

7 December 2015

I originally wrote this post as an article for November 2007 newsletter. I love how relevant it still is eight years later. I’ve updated links and added my favorite relaxation method, floating, but otherwise haven’t changed a word of this article. Please consider your gifts carefully this holiday season and try not to give anything that will end up clutter in your loved ones’ homes.

Clutter-Free Gift Giving

So many of my clients develop attachments to inanimate objects. Those attachments make it really hard for the client to part with the objects. And what happens? Clutter happens. I’ve found that clients who tend to get sentimental about stuff find it particularly difficult to part with gifts that have been given them.

This has certainly changed the way I think about gift giving. I personally believe that once I’ve given a gift, the recipient is free to do whatever he or she wants with it. My feelings won’t be hurt if the gift is given away or even thrown away. But I don’t want to clutter up anybody’s life. So I try to give gifts that won’t add to clutter. And I encourage you to think in the same way about gift giving, particularly if anyone on your gift list has a problem with clutter.

Here are some of my favorite ideas for clutter-free giving:

Fresh flowers. A beautiful arrangement of cut flowers livens up any room. After the flowers have died, they can be tossed guilt-free. I try to avoid including a vase with the gift—I’ve seen many a home cluttered by florists’ vases! An easy website for ordering flowers is 1-800-flowers. I’ve also used Proflowers with success. Sometimes I’ll call a local florist in the recipient’s town, if I know of a good one.

Pampering. If you have a friend who would enjoy a little pampering, consider a gift certificate for spa services. Many cities and even towns have day spas. A massage or facial (even for men!) might be something your gift recipient wouldn’t do for him or herself. To find a spa in your gift recipient’s community, try Spafinder. Another favorite way I pamper myself is by floating in a flotation tank. You can find one near you at Flotation Locations.

Services. Give someone the gift of time by offering to perform some needed services for him or her. You could offer a few hours of babysitting, offer to shovel snow, rake leaves, walk dogs or even clean house. If you’re a gardener, offer to do some landscaping. If you’re good with computers, offer to set up a wireless network or make their computer more secure. These gifts are clutter-free and really very special. You can also give a gift certificate for organizing services if you’re sure that the recipient would love to work with a professional organizer.

Clutter-free subscriptions. Giving a magazine subscription is a nice year-long gift, but many people let magazines pile up. Instead, consider giving a subscription to streaming services like Netflix or Hulu. If your gift recipient likes to listen to the spoken word, a subscription to Audible might be just right.

Edibles. Give something perishable to eat and you know it won’t linger in your gift recipient’s home. You can make homemade goodies, or send a gift package from a place like Wolferman’s, which sells great gift baskets of English muffins and specialty breads, or Harry & David for fruit or other sweet edibles.

A side benefit to giving an intangible gift is that you don’t have to go out shopping! Let your fingers do the shopping online. And give yourself (and your gift recipient) the peace of mind of not adding clutter to a cluttered world.

Holiday cards the easy way

3 December 2015

I finished doing my business’s holiday cards this weekend. I send out about 125 cards to clients and colleagues and this year I managed to do it without stress.

In case it helps you make holiday cards easier, I’ll share my process.

1. I selected a card flat non-photo New Year’s card from Minted.com and customized it with my business’s name. I put a printed backer on it, but no text. (I like New Year’s cards because they’re secular and they give me a little extra time, though I didn’t need it this year.) I also included a complementary Skinnywrap return address label.
2. I uploaded a spreadsheet of the recipient’s names and addresses to the Address Assistant in my account on Minted. (I did have to use an app called Export Address Book to export from the Contacts app on my Mac.) Minted will print the names and addresses on the envelopes free of charge this year.
3. When the cards arrived, I put the cards, envelopes, Skinnywrap labels, Sharpies and stamps in a container so everything would be together when I wanted to work on cards.
4. Every day, I wrote a message on the back of ten cards, sealed them, affixed stamps and affixed the return address labels.

It took me a couple of weeks, but they’re all done and now all I have to do is put them in the mail!

Doing just ten at a time made this task so easy. And the fact that I didn’t have to hand address or print and affix address labels made a big difference, too.

If you like the idea of creating a spreadsheet of addressees from which you create labels (rather than have a service like Minted address the envelopes for you) and you use Outlook or Gmail, this step-by-step tutorial from the Kahoots blog might be helpful!

If you use a Mac and would like guidance on printing labels directly from your Mac’s Contacts app (which is what I used to do before letting Minted do my addressing for me), this video# from Ruth Davis of Mac2School shows you how.

The good news is that my professional cards are done. The bad news is that I still have about 75 personal cards to send out, but I have to wait until our puppy arrives on December 13 (squee!) so the card can sport a picture of him. But I’ve done what I can by uploading the addresses spreadsheet to Minted. Next steps will be get a great photo of the puppy, upload it to Minted and order my cards. Then I’ll do 10 at a time again. I should have it all done before Christmas but, if not, before January 1. I love that it feels so easy.

Giveaway winner!

30 November 2015

Thanks to all who entered the giveaway for a copy of Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets, by Geralin Thomas. I used the Random Number Generator to select a winner.

The winner is

Jessica VanSumeren

Jessica has a blog, The Mama Revival Series, and she just might review the book there. If she does, I’ll post a link!

Even if you didn’t win a free copy, I urge you to purchase and read this terrific book!

Much to be grateful for

27 November 2015

I love that we have a national holiday devoted to feeling grateful. I’ve found that taking a moment to feel grateful for our many blessings, even in times of adversity, is so beneficial.

I’ll share that this past year has probably been the most difficult year I’ve every had. I lost my mother and my beloved dog, Kirby. One of my brothers had a stroke. I broke my first bone. My father, who was my mother’s caregiver, had bladder cancer and was hospitalized, leaving us scrambling to find care for her. To top it off, a dear friend passed away just two weeks ago.

Despite all that, there is much to be thankful for. And, as I’ve done on some Thanksgivings past I’d like to express my gratitude for many of the great things in my life.

• My dad beat cancer. Shortly after my mother’s passing, my father discovered that three rounds of chemo did the trick and he’s cancer free.

• My mother’s swift and peaceful passing. She lived with Parkinson’s Disease for many years. When she finally became too weak, she didn’t suffer. I am truly grateful for that and for the fact that my brother, Larry, who lives in Australia was able to get to our hometown for her memorial service.

• The pre-planning we’d done for my mother’s passing. Nine years before she passed, my parents and I sat down and had the difficult conversation about their end-of-life wishes. So we knew what she wanted for her memorial service and obituary. That was unbelievably helpful.

• My wonderfully supportive family and friends. We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with our St. Louis friends who have become family. I couldn’t be more grateful for them—and for all my friends.

• The tenth anniversary of my business. I am so lucky to get to make a living by making a difference in people’s lives. My clients rock.

• My team members. The vast majority of my client appointments are spent leading teams of amazing organizers. We can get so much done in a short period of time. And we have lots of fun doing it.

• The new poodle puppy who will be joining our family in just a couple of weeks. I know he’s going to be a lot of work. But he’s going to be so much fun.

• Grilled cheese sandwiches made with mayonnaise. Making a grilled cheese is now so easy and the result so delicious. That’s a life changer.

• Morning smoothies. I still love my NutriBullet with a fiery passion.

From the profound to the trivial, these are the things I’m grateful for this year. I’ve let my daily gratitude list go by the wayside this year and this is a good time to start it back again. A gratitude habit can be a really powerful thing.

Decluttering Your Home: A review + giveaway

23 November 2015

My friend, the amazing organizer Geralin Thomas, has written a fabulous new book, Decluttering Your Home: Tips, Techniques & Trade Secrets. The 176-page book, published by Firefly Books, is heavily illustrated with beautiful photos and drawings.

The publisher provided me with a copy to review and give away to one lucky reader! (See giveaway details below.)

I need to start this review with a disclosure: Geralin is a good friend of mine, as regular readers of the blog know. So I’m admittedly biased. But, really, even if I had never met Geralin, I think I’d be gaga over this book.

After an overview chapter on clutter and the hold it can have over us, the book is divided into the following sections:

• Household clutter (divided by space in the house)
• Digital clutter
• Calendar clutter
• Maintenance
• Checklists and planners

Here is a photo of an interior spread in the Kitchen chapter of the book.

Geralin has been a professional organizer since 2002. It’s abundantly apparent in this book that she knows her stuff. The book is full of bite-sized information and suggestions for every area in the house. It’s richly illustrated, making it really appealing to read and very accessible.

The information in the book is a wonderful combination of practical and aspirational. She covers things that are in every home (like junk drawers) to things that I probably could only aspire to (a converted armoire-style storage cabinet with custom-made drawers to act as a pantry). So in that way, it’s a little like Pinterest!

In the book, Geralin offers specific suggestions on decluttering, as well as fantastic organizing and storage tips. So if you’re not dealing with a whole lot of clutter but just want to fine tune your organizing, you’ll love this. If you are dealing with clutter, it’ll be a godsend. I love the chapter on maintenance, which covers creating habits and also offers advice on coping with backsliding. And the final chapter—full of checklists of chores, tasks, and even wardrobe and meal planners—is really useful.

Would you like a free copy? Enter the giveaway!

To be entered in the giveaway, you must leave a comment here. Each commenter will receive one entry. After you’ve entered with a comment, you may get additional entries by tweeting about the giveaway (be sure and use @janinea in the tweet, so that I see it) and/or writing on the wall or commenting at the Peace of Mind Organizing Facebook page. The giveaway will end on Sunday, November 29 at noon central time and I’ll announce (and inform) the winner on Monday, November 30.

ETA: The giveaway has closed. Congrats to Jessica VanSumeren for winning the giveaway!