Mother Knows Best

There are many times in my life when I swear that I am adopted and can in no way be related to my parents. And then there are times when it is pretty evident that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The last time I visited home was when it first dawned on me that my parents are some of the most well-organized people I have ever seen. My mom claims that there had to, of course, be an Organized Mother, in order to "train and nurture" The Organized Goddess; and indeed she is right. Not only is her home in perfect order, knick knacks aside, but she is a wealth of knowledge of fun tips and ideas. So, I send lots of props to Mom as this tip was one of my mom's most recent ingenious ideas.

Everytime she visits me in Colorado, we have our ritualistic shopping madness of running around to all the stores in the area including any and all organzing type stores (she's so excited that the Container Store is now open at Flatirons, as am I). As she was perusing the dollar travel section at Target, I saw her putting tons of toothbrush holders into her cart. Of course, I think she's losing it. I mean, how many travel toothbrushes can you possibly need?

When we got home she demonstrated her new idea of using the travel toothbrush holders as eye make-up brush containers, either for travel or keeping in your drawer. This was such a great idea that I thought I should share it here. The average women can have a multitude of different brushes, and what a better way to keep them organized and separated by use and style then to use this inexpensive storage and/or travel container? The actual brush is protected and kept dust-free in a compact container.

So thanks for the tip mom, and as always, you do know best :)

Sometimes You Just Need to Get Away

After several months of child-induced sleep deprivation, a brutal week-long stomach virus and general day-to-day stress, I decided a break from life was in order. A few days in the mountains with a whole lot of doing nothing was exactly what my exhausted body and mind needed. The weekend basically consisted of a lot of lounging in bed, a few dips in the Jacuzzi, a much needed massage, venturing into town once or twice for a meal, followed by a little retail- therapy at the outlet mall on the way home.

It is often so easy to be excessively hard on ourselves and forget the absolute necessity of taking a break. If you don’t have a balanced mind, how can you have an organized home, or life for that matter? In an ideal world, it really shouldn’t take violent illness or massive bags under our eyes to force us into retreat. Why is it so difficult to take these needed time-outs before drastic things happen? The fact is when we become so consumed by our work or taking care of our homes, we neglect ourselves. Eventually it does become mandatory to actually leave your home to get some peace and relaxation.

My point to all of this? It’s ok to give yourself a break! Sometimes we need to walk away from routine every now and then. If you can do this in your own space, great! For me, I need a change of scenery and a new place to be where I won’t be tempted to do laundry or feel guilty for not cleaning and picking up. We aren’t machines, and while we are our worst critics, it’s so crucial to give ourselves some time off from all the “have-to” and “should be doings” of life.

Escaping for a little bit won’t make your issues or problems go away, but it will certainly put you in much more relaxed state of mind, giving you the opportunity to attack each day with renewed energy. It is my goal to allow the next “retreat” to come sooner rather than later, or at least before life begins to feel overwhelming again. Of course, there is always the ever helpful chant of "Serenity Now!"

Angering the Computer and Technology Gods

As I sit at my computer mortified by the amount of time that has flown by since my last blog, I realize that sometimes there is a frightening aspect of being too dependent on technology. Yes, it is here to help make our lives easier, but a majority of the time, it seems to do the opposite.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly on my computer systems, until all at once my desktop crashed, leaving me to rebuild the hard drive from scratch; my PDA decided not to accept daylight savings happening early, switching all appointments to an hour earlier at will; and my laptop wouldn’t recognize its own CD/DVD drive. Not to mention that on top of all of this mess, I managed to lockout my website and webmail from my home computers. Of course all I could think, as I screamed out several long lists of cuss words, was what have I done to anger the computer gods?

After taking many deep breaths throughout the two-week debacle, I realized I hadn’t angered anyone or anything; rather there was a lesson that I apparently needed to learn. And thus, today’s organizing tip: BACK-UP YOUR IMPORTANT INFORMATION ON YOUR COMPUTER!!! When you are done doing this, back it up again; and after that, at least one more time. It is so important to have you files stored in several different places. It doesn’t need to be every little thing on your computer, but the more you have stored in a safe place, the easier it will be to recover anything that gets erased.

• Make a list of files that you can’t live without (some of mine include all documents, photos, quicken accounts, music and website favorites).

• If you don’t have one, buy one or more external hard drives (Costco has great deals on little portable ones).

• Back-up data at least once a week. Financial data such as quicken should be backed-up daily or when new data is entered).

• Keep all program files and/or discs in an easy to locate place. These programs could include the Windows disc that came with the computer, or the Apple equivalent, MS Word, quicken, Photoshop, iTunes, etc. That way when you spend hours on the phone with your friendly computer techie, you will be able to locate these programs at ease if they need to be re-installed.
  

At the risk of sounding to Boy Scout-ish, always be prepared!!! I have had my hard drive erased twice now; the first time I didn’t have anything backed-up and the second time, I was ready for it. Lesson learned; it is much easier and less stressful to recover data when you know where it is and that is somewhere safe! Technology can be helpful as long as we still remember what to do when it fails us.