DrDeClutterBlog.com

Give your mom a unique gift with a very personal touch showing your appreciation.
 
Maybe your mother has about everything she needs, or is at that age where she tells you not to buy her anything, or is tired of flowers and candy. How many bouquets of flowers have you sent to your mother on Mother’s Day?
 
If you’d like to be a lot more personal and loving (we can never share enough appreciation) then this is a great idea that you alone, with siblings or with your family can do for mom this week!
 
This very inexpensive, cool idea can be whipped together in a few hours and even sent in the mail to get to her on time this Saturday if necessary! And, it’s something she can dip into anytime to remind her of all good things and you.
 
Mom’s Mason Jar of Love
 
What you’ll need:
1) a nice clean clear Mason canning jar, ideally one with the metal clip ring around it with glass lid, not just the screw on lid, but either will do
 
2) cut 2″ x 3″or 4″ pieces of bright colored paper
 
3) 4-6″ pieces of twine or ribbon
 
4) thin marker pen
 
On the small rectangles of paper, jot down recollections of your mother: her favorite perfume, an unforgettable vacation you took together, a saying she repeated again and again when you were a kid, the favorite foods she cooked/s, the way she sings, dances, cares for others, cared/s for you, etc. Just think of things you’d tell others about her that has supported you in life, that make you happy and glad she’s your mom.
 
Roll up each one and tie it with a piece of twine or ribbon.
 
Fill the Mason jar with your handwritten scrolls.
 
You can wrap the jar in tissue paper or cellophane gathered at the top with ribbon and a tag, or put in a box, or just hand to her. It’s pretty without wrapping too.
 
Little Notes of Love
Whether you’re there to watch your mom read each little note or not, your mom will love unraveling the messages one by one to see what you wrote!
 
You might send a box of tissues with it!
 
Are you the mom?
Print this out and leave in an obvious place where your partner and kids are sure to find it!!
 
Use this idea over and over again for any person or occasion!
 
PS Happy Mother’s Day to you (where applicable!)

http://givingcircles.org/ brings together individuals so they can pool ideas and money to make a bigger impact! Check it out!

National Tie One On Day™ celebrates the humble apron and the spirit of women of earlier generations who donned the universal symbol of home, family and mothering as the uniform of their daily wardrobe and helped make America the great country it is today.

On the day before Thanksgiving, EllynAnne encourages us to pause in the preparation of our own meal, wrap a loaf of bread in an apron, tuck a prayer or note of encouragement in the pocket, and tie one on…an apron, of course!, and deliver the wrapped bundle to someone in need of spiritual or physical sustenance.

According to EllynAnne, no matter which way you turn out of your own front door, someone who is deserving of a hug is very close by. “Women clad in aprons have traditionally prepared the Thanksgiving meal,” says EllynAnne, “and it is within our historical linkage to share our bounty.”
http://www.apronmemories.com/news/tie-one-on-day.html 

The City of Longmont, CO fire stations are accepting used bicycles for donation to Bicycle Longmont’s Christmas Bike Program. Drop off unwanted, used bikes at the nearest fire station. Santa’s elves will repair the donated bikes! Go Santa!!

Kids receive repaired and happy bikes through charity organizations: The Safe Shelter of St. Vrain Valley, the OUR Center, the Inn Between and the school district’s Safe Routes to School Program.

This is the 21st year the Christmas Bike Program has been helping local children get a “pre-owned” bike to change their lives in an important way. A bike might enable a child to earn money with a paper route, see relatives who live far enough away that walking would take too long, get groceries and . . . just have some fun with friends or alone!

Scooters and tricycles are also welcome.

Make a difference this year. Declutter and old bike for a new life for a child.

For more information, call 303.709.6991.

Start a Christmas Bicycle Program in your community this year!

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Oh, those fun people over the pond! We need more of this, pronto!What cool and creative thing can you create in your home, community or area?

Good Times Burgers and Frozen Yogurts, a Colorado company headquartered in Golden, believes in giving to our local community (Denver metro specifically).  They established a Charitable Giving Committee to guide our philanthropic activities, like Junior Achievement of Colorado and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

I am a volunteer educator for Junior Achievement-Rocky Mountain Inc. and want each of us to get creative, companies big and small, on how to JV (Joint Venture) to help others each month.

What are you already doing? Let me know!

 Where has your purse been today?

Where does your purse, tote or briefcase sit when not on your shoulder?

At work it’s on the floor; at home, it gets tossed on the kitchen counter; at the gym it’s back onto the floor or into a well-used locker, and at restaurants, it’s on the table or bench, chair seat, floor and sometimes lap. At the park it goes in the grass or on the sidewalk or dirt; at the beach in the sand or on rocks; in bathrooms it sits on the wash basin counter or bathroom floor; in the car it’s on the floor and in the bar they end up anywhere.

And, whether you switch purses often or just have a favorite one, toting a well-used handbag or “tote” can be hazardous to your health!

What is common to all these places where our purses and bags sit or lay in lumps is another whole world . . . of invisible germs. Lots and lots of germs.

TESTING: So, let’s swab your purse it to see what kind of germs are on it, shall we?

Upon swabbing the bottom and handles of your purse - samples placed in sterile vials and sent off to a lab for analysis -and after incubation and intense testing what we find is pretty disgusting!

A real study at Nelson Labs in Salt Lake City states:
 - “We had several of them that came back with fecal contamination.”
 - “I don’t think they ever realize what they are transferring onto the plate. That is basically like wiping feces on your plate and eating it,” said Rollins, microbiologist.
 - In one sampling, four of five handbags tested positive for salmonella, and that’s not the worst of it. Microbiologist Amy Karen says nearly all of the handbags tested were not only high in bacteria, but high in harmful kinds of bacteria. Pseudomonas can cause eye infections, staphylococcus aurous can cause serious skin infections and if ingested it can cause serious food illness and sickness, and salmonella and e-coli found on the handbags could make people very sick.

GET YOUR SHOES OFF THE TABLE!
Experts say you should think of your handbag the same way you would a pair of shoes.
If you think about putting a pair of shoes onto your countertops, that’s the same thing you’re doing when you put your handbag on The countertops - your handbag has gone where individuals before you have sneezed, coughed, spat, urinated, emptied bowels, etc!

The scientific word to cover all this would be, “Ew!”

This goes for men and women with briefcases and gym bags of any kind.

SOLUTION
1. Use hooks to hang up your purse where possible, like on bathroom stall doors, etc. and over back of chairs. Here’s a great gadget to help you keep your purse off the floor while sitting at the table. JoeyJunior table hook to hold your purse off the floor and off the table.
2. Never put your purse/briefcase on the table top where food has been (and not cleaned off), floor or other place where feet and feces will naturally have been.
3. Clean, wipe down, launder and clean out your purse regularly. 

The JoeyJunior table hook shown holding purses above keeps your purse off the floor, off the table and safely in your reach! Order here. Comes in 5 beautiful colors.

My brother, Dave, a cooking maniac, found this crazy-good site.

Do you ever look in your cupboards, frig and freezer and wonder how to make a meal out of the parts and bits you have? Wonder no more!

Go to SuperCook – just enter any ingredient you have in your kitchen - anything you’ve got – in fact ALL of the ingredients you have in the house one by one! Be amazed at the thousands of recipe options you’ll get.

Supercook is a new recipe search engine that finds recipes you can make with only the ingredients you have at home. To begin, simply start adding ingredients you have in the green box on the top left. The more ingredients you add, the better the results will be.

All of life should be this cool. Good job creative SuperCook people!!

Some rooms are small or we just need to see our tools at a glance quickly. This over the door organizer is helpful in craft rooms, offices and kids rooms to get and find what you need easily.

I accidentally bought a box of 10 rolls of Scotch(TM) Removable Magic(TM) Tape once, yeeeeaaars ago. I still have three of them left. It was a great accident!

This tape is wonderful for adding notes to my day-timer, a calendar, to a card or letter, anywhere you want to tape something up “for a while” but not damage the note or the surface getting it back off. It’s like sticky note glue.  It’s also good for scrapbooking as you can use it to hold photos and embellishments in place before deciding that’s really where you want them. Try it!

Great for back to school stick-it notes too in your academic calendar.