Make the #bathroom alive! Go wild with
color/colors. It’s a #smallspace so you can get away with outrageous things you would never do in a bigger room. I painted the ceiling and floor of one bathroom parrot green. When I woke up in the am, I woke up! No need to be timid. Express yourself and have some fun. RU #renter? Do it with repeelable decals, paper and the like. The landlord need never know!.
Category Archives: Links
Messy desk, messy mind?
You’ve seen the plaque “A messy desk means Genius,” and we know the dictum that if you clear the clutter out, your 
thinking will be clearer and more precise. So what’s the truth? If you want to believe one (that’s 1) published study, the findings said that those with a messy desk tended to be more creative. They also tended to produce fresh and new ideas. So there!
On the other side of the coin, those who kept their spaces neat and clean? 
They were more likely to “do the right thing,” like eating a more healthy diet or making a charitable donation. Maybe that’s because they don’t have such a crowd in their head, so they can be a bit more generous to others and to themselves.
Conclusions? If you feel your productivity is down, try cleaning up your desk (like I am doing right now – so I have time to pass along this helpful tip.) Better yet, try stetting one of two new habits: 1) pick one day a week when you clean your desk. Or, 2) take ten minutes each day before you leave the office (home or otherwise) and clean up the desk, leaving it fresh and clear. You’ll find you start each day with an uncluttered mind – and that makes a difference!
PS – It’s good feng shui!
PPS – how you doing? Share your comments by clicking on the title. It will take you to the comments section.
Why Feng Shui gets a bad rap
I had to pass this along – it’s just too crazy. But it certainly explains why some people shy away from Feng Shui. This was recently post in The Inquirer. I welcome your comments! You can leave one by clicking on the title.
DEAR EMILY,
I live in a townhouse where units are built close to each other. My neighbor, who is an ardent feng shui believer, has been making my life miserable with the things he does to me through his workers.
He accuses me of blocking his good luck with the vegetation I’ve planted in my own garden, such as pepper, lemongrass, orchids and fruit-bearing tomatoes. He had them poisoned with herbicide and spray-painted yellow to bring me “bad luck.” He complains that my garage is directly facing the fire hydrant.
He forbade me to put up Christmas lights on my door and around my plants last time and, when I refused to remove them, he had the wires cut by his driver. He has placed dead bats under my car to put a curse on me. He has also resorted to having my car bumper scratched and sprinkled with red and yellow paint.
How do I know all these? He and his driver constantly talk about their shenanigans in my front yard when they think nobody’s home.
I am tired of it. I need a group prayer to counter him. I don’t know when it will end.
DEE
My goodness! Have you got a bully from hell!
Feng shui is supposedly a kind of Chinese philosophy which harmonizes everyone with the surrounding environment, using architecture in its metaphor of “invisible forces” to bind the universe, earth and humanity together.
Why should bringing beauty and peace to an environment be corrupted by one so ignorant, selfish, malicious and vile like your neighbor?
It is the pea-brains of the world like him whose warped bottom line in practicing feng shui is predicated on how to amass more wealth, regardless of the consequences, that give the practice a black eye. They ferociously go through it, not knowing the fundamentals, or even having the intelligence or understanding of what feng shui really is.
Because of this glaring ignorance, some “believers” would bamboozle anyone along the way, destroy the environment and alienate the people around them.
The best way to drill some sense into your neighbor’s addled mind is to report him to the police, with accompanying photos to back you up. Make him realize that harassing you in his twisted practice of feng shui ends where your security and freedom begin!
Have you checked if this person is not an escapee from the mental hospital?
E-mail the author at emarcelo@inquirer.com.ph or emarcelo629@gmail.com.
Declutter Your Life – part 1
Andrew and Gabriella Morrison are friends who are leaders in the tiny house movement. www.Tinyhousebuid.com. On part of their site is a cogent take on how one person (Dawn) decluttered her life. I thought it would be valuable to pass it along in bits and pieces. So here’s the first part:
I was particularly drawn to the idea that de-cluttering your stuff and your life helps to de-clutter your mind. Boy, does that sound good! It seemed like it might help and it certainly couldn’t hurt.
I thought that I would start with my clothes, but what I actually started with was 
accepting my present size. After many years of defining myself, in some ways, by my weight I have come to a point where I am happy to be me as I am. This process allowed me to let go of my old clothes. Previously I had numerous storage containers of smaller clothing, even underwear, (really??) in my closet and in storage (as if keeping them around would somehow change things). I don’t need them anymore so they went bye, bye! I even donated my vintage dresses that I had longed to fit into again. A couple years ago giving them away would have been unthinkable. Now I have about 10 days of clothes for cold weather and 10 days for spring, summer, and fall combined. Keeping a handful of cardigans works well through all the seasons. I do have a few “inspiration” clothes that are smaller and a few bigger maternity items in case I need them, but everything else fits.
The next task to conquer was decorations and knick-knacks. I am lucky in the fact that my husband doesn’t have a lot of personal possessions, mostly shared ones. When I told him I wanted to donate my personal stuff that I no longer used he was, for the most part, delighted. He had never understood why on earth I had so much crap to begin with. Getting rid of some of this stuff was easy, but certainly not all of it. I had suspected, but never really knew, the depth of emotions that some of these items invoked for me. Each gift reminded me of the giver on an emotional level, even if the item was no longer needed or wanted. I also realized that there were a few items that I had been holding on to in an effort to save that part of my past, refusing to let it go. Determined to live in the here and now I took photos of some of the things that I thought I had cherished (but were really holding me back) along with a few other sentimental items and let them go. I kept some things, but I let the past go. Perhaps I will never look at these photos; who knows. The important thing is that I made a commitment to live in the present.
I regularly teach an incredibly effective way to declutter your life. This story will be continued, but IF you are serious and would like to become part of a tribe who’s purpose is to declutter their lives, email me and let’s see what miracles can happen.
Info at creative-visions.co. Put Declutter my life in the subject line.
Adding Feng Shui to your landscape
Beauty almost always includes positive Feng Shui. Good modern design often means simplifying, so it often unknowingly incorporates basic Feng Shui.
Here’s a link to 10 backyard renovations, each and all of which bring beauty in simplicity. There’s only one problem: notice how angular and yang they are. If you like these ideas, soften the lines (bringing yin energy in) and enjoy the results.
Want less frustration and anger?
I’m amazed at how many readers admit to having clutter but clean it up and clear it out? Denial and procrastination come galloping forth. So today I find another’s well written argument for clutter removal and revamping life. Join the conversation,
let’s hear what you have to say.
When is enough enough?
When is enough enough? And where do we pick up the excess weight on our lives? Many of us know we carry a few extra pounds on our bodies, but who’s aware that we are carrying a LOT of extra baggage in 
other forms? It’s a fascinating idea, one that I’ve been examining for some time now. It has led me to develop a webinar I’m going to offer in April to examine exactly that – where and how do we pick up excess baggage? Where does it come from and what does it do to our lives?
The answers may surprise you, especially in today’s world where there is overwhelm everywhere. I, for instance, have trouble balancing email/Facebook/Twitter/Blogging/website/ launch and my private clients. A poison pill form is to open my email. There’s a ton of excess baggage there I just don’t need, but I get hooked, drawn in, and time flies when I’m supposed to being productive!
Possible answer? For Mac, there’s neat little program called Vitamin-R. It lets you set yourself up so that you hold focus for a certain amount of time, then it tells you to go….take a break…of your chosen time. Then back to the task at hand. And it works, and works well, as long as you allow those time outs to happen. I get up, and go do something else for the 6 minute break I set. Only problem, sometimes I get cooking’ and the time slice ends and I’m still cooking. In that case, I can go right to the next slice without a break.
If you want to ale a look at the application here’s a link.
But what I’ve seen is that somewhere into the 2nd time slice, my focus….well…..the distractions…
So that’s one way I attempt to stay on track.
What’s yours? Feel free to comment, maybe we can teach one another new tricks (I’m staying mum about old dogs…)
THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS HAS BEEN WON!
It’s New Year’s Day and in my neighborhood. like the greater part of Ashland, Christmas decoration are being taken down. Those, of course, that were not removed the day after Christmas. So the politically correct forces can declare an open victory against the religious aspects of this holiday. Many folks got their lights and geegaws up right after Thanksgiving, in order to match Walmart and Target. The expansion of the Christmas buying season has trumped anyone who found Christmas to be the celebration of the birth of the Christian’s Son of God. Material acquisition has trumped inward reflection and gratitude.
The next target? Obviously, the only one left! Thanksgiving. Madison Ave has yet to figure out how to 
commercialize the bird, however, Sarah Palin did a pretty good job on it not so long ago. It’s interesting to note that neither the Jewish High Holy Days, nor those venerated by Buddhists have fallen to the venal appetites of those who have elevated Money above Existence, Spirit, God or whatever such a power means. Does anyone see any human arrogance is such a path? What does it have to do with Nature and the real world? Not much , if anything, from this man’s point of view.
2014 is The Year of the Horse – and Chinese astrologers suggest we can expect Mother nature to step up larger and more dramatically as we keep climate change under wraps and in denial. Gaia is pissed off. Oh well, time for the Koch brothers to sell more Coors!
I hurt for the world
It’s hard for me to stay positive, what with all the destruction I see in the name of profit. It’s hard for me to stay positive when I see we are willing to vomit on our food in the name of money for those newly found persons, the corporations. So when I hear that Bill Moyers has a conversation with Wendell Berry, it’s something I want to watch and listen to deeply. I invite you to do the same by going to http://tinyurl.com/kvazcvq. I invite your comments and reactions.
10 Pounds in a 5 pound bag
We’ve all heard the expression and probably had a laugh around it. Sad to say, deep down we know it’s true of almost every hour of our lives these days. There’s just too much to get through in any 24 hour period. And the “To Do” list keeps getting things added to it faster than we can knock off the top contenders.
It appears that every aspect of our culture says “more, more.” When so much of “more” looks like it might be good – what’s a body to do?
I’m going to suggest that the first step is to take stock. How much am I trying to fit into an already full 
schedule? This awareness is something many of us shy away from – we’d rather keep slogging than face up to the fact that TOO MUCH is TOO MUCH. How do you know? Write down all the things you want to/will/might/could accomplish this week. One week. That’s all.
Not just at work and not just at home. How about socially? What distractions will we use to ‘get away from it all’? What are we trying to do with family? Friends? Business? Don’t leave anything out.
There are wonderful ways to find out if we are caught on a hamster wheel going nowhere. Next blog I’ll share some tools to assess the use of time. I’ll suggest some techniques that result is getting done the most important and rewarding things to us.
In order to go to this next step, please do the exercise above – it’s the first tactic to separate us from the rat race and starting to reclaim our life. Give it a go! Feel free to leave a comment below. What you have to share helps everyone else who reads this.