By TwitterButtons.com

My husband's Aunt Lucy came for a visit this week. Even though none of us had met her before, we had a wonderful visit with her.  Growing up, my husband never had a lot of interaction with his father's side of the family back East, but we had started to hear from some of them after he passed and we thought it would be nice to finally meet his Aunt Lucy after all these years. 

She is 80 years young, but she is pretty spry.  She still works more or less full-time as a house cleaner.  I'm hoping I can be like that when I get older.  She doesn't take anything stronger than asprin (unusual these days) and doesn't even need glasses. And even though I kept telling her to sit down and relax, my house is sparkling like a new penny and smells like delicious meatballs!  

We had a really nice visit with her.  I'd forgotten how nice it was to have a "mom-type" around, just to ask about cooking stuff, removing laundry stains, and just to talk to.  My Mom's been gone for five very long years and I lost my Grandma when I was six, so it was a nice treat for me to hang out with Aunt Lucy all week.  And she thought my boys were awesome!  Anyone who likes my kids that much is guaranteed a spot in my heart! 

She's had a pretty rough life.  She was on her own at a very early age and didn't get much education.  Her husband died early and they only had one child.  She was a very fun person, but several times she mentioned ugly things that people had said or done to her when she was young.  I found that kind of sad that someone could say something mean that could still make someone upset more than 60 years later.  Who knew that our words and actions could have such power?  She and her sister hadn't spoken in years because of a misunderstanding.  What a shame that a lifetime relationship like that could be ruined like that, because of a bit of nastiness? 

People can be real turkeys sometimes, but if you're not careful you'll make an offhand remark that will truly harm someone or completely change their perception of themselves.  At one time, I had my poor son convinced he was a midget.  He has always been a bit small for his age and kids would call him names.  One day, he asked me one day what was the difference between a dwarf and a midget?  I helpfully explained to him that a dwarf had a genetic disease that affected their bones and their proportions, but that a midget was a perfectly proportioned person who was under 4'10".  The problem was I failed to mention that it was an ADULT person under 4'10".   He said some comment about being a midget one time, and when I went to correct him, he replied with absolute certainty "But Mom, I AM a midget because I AM under 4'10".  I just wanted to cry. 

I guess the lesson here is to guard your words.  Even if someone bugs you, don't go for the nasty remark, or the negative action.  That person may end up carrying that hurt around for the rest of their lives, even if that was not what you intended.  And for heaven's sake, be careful what you say to your children!  You never know how they are going to turn it around in those little heads of theirs. 

The flip side of the lesson is to try hard not to carry those bad things around for 60 years.  The other person probably has moved on and forgotten the incident completely, but you are still suffering from it.  After a few years, take another look at it and see if it's worth lugging around for the rest of your life, or if you can find a way to see that person as innocent.  Maybe they were just jealous of you, or maybe they thought they were paying you back for some imagined slight, but find a way to let it go and forgive them.  Erase that memory and replace it with one where the person was kind to you instead.  Forgiveness is a beautiful thing, even if the other person doesn't deserve it - you do. 


By TwitterButtons.com

A while back - actually two years ago, I did a very heartfelt post about Wills & Trusts. If you're smart, you'll take a minute and read it. It's good information and in a tough situation, it may definitely save your bacon.

I consider myself something of an expert on this subject, mainly because we have now lost all four of our parents and not one of them had a properly written will or a proper trust set up. If they had, I might be writing this from my cozy living room instead of sitting in my office at 5:00 on a Friday! It made that much difference in the size of the inheritances we received.

So, I'm going to ask you flat out. Do you have a will? If you don't, sit back and think for a minute - why not?

OK, what's the answer? Why not? Do you think that writing a will is going to make you more likely to die? I've got a news flash for you honey, we're all going to die, and some of us are going to do it sooner than we've planned. Do you want to leave your spouse and children unprotected and unprepared to carry on after you are gone?

Maybe you think it's going to be too much work and too much money? Trust me. Nothing in this world is more work or more expensive than dealing with the courts when someone has died without a proper will. It's really not that bad to pull a will together. It took us five minutes to find our lawyer - turns out he lives right around the corner from us. And he's great. Really knows his stuff. And it took about two hours and about a thousand dollars to get the whole enchilada set up. Wills, trusts, medical incapacity provisions, and the whole ball of wax, and we had it in our hands in less than 1 week. That is not too much work or too much money to make sure our three boys are set to have a roof over their heads and a bit of money to help them when the time comes.

In addition to a will, you need to have your assets set up properly. Let's say that your husband died tomorrow. Not wishing anything bad on anyone, but just suppose. If you don't have a joint checking and savings account set up, you won't have access to any of his money, possibly for months. His paycheck will stop immediately, and you may not get any insurance money for weeks or months. Do you have your house and cars titled properly? If you don't have them written exactly correctly, you will have to get permission from the court to sell them, and that is not quick, it is not cheap, and it is not easy.

Trust me, I know. They made a small typo on our house title that my Dad had co-signed for. After he died, we went to sell our house, and they wouldn't let us. It was our house that we had paid every payment on, but since it had his name on it, we had to go through the probate court to get it fixed. Cost us more than a thousand dollars and weeks of delay and frustration.

What if he hasn't set you up properly as the beneficiary on his insurance? After we'd been married a couple of years, I was horrified to discover my husband still had his ex-wife on his life insurance at work. He didn't mean to, but he hadn't thought to update the information. If he'd died during that time, that could have been a very nasty scene.

What about your dependent children? If one or both of you died, or were suddenly incapacitated what would happen to them? You might want them to be cared for by your parents or by one of your siblings, but unless you've got that spelled out in an official document, the court can do whatever they think is best and that could mean foster care, or some other arrangement that you may not like. Courts are scary and they don't always do things that seem to make sense.

Let's talk for a minute about a trust. It sounds scary, and it's a little complicated, but you'd be surprised how much a properly written trust can save your family. Or how much money you could lose if you don't have one. I estimate that having a trust could have saved us $50,000 after my father-in-law died. We had begged him to do it, but he wouldn't budge and we're the ones who paid the price for it. Ask a lawyer. Any lawyer worth his salt will be more than happy to take a few minutes to sit down and talk to you absolutely free and explain how a trust works and what it will do for you.

So go and check it out. Go on, shoo! Go find a lawyer today and get the ball rolling. If you already have a will, take a minute to review it and make sure everything is up to date and things are in place for that just-in-case moment.

Come back every Thursday for a fresh dose of Smart Money.  If you'd like to see past posts on the subject, click on the Smart Money link at the bottom of this post.  

By TwitterButtons.com

Hi all,

Just a quick announcement that I am guest posting today over at OrganizeWithSandy. Sandy is a Professional Organizer and she thought my How to Do a Job You Hate post was a perfect fit for her theme this week.

I know she'd love it if you'd pop over for a visit.


By TwitterButtons.com

I think one thing that separates the "cleanie" types from the "messy" types is the way they use their spare minutes. Messies tend to want to do their housework in BIG blocks of time while the Cleanies tend to do theirs for just a few minutes here and there all throughout the days.

The big problem with this concept is that big blocks of cleaning time don't present themselves very often. And in between the blocks of cleaning time, the house is deteriorating around you minute by minute.

On the other hand, little minutes are available all the time. You can slip in a quick tidy up when things are cooking in the microwave, while you're talking on the phone, while you're waiting for the kids to get dressed. You can tidy the bathroom while your young children are having their bath, or tidy up their room while they are getting dressed. When you start looking for these opportunities, you'll find them everywhere throughout your day.

You're probably thinking that you can't get much done in just a few minutes, but you would really be amazed! I've timed it and I can empty my dishwasher in three minutes, fold a load of laundry in five, and sweep my kitchen floor in ten.

Here is a good example of one of these quick time clean ups. This is my bathroom counter. It doesn't always look this bad, but I do find that "my" rooms tend to get a lot less attention than the more "public" areas of my house. Sad, but true...


Here is how it looked at the five minute mark. Looks a lot better, doesn't it?



Five minutes later, I had the rest of it done and look how great it looks. Ten minutes flat to a nice clean bathroom counter. Another couple of minutes to swish the toilet and sweep and mop the floor and voila! I had a completely clean bathroom.


That's a good way to accomplish a clean up in a very short period of time. However, an even better strategy would be to spend just one or two minutes every day to put my things away and give the counter and toilet a quick swipe. That's what the cleanie people do and Lord knows it's easy enough to do.

But if I do fall down on the job - again. At least I know I'm only 15 minutes from starting all over again.

Come back every Monday for a fresh dose of Clutterbugs. To view previous tips, click the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post for a complete list.

By TwitterButtons.com

I am pleased to announce my annual retired stamp set sale. I have a ton of retired stamps I have accumulated over the years and this year I am clearing them out! So I have priced them at rock bottom prices to move.

Most sets are priced $8 to $10, which is less than half of their catalog value. If you buy three, you may choose a fourth set of equal or lesser value for FREE.

I am willing to ship them wherever needed. Single sets can usually be shipped for $4.25 and multiple sets will probably fit in a flat rate box for about $6.50. First come, first served and I can accept nearly any form of payment including Paypal and credit cards.

By TwitterButtons.com

This is a new feature I've been thinking of doing for a long time now. I do work for a large bank, though I'm not anywhere near the banking side of the business. Our group actually pays the telecom bills for the bank (company name withheld for privacy reasons).

Anyway, they are nice enough to send me to a Women in Banking Luncheon every year. It's enjoyable and very informative and a nice chance to hobnob with other women in the industry. When I went this year, they gave us some handouts that really caught my eye. We all know that women earn an average of .72 cents to the man's dollar, but did you know the following facts:

- 1 in 7 retired women live on less than $10,000 per year.
- Women represent 85% of the elderly who reach 100 years old
- 58% of baby boomer women have less than $10,000 TOTAL saved for retirement
- 40% of married women have no input in financial decision making, even though they are likely to be the ones left holding the bag if their husband divorces them or dies before them.

Those are some scary numbers. This means that a lot of women are going to be living in abject poverty in what should be their later years. I know it is not going to be me, because I've done a lot of the right things to make sure it won't be, but I don't want it to happen to YOU either!

So I am planning a series of articles about women and their finances. Things about paying off debt, setting up savings plan, rethinking your kids college strategy, setting up wills and trusts, etc. The good news is there are a LOT of things you can be doing to position yourself properly. The bad news is that you probably haven't been doing a lot of them, and you need to start - NOW!

So pop back here every Thursday for some tips and let's start getting those finances in order.


By TwitterButtons.com

I haven't posted any stamping projects in forever, so I thought I'd post some of my projects from this month's stamp class.

My classes are going really well. I'm going to go ahead and add a second class. I've been meaning to for a while and now that I'm getting a few new customers, I think I've finally got enough participants to make it worthwhile, especially after the summer vacation season is over.

We're also starting a new card ministry at our church, so I'm helping with that too. This first card is one of the designs I came up with for them. I like it because it's quick and easy and you can change the greeting out for any occasion.



This Tart & Tangy set is so cute. I should use it more often.



Every once in a while, I let my customers take a crack at designing projects for the class. It changes things up and I worry that they might be get bored with my style after all this time - some of my people have been with me for years. So my friend Carron designed this cute card with the fan and the little chopsticks. Very cute!


This one didn't photograph well. The purple is a lot more rich and you can't see the tree that is stamped in silver mist. I used a bit more of the silver to add an interesting border around the edges.



This one shows off some of our new colors - Wild Wasabi base with a band of Daffodil Delight, and some accents of our new Marina Mist. I'm going to miss some of our old colors, but I do like a lot of the new ones.



Our new catalog is out now. I've got some extras for sale. I charge just $5 plus postage. Let me know if you'd like me to send you one. Or you can pop over to my website and take a look at the products yourself.


By TwitterButtons.com

I'm at work today and it's kind of a slow day, so I am catching up on my most hated task - FILING! I don't know why I dislike filing so much, but I always have and that isn't likely to change soon.

So the question is, how do you approach a task you really dislike doing?

- Put it off and hope it chokes and dies! (Appealing, but not likely)
- Pay someone to do it for you (outsource it to India??)
- Foist it off on someone who doesn't mind doing it, or trade a job someone else hates that you don't mind doing. I do this one a lot around the house. There are some jobs that people like and some they don't. I will take dishes over mopping every time, for example.
- Do a little every day so it doesn't pile up to a big ugly job
- Simplify the task so you can get it out of the way quickly
- Offer yourself a reward for doing it (hey, this works on my kids!).
- Get someone to do it with you so you can at least have some company while doing it.

For filing, I take an approach that hits most of these points. First of all, I do put it off for as long as I can get away with it. It's not a critical part of my job, so I can do that without too much guilt and that's better for me than having to face it every week or so. I usually can fit about 3 months worth of work into my desk storage before I really feel like I need to clear it out and move it to my filing cabinet.

I'm rarely able to foist it off on someone, but I have managed to a couple of times. There's been a few times when my kids were in the office and I was able to bribe them into doing it for me. Also, my co-worker doesn't mind filing, so sometimes I can trade a job with her or at least get her to help me with it so I've got someone to talk to.

Also, I have simplified the job so it is MUCH easier and quicker to do. I used to sort all my invoices by area code and month, and it would take me about 3-4 hours to do. Then I realized that I only dig into my files about half a dozen times a year, so it's not really worth the time and effort to sort them so much. Now, I just sort them by the 1st number in the area code (all the 2's, 3's, 4's, etc.) and dump them into a big folder. So if I need to find something in the 208 area code, I only have to dig through one folder and maybe 75 invoices to find it. Now the job only takes me about 2 hours and everything fits in one drawer, so it's easier to find things.

What job do you hate that you end up putting off all the time? What can you do to make it easier?

Come back every Monday for more Clutterbugs tips. Or to see past tips, just click on the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post for a complete list.

By TwitterButtons.com

As if the days of EVO wasn't enough bloggy togetherness, a whole group of us got together for a Girl's Night Out days later. Kim, one of my good friends from Bloggy Boot Camp was in town, but couldn't make it to EVO10, a mob of us decided to trek out to Highland and see her at the Blue Lemon Cafe. Remember Kim?



As usual when we get a big group of us like this, we get a little crazy. I'm sure the other diners were wondering when we were taking all these pictures. The staff was so nice, they finally came up and very nicely told us that they had been closed for an hour! Then we sat on their porch for another 20 minutes saying good bye to each other. Hey, we're bloggers and we like to talk, darn it! Even if we've just spent the weekend together at EVO.

By TwitterButtons.com

OK, I'm going to 'fess up. I am challenged when it comes to using paper planners. Seriously planner challenged. Over the years I have purchased numerous planners, calendars, electronic organizers, and the like. Problem is I have totally failed at every one of them.

I can't figure out if I've got too much going on in my life or too little, but I just don't take well to writing things down on a little calendar and then remembering to check it every day. I've even been to the two-day Franklin Covey classes that cost a bloody fortune, but I still fell off the wagon after a couple of months.

I think the problem is that my life in some ways is very routine. My job is basically just Accounting, so I'm typically doing the same things over and over again month after month. It's the same thing at home - I always know that Scouts is on Wednesdays, Bowling is on Saturdays, my stamp class is the 2nd Tuesday of the month, so I don't feel like I need to look at a calendar for that kind of stuff.

Since it's all such routine stuff, I mostly just keep it in my head. Of course that way isn't particularly foolproof, because anything out of the ordinary tends to leak right out of my head somehow. I don't usually forget things I need to do completely, but sometimes it's a close thing, especially at times when I've got a lot going on at once. That leaves my poor brain on it's own and it's too little to be out on it's own!

The good news is that I do have one thing that works pretty well for me. My Outlook calendar at work is a huge help to me. I love it that it not only pops up with automatic reminders before every meeting and it also has a list of my next three meetings that is always visible at the side of my desktop. That has saved my bacon more than once!

Plus you can set up recurring events, so if you need to pull a certain report every Friday, you just put in a reminder and it will pop up every Friday without fail. I have a similar personal calendar on Google that I have coordinated with my phone. I put chore lists and rotations on there, school activities, and church programs that I'm helping with.

That covers me for meetings and other things that actually have a date. But there are so many daily tasks and chores that don't have specific dates. So here's the other thing I've found - my new To Do list. Look at this nifty little list I found while prowling the Franklin Covey store trying to get my nerve up to try yet another planner (I didn't!).

I actually like To Do lists and I find them very effective, but I don't use them as often as I should. The problem is that I feel kind of weird putting my personal stuff on my work lists and vice-versa. This version solves the problem quite nicely, I think. It has three separate sections, each with a little tear off pad with a pre-printed list, complete with check boxes. I think the check marks are half the fun of a To Do list anyway.

I've only had it for a couple of days, but already I think it's helping a lot. I had a very productive day at work. I remembered to do a couple of tasks at home that I've been putting off, and I put down several ideas for blog posts on the play section, so I'll be covered for most of next week on posts. I even put a few things on there for myself - like exercise, and leave work on time.

What organizational tools do you like best?

Be sure to stop by every Monday for my Clutterbugs posts. If you'd like to see a complete list of past posts, just click on the Clutterbugs tag at the bottom of this post and it will pull up a complete list.

By TwitterButtons.com