Lemon Meringue Pie

From Better Homes & Gardens (New) Cookbook circa 1980 approximately

Wise Words: Overheard a College Student

You never know where the next words of wisdom will come from.

I was with our adult daughter in a bookstore. One of our favorite bookstores in the world as it turns out. Our husbands were playing golf together at that famous St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and we were walking around this college town; seeing the sights and tasting the food. The name of the bookstore was Topping and Company and I highly recommend you pop in there (they serve you tea or coffee on a darling tray with real china tea cups (not paper) on a cozy couch or chair while you look through the books).

And that’s when I heard it. One student talking to another about whether or not to participate in the upcoming graduation ceremony. He said “Graduation is a moment. That’s the point of graduation. To provide moments for your parents to look back on.” Bam! Wise words from a college student.

The Answer to “God, what do you want me to do?” 2018 New Year Focus

The Message Romans 12:1-2, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Anticipation

I’m anticipating our family arriving for Christmas weekend but of course I am not just sitting around waiting. There is planning and preparation to be done. Yes there is some work involved but it doesn’t feel like a burden. With joy I clean (or pay someone to help 🙂 , cook, shop, decorate, wrap gifts, and think about what I can do ahead of time so that I can do the most important and my favorite part of the Holidays…..just be together: Eat our favorite foods, play a few games, watch some holiday movies, talk and talk about what’s going on in our lives, what’s coming up next and how we hope it will go. It reminds of me Advent season (minus the fasting). I am waiting but I am not inactive. There is preparation and focused attention. Christ’s first coming brings solid hope of His second coming….the older I get the more I anticipate the day that the worst of this life will seem like light and momentary suffering and the best will be seen as merely an appetizer to the eternal banquet feast.  But I’m sure whatever that New Heaven and New Earth will be like the best part will be just being together with our Father God, Savior Jesus and those adopted into His family.

Living Life Fearlessly

Just re-reading some old blog posts and thought I’d remind myself of thoughts I shared.

TJ Talks

” I smiled when I saw the photo, thinking about you living life fearlessly (as you have written about) and taking risks, doing things that put you in harms way. Living life with the possibility of being hurt. These ripped jeans are testimony to me of that. I’m glad that you weren’t seriously injured, but I rejoice with you that you are able to do all the things you want to do and not give into a paralyzing fear that would keep you from them.”

This was written in the comment section of a photo I posted on facebook. A photo of my favorite jeans with a large rip in them just above the knee that was scraped when I slipped and fell while walking down a slightly declining wet ramp to board a mock pirate ship in Hakone Japan. Her first comment was “This is so awesome on so many…

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Shameless Plug

This is a shameless plug for my husband’s new blog. He started listening to pod casts as he walks and takes the train to work and his mind is overflowing with ideas and enthusiasm. Blogging is a great outlet in times like these, so check this out if you are intrigued.

Organize Your Closet One Step At A Time: Step 3 Sort Clothes Into Categories

#3. Sort Clothes Into Categories

Note: If your clothes are packed in so tight that you cannot easily move things around, then take several pieces out and lay them on the bed (if you have large items like coats or jackets that is an easy category to start placing on the bed and it will quickly give you room to maneuver in the closet). Also remove any ties or belts you might have hanging in the closet.

Note #2: If you are easily distracted or overwhelmed get a kitchen timer or use your smart phone to set the timer for 10-20 minutes work periods.

A. Start with the spot you see first when you open the closet on one end or the other. Move all pants into that first section, then all skirts, then all shirts/tops, then sweaters/jackets, then robes, then dresses (make sure to place dresses in the longest section of the closet.)  At this point you have not made any decisions about what to keep, what to store or what to give away….just arrange by type so you can see how many of each type you have. You can probably do this in 20-30 minutes, set a timer if that helps.

B. Now go back through each section and arrange by color and type. In each section I go light to dark in the summer and dark to light in the winter (but that’s just me, you can keep it the same year round if you prefer). I also go from less to more; like sleeveless to turtleneck. Since we are going into the winter my first section on the left of my square walk-in closet has solid black spaghetti strap and tank tops (for layering), then t-shirts, button-ups, long sleeved tanks and turtlenecks.  Followed by print tops that are predominately black. Next I placed all the brown shirts, then green, then blue, then violet, pink, red, orange, yellow and white. In the back of the closet I have coats and dresses. On the right side starting in the back,  I have jackets, skirts and pants. I have pants toward the front because I wear them most and they are arranged by color/type (all light colored pants, then jeans, then dark colors ending with black). This step might take a little longer but the key is to move quickly, again not making any major decisions.

C. Go back through one section at a time and remove ‘out of season’ clothing first* (I only do this twice a year, mid-Autumn and early-Spring). I know this is hard in places with milder climates but there are usually some clear cut Winter or Summer extremes (I never keep turtlenecks, corduroy pants or thick flannel in my closet in the summer and I never miss thin skirts and shirts in light colors (white linen, etc) in the winter. I fold the clothes up neatly and place in one or more of the cardboard or plastic boxes or move to the spare bedroom closet if there is room. Never put anything in storage if there is any doubt if it’s clean (you might need to do a few loads of laundry or take items to the Dry Cleaners before completing this step. You don’t want to find moth holes at the beginning of the next season or set in stains. If you have a lot of wool garments you will need to add moth repellent of some kind. (I’ve used whole cloves, moth balls and cedar blocks, there is more info online.)

*Note: As you remove last season’s clothing begin to ask yourself some questions:

1. Does it fit? or has it recently fit? (If it’s been more than 5 years and you are not in the process of already loosing (or gaining) so that they will likely fit by next year, then it’s time to find a new home.)

2. Does it flatter my figure? Is it comfortable? Do I love/hate it? Did I put it on and take it off instead of wearing it out last season? Is it severely outdated? Is there someone that might be thrilled to wear this? (If you have a friend or relative who might enjoy the clothes, tell her what you are doing but ask her to come at the end of the day to go through the plastic bags for charity at HER HOUSE not yours (or better yet, you drop the bags for her to go through)…she can drop off what she doesn’t take at the charity drop off spot. You want to get those bags out of your house before you have a chance to go pull something out to keep.

Anything that you can quickly decide to give to charity, put in the large plastic trash bag (use marker to label – Good Will, Salvation Army, etc. or just Give Away). As each bag is filled, move to the front door and the first time you walk past the bags to the car, put them in the trunk with a sticky note on the dash to drop them at the charity drop off place).

If you are undecided about an item you can put it in your ‘out of season’ box and decide next season or label one box “undecided” and see if you can live without it next year. If you need to be strict with yourself (and you are ready for that), then give it away. You probably won’t miss it if it’s outdated, doesn’t fit, isn’t comfortable or is no longer your style.

If you find garments that you love but they need repairing you can either put them in your ‘to be repaired by me’ basket in your sewing room (does anyone do that anymore?!), place by your purse to be dropped off at the Tailor (or Dry Cleaners that do repairs) or put in the charity bag and “Let it go!”

Anything that is severely damaged (torn or stained) throw in the trash can.

What you should have left hanging in your closet is the current season’s clothes arranged by type and color. Place the out of season boxes under the bed, top or bottom of the closet or spare bedroom closet. Worst case you can move them to the garage if there is no room in the house but I don’t recommend that.

You are over your first big hurdle, now take a break and celebrate!

Organize Your Closet One Step At A Time: Step 2 Collect Supplies

#2. Collect Supplies

A. 3-6 medium size cardboard or plastic boxes that will fit on a shelf in your closet or on the floor under shorter pieces of clothing or under a bed for storing your out of season clothes (unless you have an empty closet in another room that you can move them to).

B. Permanent Marker for labeling boxes, stickers or 3×5 cards if using plastic boxes.

C. Large plastic trash bags (clean) for taking clothes to charity.

D. Paper bags that stand on their own or plastic lined trash can for trashed items that cannot be passed on to someone else.

E. Clean laundry basket(s) or box(es) for sorting or moving clothing and other items to other rooms.

Organize Your Closet One Step At A Time: Step 1 Empty Hangers

1. Hangers

A. Remove all empty hangers putting all wire hangers and all broken/bent/weak hangers in a paper bag to be thrown away as you touch them (keep bag nearby and touch each hanger only once).

B. Place good empty hangers on your bed, dresser or empty box. (You should now have a tiny bit of room in your closet to maneuver a bit.

Notes: If you only own wire hangers go out and buy as many plastic hangers as you can afford. Not the flimsiest version but they don’t have to be very expensive. It’s nice to have a variety of styles. The smooth ones with a large opening and some with notches to keep spaghetti straps from slipping off.  I also like to use about 10 of the felt covered non-slip type for things that tend to slip off (they used to sell them at Costco) I do not like to use them for everything though, it’s too hard to remove garments.

If you don’t have any empty hangers you can start with Step 2 but will need a nearby bed to have space for sorting, so don’t start close to bedtime or you will be moving a pile of clothes to get into bed.

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,600 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.