Marilyn Bohn | Creative Organizer

A friend of mine said her home and her car are an outward expression of her inward state of mind. Then again she said is it that the chaos outside adds to the chaos on the inside.

It is like which comes first the chicken or the egg. Does it really matter in the end which comes first?

•If you have chaos in your mind and in your physical surroundings take a good look and think how does it makes you feel and then decide; how do I want to feel.
•Make a plan of action, a map, a goal, whatever you want to call it to guide you in making changes.
•Take steps to reclaim your space and your life. This may include hiring a professional organizer or working with a friend, getting someone who can support and guide you on this organizing journey.

Whichever way we chose to look at the problem, whether we are going to make changes internally or externally one will affect the other.

My friend just sent me a package from Taiwan. I was sitting at my desk wondering where the scissors had been carted off to as I had to cut the envelope open. I kept looking around the room for the scissors (not moving from my chair) until I read on the custom label— candy. Boy that made me jump up and go for the scissors in the other room because I wanted the candy. See all we need is the right motivation and we can accomplish anything.

What motivates you?

No, I am not a gardener. Whew, it just feels good to say that. It takes the guilt away for me to say I am not a gardener. Don’t get me wrong, I have done my share. I love the taste of veggies fresh from the garden. When our five girls were at home I would wake them up on Saturday morning before the sun was up (what was I thinking) so they could help weed the garden because I thought that would teach them how to work. Let’s be honest here, it would have been easier to just have done it ourselves but we wanted them to have the experience. They all grew up with a fantastic work ethic, but none of them have gardens.

Organizing gardening tools can make gardening more enjoyable. Anytime you have to hunt for the tools, or other things it takes some of the fun out of it.

•Make a place in your garage or shed just for your gardening tools. Some people refer to zones in the garage and one of these zones would be for the gardening gear.
•Prioritize your needs and take the time to declutter. Get rid of those tools that have cracked handles or you avoid using because you aren’t comfortable with. Hang tools on garage walls to save space and avoid accidentally driving over those that may have been leaned against the wall and have fallen. When hung they are easy to find and they look organized.
•Hoses fit nicely on a hose reel.
•If you have a container in the garage with drawers’ smaller tools can be stored there. Label the drawer so you will know where to put the tool back after use to help you stay organized.
• Also keep the tools sharpened and clean. Wipe off dirt or mud with a cloth and at the end of the season wipe the metal tools with linseed oil. Even if you don’t like to garden, when your tools are organized it will look like you do. Then you can always find them to loan to your neighbor.

How about you? Do you have some fun gardening experiences? Or why do you not like to garden, or do you like to garden?

If you want to have a good laugh while being taught something I recommend watching Veggie Tales. The ‘actors’ are all vegetables. An episode I watched was ‘Madam Blueberry’. Madam Blueberry was blue and she didn’t know why. She had friends, a nice home and lovely things. She just didn’t know why she was blue.

Then one day she saw outside her window from her home (which was in a tree) a Stuff Mart being built. She didn’t know what it was but soon three veggies from Stuff Mart came and convinced her through clever songs that she was blue because she didn’t have enough stuff. Her friends tried to convince her that wasn’t the reason she was sad, but she wouldn’t listen to them.

She went to Stuff Mart and bought all this stuff until her home (which is a tree house) couldn’t hold it all and it went catapulting off into the trees. Then she realized having more stuff didn’t make her happy.

In many cases it is our stuff that is making us unhappy. Do we have too many nick knacks, magazines, books, collections; things we no longer treasure or have a use for? Does it no longer mean anything to us or bring us happiness or does it take too much time to keep organized and dusted?
If you said yes to these questions then it is time to reassess our stuff and ask ourselves:

•What price are we paying for hanging on to it?
•Is it worth the price?
•Is it time to let go?
•Can I donate things to make others happy?
•Can I organize differently to keep my stuff but enjoy it more?

Deciding what to keep and what to let go of is an individual decision. Often it is less painful and helpful if we have a friend help us or a professional organizer who is experienced and objective in the decision making process.

Have you gotten rid of stuff? How did you feel while you were doing it and after you did it? What is your advice for getting rid of stuff?

There have been so many disasters happening around the globe I have wondered when we will have a disaster here where I live. We live on a major fault line in Utah. Our home is literally on the line. I have thought,”am I ready if a disaster were to strike our home?”

Even if something happened to destroy just one room in my home where my files, computer or important valuable records are kept that would be a disaster to me. I want to share with you what has brought me some peace of mind. I am using a product from Securita. It is a vital records PortaVault. It is an easy-to-use, comprehensive system which IDENTIFIES, ORGANIZES, STORES AND TRANSPORTS all of the important records and documents I need that are valuable to me. Some of the things it does is:

•Eliminates the guesswork in identifying important documents (I love this)
•Does not require filling out a lot of forms (What a bonus in my busy life)
•It is filled with helpful hints and guidance (Too many to mention)
•Ready when I am: just grab it & go (I hope it never comes to that, but one never knows, this is one of the big reasons I decided to buy it and use it).
•Prevents chaos in emergency situations (There is enough going on and gathering up without wondering where my important papers are to be located).

I am spending 15 minutes a day collecting my important papers to make my PortaVault complete. It was an eye opener when I discovered I didn’t know where my birth certificate was. If I hadn’t been filling my PortaVault I would never have even known.

Another way to store documents is the writable compact disk but that is a subject for another day. Are all of your important documents together? Where do you store them? What works for you?

Some people come into our lives and leave foot prints on our hearts. Yesterday was a sad day here at our home because we had a cat that came into our lives and left foot prints on our hearts. Bobbie was a female cat my daughter rescued about seven years ago. She took very good care of her and extended her life by several years. We think she was about 14 years old.

Recently Bobbie became ill and could not be cured so we had to take her to be put to sleep. (I call it sent to heaven). We all cried. My daughter dug Bobbie’s grave and tenderly buried her with the quilt she had made just for Bobbie a few years ago.

The weather was overcast and grey. This was appropriate as she had been a Seattle native for many years. We will miss her when we walk into a room and don’t hear her purr. We always knew where she was as her purr was spontaneous. We will remember her reaching out her paw for more petting when we walked away.

I wonder if the pain is worth it when we lose a cat but they have so enriched our lives.

Good bye Bobbie, we will miss you, thanks for the years you blessed our lives.

Here’s a funny little story about some little old ladies……

Three old ladies were sitting around a table. The first says, “I’m getting so forgetful¬ I was standing at the top of the stairs and I couldn’t remember whether I was going down or had just come up.”

The second lady says, “You think that’s bad? The other day I was sitting on my bed and I couldn’t remember whether I was going to sleep or getting up.”

The third lady smiles smugly. “Well, I have no memory problems at all, knock wood.”

She raps the table. “Who’s there?”

One of my most memorable Mother’s Day was when my daughter who lived in NYC flew in to Utah without me knowing about it. All my other girls were in on the surprise and that was fun with all five girls being home together.

What is your most memorable Mother’s Day memory that you can share with us?

I quilt, I am a quilter, I love quilting, and I love to quilt. Quilting has enriched my life in ways I never dreamed of. I have learned interesting facts about history because of quilts. I have made a ton of friends; and I have traveled because of quilting opportunities.

I know when I have my sewing room organized and I can find things fast it is much more fun to quilt and sew. It is so frustrating to have to hunt for things like my ruler, rotary cutter or scissors. So I have organized so I don’t have to hunt because it drives me crazy to waste my time. Here are three tips that work for me:

1.Have your sewing machine, ironing board, and cutting table arranged so they are easily accessible. Get a system going so you can take fewer steps between the cutting table, iron and sewing machine which will save you time.

2.Use baskets or other containers fabric and quilting stores store sell to store your tools in. Keep them close to where you will be using them.

3.Sort your fabrics by color and then organize within color group. Or organize by lights, medium, and darks within the same color. Clear plastic boxes/bins work well to hold and contain fabric.

By organizing your sewing room or sewing space in a way that your supplies and tools are easy to find and are convenient to use you’ll have more fun and more time to sew rather than spending your time hunting for what you need. It takes time to get everything like you want it but it will be worth it.

Happy sewing/happy quilting.
What have you done to make your sewing room a more efficient place to sew in? How has quilting enriched your life?

I decided I am on over load. I have misplaced my notes from the NAPO conference in Reno, I go to a room and forget what I was going for and I have a new computer with new programs that I am trying to learn all at once and it just isn’t working.

I have a plan to get my time back and my mind back. I am not sure where they went but I have a plan. When I was in the doctor’s office (for allergies) yesterday I wrote down what I wanted to accomplish that day and then I numbered them in the order of their importance.
If I am having issues I am suspect you may be in the same boat as I am. Good thing we aren’t always here at the same time or not all the time.

1.Write a to -do list, cross the task off when done. Separate lists into a. Things to do and b. Appointments and c. Fun things to do. Do one fun thing and do a must do thing; rotate between the two to help stay motivated to do what you have to do. Or maybe do three must do and then one fun project.
2.Organize or clean up as you go. Wipe the counter as you cook, put things in the dishwasher rather than in the sink. Put things where they belong rather than piling them on the counter.
3.When you are in a room and things need to go to a different room stock pile them in a basket, bag or box and then take them all at once. The point is to save time.
4.We don’t have to do everything for everyone. Learn to say no and say it. Your time, family and well being are important.

By the way I got eight out of 13 things accomplished. But then I also got a zillion of other things done too. I decided to take advantage of the fact that tomorrow (now today) would be here and I could work on the tasks then. But it was such a good feeling to see my progress.

How about you? Do you ever feel you are working in circles getting nothing you want to get done actually done? Please share

I came back from Washington last week with a head full of memories, my trip journal and a camera full of photos of my family including the parents of the cute grandkids and photos of the beautiful tulips at the tulip festival in Skagit County.

Now what to do with them? I want to remember the trip, the fun and the beauty so I immediately set to work on sending my photos to Costco to have them developed. I like to crop my photos and take out the red eye and sometimes change the color to black and white or sepia. All of this takes time but I keep my eye on my goal and forge ahead. I believe in keeping photos in photo books so they can be looked at and keep the memories alive. By doing one trip at a time it doesn’t become overwhelming.

When I get my photos back in only one hour I slip them in a photo album behind plastic sleeves. I keep the book near my computer to remind me to journal them. I don’t like my hand writing so I type a page of what all the photos are about—where we went and what we did and the dates. Then I type up short blurbs that I insert by the photos. This is very easy and fast. Well fast is a relative word, but it is faster than scrapbooking.

I have to confess this part sometimes doesn’t get done for a few months. Life is just so busy. I have three albums I need to journal. Now I have confessed. Ahhh I will report back to you on my progress—this will give me a goal to work on and soon.

Speaking of scrapbooking I have a friend whose website is Organize 101 and she is passionate about scrapbooking. She has written a book with beautiful pictures and tons of information about scrapbooking. She has given me one of her books to give away free to one lucky reader of my blog. You know how writers foreshadow things that are going to happen in their books, this is what I am doing. Next week I will announce and open up a contest you can enter to win this book.

How do you store your photos and what tips and tricks do you use to keep your photos organized?

My son-in-law needed to get gasoline for his truck. He took a container to the station and told the attendant he needed to get gas. The attendant stared at him and said “it is called fuel”. (We have laughed about this). Whatever you choose to call it, I know I am feeling the pinch every time I go to the gas station to fill up.

Here are some tips I have read a few times on how to get the most out of the fuel we use for the best gas mileage:

•Fill up your car in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. All service stations have their tanks buried below ground so the colder the ground the more dense the gasoline. As it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or evening your gallon is not exactly a gallon.

I was given this advise years ago and am still hearing the same thing so I can only assume it is true.

•When you are filling up DO NOT squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to fast mode. When you pump the gasoline slower it minimizes the vapors that are created. All hoses have a vapor return, if you are pumping in fast mode; some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you are getting less worth for your money.

•Fill up when your tank is half full or half empty. The more gas you have in your tank the less air is occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates at an extremely fast rate. The gasoline storage tank has an eternal floating roof that serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation.

•Drive at a consistent speed, even in traffic. Too much braking wastes as much fuel as rapid acceleration. Applying the brakes kills momentum and then you have to speed up again which wastes gas.

•Accelerate slowly. A pretty simple tip that will leave you with more gas in your tank and less visits to the pump.

And of course I am sure we all stock pile our errands and do them at the same time to save on gas. This is an organization tip I have used for years.

What fuel saving tips do you use? We need all the ideas we can get.