I was just out visiting some friend’s blogs and felt compelled to share a message of how sometimes less is more. It’s a standard truth that can be applied to many things. I wanted to leave a comment on one of my friend’s blogs about some technical woes she’s having but the page wouldn’t load the required anti-spam word for me to type. So I figured I’d touch on what I wanted to say this way in hopes it would help her and maybe some others.

Often we begin doing things simply because they are available. As more becomes available we find ourselves delving into more of those things. In the long run we may be clogging some vital things without knowing it. The fact remains that just because you CAN do something, doesn’t necessarily mean you SHOULD. Let me share an example of something super simple but that illustrates the point well.

When I began e-mailing I delighted in the ability to so easily correspond with others. As it caught on, a new wave of customizing e-mails surfaced and I thought it was pretty cool. I could add stationery backgrounds, images, etc. After a while it became a little cumbersome so I backed it down to just adding a cute picture in my signature line. I was happy with it and although I hate to admit it, it was one thing that had some impact on my decision to use a different e-mail service/program that didn’t support images. Up to that point I had been using Microsoft Outlook, now my husband was encouraging me to try Gmail. Now the major difference is Gmail was developed by an Internet search engine company, namely Google who specializes in the area of Internet services. They understand how plain text versus html message formats work. The bottom line is that as cute as all my images and things were they were sent with every message as an attachment. Spam filters know that virus e-mails contain attachments and are set up accordingly. As soon as I made the switch I found more reliability with my e-mails reaching their destinations unfettered, and I began to really appreciate the way Gmail filtered my incoming mail. I’d unknowingly sacrificed functionality for frills before.

Blogging is a classic example of more becoming more. Plug-ins, gadgets, widgets….all these things are enticing and offer enhancements to the basic web page, to say nothing about ads. But they can also really slow things down. When I redesigned my blog a few years ago I moved all the “blog stuff” onto it’s own page so every page view wouldn’t be trying to download every unrelated but “cool” thing on my side bars. I can’t tell you the difference it made. I took control over my blog navigation and cut out all unnecessary elements. It was a good lesson.

I can’t remember if I shared it here before or if I just talked about it with someone else, but in the recent Indiana Jones movie there was an early scene that stretched believability to a breaking point. Sadly, it wasn’t necessary to the story line and it has now coined the phrase “Don’t nuke the fridge.” In other words, less is more. In my experience 99% of blogs nuke the fridge.

No matter the realm or situation, the truth that often less is more resounds with truth and clarity. If there is clutter in your life or surroundings, you’ll feel cluttered and messy. Sometimes we don’t recognize building clutter in our lives and projects but if it builds you can rest assured that eventually it will catch up to you. So my advice when you’re having problems is to step back and see if you’re nuking the fridge. It’s likely that if you work on simplifying you’ll regain much of what you desire, control being at the top of the list. *smile*

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Sharing Organizing Perspectives Balance

I set up my Mii account on our Wii Fitness this morning and to my delight it calculated my BMI and weight in the normal region. Yay! Now, I didn’t really need it’s balance and muscle assessment to know that I’m not in great shape and my body is weaker than it should be but who knows, maybe it will help me work on that. One thing I learned with Dance Dance Revolution is that exercise in the form of some entertainment works well for me. So I’m hopeful. I also took heart in my first rounds of yoga exercises and balance games that I placed in the top three of my family members who have been doing it for a week now. I’m also delighted that the pool season is back because I can do so much more with my joints in the pool than in other exercise settings.

In other good news today I’m happy to report that I found another solution that is helping me with my summer vacation parental strain. As my husband and I talked last week, I realized that no matter how many things we did or planned to keep our daughter busy the fundamental problem wouldn’t be addressed. My ten year old daughter has ADD and that means her brain doesn’t organize things naturally, or at least the way most of our brains do. It’s why she’s always asking to do 10 things at the same time and why she spends 5 minutes of quiet time complaining of boredom. So I decided to take my last organization attempt during the holidays a step further. I printed out calendars from my Google calendar for each of the kids. One page was a month overview and then each week broken down on a single page with the hours of 6AM-5PM each day. My thought was if I made their planning visual not only would they better understand time and feel some control over their activities, they might also see how much they really have.

I’m happy to report that so far so great. They are both working at filling in their wants on their calendar and mom helps fit in some needs (a.k.a. chores) and catching the vision. This morning we planned out this week which took about 10 minutes compared to our first attempt last week which took about 20 minutes for 2 days. Progress. I’m finding it helps me too because the time we block for academic review and games is small enough that none of us go crazy. In fact, this morning they both asked if we could do it longer so that’s a plus for mom.

Speaking of time, mine is up so that’s all for today on the blog! *giggle*

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Family Parenting Sharing Organizing Positive Impact Motherhood Balance ADHD Recreation

Thanks to my friend, Jamie, I have a wonderful holiday find to share!

The question is Christmas cards. In years past I’ve done everything from custom cards and photos to all out letters and even a few years of generic bulk cards. Last year I didn’t get any done and I was okay with that! It’s not that I don’t care but because I’m cheap I like to do as much myself as I can and that means more work and hassle thus more procrastination, etc. I do enjoy seeing updated pictures from friends and family and so I was giving this year’s cards some thought when I read Jamie’s post last week. She made it sound so easy that I decided I’d check into it.

So I went to winkflash to see what their specials were and how hard/easy it would be to make a postcard with a photo. It was easy and inexpensive enough but I couldn’t find a decent picture in the recent archives. So I drug the kids in (grumping all the way) from outside play to take an impromptu picture on the stairs. Their shirts were showing a day’s wear and had their favorite logos and writing on them. So I had them throw on a jacket and coat. 5 minutes later I had at least a few pictures to choose from and they were back outside playing. Here’s a short reel from the efforts:

I took a few back to the site and played with a few templates. 10 minutes later I let my kids help me pick their favorite and ordered 50. This was all last Thursday, December 6th. Yesterday, just two business days later I got my package in the mail. The quality is excellent and the cost was a whopping $18.00!

So this year family and friends will be getting this in the mail:

Oh, and the stamps came yesterday too. I’m going to get decent cards out after all! And all for 15 minutes of effort and $18.00 from the piggy bank. Merry Christmas to me!

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Family Sharing Organizing Success Holidays

It’s that time of year again when I’m in holiday mode. I was just reviewing some of the things I’ve done and shared here as gift ideas on my site and realized the only files I’ve gotten up there are Christmas related. I guess we know how well that goal of getting files uploaded is going! I only have a few up but they’re easy and fun.

This year I’m keeping my kids busy with homemade goodies we’re working on all month long for gift bundles. I’m doing a relaxation one with homemade soap, bath salts and candles, a food one with homemade jam or syrup, dipped chocolates, toffee and gingerbread cookie trees, and a personalized/family one with personalized liquid hand soap pumps, big multi-colored crayons, books my kids write and anything else that hits our fancy this year. I’m as excited as they are to work on our craft projects this month.

I wanted to do the 12 Days of Christmas again for my sweetheart, but with last month getting lost in a time warp I just ran out of time to get it started this month. I suppose there’s still a little time but we’ll have to see how organized I can get everything else first!

I hope to find time to share some holiday traditions and memories because I love that sort of stuff! Anyone else have some great ideas or shares of what you’re doing this year?

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Homemaker Sharing Organizing Food Holidays

This post comes in continuation from last week’s post about blogging and traffic. Initially, I wanted to hold off posting anything on it until I was closer to “launch” but that’s a nasty trap I often fall into. The trap of holding off progress until something is already completed - or so near it that I feel I’m still in control. Which as you can guess feeds procrastination and all things self-defeating. So I’m repressing that inner voice and posting anyway! Besides, didn’t I just post something about the positive energy that flows from all things new?!

And what else should fall in my lap today but an invitation from another great blogger to boldly define some goals regarding my blogging? This can’t be coincidence as I’ve been defining, identifying and formulating my thoughts on this very topic for the past few weeks.

Here’s the skinny: I’m different. I didn’t come into blogging the way most do and not for the same reasons. It took me a few weeks to wrap my brain around a general theme and content for what I wanted to make happen. But when it did, it was golden - you know like that once in a blue moon, perfect fit feeling while trying on jeans. My initial goal in creating this blog was to pull my many projects and ideas into one place - to streamline my energies so I could maintain progress, focus and real life updates to much of what was gathering digital dust in my computer files. The answer to my question of what I’m REALLY good at was that I’m in the process of making my life a masterpiece. So the whole point of my blog and what I do here is to both continue that quest daily and to share what I’ve learned along the way. About half way through the life of the blog I did a major rework trying to bring focus to my purpose and diminish the loud background noise of blog related links on my side bar. I tied in some of my original header graphics into more organized and simple side bar navigation. Something worked because this comment was shared last week and it really made me feel good knowing that a trained eye caught the vision of my theme:

“Love this list - but have to say what a fantastic header, now that is what I call an Engaging Brand! Glad to find you via this list” - Anna Farmery

I felt a new pulse of encouragement and determination to keep up with this. (Thanks Anna!) So in the past couple of weeks I’ve been contemplating what my blog has grown into and what I want to do with it. I’ve had a few weeks of what I can only describe as some form of burnout where I’m actually trying to come up with something meaningful to post. That, of course, feeds the process of evaluating things which leads to review and adjusting if necessary. Then a quirky turn of events led me to finishing the article on meaningful traffic and everything snowballed in my mind. So here’s my new and upcoming direction - the many sides of Holly.

I realized last week while driving my son to school how we all have so many hats we wear and how few people get to see us in more than one or two at a time. For example, my book club ladies see the “Intellectual/reading Holly”, the hair clients see the “Beauty & Hairstyling Holly”, and so on. And then I realized how many sides of me I have been developing for my entire life. This is exactly what I was trying to pinpoint in finding what I’m really good at and in making my life a masterpiece. So the inspiration was to design and organize my blog into this pattern.

In the coming weeks I plan to transform the look of my blog to include another friendly navigation system that can point readers to areas of interest relating to my many sides. I will organize my blog articles in corresponding pages to those sides and each day I will share something in a post about one of those areas. This way I’ll be writing current content while tying in older materials and files all the while creating a digital copy of me and the masterpiece I’m working on becoming. I KNOW I won’t run out of content…*laugh* and hopefully I’ll reach that itch that’s been bugging me for so long too. Bingo…simple and balanced. *wink*

If you thought you knew me…pull up a chair because you’re about to see so much more of the real Holly by me sharing my many sides.

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Organizing Balance Blogging

A few things have happened in the past couple of days that have inspired me to think about the person I am and the person I am becoming.

Earlier this week I met with two of the staff at my son’s new school. I was immediately impressed with their sense of genuine caring for others and equally impressed with their ability to be so calm under pressure. At the time I interacted with both of these women there was a great deal of responsibility, potential chaos and distractions taking place. Yet both seemed to make the world stop for a moment while they visited with me or my son, made us both feel important and cared for. There was no rush, no hurry and no feeling that you were a burden, in fact they were the great calming influence for all those around them. This struck me because I’ve been to a lot of first days at various schools and I’ve never felt anything quite like this, at least not this strongly. It got me to thinking about how much I want to be like that. How much I want for people to instantly feel relaxed, comfortable, safe and cared for in my presence. The world is full of busy, stressed and self-important people. You run into them almost daily and you can feel the vibes that come from them, they leave you feeling unsettled at best. It was such a pleasant experience to feel just the opposite in a matter of mere moments. I was so impressed that I wrote e-mails to both of them expressing my thoughts and both responded with resounding warmth and enthusiasm for caring. They both said that in their experience kids learn far more and better when they enjoy coming to school and their goal is to help kids want to be there. It worked for me…I didn’t want to leave! *laugh* At any rate, I determined yesterday that this is the feeling I want to share with others and in my home. I want my kids to WANT to be here and to feel that same peace, safe and loving influence. The trick is what every parent out there already knows…this is far easier said than done.
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It’s nice when ideas work out. At the start of the summer I shared how the crazy schedules were taking their toll. I knew I had to come up with a few things to help me save my sanity. I needed to come up with things to address filling their time as well as behavior and helping out around the house. As most of what we’ve implemented has been working I thought I’d share.
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What is it about mornings that seem to hold a certain amount of magic in regards to productivity? Maybe it’s the fresh start or recharged batteries that helps, I’m not sure but I’m grateful for any extra help.

This morning was great. My kids weren’t totally convinced at first but as the morning wore on they decided it was all good. The house took a total hit over the weekend and was a royal mess this morning. I told the kids they couldn’t do anything they wanted until the house was back in order. We also set up some new motivation techniques to help us with the summer hours, chores and learning. The motivation was enough to keep my 9 year old going strong until the entire house had been found. The 4 year old needed a little more help along the way but they both stuck it out and helped mom regain the house. They’re good kids. It also never ceases to amaze me how much fun they have playing with old toys that seem new when mom’s helping organize and put items back together.

Even my husband is back on the morning track. He rose at 4 AM this morning to add a few more hours to his work day before the rest of the office gets in. He’s hoping it will give him the extra time he needs to finish up so many extra projects and tasks before the trip to shore next month. I’m such a baby with my sleep. I couldn’t do a 4 AM morning unless I knew I was asleep by 7 PM each night - yeah right. Do you think he can go on less sleep than me or do you think I’m just a pansie? Don’t answer that unless you think guys don’t need as much beauty sleep. *wink*

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Yesterday was a good day. I didn’t get as much done as I wanted (I never do) but some big things did get done. Like shampooing my family room carpet - blech!, having dinner ready by the time hubby got home (I even duplicated my best corn salsa), getting the dishes done and even swimming with my son. But the cherry on top was finding the long lost gameboy under my bed and the missing “Zathura” movie disk. My son got this movie last month and watched it several times before losing it. We looked everywhere with no success. Yesterday I noticed one of the small portable DVD players by my husband’s nightstand and thought to myself “I wonder” and sure enough there it was inside. My daughter’s gameboy has been missing for several months and she’s been praying that we could find it. Needless to say most everyone was happy yesterday!

One of the biggest lessons I’ve “found” of late is the recognition that balance doesn’t mean perfection or everything being finished. I’m amazed at how much better I feel as long as I’m getting a few of those back burner projects finished. They recharge the determination batteries just enough to keep you going and make you smile. Now whenever I feel like I’m going under I’ll tackle one or two things that have been pushed off for forever and find an amazing amount of balance restored.

Tomorrow is my 15th wedding anniversary. I’m not sure where the time went - that is definitely something I’ve still not found! It’s hard to wrap my brain around the concept. I still feel much the same way I did when I was 20 years younger, I wonder if that inner spirit ever catches up with the physical aging?

So what have you found this week?

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Organizing Marriage Housework Balance Success

Well yesterday was a long but very good day and it ended on the perfect note for me. Sanjaya finally went home. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a personal issue with the kid. I just hated seeing the level of the talent pool he was dog paddling in, watching the others swim circles around him yet they were the ones getting eliminated before him. It just wasn’t right. I know it’s American Idol and popularity is a huge factor but I’m glad for the other contestants that he finally went home.

Thanks to my brother in law (who I learned last night actually reads my blog), my house is clean today. A ton of little projects that have been building were eliminated yesterday in preparation for his coming to spend the night with us. Apparently it was the missing motivation for my getting things done. Thanks Ryan! I was actually excited to get up this morning because I knew I had a massive head start on the day and awaiting chaos.

The restoring balance continued in the yard too. My hubby replaced some necessary pool elements that have made a world of difference. It never ceases to amaze me when noticeable and large changes come about by small and simple things. We knew our pool vacuum was on its last leg. But I don’t think either of us understood the difference it would make to have one that really worked well again.
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