DrDeClutterBlog.com

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TIP 1: ARE THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS STILL UP?
Don’t make undecorating a drag! Have a post-holiday-undecorating-party with your friends! Have a pot-luck, or whip up some easy munchies and invite your best friends over to undo the holiday decoration doing and have fun, take pictures!, enjoy your friends, share stories and create new memories.
 
TIP 2: RETURN THE RETURNS
If you have Gift Reciepts and things to return, do so by this Saturday so that they aren’t still sitting in a pile in the back of the closet when I come over to declutter in 9 months!! or 9 years! No joking!! Complete it now and enjoy your space and a check off your to do list.
 
TIP 3: LEFT OVER HOLIDAY FOOD
Go through your frig by tonight and make sure to freeze or plan to eat the leftovers so that you don’t throw them out. Wash up your frig shelves and start a cool new year in there too!

Losses throughout the year of any kind, human, animal, health, wealth or of spirit can take an extra toll during the holiday weeks. Here are a few steps to take care of yourself during this time.

1. Make time to grieve.

Set aside time to really feel your feelings, cry your tears and let it all go where it needs to. Your body needs to mourn your loss or change all the way through.

2. Get support from others.

It’s not always easy to ask for help. Being “strong” isn’t smart. Being “human” is. Whether you talk to family or friends or see a counselor or minister, you will find layers of grief just waiting to spring forth when you talk to someone else and tell your story once more.

3. Develop skills that help you remember you are a worthwhile person.

You can let grief control you and fall into a deep depression or illness, chipping away at your self worth; you can ignore and deny it and stay busy, keeping your “mind off of it”; or, you can gain knowledge of how to embrace your pain and grow positively from it.

4. Create a physical environment that supports rather than stresses you.

During the mourning process stress levels increase. You need to create a space where you feel safe, comfortable, quiet when you need it and nurtured, even if only by yourself.

5. Take care of yourself.

There are physical as well as emotional aspects of grief. Exercise increases your strength and stamina and reduces your stress. Healthy eating gives your body the good nourishment it needs. Find quiet time. Schedule a massage to stay connected with your body.

Bottom line, grief is hard. Make sure to take the time to face it and deal with it, otherwise it will affect you for years to come.

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.” 
~ Charles Dickens, author of “A Christmas Carol”

Merry Christmas to you and yours,

Kim

Are you going to have a wonderful Thanksgiving today?

Yes. The answer is “yes!”

No matter what you have planned, what actually happens, what doesn’t happen and what you wish had happened… you can be happy anyway! How? CHOOSE.

“Happiness is not a state to arrive at

but rather a manner of traveling.”

~ Samuel Johnson

No matter what’s happening at any moment, no matter what plans you have or had and what ends up happening, each one of us can CHOOSE our thoughts and ultimately the path of our emotions. You can CHOOSE to be at peace, happy, grateful, joyful even excited and ecstatic… if you want to!

In choosing happiness, gratitude, hope and love in the face of chaos, frustrations, uncertainty, loss, sadness, grief and even tragedy, we discover that as holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl says, “…the last of all human freedoms is the freedom to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances — to choose one’s own way”.

Many blissings for a wonderful holiday week. CHOOSE to be grateful, thankful and happy this Thanksgiving.

Exercise for Gratitude
Before your big Thanksgiving meal, take a moment and write a list of all of the good you experience in your life. From your freedom, to being able to drive, to the ability to buy pretty much what you want and need 24/7, to your health, family and friends, job and interests, being able to follow your interests and creativity, to sunshine and Autumn weather…. don’t stop, keep writing. Write for 10 minutes non-stop. The time will go by in a blink and hopefully you’ll find many more items to add to your list and sit even longer.

Now — take this list to your Thanksgiving table and share a few items. Ask others to do it too and see how much you all have to be thankful for. These lists can spark great conversations and sharing too.

Don’t let another opportunity go by with an unmindful “Grace. Let’s eat and football’s on…” kind of Thanksgiving. STOP, BE QUIET and CHOOSE to be grateful. Really “feel” grateful.

I’m grateful that I can type, that there is Internet and Blogs, that I have a peaceful home, that I have work I enjoy, that I have a gzillion wonderful friends, that my family loves me, that I’ve lost 20 lbs.! and so much more! Make this list ongoing and remember to stop, be quiet and choose to be and grateful everyday.

Happy Grateful Thanksgiving of Choice,

Kim

Are you ready yet?

Probably, if you’re not quite ready yet, you can wing it and have a great time anyway!

Loosen up this Thanksgiving. Enjoy your friends and family and the quiet that engulfs a holiday.

Do all that you can do to prepare and get ready and feel good about your holiday table and home, and at the same time, lighten up and know that something will be forgotten, missed, broken, spilled, smashed, crashed, dropped or eaten (by your dog). It’s okay.

THE NIGHT BEFORE THANKSGIVING… AND ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE…
There are things you can do this night before Thanksgiving to set yourself up for a less-stressed event. Set the table. Get the good silverware out of storage. Lay out your wardrobe–and your kids’ wardrobes. Check your list. You’re going to love yourself for this! See more here.

READY FOR NEXT YEAR!
Too early? What this means is to take the time after Thanksgiving to go back over your prepared lists and plans and see what you can alter for next year that will make it even easier, better and more stress-free for YOU! The sooner you do this the better off you’ll be year after year.

Happy Thanksgiving!!Kim

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!

Get ahead of Halloween “stuff” storage before it’s here and gone!

What happens to your Halloween costumes and decorations after Halloween is over? Too many times they end up in a lump in the corner of some closet. Plan now to be ready for next year.

1. Get large rubber tubs and label them for costumes and decorations.

2. Place your items gently in, keeping only what you know you’ll most likely use next year.

3. Sort out what you won’t use again.

4. Recycle: Ask friends if they’d like any of your items for their kids for next year, or donate to thrift. (Keep out of the landfill as long as possible!)

5. Put your well organized, tidy and well labeled tubs in storage for next year!

Whoa! It’s Halloween time again! When did that happen!!

If you have kids that want Halloween to be fun, it’s time to plan ahead.

1. What will your kids be wearing? What do they want to dress up as?

2. Can you create it out of what you already have or will you be purchasing, renting or barrowing a costume and accessories?

3.  Where are they going?

4 . Who are they going with?

5. What’s happening in your neighborhood or area for trick-or-treating?

6. Safety is a must of course. Safety in regards to their costume for walking, skipping and running (because they will!) and safety if they are out and about on their own or with other little ones.

Help your kids have memorable fun this year!

7. Take lots of pictures.

8. Scrapbook those photos immediately!

DONE! Have a great Halloween!

It’s said that we don’t plan to fail, we fail to plan. Plan your fun, make it functional (not over-the-top and easily costly or disappointing) and see how much more you’ll enjoy it as something wonderful to share and remember when it’s over.

It’s not something normal to think that fun should be functional, or planned and thought through.

Fun should just happen, right? If you’re 2, maybe!

But as adults, it doesn’t matter what you do for the Labor Day Weekend, or any other holiday or “day off,” just make sure you’re taking the time to really “be here now” in it!

Why? Because it’s too easy to let holidays and time away from brain-crunching or back-breaking work go by and wish you’d had it to do over again, that somehow you missed it.

To “be here now” and have fun need some conscious planning and functional decision making to be what we truly want it to be.

Get out the calendar, and everyone involved in your upcoming weekend, and pre-plan everything with enough free time and fudge-room to change your mind too.

Need more help for the holidays? If you’ve had chaotic, unhappy, disappointing and frustrating holidays, big or small, I’d highly recommend my ebook Simplify Your Holidays: Your Guide to Coping with Holiday (and everyday) Stress ~ or ~ The Complete Self-Help Guide for Those with Less than Perfect Holiday Experiences. You’ll get ten times the help for the easy cost of this jam-packed full book of check lists, questions, creative options, thought inspiring stories and more.

Is it too early to talk about Christmas and holiday shopping? Evidently not! I saw my first Christmas gift offer last week in the Sunday paper ads pull out section. I won’t tell you what it was (a sports themed Christmas ornament) as it was not cute or necessary! Okay, clearly I’m not a raving football fan!

Do yourself, your family, the landfill and your wallet a favor, shake yourself conscious now as holiday shopping ads are going to start earlier this year due to the financial debockle of last year and stores needing money to stay in the black.

“Shake yourself conscious” means to pre-plan now for what you really want to do and to create for your holidays in months from now so that it doesn’t a) sneak up on you, and b) get out of hand.

By the way, if you don’t do these things, no complaining in January about your credit card bills!

1) Put together your gift and other money-spending list now and stick to it.

If this is hard for you to do you will have to really look at your need to spend and give in ways that don’t make sense and are unnecessary. Is it to get attention? To be loved? To be appreciated? Or, out of guilt or other not so pretty reasons?

2) Ask yourself why you’re buying things and/or stockpiling them.

Like unconscious eating, we don’t always like facing why we shop and spend money, even if it seems like such wonderful, loving and giving reasons.

3) Don’t go unconscious over fads.

Don’t get sucked into whatever new “gotta-have-it” rage is for the year, whether it be a toy, bling, electronic gadget or anything else. Can you say Tickle Me Elmo?

4) Ask others for a limited amount gift list.

Ask what others really want this year, give them a ceiling amount to choose within ($20, $40, etc.) and buy accordingly — according to what you can truly afford.

5) Don’t promise what you can’t afford.

There is no shame in not being able to buy stuff you can’t afford - there are a lot of regrets however.

6) Plan one bigger gift if others can pitch in.

If there are others who can pitch in to buy a higher ticket item from “all of us”, plan it out early enough to work out. But . . . make sure you have all the “pitched-in” promised money from others before you buy it too or you could be stuck paying more than your share and set up a long-time resentment.

7) Get creative when money won’t get the items on the list.

Can’t afford much? No problem! There are lots of other things you can do that are not about spending money. There is spending time and investing in your relationships. Get creative about how to spend quality time with your family and friends doing something that may cost nothing financially, but creates memories that last, not stuff that could end up in the trash!

MORE HELP HERE - EBOOK: There are many more ways to simplify the holidays starting now, not December 24!,  in my ebook, Simply Your Holidays - and it won’t break the bank - only $10 for over 40 pages of lists, stories, ideas and proven solutions to your holiday sanity! Click here to find out more and order.  A great gift too - to use over and over again for family and all holiday decisions.

Happy Pre-Holiday Planning!