Downsizing | Organizing Goddess - Part 4

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

I recently overhauled my linen closet. It wasn’t originally my intention, but one action led to another, and it turned into a situation much like the children’s book, “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”. In that delightful book, written by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond, a little boy gives a cookie to a mouse. Then the mouse wants a glass of milk to go with the cookie, then he needs a straw to drink the milk, then a…

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It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over

Back in June, I wrote about a project on which I had done a good bit of procrastinating (see A Blessing and A Curse). To refresh your memory on the salient details, I was asked to record a 90-minute class I had delivered at a NAPO conference 6 years earlier, so that the class could be made available as part of NAPO’s educational offerings. I put it off and put it off, and finally got it done by setting myself…

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What Price Free?

Tomorrow I’m leaving for Atlanta, Georgia, to spend the rest of the week at the annual conference of the National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO). This will be my seventh time attending the NAPO conference and I’m excited to come home with new ideas for my clients and my business. What I don’t intend to come home with is hotel freebies. You know, those little bottles and tubes of shampoo and moisturizer, sewing kits, shoe polishers, and shower caps. When I help clients…

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The Caretaker’s Daughter

Do you know the old song that asks the musical question, “Who takes care of the caretaker’s daughter while the caretaker’s out taking care?” My family lived a version of that last week when I hired a Professional Organizer to help my daughter. Emily just finished her freshman year at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I’m still slightly traumatized by the experience of packing up her stuff for college, getting her to D.C., and settling her into her dorm room last August. As…

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The Short Shelf Life of Clothes

Six years ago, I wrote a blog post called “Why Vegetables Are Better Than Clothes“. The bottom line: unlike vegetables, which go bad and induce you to throw them out before they overstay their welcome, clothes have no way of reminding you that they are past their expiration date. I had a vivid reminder of this fact recently. I had been invited to a friend’s wedding, so I tried on all of my nice dresses to see what looked good. As…

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