Organize Creative Parties
Lifestyle Channel's New TV Show
A new show scheduled to air in September brings many things together relating to women's interest in organization, cooking, decorating, and planning events. The pilot episode of Entertaining at Home and a few of the show's first episodes were shown to a select audience of homemakers, and the response was very good.
Michelle Simone’s Entertaining at Home, Lifestyle Channel’s new instructional TV show teaches viewers how to organize creative parties from start to finish.
Equipped with what she claimed as a natural talent in interior decorating and food service and a 20-year experience as her husband’s partner in an event planning business, Simone put up the TV program to inspire women how to decorate their homes, dress up, and prepare meals and souvenirs following a particular party theme.
Besides tips on how to organize innovative parties, Simone will also give viewers suggestions on what materials to use and where to purchase them; what substitutes can be utilized for materials unavailable for now; and how to improvise exotic décors and food from commonly used food and ornaments.
Read full article.
Putting A Stop To Hoarding
 Hazardous Hoarding
The 2nd Annual Hoarding Conference that was held at the Long Beach Convention Center May 17-18 focused on solutions, not horror stories, during its 2-day agenda.
Details of the hoarding convention describe programs that approach the problem at the prevention level, as well as the intervention level. Neighborhood residents have resources that deal with hoarders using pro-active steps to stop hoarders before they reach crisis level.
Those who work with hoarders be they private clean-up firms hired to help a pack rat, or fire inspectors and code enforcement officers tasked with investigating a problem property know how ugly it can get. If they were to spend the whole time comparing war stories of past cases, the conference would last weeks, not days, organizers said. Right now, only the Long Beach, Torrance and Los Angeles Fire Departments are aggresively fighting the problem of hoarding in Southern California. It's a start, and will hopefully spread to more areas.
Because hoarders get so out of control, by the time emergency personnel are brought in, the hoarder's health and life is already adversly affected. We don't have to stand by and watch anymore. There's something we can do.
If you have a hoarder in your neighborhood, you can contact your local fire department or get in touch with the National Study Group on Chronic Disorganization.
The above photo is taken from an article "Notes From A Fire Inspector" about the death of two recluse brothers who lived in a house filled with 136 tons of junk.
When Does Stuff Become Junk?
 Stuff and The City
That's the title of my latest column article in the American Chronicle. This weekend is my canyon neighborhood's annual Canyon Clean Up and we can load up the dumpsters and clear our spaces.
Since last weekend was the National Garage Sale day, I think it is evident that something is in the stars to entice us to get rid of our junk. If you think about it, in the spirit of "spring ahead" for Spring, all this de-junking helps us move forward with a fresh beginning. And, keeping stuff we no longer need or use is holding on to the past.
Hope you enjoy the article. I've got more work to do in preparation for the big clean up weekend!
Being Organized Pays Off
Muttshack Acknowledged for "Most Organized"
Animal rescue groups and volunteers that were in New Orleans after Katrina are still talking about Muttshack Animal Rescue Foundation, who came into New Orleans after the storm and began animal rescue efforts.
Founder Amanda St. John returned home yesterday after months of handling the scene in N.O. Her stories tell the tale of volunteers of worked laborously to find and rescue animals abandoned after the floods; of the various other animal rescue camps and triage centers that provided temporary shelter for the rescued animals; of the vets who came from all over the world to help; of the fight to stay in New Orleans to carry out their rescue efforts; and many other stories.
The one thing I learned that made the most difference for volunteers in the animal rescue efforts was the fact that Muttshack was the only animal rescue group that had any organization and structure to their operations (according to volunteers).
As a result, animals rescued by Muttshackers were reunited with their owners or adopted out when a reunion was not an option for the owners. The stories of the other groups will not be told here.
It only proves how an organized activity can make the difference between things being done right and things going wrong.
For more information about Muttshack and how you can contribute, please visit their web site at www.muttshack.org.
Blueprint to Get Organized
 Martha Stewart's New Magazine
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia have released a new magazine called BLUEPRINT advising on how to "get organized and live the perfectly stylish life."
The May premiere issue Editor's Note suggests the magazine contains "everything" that women are interested in. Although I haven't seen the new magazine myself yet, I can not comment on that. So, if anyone has seen the new magazine, please share your comments here about it, okay?
And, the new magazine would have been "great!" if it had MY column in it ... can I be so vain?! But, please check out my newly syndicated column when you get a chance: Click here!
Garage Sale Day
Time to Clean Out
This weekend, May 13th, is National Garage Sale Day and that is time to make a little cash from your unwanted belongings.
A client recently said to me that she had dozens of towels she would never use but hated to get rid of them because they were perfectly good towels. I explained the concept of recycling and she liked it. That concept made her willing to get rid of things she didn't need but didn't want to wasteful about it.
So, consider going through your belongings and having a sale! Happy garage sale day!
New Get Organized Column
New Syndicated Column
I am now writing a new column and would like to share this with you. One of the publications is American Chronicle and it syndicates my column to twenty-one other publications.
You'll find a list of my articles here:
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewByAuthor.asp?authorID=865
Please note, I just got started, so there are only two articles posted. Click on any of the articles and you'll find that you can subscribe to my column. So, if you find you like what you read, I hope you'll subscribe.
Your Organizing Experience
Making it easier to get organized...
Organized-Living.com has some new Affiliate Partners to further enhance your organizing resources and experience at the site. We hope you'll check them out:
- AbsoluteHome has the largest selection of home decor products on the internet. They offer low prices on renowned brands. AbsoluteHome ships to continental US only.
- CardScan is a small desktop device that quickly and accurately reads the printed information from business cards into the fields of a powerfully searchable, highly compatible contact database. Rapid scanning, easy operation, and superior interpretive technology makes CardScan the must-have contact management tool.
- Cooking.com is a leading online retailer of kitchenware and houseware items and offers thousands of products from every major kitchen brand and hard to find items in cookware, cutlery, bakeware and small appliances, and more.
- eFax / eVoice provides you with a reliable and secure way to send and receive faxes from your email inbox and organize them digitally on your desktop. It's the #1 paperless faxing choice of individuals andbusinesses worldwide.
- Get Organized! Taylor Gifts is a mail order catalog company with a wide variety of home & personal organizational products.
- Stamps.com Turn your photos in real US postage with PhotoStamps. Over 300,000 individuals and businesses already use Stamps.com to print postage right from their PC! All it takes is a PC and a printer to print USPS-approved postage for envelopes, packages, and even Priority Mail right from home or office. Customers may never have to go to the Post Office again.
- Wrapables.com provides a wide selection of home decor, bed & bath and dining & entertaining products for your home. These designer products have been carefully selected by buyers whose jobs are to find unique products from all over the world. Wrapables.com offers these at competitive prices so that customers won't need to go
anywhere else for the best deals. New products are added every day so that customers would always have the best selection. You'll find more products and affiliate superstores to shop for all your organizing needs at:
www.organized-living.com/products
Time to Get Organized
Organizing Events In May
This month has several national events to help motivate people to get organized. Here are some:
Revise Your Work Schedule Month
Business Image Awareness Month
Clean Up Your Room Day (May 10)
Garage Sale Day (May 13)
Now, you might be wondering how some of these relate to getting organized, yes? Although the Clean Up Your Room Day is an obvious one, let me suggest how you can incorporate the other events into organizing events....
In revising your work schedule, you could come up with a better plan to structure your day and make it more efficient and productive. You could implement a different daily routine agenda that enables you to tackle more in a day, or an agenda that includes certain projects on certain days of the week.
Being aware of your business image could incorporate organizing, which would thereby improving your image. I know if I walk into a cluttered office, the image I get of that company (or person) is not so good. So, think about this one.
And, garage sales usually come about after going through our stuff and getting rid of things we no longer need or use. That means it's a good time to focus on streamlining your life and letting go of belongings we no longer need. It's a wonderful means to recycling!
|
