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Living in a clutter can be tiring. If you feel overwhelmed by your mess it may be the time to clear it out by organizing your life starting with your closet. If you have a hard time getting dressed each morning causing additional stress throughout the workweek, think about how it would feel to avoid this aggravation altogether.

It does not even matter what size closet you are dealing with. You can have a huge walk in closet or a tiny one; if it is messy it will cause some kind of stress to you throughout your day.

If you are not a person who likes to hang things up, try adding wall hooks to the interior of your closet. This can help you access your favorite pieces of clothing easily without the hassle of dealing with hangers. You are probably more likely to return a pair of jeans onto a wall hook as opposed to folding them or replacing them on a hanger.

If you are dealing with deep shelf space, you may find yourself trying to get organized to no avail. This is because deep shelves are hard to deal with because clothes just seem to get shuffled behind one another. Roll out drawers can be used as an alternative. You can store items one behind another without getting them hidden.

Forgetting where you put your items can be annoying when you are in a hurry and need to find a particular something. Clear storage bins can make it easier to find what you need and when you need it. Consider placing your leather watch along with your other must have accessories in one bin.

Separate your casual trinkets from your more formal ones. This way you can search according to your outfit on a particular day. Separate your casual accessories such as your black sport watch for easy access on your way out to the gym.

A kid closet may be even tougher to organize with all of the toys in addition to the clothing that needs to be organized. A smart way to get all of this organized in a small space are storage cubes. You can easily store toys, school materials and shoes in these cubes, giving you a clean and neat feel.

If you have a lot of unorganized shoes you need to store, try investing in a shoe organizer. Once you have organized your shoes you will be able to find the right shoe for the outfit when you need it. This means when you need a brown boot, you will be able to find it without rummaging through all of your shoes.

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• Kohl's Sale Week of January 10 thru January 20, 2007 - Home, Bed & Bath Kohl's is having a great sale this week. Here are some of the highlights from the ad: All bedding, bath, and decorative home accents including table linens, decorative pillows, and rugs are 30% to 50% off. Accent and Kitchen rugs are 50% off. Home Classics Bed in one bag (all......
• Keeping your Closet Clean The closet is a part of your home that is easily capable of becoming overwhelmingly cluttered and dirty without a lot of work. Keeping your closet completely organized is truly essential to making sure that it stays clean and healthy. Here are some tips that are going to help you......
• Different Ways In Which For Home Improvement Using Salt Lake Town Closet Organization Systems The concept of home improvement is very broad. When folks speak concerning it, they often assume about redoing their entire home to allow it a brand new look. However, you'll improve the planning of your home by simply obtaining rid of the clutters that have contributed to providing you with......
• 5 Reasons You Should NEVER Buy A Puppy From A Pet Store You've decided you are ready to add a new member to your family unit. Perhaps your children are begging for a puppy or you may live alone and want a pet for companionship. Whatever the reasons for wanting a cute and cuddly new puppy you should be fully informed before......
• Growing Up To quote Kahlil Gibran about raising children: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love......

If you feel that your work life balance is teetering on the edge; isn’t it time to make changes before the problems overwhelm you? Whether or not you own your own business, life is often overwhelmingly rich. I wish you joy in the dance as you move with order and disorder, discipline and insight, gracefully maintaining work life balance.

If you feel that your work life balance is teetering on the edge; isn’t it time to make changes before the problems overwhelm you?

Here are my secrets for dealing with overwhelm.

1. Everything is perfect, and there is room for improvement and regaining work life balance. It takes time and energy to resist reality. The foundation managing overwhelm is to accept what is and take it from there.

2. Putter. Puttering orients you in time and space of your life while making mental room for you to notice what really wants to be top priority.
Tip: Set a time limit on puttering if you are worried that you will lose the entire working day to it.

3. Take the attitude that you will, of course, do what is most important, even if you do not yet know what it is or how you will do it. Be curious about what you don’t know how to do rather than worrying about it.

4. Clean house. When your insides are churning with anxiety over multiple commitments, create order outside.
Tip: This seems to work best if you clean with a light heart, though I have worked through some pretty gnarly problems while fiercely scrubbing the kitchen floor!

5. Use every means available. Make plans and act spontaneously. Make lists and do what needs to be done whether or not it is on the list. Managing overwhelm means mingling both direct and indirect ways of moving forward.

6. Be real. However linear or spontaneous, ground your choices in your real life and work experience. It doesn’t make sense to simply ignore a deadline or to pretend that a complex piece of work can be done in 10 minutes.

7. Revise your commitments. Promises are not made to be broken, but some are made to be revised. Act promptly to revise commitments that you cannot or will not keep.

8. First things first. Take time for exercise, prayer, meditation, and simply “defragging” no matter how busy you are. Doing these things first each day enlivens you and gives you the resilience and resourcefulness to do your best.

9. Breathe. First, last, and always, let a rising bubble of anxiety be your reminder to breathe.

Whether or not you own your own business, life is often overwhelmingly rich. I wish you joy in the dance as you move with order and disorder, discipline and insight, gracefully maintaining work life balance.

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• Year End Retirement Planning Steps What will a typical baby boomer be doing the last week of the year to advance toward a goal of a successful retirement? I don't know how typical we are but here is a list of steps I will be taking this week, in no particular order. 1. Assess Tax......
• Does Easy Money Exist? nI meet a surprising number of people who foster resentment toward the rich. We all know money can't buy happiness, but it sure can play with our emotions. Both for those who have and those who have not.nnWhich category are we in? That largely depends on us. Other people's lives...
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• Finding Out Your Parents Financial Situtation Can Be Stressful. Let me just tell you that sometimes finding things out about your parents is not all candy and roses. I mean, I enjoy learning about where my parents went on vacation before they got married, or how they met, or any number of other interesting tidbits that I have learned......
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We can’t do a lot about death. We can very much impact life – our own and others.

Do you ever ponder the meaning of life? Why are we here? Perhaps these questions surface when we receive news we’d rather not receive, the passing of an uncle, a beloved aunt, a friend’s spouse who died for the wrong reason.  I’m not sure I believe myself when I justify the news by saying this is the circle of life.

I don’t make a habit of reading the obituary columns in the newspaper but occasionally I read about strangers. Many have experienced a long and full life, contributed to society in a meaningful way, were visible within their community. I think how proud their family must be, I also imagine the hurt and grief they are experiencing. I read about the 42-year old father who has succumbed to cancer and leaves behind a wife and two children and I wonder how this is fair. My heart aches when I read about the young child tragically killed in an accident as my eyes fill with tears.

I’m no stranger to death. It scares me and I don’t deal well with it. I find death emotionally overwhelming.  It is hurt, compassion, sadness, pain, empathy, love all rolled together that hits like a tsunami.

I’ve lost high school friends to accidents, drugs, and disease.  I’ve seen first hand the impact on a family when their young daughter took her own life. Like so many others, I have said goodbye to relatives only after they have gone.

I don’t know why I’m so impacted by death. Its not that I think about it all the time.  Maybe I subconsciously fear the loss of a parent, a sibling, a family member. Perhaps I’m selfish, a coward who doesn’t want to die.

Young people seldom think of death, they are to busy living life as if they are invincible. Old people tend to prepare for death and accept the event as a natural and inevitable occurrence. Experience and reality have tempered their emotions. The grief and hurt is still there, so is the reflection on the positive aspects of the individual’s life.  For some, their biggest worry is if they will out live their friends, who will attend their funeral.

Maybe this aging process will help me to become less sensitive to the loss of not only those I love, but to those I have only read about in the newspaper. I am thankful my fear of death is more than offset by my passion for life. So it should be.

So where does this discussion of death take us? It could be to the end of a journey, or the beginning of a new one depending on your beliefs. If you were to have a tombstone, what would it read? Here we are back to the question, what is our mission, our purpose, our goal? One accolade might read, “Here lays an honest person who cared about the people around her, respected others and made a positive difference in the lives of everyone she encountered.”  If we envision how we want others to remember us, it might provide a valuable compass to aid us down the path of life.

In a perfect world, perhaps caring and understanding might extend well beyond our community and our country. Imagine a common bond based on a desire for truth, justice, peace, and mutual respect.

We can’t do a lot about death. We can very much impact life – our own and others.

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• Sunday Money Roundup - Not So Shiny New Car Edition. As I mentioned earlier this week, we just bought a brand new Subaru Forester...and the shine is already gone. Yes, our new immaculate car got some dirt on it and some footprints inside on the mats. It will never be as clean as the day we brought it home again...so......
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,I don’t think life is all about goals but it helps to have direction and to keep moving in that general direction. I look at goals as 3 prongs (a person might have more or less). There are social goals (how many friends do you want to have). Personal goals (like spiritual goals, how many times do you want to go to church in a year), and professional goals (much money do you want to make, and what kind of job do you want in the future). I think it is good to have numerous goals. Goals come for me in two levels realistic and obtainable (This year I am going to lose 10 pounds) and obtainable and unrealistic (In 2012 I am going to run for President). You should always have goals it might be just getting to work on time everyday or staying on budget at lunch everyday in a week. Goals make life fun. When you reach one nothing compares to the feeling of accomplishment. Life is not all about goals I think life is what happens in between. Don’t miss the forest for the trees.

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