Closet Clutter

I recently found an easy way to organize your closet. rubbermaid.com will take you step-by-step to choose organizing units for any room in your house or office.  You get to design the closet based on your needs, then it will show you which retailers in your area carry the items you picked out.  The website composes the list of parts you will need to design your closet space so that you can print it out and take it to the store. 

The closet I designed was available at Lowes and will cost only $75.  It's that easy. 

Bring In The New, Throw Out The Old

Now that the BIG holiday is over, the presents are unwrapped and the guests have gone home, I sit here at my computer looking over the left over cookies, dishes in the sink and toys scattered around the house.  I thank God for it all.  I know that I am truly blessed. 

Now let the cleaning begin!  I am usually ahead of the game when it comes to my son's toys. By now, I have bagged up his old, unattended toys and donated them to Goodwill.  However, that is not the case this year. So, I'll begin there.  My rule is this: if you haven't looked at it or used it in one year, it's gone!  This rule ensures that there is absolutely NO clutter in my home.  You have to be able to disconnect your emotions from your possessions in order for this to work.  If you don't think that you are ready for this rule, practice it daily with small items such as magazines or clothes.  Once you start rewiring yourself to think this way, it's liberating.

A Sweet 16 Party With a Bite

I am now recovering from hosting my daughter's sweet 16 party.  It started out being a surprise party, but the guest list proved to be a little overwhelming so I included her in on the planning. Alexi's obsession these days is the Twilight saga, so a party with the Twilight theme seemed quite appropriate.   As it turned out, because Twilight is so popular it was very easy to find decorations.  We chose to have her party in a dance studio, as Bella Swan (Twilight character) had a frightening encounter with a vampire in her childhood dance studio.

On the menu for the evening was Chinese cuisine.  That is Alexi's favorite food.  We also bought pizza for the guests who did not care for Chinese food.  The punch was appropriately named "Bella's Bloody Punch." (red Hawaiian Punch, ginger ale, cranberry juice and apple juice)

And what is sweet 16 party without music?  We hired a DJ for the evening and the teens never stopped dancing all night.

Decorations included Welch's cherry juice, which looked like wine bottles.  I simply peeled off the Welch's label and put vampire blood labels on them, compliments of Martha Stewart.  The tables all had apples with votive candles, red ribbon, and glitter (vampires sparkle).

Today, my daughter thanked me for throwing her such a great party, she said that she had a lot of fun.  It was all worth it.  Seeing her and her friends enjoy themselves was all the thanks I needed.

Event Planning

Any event requires thoughtful preparations and organized planning to be successful. Think about the coming year, 2011; are there any milestone anniversaries or birthdays that may be a cause for celebration?  If so, it is not too soon to start planning.   If you are like me, I need to start months in advance just to be able to pay for it all.  Have a budget in mind and stick to it.  Using an Excel spreadsheet to track your expenses is an excellent way to monitor your spending. 

Start with the place where you want to have the event.  If it's at a rental hall, book now.  If you plan to have entertainment such as a DJ, that should also be secured six months in advance.  Perhaps you have some entertainer friends or family that can be considered. 

Now that the heavy stuff is out of the way, consider having a theme party.  Having a party with a theme may actually make decorating and planning much easier.  There are so many websites to assist you in planning a theme party.  The one that I like to use is party411.com. 

About a month prior to the event comprise the guest list.  From that list, order the food and start stocking up on the snacks and drinks you will have at the event. 

Whether you start planning your special event six months or six weeks in advance, It will be to your benefit and the benefit of your guests to have a thoughtful plan.  Guests can tell if you simply threw a party together with little thought and preparation.

If you would like some ideas for your next party or have some questions about planning a party, feel free to contact me on my blog.  I would love to hear from you!

Your Emotional Rating

When deciding to keep or to pitch something, I consider the emotional rating that I have towards the object.  I rate the object 1 through 10; ten being the highest emotional feeling and one would be no emotional attachment to the object at all.  Here's an example:

A stack of old newspapers I would assess a "one" because I know that I am not going to read them again and they do not hold any sentimental value.  My snowman nick-knack I may assess a "5" rating; it's not part of a collection, I like it, but I only look at it for four months of the year.  A locket with a photo of my first-born child, of course, would hold a "ten" value for me.  

Once I have put the rating on the object, I pitch out everything that is under a "five."  Objects that are rated five or six are under consideration.  Have I used or looked at the object in the past year?  If not, then it gets donated or thrown away.  Anything above a six has emotional value to me, and therefore is kept.

I use this method with my clients to help them decide whether to keep something.

Everything holds some emotional value for us or we would not have chosen to keep it.  Now let's get sorting!

Collector or Hoarder?

Books, sports memorabilia, figurines, purses.  All sound harmless enough; but where do we draw the line from collector to hoarder?  I have two friends who call themselves collectors; Sheila and Donna.  Sheila loves teapots.  She has about 35 teapots in her kitchen.  My other friend Donna, reads books.  Donna keeps all of her books.  One is a hoarder and the other is a collector.  Sheila displays her teapots above her kitchen cabinets and cleans them weekly.  Sheila is a collector.  Donna admits that her books are her friends and she can not get rid of them.  They have taken over her house.  Donna is a hoarder of books.   Her books have taken control of her judgment. 

When a collection has become so big that you can no longer display it in an organized way and it interferes with your personal space, it has crossed over to hording.

Organize Your Mind

Organization is a mind set.  You must visualize the space you want before you start moving and pitching.  Once you have a mental picture of how you want your room to look, then it is time to make that picture a reality.