Retail Therapy for Neat Freaks

There's a whole lot going on in my life right now. We're moving in less than 8 weeks, we have another baby on the way, and my active duty DH will be deploying soon. All of this is on top of my daughter's birthday and the holidays. Oh, and I guess my birthday is in there somewhere, too, but at my age that's something we don't discuss. Point being, my life is insane right now. My DH looked at me the other day and asked a question I had been thinking myself - "When did we become soccer parents?". That's a reflection of the busy state of our lives - our kids don't even play soccer yet.

I've been doing my best to keep up with it all. We'll have exactly one weekend to pick a house, so I've been doing a lot of online research. I need to hand over my volunteer breastfeeding group to the next Leaders, who aren't finished training yet, so I also have to help them prepare. Of course, there are schools to change and our own home to wrap up. And then there's the wrapping. I'm worried we'll be homeless on Christmas, or that my daughter's birthday will get lost in the shuffle. My own health and my son's, um, outspoken behaviour lately are both pushing me to try a new diet, which is a real challenge under the best of circumstances, but extra hard when you're trying to use up your pantry. Speaking of my health, I'm just starting to get big enough to bump into things I never used to, and the baby kicks back every time I do, so I'm getting kicked from both directions a lot. Fortunately, otherwise, all is going well.

I'm not complaining - really! I simply want to share with you that we all have crazy-busy times in our lives, and in our little family history, this is one of them. I hope you're somewhat impressed with all we're juggling like I am when I see working moms going to school or singles who work full-time, volunteer, travel and still have time for book groups every week. Everyone has her "productive period" - isn't that how they refer to artists?

Anyway, it's getting a bit overwhelming for me. So yesterday morning, I indulged. Yes, that's right, I went shopping. I'm not generally a shopper unless we need something, and then I bargain hunt. But yesterday I grabbed my allowance and spent it on ME. Shocking, I know. I went to Office Depot (or Office Max, or Staples - you know, an office supply store). I browsed organizational products. I got myself new pens and highlighters that I'm not going to share with the kids. I even found the perfect project planner.

I still have my paper planner - and yes, I even broke down and ordered another year of FC refills. Hey, I DO hate their new business model but dammit nothing else fit in my expensive leather binder! And nothing else fit my planning style. We will never speak of my pathetic crawl back to them again. But this new planner, ah.... she is so beautiful. It's a simple spiral-bound notebook, but the pages are for individual projects. There's an area for brainstorming, one for notes, the subject/description, and a series of follow-ups to schedule. In the middle of all this, is a blank list for breaking the project into step-by-step tasks, which I can then schedule in my planner. It's like a whole book of goal-setting pages. It's allowed me to take all the crud driving me insane right now and put it on paper. From my kids' Halloween costumes to shopping for the best mortgage, each "worry" now has its own page and steps to take to get through it.

When my friend Rachel was in college, she wrote everything she had to finish around finals on an index card and taped them all around her door. As she finished each one, she tore the card down and shredded it until she walked out the clean door (with a brilliant GPA) at the end of the year. I hope to rip each page out as I finish each task, rip it to pieces with wild abandon, and walk through my new door (with money in my pocket) before the end of the year.

"The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."
— Michelangelo Buonarroti

$$$ Immediately after my purchase (naturally), this Office Depot $10 off $20 coupon was released! If you want to splurge the same way I did, you can until Nov. 16th - at 50% off! $$$

Review: The Other 8 Hours

After reading a few other reviews online of Robert Pagliarini's The Other 8 Hours, I actually paid full price for this hardcover, I was so excited to read it. What could possibly be so interesting about a business book to a Stay-At-Home-Mom? Well, technically, it's a time management book, and I'm all about that. So here's what thought of it.

First, I have to say that several of the reviews I read commented specifically on his "course" language. I personally found absolutely nothing offensive. Nothing. I think at one point he used the phrase "get off your ass", but that was it, and I was actually looking for offensive language since I couldn't imagine how it would fit in a business book. So if you also read those reviews, allow me to throw in my two cents - there's nothing offensive here, at least to me.

Now that that little issue is out of the way, let me summarize the book. Basically, Robert suggests a four-step approach to getting more free time, specifically making the most of the "other 8 hours" you aren't sleeping or at work, and then using it to make money and make your life better. Sounds good, right? Sure, but what about those of us on more flexible schedules? I still found his suggestions effective. Robert isn't going to clock you with a stopwatch and make sure you use all 8 hours, nor does he encourage you to do that to yourself! However, if you apply even some of his suggestions, I think you'll notice a more productive day. I have. For example, one of his suggestions is to do brain things and body things at the same time. Since reading The Other 8 Hours, I've rethought if I want to spend my workouts listening to my iPod blindly or using that time to listen to motivational podcasts, digital books, reading real books, etc... Last week I planned an upcoming meeting while on the recumbent bicycle, and yes, I could read my writing!

The section on making more money with your other 8 hours is very detailed with a lot of specific resources and step-by-step guides. It was a bit overwhelming for me as a SAHM who has been out of the business world for a while, but it's clearly valuable information. I started with the blogging section (something I'm obviously comfortable with) and I hope to experiment with some of the other ventures as the courage and creativity hit me. The final section is dedicated to making the most of your personal life during the other 8 hours, and that immediately struck a chord with me. That's what I'm all about, making time to read to my kids, getting fresh air, learning to tat or become a better photographer. I like that he places equal emphasis on the importance of these activities and not just on working 24/7 to get rich.

The only part of the book I found a bit lame was the "LifeLeeches" section, which lists a number of ways we lose our other 8 hours to less than stellar activities. I suppose there are people out there who still need to be told that TV, social websites, whining and water cooler gossip are all wastes of time, but for me, the list was simply common sense. Still, if that one reader suddenly realizes how much more he could accomplish if only he stopped checking daily on Lindsay's latest adventures or gaming until 3 am, then I guess it's worth it.

The book, by and large, is filled with simple, direct motivation, clear suggestions, and useful resources. Perhaps most telling is the fact that after reading this book, I was motivated to create a list of other books I've been meaning to read, hit the library, and start reading them. So one good book has lead to a list of others, all of which (hopefully) will pour a little more good into my head. To learn more about this book and others I've enjoyed, check out my book recommendations on the right.

Grateful for Glitter

I'm not much of a morning person. Sure, I get up, I go through the motions, I'm polite and mom-like, but really, I'm dreaming of, well, dreaming. One of my morning responsibilities is to get my son off to school. Like millions of kids, he rides the bus (which is safer and more environmentally responsible than car-riding, but that's another post). A handful of other parents and I dutifully stand around the bus stop for 10 or 15 minutes each morning, keeping the rough-housing down and grilling the kids on their spelling words. It's a mom's life.

This year, however, there's a new trend that's pretty hard on the sleepy morning eyes. This year, in the early morning sun, little girls everywhere are covered in glitter. Apparently their innocent, angelic childhood glow is insufficient, so they have sparkles on their clothes, their shoes, their backpacks, even their tiny little fingernails. It's like saying "Good morning" to a dozen little disco balls every day.

I know my own daughter will grow into some similar fad when she's older, and Lord knows I blinded more than a few people with my fashion choices when I was a kid. In truth, though, I'm glad glitter is the trend - in fact, I wish the boys could get away with it too. I think kids should wear bright happy colors, plaids, polka-dots, or whatever makes them happy. More importantly, though, I think kids should be impossible to miss. I think of it as a visual "scream". If a kid yells for help, I want to hear it. I want everyone to hear it.

I recall hearing from a police officer that the camouflage trend was the worst thing that ever happened to search and rescue missions - how do you find and help a child who's dressed to disappear? To this day, my kids don't wear camouflage - in the woods they wear blaze orange! We're a military family, too, so camouflage is everywhere, but not on my kids. Remember, you don't have to live in a rural area for them to blend in - all it takes to hide them is a median, park or natural landscaping. Camouflage is very effective stuff!

Nope (slurp coffee), I'll take that crazy glitter any morning. Let those little ones shine!

My Jars (for Jen)

I've owed this post to my friend Jen for a while. She's one of the few people I know who's as much of an organizational geek as I am. I couldn't believe it the first time I saw her kitchen cabinets. Every cabinet, heck, even the fridge, was sorted into zones by use and labeled. It was amazing. It was something I would do. But shamefully, hadn't.

Was it kitchen-cabinet envy that sent me on my quest for the perfect storage jars? No, I don't think it was. As I said, it was something I'd do anyway, left to my own devices (anyone who's seen my linen and medicine cabinets can attest to that). But perhaps the idea that someone else would appreciate my efforts helped motivate me. Actually, the real impetus was that I started buying more whole foods in bulk (see the Momnivore for more on our family's lifestyle changes). Unfortunately, those stupid, flimsy little bags you use at the bulk bins turn into squishy little green bean bags in the pantry, hard to store and even harder to see or remember what was in them. I'm not a big fan of wasting food, so I went in search of a new storage solution.

I wanted something clear that had an airtight seal. There are dozens of types of plastic containers available, and for a while I was seriously considering OXO's Pop containers, which are not only super-cute, but they use them for the entire professional pantry on Iron Chef America, which is pretty impressive (even if I assume that OXO generously donated all those containers to ICA). Ultimately, there were two reasons I didn't go with the Pop containers. First, they aren't inexpensive. They're reasonably priced and I'm not saying they aren't worth their cost, but I couldn't afford to do a whole pantry one $10+ container at a time. More importantly, though, they're plastic. It seems like every season we discover a new chemical leaking out of our plastics, so who knows if 3 years after I buy hundreds of dollars of these containers, currently deemed food-safe, we'll learn that they aren't safe for food at all? No, I knew I wanted good, old fashioned glass. You know, glass. Really hot sand. I'm comfortable with that.

This is where it got complicated. I knew exactly what I wanted: hermetically sealed jars. Think of a Mason canning jar, but with a rubber gasket and that wire & bail that holds the lid on tight. I know it's something completely foreign to most people, but I grew up in Northern New England and seriously, ancient stuff that works never goes out of style there. Apparently, however, it does everywhere else - except Europe! It took hours of online searches to wade through the over-priced, tiny, decorative (read: useless) little jars and find proper food jars, but finally I found just what I wanted at GlassWarehouse.org: 2-quart, square glass food storage jars with hermetically sealing lids by Italian glass maker Fido. I love the Internet, but I have to confess this search was a long one with a lot of wrong turns, so I ordered 6 cases. The worst part was the shipping cost (ok, and the fact that they arrived in two 50-lb boxes - lucky my DH was home), but the jars themselves were less than $ 4.50 each since I bought enough to break the wholesale minimum. I've opted not to label them since I can see the contents and going label-free allows me to change their contents whenever I want. One unexpected perk is that recently we had an informal party and I was able to grab several of the jars with snacks in them and simply put them out on the buffet, since they're so simple and pretty.

It took about six months of searching and researching, but these jars are exactly what I wanted, and I love them! Here are my honest, unretouched before (l) and after (r) pantry pictures. Of course, I also use my new jars to keep baking yeast fresh in the fridge, and to keep the dog's treats crunchy, and to... well, you get the idea.

Ta-Da!

Franklin Covey Failure

It is with a heavy heart that I write this. I have been a devout follower of Franklin Covey planning systems for well over a decade, but alas, we must go our separate ways. What could possible tear me away? Is it that lousy iPhone app that just wasn't up to snuff? Or a fabulous new planning system I just love? Sadly, no. It's neither. Franklin Covey isn't the company I fell in love with all those years ago, and I don't want to stay with the company they've become.

Last fall I ordered my usual supply of paper planners for the family for the upcoming new year. For some reason, FC shipped it in pieces, and only billed me for the first piece. Being a good person, I emailed them a few weeks later and offered to pay the balance. I got no reply, so a week later I called. I was told it was their fault for shipping late, and "not to worry about (the balance)". Classic good customer service, right? After the call, I finally got an email, which confirmed my balance was considered "paid in full". This was in December of 2009.

Last month I was searching in an old email account for a lost contact when I stumbled over an email from FC. Attached was an invoice for the balance I had tried to pay 6 months earlier. Now, it was sheer luck that I ever saw that email, as it was an old, obsolete address I never use. The email was obsolete, the attachment was hard to open, and the invoice numbers were internally assigned at FC, i.e., they didn't match an order number or anything I had on record. In fact, FC decided not too long ago to wipe out all customers' accounts and start their website from scratch. My 10+ year history of orders was gone. But somehow they managed to save an old email address and a "past due" balance. Interesting.

I emailed the finance department back and forth a number of times. The woman I spoke with (via email) never did explain the new invoice numbers or account number they attached to my "past due" bill. I did make her show me what they were supposedly for, so at least I could check if I'd every used the supposed products. I sent her my entire paper trail from my attempts to proactively pay the balance in the past, but she said that all of the customer service reps I spoke to, online and on the phone, were ALL new and incompetent. You know, I learned to keep paper trails like the one I had from FC. One would think they would be anything but incompetent. And just for the record, the finance woman had a poor English skills. Enough said.

I paid the bill. It was for $ 38.57. I'm an honest person, and I think that maybe, perhaps, this might have been the money I owed last fall.

However, if you tried to pay a bill, repeatedly, and you were told you didn't have to, and then had all traces of your account and history wiped out, and then received a bill in a suspicious manner with all the tracking numbers changed and no paper trail, would you pay it? Would you trust a company that told you their own people were often and consistently wrong?

This isn't the Franklin Covey of the past. I don't know who or what is in charge there now, but their company has gone down the toilet and fast. They should be ashamed of how this was handled. If nothing else, the way they handled this $38 bill cost them the hundreds of dollars a year I usually spend there, as well as all the good press I've given them, which I am formally rescinding with this post. When I find a suitable replacement source for my planning needs, I'll gladly share it with you all. In the meantime, please keep my tale in mind and do not patronize the new Franklin Covey.

Organize Now!

That's not me yelling at you; that's the title of the latest organization book I picked up. I'm a total lit junkie, so I read all the time, but I don't often find a book I like well enough to give it the ol' college try. Organize Now! by Jennifer Ford Berry may be one of those books.

The first thing that caught my eye is that the book is spiral-bound, which implies quick reference and interaction to me. Sure enough, there are checklists for each week, along with space for notes. And, although there are 52 weeks of topics, the author invites the reader to use them as she feels best. Good - that means I can skip stuff I don't like! Oh, did I say that out loud? I meant I can skip over areas in which I'm already perfectly organized. The book is a compact 6" x 8" or so, so I can bring it with me if I like, and has hard covers to endure the trip. This author obviously has a real life and thought of some of this stuff! Actually, she's a professional organizer in the NY state and has kids and everything. See? She is real after all. Here's her website, Organize This Life.

This week I'm trying Week 1: Organize Your Mind. Ha! Oh, sorry, was that out loud again? Actually, it was really easy to incorporate the weekly goals into my usual weekly planning (I use a Franklin-Covey paper planner, not a PDA or computer program). I just added the goals to my tasks or appointments or on my Compass Card as needed. Most of the goals for this week are very useful and practical - basic, "square one" stuff that I should be doing all the time. Some people may find it redundant, but I needed the reminders. For example, one of the goals is to get 7 hours of sleep a night. No, I don't, but I am keeping track of it this week and actively working on getting more and better sleep. Two of the more challenging goals are to well, make goals, and to eliminate negative "energy drainers" in my life, including unhealthy relationships and clutter and unfinished projects. I kind of feel like if I could do all that in a week, I would be the one writing the book, but I appreciate the direction she's taking, starting with taking care of the reader herself before worrying about where to file receipts. That's nice.

I don't anticipate doing everything in the whole book, and I won't bore you to tears with tales from my sock drawer, but I will let you know my overall opinion of this book over time. There are SO many resources out there that it's a relief to find a really good one. I'm hoping this is one of them!

Namaste'

Radical Parenting My A**

Sometimes I make the mistake of staying up too late and watching obscure tv shows like Discovery Health's "Radical Parenting". I'd put a link here, but the show's so bad even their homepage doesn't have much on it. According to whomever thought this show was a good idea (probably some childless male executive), breastfeeding, babywearing, any sleeping arrangement other than a crib, and homeschooling are all "radical" ways to raise children. The perky young child psychologist they interviewed pointed out that these methods require parents to "really be in touch with their children" and added that"attachment parenting is hard work, sometimes leading to burnout". (*I shouldn't use quotes since I didn't tape it or write it down. I may well be off by a few articles, but this is damn close to verbatim.)

First, my husband's response to my rant the next morning: "Who said raising kids was easy?".

Now my take. I agree with my husband. I also know that all of the aforementioned parenting choices have been the norm, not the exception, throughout the world and throughout history. Artificial baby foods, high-powered marketing, and a jump in taxes in the '70s all helped twist our idea of what raising kids is supposed to be about. No one makes you have kids. There is certainly no shortage of humans on Earth. So if you don't want to put in the time and effort, money and patience it takes to raise another individual human (or several) then don't do it. If you have kids, and choose to share that responsibility with someone else, via daycare or other care providers, then recognize that YOU are the one making the unnatural parenting choice. I don't judge you; I don't know why you made your choice. But I will not be labeled a freak or hippy because I don't buy in to Madison Avenue-marketing mothering.

If I have an opportunity, I will do my best to support you and your child. Human beings are social, communal animals, and I will gladly help you in any way I can. I will also expect that you will recognize that breasts exist to make milk to feed babies, that babywearing wraps are some of the earliest human inventions, and that families in most of the world and for most of human existence have slept together for comfort and protection.

Now, I realize that this show is the "brainchild" of some of the same tv execs who failed to label the Gosselins or Duggars "radical" parents, in spite of all their efforts. Many of you agree with me about this dangerous provocation, this blatant effort to further divide parents into camps. I hope you'll help take the stigma out of attachment parenting and other "radical" behaviors, and encourage and support each other as we raise the next generation.

Me? I'm off to do some real radical parenting - getting both my kids' rooms cleaned before bedtime.

Namaste'

Saving Money, Losing My Mind

That's it - I can't even think straight anymore. 11 months into Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (FPU), and I can't function without a budget. Spending money hurts now. That's brilliant for long-term financial goals, but lousy for short term sanity. Need proof? I had to count on my fingers to calculate those 11 months; it's a good thing my kids showed me what to do when you go over 10.

I love the concept of thinking through every purchase before buying anything, both from a financial and an environmental standpoint. Really, I do. Unfortunately, after training myself to do that, I'm too cheap to buy things that I don't really need. Especially things that are for me, as in, things that are not for my family, but ME. If I were a clotheshorse or serial shopper or something, that would be great, but I'm not. I'm pretty frugal by nature. So now the things I deny myself are things I couldn't justify spending household money on, so I bought myself. Put another way, "my" treats were really household needs.

Last month I bought several whole grains and beans in bulk - yea! Cheap, healthy, great all around. Unfortunately, they keep getting lost in the pantry because I refuse to pay for proper storage containers for them. I can't find them, so I don't use them. Eventually, one of them is bound to explode and rain millet all over our dry goods, costing me several hours of my life cleaning. Now the issue is clutter. A few weekends ago, the boys were gone, the fog lifted, and I devised a game plan for several of our most cluttered areas. One of the worst is the closet in our front hall. Between the weird weather this season and the kids outgrowing their shoes and coats all the time, the door barely shuts. Add to that my husband's tendency to hurl every pair of shoes he finds in there like he's Curt Schilling, and you can imagine how just getting ready to leave the house becomes a headache. Ah, but I had a plan! Over-the-door shoe rack! Sort through the shoes and coats and bags - get it all off the floor! Put an end to all the pitching! Yeah, um, well, it turns out that those shoe racks are $20 each, even at discount stores. I'd planned to get 3 of them, but there's no way I could justify $60 for stupid wire racks. So what if the closet's a mess, right?

Wrong. While I still can't justify all 3, I did commit to one, and to cleaning out that closet. Why? Because my sanity is worth it. The fighting and frustration every morning when we all go "bobbing for sneakers" in the closet has got to end. I'm not suggesting we all have professional home organizers come in seasonally so our homes look like Real Simple covers, but if taking a few bucks out of the long-term cash stash helps ensure I'll live to see the rewards, I'm sure Dave would approve.

How-To for Moms

Have you ever noticed how many practical guides aren't very practical if you have kids? My kiddos are 6 and 3, not too little, but certainly not independent. We're pretty much out of the sticking-things-in-the-socket stage, but not quite to the put-'em-to-work stage. Maybe I'm the only person out there with children, but I kind of doubt that. Still, every book I read on home organization, or every how-to guide seems to be ignore the fact that there are children in the world. I'm not the kind of person who has a messy home and simply chalks it up to having kids; that's not what I'm talking about at all. I think most people who have visited my home would call it fairly neat & tidy most of the time, even though my youngest still makes finger paint out of peanut butter sandwiches smooshed into a paste with her chocolate milk. So this isn't an excuse session, it's an observation, and perhaps, recognition of a niche that someone should fill, please. I would, but I'm still scraping play-doh out of the carpet.

Here's an example of what I mean: Unclutter Your Life in One Week! by Erin Doland. I loved the angle she took with this home organization book. Basically, you are to organize areas based on your daily routine and common activities. Clever, no? Instead of cleaning the pantry first simply because it's the biggest mess or something, you start with your closet, assuming that you start your DAY by getting dressed. I hadn't seen this approach before, and it made sense to me. Unfortunately, the author has (or had, at the time of writing) no children, so she hardly mentions them at all. It's obvious that she doesn't realize that most moms have to organize their own things, and each of the children's' things, as well as all the public spaces of the home. Wait until she finds out that action figures outnumber Barbie outfits in some homes 3 to 1. Oh, and for the record, the only way you could honestly Unclutter Your Life in One Week! following this book is if you had no friends, family, or possessions in your already immaculate minimalist condo. I'm guessing no one like that is reading this or is considering this book, but if you are, you can do it! *** Update 2/25/10 See the comment from the author below - not only is she now a mom (congratulations!) but a family organization book may be on the way! Thanks for the reply, Erin!

Another example: dog training. Many behavioral problems pets have can be easily fixed with some simple training and patience. I'm perfectly capable of understanding these training techniques and the logic behind them. However, I'm NOT capable of leaving the house 48 times an hour to condition my dog to ignore it, since my children can't ignore it, and every time I grab the keys they want to come too, "Mummy, you goin' out? K'I come? K'I come, Mummy? Where we going?". I'm also apparently not capable of walking the dog while pushing the jogging stroller without destroying the alignment of the $300 stroller. Of course, consistency is key when training a pet. Consistency? Kids? At the same time? HA! That's a good one. I'm lucky to impose a basic schedule on the family for dinner and bedtime most days, and even that has some flexibility built in. It's not a lack of desire or planning on my part, it's the modern American family lifestyle. Dinner is at 5:30 (insanely early) so that the kids can have their baths and be ready to unwind quietly for an hour before they go to sleep at 8. That's reasonable. Except on Mondays we have Cub Scouts until almost 8, and other days we have to pick up the dog at daycare across town at 4, and sometimes Daddy's home for dinner and that changes everything. Life happens. Point being, I'd love to follow the training guides to a T and create the perfectly healthy, happy, stable pet, but that's simply not practical. I'll work with him when I can, and we'll just have to offer up love and patience in the meantime.

Don't you have this problem too? You start something, anything, only to have a kid, or two or three, pop up and ask to help, or get in some sort of fix where they need a hand? My husband got in big trouble not too long ago by complaining that he was "working, not babysitting" when he was cleaning the garage and the kids were outside. While his choice of words were regrettable (no worries, he's recovering nicely), I can certainly sympathize with his frustration. I need a How-To Guide to Everything for Moms. I need real tasks, like snaking the lint trap on the dryer, broken down into real step-by-step guides, INCLUDING all the interruptions and mom-points.

It might read like this: Open dryer door, remove lint screen. Trade something with your toddler for the dryer brush. Insert dryer brush into lint screen slot. Use tug-of-war with toddler over dryer brush to loosen residue on the sides of the slot. Send child to kitchen for cookie. Frantically wiggle dryer brush in slot to find bottom vent and further insert brush before child returns.

Alternately, the steps could all be broken down into 5 minute increments. Or age-appropriate "helping" could be listed with each task. I'm sure there are many ways to make it work. After all, many of us make a ton of tasks work every day without even trying. Did you feed everyone today? Clothe everyone? Clean the house? Pack everything and get everyone where they need to be? Oh, and remembered to feed Fido, too? Sure you did, and all while keeping them all safe and happy. So it CAN be done. I just need to figure out how to take it to the next level. Time to start that How-To for Moms research!