I wrote about bookshelf organization for Cindy's Weekly Wisdom this week, and I showed my friend Corinna's living room book shelf. Here are photos of her ninth grade daughter Audrey's color coordinated shelves, along with the letter Corinna emailed me explaining the hows and whys of the color coordinated books. Audrey's colour coordinated bookcase. The color book order is only about looks. We’ve just retrained our brains to visualize what a book looks like, and therefore what color it is, when we want to find a book. That’s actually easier than it sounds. It also reacquainted me … [Read more...]
Happy Thanksgiving & Black Friday Advice
Colleen and Cindy wish all our American readers and the good folk of Leiden (Netherlands) a very happy Thanksgiving May you eat all you want and not gain an ounce. Now that would be something to be grateful for. A little more Wisdom from Cindy In the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving, the day that marks the start of the "holiday shopping season." It's a day of amazing sales and deep discounts. Some stores open as early as 4:00 am, with people staying up all night in the parking lot so they can be the first in the door, as the very best sales (aptly named … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ How do you store your books?
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Books are a collecting weakness of many people. I know that in my early 20s I dreamed of having a library - ideally one with a rolling ladder. Then I moved every year for four or five years and put that foolish idea behind me. Books are heavy! I've been a library user my whole life. I remember when I was a girl going to a particularly library that kept the Nancy Drew novels separate from the rest of the books - heaven! And I have clear memories of Library Period in elementary school. Back then, I read biographies of famous females. Annie Oakley, Mary Todd … [Read more...]
World Diabetes Day – November 14
An important awareness post by Cindy Today's post has nothing to do with declutter and everything to do with another subject dear to my heart. As many of you know, my daughter Clara is one of the approximately 3 million people in the United States with Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes. She was diagnosed at her 10th birthday check up. We had no idea that there was anything to be concerned about. Clara had gained weight during third grade until she had become worrisomely plump. In the months leading up to her 10th birthday, she had slimmed down and shot up in height, just like a healthy girl … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ You Can’t Push a String
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom You can't push a string... Different people have different styles, styles of gift giving being no exception. In my family, specific (extremely specific) gift requests aren't considered out of line. In my husband's family, many gifts, all surprises, are the norm. Well, we all know what happens when people you rarely see or talk to give you "surprise" gifts, right? It took me years of interacting with my in-laws before I realized that I could not control them, I could only control myself. (Some very obvious lessons are nonetheless hard to learn.)Â I started announcing in … [Read more...]
Stumbling Blocks to Success
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom We all want to succeed. We all want a clutter-free, clean, and peaceful home. Yet sometimes we struggle. What are some of the stumbling blocks to success? Making Excuses Instead Starting "I'd like to start." "I'll get around to it soon." "When things settle down, I'll declutter." Those are excuses, and if you're using them, they're getting in the way of your success. One of the beauties of one-thing-a-day decluttering is that it hardly takes any time, especially in the beginning. In the beginning (which is when excuses are their strongest) nearly anything you touch … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday ~ Scary Halloween
The October issue of Real Simple magazine reveals a grim statistic: 6,250 tons of landfill waste “could be avoided if half the kids in America traded Halloween costumes instead of buying new ones.†That the equivalent to the the weight of more than 3,000 mid-sized cars! Be sure and swap, sell or donate this year's costume. Did you know there's an official Halloween costume swap day? Of course it's already passed, but you can mark your calendar for next year's swap. … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Observations on the Church Garage Sale
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom A couple of weeks ago, my church had a huge garage sale, which netted us $6000. I worked Friday putting toys out and pricing them and Saturday afternoon as the sale was winding down, increasingly slashing prices in order to unload the rest of the items before the end of the sale when the Salvation Army truck would swoop down and take the remainder away. On Friday, while I was pricing toys, I was almost weak in the knees when a truck pulled up with trash bag after trash bag of the nicest toys you can imagine. The woman who was unloading them explained that they were from … [Read more...]
How Can You Have MORE to Declutter?
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I took a hiatus of a couple weeks from my decluttering. When I started back up, I found this comment on my Facebook page, "How can you have MORE to declutter?" Three other friends "liked" this comment, which means that probably even more people than those four are wondering why I'm not sitting around on the floor with no clothes on by now, like this fellow. (I'll wait while you check it out.) How can I have more to declutter? Easy. According to the TED video featuring Graham Hill that Colleen posted on Saturday, the average American house is now three times larger than … [Read more...]
Eight Year’s Storage
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom My Grandfather passed almost exactly eight years ago, a few years after the passing of my Grandmother. They had lived on the same farm their whole married life - 64 years - although a few decades ago they built a new house steps from the old, drafty one, and knocked the old house down. Sixty-four years worth of living and six now adults kids' worth of memories in that house. My cousins, who already had a houseful, were moving in. I helped my family try to organize the house and to make room for the cousins' belongings. At the end of my time in Iowa, I had a small pile … [Read more...]