She stood in the center of the room not knowing which way to go. The voice on the loudspeaker shouted over and over, “Go! Go! Go!” but she didn’t know. She didn’t know which way to go, so she stood there. She looked angrily around for someone who could tell her the way, but there was no one. So she stood there. Eventually the day faded away, and the voice on the loudspeaker gave up its unrelenting chant. Everything was quiet, which she thought, at first, would be a good thing. It wasn’t.

It wasn’t any better because now the voice that was once outside of herself was now in her head. Go. Go. Go. But she still didn’t know. She could make a move toward the door - any door - but which one? How would she choose? How would she know ahead of time which one was the right one to go to? She sat down on the floor to contemplate this and found, much to her dismay, that the only answer that came to her was that night turns into day.

For awhile she thought that this might be a good thing. Maybe by the light of day she would know. But as the morning light was burned away by the sun, she saw very clearly that she still saw nothing at all. She still didn’t know.

So she sat there awhile longer.

Contemplating.

Her anger turned into boredom, and her boredom became apathy, and pretty soon she couldn’t get up off the floor. The voice inside her head gave way to silence, and still she did not know. She looked around at the various possibilities, but still she did not know.

“Choose,” she heard, but did not trust the voice. “Pick something,” it said in her head, but it did not tell her what. All the options looked the same. Dark, mysterious, unsafe. Like places you’d only go if you had to go, but she didn’t have to go. There was time. She could wait. Nothing would happen to her so long as she stayed where she was.

That was a lie, because time happened. It changed and bent and burned its way through day after day, and if she’d had a mirror, she would have known she was getting old. Things had changed. Everything had changed but her. And even though she had never left, she had somehow been left behind.

This awakened in her a new urgency to go go go. But still she did not know where. She didn’t know if she could. Her eyes and her mind and her legs had grown stiff and encumbered by the weight of themselves. She no longer remembered how to run. But by now she had grown curious. Which was the right way to go? Finally she stood. And finally she walked. And finally she chose a door and opened it out into a hallway that connected all of the other doors together.

I may have discovered the secret to losing weight. It’s not exactly a secret, nor is it actually mine, but I think it just might do the trick. This little tidbit was revealed to me while I was reading a book called Secrets of a Former Fat Girl by Lisa Delaney (I told you it wasn’t my secret), which is, by far, the most motivational book on weight loss I’ve ever read – and I’m only halfway through. (And, by the way, it’s not just for girls. Anyone could benefit from this book.)

Here’s the secret:

This is disturbingly obvious, but bear with me. The secret to losing weight is to take in less calories than you burn off. Yes, I know you are groaning. You’re saying, “Ugh, we’re back to this? This is caveman stuff! It’s rudimentary! Everyone knows this!” But I ask you… do they? Do they really?

Okay, yes, they do. But (and I can only speak for myself), I have never really understood the whole problem. I never had all the information. I was missing a piece of the puzzle. I knew where I wanted to go – less calories – but I never knew from where I was starting. And learning that seems to be the final piece of the puzzle I need.

Everyone is different. My weight is different than yours. The amount I exercise is different than the amount you exercise. How much I want to lose is different, too. So, how are we all supposed to get to where we’re going (losing weight) if we’re coming from such different places, but all we’re ever offered is a one-size-fits-all plan? We have to set different goals, but before we can design those goals, we’ve got to find out how. Not by yet another generic plan, but by getting specific.

Online calculators can help us with this.

Here’s how I did mine.

First I started with an online calculator that would tell me how many calories I need to consume to maintain my current weight. For this, I went to CalorieControl.org (see Your Step-by-Step Plan below). Here’s what I entered in:

5 feet 6 inches
148 Pounds
Age 37
Activity Level: Moderate
Answer: 2118 calories a day to maintain my current weight

According to another of the CalorieControl.org calculators, my healthy weight is 130. I agree but would like to lose 5 more since I am bird-boned and looked my best at 125 (once upon a time).

3,500 calories equals one pound of body weight. If I want to lose one pound per week, that’s how many calories I need to cut back, which equals 500 calories per day.

After that, I calculated how many calories I burn during my three-day-a-week exercising:
Jogging 1.1 mile (10:30 minutes): 117 calories x twice a week = 234
Walking back 1.1 mile for 20 minutes: 130 calories x twice a week = 260
Bicycling for 30: 218 calories
Total: 712 calories a week burned exercising
Note: I walk around all day long at my job, which I’m sure counts for a lot I’m not adding in.

Then I subtracted the amount of calories I burn exercising each week, 712, from the weekly deficit I’ll need to lose weight, 3,500, which gives me my real weekly deficit number, 2,788. That means I need to reduce my caloric intake by 2,788 each week (398 calories a day) to lose 23 pounds in 6 months (23 pounds divided by 4 pounds per month equals 5.75 months). Remember, according to the calculator, to maintain my current weight, I need 2118 calories a day. So, when I subtract 398 from 2118, I find I need to consume 1,720 calories a day to lose 23 pounds in 6 months in a very healthy and doable way.

After calculating all of the above, I then calculated my daily food intake – minus dinner. I eat the same food during the week (supplementing with a vitamin or two), taking lunches to work and eating mostly well at home, which makes it easy to add up. My caloric breakdown of food came out like this:

Breakfast: Scrambled Egg, Butter, V-8 Juice: 169 Calories
Lunch: Baby Carrots, Protein Drink, Oat-Bran Muffin: 263
Lunch: Soup, Pudding: 280
Popsicle: 80
Bedtime Snack: 200 (low blood sugar prevents me from skipping this)
Water: 8 Glasses Per Day: 0
Total: 992
That leaves 728 for dinner. Since dinner is often hard to count, I just eat whatever I eat in moderation, aiming for more veggies.

Note: Cutting out drinks is an easy way to cut calories since they don’t keep you feeling full anyway.

Perhaps the best part of all is that in order to maintain my ideal weight once I reach it, I get to eat about 240 more calories per day. Anyway, that’s what the calculators say. That’s going to be a real treat, especially after getting used to the deficit. I’ll use that as motivation.

The first week I did this plan, I lost 2½ pounds. This was phenomenally exciting, so I celebrated by overeating all the next weekend and gained every bit of it back. I have, once again, lost those 2½ pounds, plus 1½ more. Just think, if I hadn’t stuffed my face that weekend, I’d be 6½ pounds to the good. If I’d paid attention to my weekend caloric intake, I would have seen how much I was actually scarfing down.

So, I reiterate: The secret to losing weight is to take in less calories than you burn off. The second secret is finding out just what that is.

Life Lesson: If you knew it, you could do it.

Note: I’ve plugged my numbers into various calculators and always get a variety of answers. The American Cancer Society’s calculator says I need 2489 calories, which is quite a bit different. My decision, for now at least, is to stick with the ones I first used since I’ve noticed good results. It’s doubtful to be an exact science anyway. About.com’s calculator agrees with CalorieControl.org, as well as others.

Note: If you are extremely overweight, have trouble losing weight even when you’re eating well and exercising, or are at all uncertain about your health, consult your doctor. You could have an underlying medical condition that needs to be resolved. I always recommend seeing a good endocrinologist as well as your regular physician.

Your Step-By-Step Plan:

1. www.caloriecontrol.org/calcalcs.html - Enter in your data to get your Maintenance Calories.
2. www.caloriecontrol.org/ibw.html - Enter your data to find your Healthy Weight.
3. Decide on your Goal Weight.
4. Decide how many pounds you want to lose per week. Keep this number between 1 and 2 for healthy, doable weight loss. For 1 pound, your Weekly Calorie Deficit will be 3,500. For 2 pounds, if you have a lot to lose and have some seriously bad eating habits, it will be 7,000.
5. www.caloriecontrol.org/exercalc.html - Enter in your data and keep notes, then tally up your Weekly Calories Burned During Exercise.
6. Subtract your Weekly Calories Burned During Exercise from your Weekly Calorie Deficit, then divide that by 7 to get your Adjusted Daily Calorie Deficit.
7. Subtract your Adjusted Daily Calorie Deficit from your Maintenance Calories to find out what you, personally, need to consume each day to reach your goal.
8. Divide the amount of pounds you plan to lose by how many pounds you plan to lose per month. This will give you your ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival), how many months it should take.
9. www.caloriescount.org/calculator.html - Research the foods you like (or are willing to eat) to find out how many calories are in them.
10. Make a Calorie Meal Plan and stick to it, adjusting it as often as you need.

Note: Feel free to search for other calculators, especially if any of these stop working.

Note: Redo your numbers every once in awhile as your weight decreases and you change your exercise and eating habits.

Other Resources:

For great low-glycemic eating and the oat-bran muffin recipe I use, check out:
The Good Carb Cookbook by Sandra Woodruff
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Carb-Cookbook-Secrets-Glycemic/dp/1583330844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220030940&sr=1-1

Secrets of a Former Fat Girl by Lisa Delaney
http://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Former-Fat-Girl-Sizes/dp/0452289246/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220033726&sr=1-1

Being a do-it-yourselfer, I pile a lot of tasks upon myself to accomplish on a regular basis. In general, I break my weeks down like this: Time to work at my job, time to work on writing, and time to work on the house. What I should also add to this list is: Time to have a nervous breakdown.

Nervous breakdowns, being completely unscheduled, are a real inconvenience.

It isn’t like I don’t take breaks from my self-assigned tasks. I do. I would love, in fact, to be as productive as I try to make myself. If I was, I might actually run out of things to do, and then I could take that well-deserved time off. Yeah, right! But the problem isn’t that I never take breaks, the problem is that I never take breaks in my head. Even if I think I’m relaxing, I’m not. I might be sprawled across the sofa in front of the TV, but what I have noticed is that I’m as tense, or even more so, as I would be working on something. Why? Because I’m beating myself up. I’m listing my to-dos. I’m berating myself for not being in the kitchen touching up the paint. Or I’m thinking about the next three writing projects I want to do. Or I’m kicking myself for not learning to play guitar. In essence, I’m still working. I’m working in my head and not accomplishing a thing. That, my friends, is highly unproductive. I’m spinning my wheels, burning precious fuel. Burning myself out.

Working on that nervous breakdown.

Because of this bad thinking habit, I have, once again, squeezed all the fun out of my life. There’s nothing to look forward to besides endless drudgery. Fun? Sorry, can’t pencil you in till 2010, and that is subject to change.

Last weekend I made a commitment to see a movie in the theater with my husband. (Gasp!) The last movie we saw out was Transformers, exactly a year ago. Beyond that, it was 300. I had to literally make this a commitment because of my chronic temptation to back out of anything enjoyable in lieu of getting more stuff done, or collapsing exhausted on the couch. And I almost reneged. I almost said, “Maybe we could do this another time.” But I didn’t, and it was fun. I had fun. Holy Mother of God, I can’t believe it.

It reminded me that not having something to look forward to is a lot like not having a reason to live. So, I made a plan. It wasn’t a big plan, but it was a plan to do something, even a little something, once a week, and to make even the smallest somethings a little bit special. This weekend we’re renting a movie and cooking wings.

Renting a movie and pigging out is frequently something we do, but what’s different is that this time we’re making a point of it. We’re making it special. And I have to say, I’ve been looking forward to it all week. It’s nothing really new, but it’s one teaspoon of stress gone and one dollop of fun thrown in.

Life Lesson: Sometimes you have to look forward to enjoy yourself now.

After drooling all over my TV, magazines and my computer monitor, I have thought extensively about Michael Phelps. And while I will not share with you my heavily sappy and embarrassing fantasies, I will share with you some thoughts I had about Michael Phelps as a hero.

My thoughts on this came after wondering what would become of him after this latest bout of extraordinary success. Will Michael Phelps become overexposed in the limelight? Will Michael Phelps become an intolerable, egomaniacal prick from all the attention? Will people turn viciously upon him after awhile, wanting to fell a hero? Or will Michael Phelps remain the same seemingly modest, down-to-earth guy who doggy paddled into all our hearts?

I wondered about Michael Phelps and how other people see him, and it occurred to me that anyone who loves the guy might fall into two distinct categories: people who do and people who don’t.

For me, Michael Phelps is an inspiration. Besides admiring his gorgeous abs, pecs and eyes, I take to heart his “you can do it” attitude and even had a startling awakening about the need to think positively after he mentioned how he uses his imagination to help him achieve so much success. But, I’m a self-improver; a doer. I gobble this kind of stuff up. It’s soul food, and much better than beans for the heart. But, at the same time, to say I have an incredible ability to ruminate, worry and visualize doom and gloom scenarios is certainly no understatement.

Then it occurred to me that there are other kinds of fans out there; people who want to believe that someone like Michael Phelps is an anomaly; superhuman; a freak of nature; that what he has attained is unattainable… by mere mortals like themselves. That’s got to be comforting, because some people just have it, and if you don’t, you don’t have to try. What a relief. These are the kinds of people whose only heroes are comic book characters born with superpowers. To them, Michael Phelps is Aquaman for real.

(Personally, I call him The Amphibian. I’m pretty certain that what Michael Phelps doesn’t tell anyone is that both his grandfathers were mermen. Obviously, that makes his grandmothers pretty kinky. But, hey, if they looked like Michael, who could blame them?)

I, for one, like my heroes humble. I like nice guys. I like nice people. If Michael Phelps was a jerk, I’d begrudge him his victories, or, at least, I would turn off the television. I want the good guy to win. I want the nice guy to come in first. After seeing him in interviews, I was relieved to find in him a genuinely decent person, although being a genuine, hard working, modest guy might upset others of the more comic-booky type.

I find myself wondering if he has the endurance and the stamina and the humility to withstand this new pressure and exposure. Now he’s no longer a possibility; he’s an actuality. Everybody wants something from him. Some want money, and some want his fame to fan the flames of their own egos. But I want something, too. I want him to be a good guy. I want him to be a regular guy; a successful regular guy. I want him to care. I want him to be someone I can look up to. I respect the guy, and I don’t want to lose that. And I love that he’s a mamma’s boy, shamelessly. And, although I know that the way in which Michael Phelps chooses to live his life is none of my business, I find myself hoping that he keeps on being my kind of hero.

If kittens, puppies and children weren’t so cute, surely their populations would be diminished by us strangling them, perhaps, even, putting them – and us – into extinction. Kittens, especially, are adorable, cute, fuzzy little psychopathic killers leaping at anything that wiggles – or doesn’t. They are either asleep or attacking something. There isn’t much in-between, except an occasional poop and dinner.

Their teeth and nails are sharp, razor sharp. Sharp like razors. Sharp, sharp razors.

Literally, a kitten passes from crack-brained toddler to hormonal teenager in a matter of six months. Thirty minutes ago, mine blitzkrieged my desk, ripping apart Kleenex, sticky notes and the phone book. Now he’s sleeping like an angel on my lap. Awwww! He’s so adorable… when he’s sleeping.

Because of their tiny, little size, it’s very easy for us gigantic humans to forget that kittens are in intensive training to become great murderers. Every single antic they perform, from pouncing to hiding and leaping is deep training to grow up capable of feeding themselves and their young. Let’s just hope it isn’t you they’re after. And it could be, if you’re not careful.

The mistake people often make is playing too rough with their kitten. They over-aggravate, turning their kitten mean and aggressive… all by complete accident.

It’s very cute to see a kitten get riled up when we play with them. They attack, bite and maybe even growl. How adorable. This little creature sure gets worked up! But, what we’re not realizing is that this kind of play may be fun for us, but it is not fun for them. Once an animal passes from playing into irritability and aggravation, that animal is not having fun. It is, in fact being taught to fight. It is being taught to attack, to be aggressive. And when that animal gains another ten pounds, and has bigger teeth and nails, and stronger jaws, it’s not going to be so cute when it attacks. In fact, a cat can really tear a person up.

A friend of mine had a cat that her boyfriend completely ruined by this kind of play. No one knew any better – except the cat, of course. When it passed from fuzzy little creature to full-grown creature, its favorite mode of expression was leap, bite and rip; your feet; your head; your everything. And my friend and her boyfriend had no idea why. They thought the cat was just bad. But it wasn’t. It was trained to do exactly as it was doing. Their solution was to dump it off somewhere. What could have been a good life for a loving pet became a great loss, all because of ignorance.

The rule in my house has always been: Do not use your hands to play with kittens until they are calm enough to play nicely. You can use toys, but no roughhousing with your hands.

This is easier said than done. You cannot always keep your hands away from the kitten, and because they are in constant attack mode, you are bound to be caught up in their play. But when handling them and loving on them turns into biting and scratching, there are things you can do to discourage this behavior.

You might think that smacking your kitten is a good idea, teaching them that what they are doing is wrong, but you’d actually be teaching them aggression through your aggression. Cats do not learn the way people do. Punishment of this kind is a teaching tool for them to fight back. There is, actually, only one thing you can do: Remove your hands from the situation.

When the kitten begins biting and scratching, try to take your hand slowly away. Slowly, because a cat’s nails are shaped like hooks. When their prey (you, in this case) pulls away, it hurts more because it is pulling against the hook-end of the nail. This causes the prey to stop pulling, where it can then be devoured. Goodbye mouse, hello tummy. If you yank your hand away too fast, you’re likely to get very scratched.

Instead of getting away as quickly as possible, unhook the diabolical beast with your other hand. No doubt, this will cause le kitten to then attack that hand, but, because you are at the ready, you will eventually get away. At this point, there are several things you can do: hide your hands so the beast has nothing to attack; distract the murderous creature with a toy; or ball your hand into a not-so-easy-to-bite fist. Sometimes blowing in their face or a sharp, “No!” is a good distracter. If the kitten isn’t biting or scratching in earnest and isn’t hurting you too much, you can rest your hand there. At this point, le kitten will either play non-aggressively, which is fine; will turn aggressive, which means you have to remove your hand; or will revert to The Lick of Doom!!! Of course, The Lick of Doom!!! is a loving gesture, just don’t tell the cat that you know this. You’ll ruin its rep.

I’ve had my new kitten exactly a month today. The first two weeks I spent employing the above techniques, and after that, he plays with my hands gently. Enough so that I can even do a little finger-wiggling without worrying about its amputation.

Once a week, I trim the very tiniest tips of his nails, just enough to remove the razor-sharpness but still allowing him to use them to climb up on things like the sofa and bed (and, unfortunately, my pants). Just remember, when trimming cat nails, be absolutely certain that at the moment of snipping, the cat isn’t wiggling around or trying to break free. You could end up cutting off more than you can chew – or stop bleeding. Keep styptic powder on-hand. It is very dangerous to allow cat nails to bleed. They don’t clot well.

I use toenail clippers for my cats. Holding the cat on my lap, I gently squeeze the “finger” to pop the nail out. Then, with the clippers, I gently grab the end of the nail where I want to cut, and before cutting, I make sure the cat is being still. If the cat wiggles before I can trim the nail, I abort the process and then start over again, gently holding the nail tip with the clippers before cutting. Normally you can see the cat’s veins inside the nail and can tell how far down not to cut. But if you can’t, err on the side of caution and just trim the very tips. Trimming once a week saves our new sofa from becoming a scratching post. Cats don’t actually sharpen their nails by scratching. From my observations, I would say that they are trying to dull them down a bit, trying to remove the shedding part or are pulling on them because it feels good. All I know is that as long as I remember to trim our cats’ nails regularly, they don’t have the urge to scratch. Every bit of damage done to our furniture was due to my own failure to keep them trimmed.

Most of our cats (six now) are used to the process of trim-time and will sit through it calmly enough. If the kitten is too hyper, I will wait until he’s asleep, then bug him. Another of our cats had a bad experience getting a vaccine shot and, unless he is sleepy or in the mood, will struggle till the death if I pick him up. Again, I accost him at nap-time when he is mellow and tolerant.

Thus far, I have had the joyous and insane experience of raising six kittens, and all of them are non-aggressive, loving pets. I imagine they think they same of me.

Life Lesson: The attacker often becomes the attackee.

Several months ago, my husband and I came across a sale on the sofa we’d been eyeballing and drooling over for the past two years. After giving ourselves a chance to think about it (i.e. we left the store and went home, resisting the temptation to spontaneously shop), we ran back to the store and got it. By some miracle, we happen to have the extra cash, and we prided ourselves on not putting our purchase on credit.

Our rule is: nothing on credit except for absolute emergencies (like the procedure to unblock our beloved Bubba’s bladder). Like many other Americans and Worldians, we have some credit card debt to pay off, which in itself isn’t a problem… if you ignore the wasteful interest rates, the agonizing stress of carrying debt, and the extra cash we put on that instead of elsewhere each month.

In a word, debt sucks.

What ended up really throwing us wasn’t the sofa purchase but the next month’s spending on home improvement items, like tile for the patio floor, seven gallons of paint, a ceiling fan and a light fixture. And then the cat got sick and had to get his bladder flushed out. It seems, sometimes, that things just come up. And that’s where the problem begins. Once you get a little behind and start pushing your bills forward to the next paycheck, it can take a long time to catch up. Add to our list a surprise five-hundred dollar electric bill, rising gas prices, a new rescue kitten needing medical attention, a broken garage door spring and the A/C going on the fritz, maybe it’s not surprising that, even with our decent pay, and even though we had been rockin’ and rollin’ on our bills, we managed to slip behind.

Upon further inspection, I also came to realize that, not only have grocery prices gone up, but we’ve been overspending; splurging on lazy and expensive pre-packaged foods and foregoing old classics that yield leftovers, like homemade spaghetti and chili. Never mind the flatulence.

So, what I proposed we do is stop. For one month, we are going to stop spending as much as we possibly can. Necessities, okay. But beyond that, forget it. That book I want? Nope. That Metallica CD? Forget it. A new Xbox game? Sorry.

You’d think this would stress me out, but, in fact, I feel relieved. All I want is to get back to square one after all these surprise expenses. Simply stopping will give us a chance to do that. It will also give us a chance to catch up on our home improvement projects before adding more things to do, and that, in itself, brings a huge sigh of relief.

Life Lesson: Sometimes all you can do is stop.

Who says cause and effect always run in the same order? Is it possible for them to turn around, where the effect comes before the cause? Where the event happens before the reason or without our awareness of the reason? Where, as they say in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, “Strange things are afoot at the Circle K…”

There have been times in my life when I felt like I was being guided by forces I could not see; when events were so coincidental as to seem not like coincidence at all; when people I meet seem not like strangers; or places seem like places I’ve been or are meant to be.

One such time was when I moved from Germany to North Carolina. In Germany, I awoke from a very deep nap one afternoon with a voice in my head hollering at me, “Buy Dana’s house!” It was so loud that I could not ignore it. Normally the voices tell me things like, “Yes, I should eat that ice cream!” but this one was different. This one did not seem like my own, so, I jumped online to see if Dana’s house was listed. It was listed, and so was another one I fell in love with just down the street – one with a basement and a garage. I didn’t know if the edict I was given literally meant “buy Dana’s house” or if it maybe meant “buy one nearby”.

I spent the next few months in realtor.com limbo, researching everything in the area, educating myself, and getting pre-approved for a loan I wasn’t sure we’d really need. Rich left for Iraq, and I realized that without being able to see any houses in person, we were stuck. A random trip to the states, based on some guy yelling at me in my half-sleep, was not in the budget. Then, three weeks into Rich’s deployment, just before his trek north from Kuwait to Tikrit, his father passed away suddenly from a heart attack.

Without warning, we were racing to the states to attend a funeral. And, without warning, after we laid an amazingly good man to rest, we were available to take a daytrip to look at houses. And, as soon as we peeked in the windows of that house down the street from my friend, we knew it was ours. The realtor rushed over, and the ball was in motion. The cost of the house had come down to exactly what we had been pre-approved for.

I’m not proposing that Rich’s father died to get us a house, but the timing is coincidental, especially when you think about something he said when his son joined the military: that he would do anything, even give his life, to keep his son safe, to keep him out of harm’s way. Not only did his death coincide with us needing to be in the states, but it caused Rich to miss that dangerous caravan north to his new post.

What I am proposing, in this case, is that sometimes events that are meant to be, or that are going to be, no matter how much we wish they didn’t happen, are stacked together, their effects and causes intertwining with each other.

A cause always leads to an effect, but sometimes the future dictates the present. Besides events stacking together, sometimes the effect you need to have happen down the line will become the cause. Sometimes time works in reverse, creating what appear to be coincidences to lead us to where we need to be. I believe that I met Dana for a reason, and that we both happen to hire on at the same health club at the same time for that reason. We were meant to be friends. The effect (being friends) created the cause (getting hired on).

Maybe I was only dating a friend of my friend’s husband for that short time so he could tell me my friend was being cheated on.

When another friend and I were delayed by a missed train, we happen to walk up to my apartment at exactly the time when my neighbors were trying to figure out what to do with a stray cat. As soon as I held him, I knew he was mine. No one answered my attempts at finding his owners.

Maybe my garage door broke because I was in desperate need of a break from work during a week when I didn’t even have to go in, but was going to anyway.

Maybe, sometimes, coincidences intertwine; and maybe, sometimes, the effect dictates the cause.

I lived in the North Carolina house for two years – a year and a half of that alone while Rich was deployed or redeploying. He thinks having bought it was a waste, but for me, it was a saving grace. Every tile I set, and every light fixture I upgraded, built self-esteem I really needed at the time. That house got me through his deployment. I had no way of knowing that we wouldn’t be keeping it, and therefore could have done without the garage and basement, and if I could do it over again, I would buy my friend’s house instead, as she could have really used the help.

How often does Spirit shout at us, and we don’t hear it, or guide us, and we don’t feel?

Life Lesson: Sometimes the Effect comes before the Cause.

I tend to be organized, if not a bit anal-retentive. It’s not that I keep my house exactly clean (the cat puke is still on the floor), but I do like for everything to have a place where it belongs, even if, at the end of the day, it doesn’t always make it there. Perhaps because I am a visually oriented person, when I look around and see things that are out of place, it tends to make my mind feel out of place, as well, and I find myself making mental notes to get things done. To ease this constant haranguing of myself, it is worth the effort it takes to organize.

You might think that organizing, cleaning up or de-cluttering is a simple, straight forward process, but what you might not realize is that there is an entire psychology, and even some biology, keeping people stuck in their mess. It can take a huge act of courage, and maybe even some tears, to get it all done. If you’re stuck, then you know it’s not a straightforward process at all.

Here are a couple key points to remember when beginning the task of organizing:

1. All the junk in Rome wasn’t organized in a day: Depending on the size of the mess, it’s going to take some time to clean it up. Be patient. This may take a while.

2. It gets worse before it gets better: The mess will get bigger as you go through the process of sorting it. Tolerate chaos.

One of the very greatest books on writing I have ever read is a book called On Writer’s Block by Victoria Nelson. In it, she explains that “Procrastination is no limp failure of will; it is an exasperated protest,” and that, “Unless you can find a way to soften that inner critical voice which is your own, it literally isn’t safe to write, for no sane person voluntarily subjects herself to this kind of abuse.” Upon reading this theory, not only did I think about myself and writing, I also thought about a good friend of mine whose house she could never get into order. She beat herself up, accusing herself of chronic laziness, but, in truth, she wasn’t lazy. She was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and beating herself up. As the author of the above quotes points out, why would you want to tend to a task while you’re constantly flogging yourself with criticism?

3. Don’t beat yourself up: If you constantly reprimand yourself for your disorganization, the last thing you’ll want to do is work on it. Be nice to yourself.

If you’re in the habit of gaggling with the geese (chatting it up with your friends) about the woes of your messy home, you may get kicked out of the club, or you might not feel like you belong. But just remember, if you get kicked out of the Messy House Club, why would you want to spend your time with those losers anyway? Although I’m joking, this does bear some truth.

4. Don’t worry about what others think: The people who look up to you when you’re down might look down at you when you’re up. Stick to your guns.

People who don’t have time to organize can be divided into three categories: Those that really are busy, those who sit around imagining that they’re busy (me!), and those who are tired (me again!).

5. If you really are busy, you may need to plan better, to delegate more, rest more, drop some things on your list or squeeze organizing into small increments. Figure out where the problem is.

6. If you are not too busy but are still stuck, you may be suffering from confusion, overwhelm, depression or emotional baggage. Read on and consider seeing a therapist.

7. If you are chronically tired, you need to find out why. See an endocrinologist.

A wise man once said to me, “If you hear something, and it causes confusion in you, then what you are hearing is a lie.” The truth is always simple. The truth is always simple.

If thinking about organizing causes you to feel overwhelmed and confused, here’s what you’ve probably been saying to yourself. “I need to clean up this clutter. But I need to get that shelf fixed so I can put those books away on the floor. But the hammer’s in the basement somewhere in that mess of tools that I better get put away because…” What’s happening is you’re spinning tornados around in your head. You’re chasing your tail. You’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off. You’re chasing a chicken’s tail with its head cut off in a tornado. Why? Because you’re confused. Why are you confused? Because you are lying to yourself.

So, what is the truth you should be thinking? The truth you should be thinking is: “I don’t know where to start. I don’t know the best course of action. I need a plan.”

8. Sometimes the fastest way to win the battle is to admit defeat: As soon as you admit that the old plan is not working, you can begin to make a new one. Admit that you’re stuck. Admit defeat. Admit it, dang it!

If you were a general, the general rule of thumb would be that you go into battle with a battle plan. People do not haphazardly succeed. So, if you want to get off your butt and clean your home, sit down. You need to make a plan. And if you can’t find some time to make a plan, then you better make a plan to find some time. Taking this time up front will save you a lot in the long run.

Brainstorming is the first step in putting order to chaos. As indicated, it deals with the storm in your brain. Get a notebook and a pen and write down every idea or to-do that comes swirling by, regardless of what it is. This is not a time for self-censorship or organizing. This is an outpouring. Shake it out. Here’s some of mine: Find a place for my new books, go through office closet and get rid of stuff, caulk the trim on the patio, clean up my desk, organize quotes in computer, back up computer, call insurance company…

As you can see, this is all very random. That’s okay. Our thoughts tend to come out in a stream of consciousness, linked together in mysterious ways, probably with Bondo, paperclips and peanut butter. The point is to get them out where they can be organized later.

9. Write down all of your random to-dos in whatever order you can grab them: Pour them all out. Brainstorm.

Once your list is complete (or good enough for now – it will never be completely complete), organize the items by category. Categories might include: yard work, home repair, errands, decorating, paperwork, chores, projects, things to buy, meetings, etc. Figure out, to the best of your ability, which category things fall under, and make separate lists for each item. Remember to include items you think you will probably never do. It gets the item out of your head so you can forget about it.

See my separate article: Managing Your To-Do List (Posting Soon)

Before we can move on, there is yet one more list to be made, this time specifically pertaining to the mess at hand. If you’re organizing your house, list all of the rooms and the activities that occur there (or sketch it out in a floor plan). For example, your guest room might also serve as your workout area, or your home office might also be your library or torture chamber. If you’re organizing your garage, for example, list the various types of activities the items you have might pertain to. For example: Yard work, woodworking, potting, recycling, camping, sports. If it’s paperwork that’s got you by the you-know-whats, list the various kinds of documents you need to sort. For example: credit card statements, receipts, medical records, tax records, insurance, utility bills, coupons. Doing all of this on paper helps you get an idea of what exactly you’re dealing with so you’re able to gain the upper hand. Once you have the upper hand, you can smack this mess in the face.

10. Hone in on the goal: Write down the various areas or items you need to organize. Specify.

Now that your head is empty of your vast and various to-dos, and your goals are suddenly clear, it’s time to leap headlong into your oceans of clutter. Time to get your hands, feet and soul wet. Or dirty. It really depends on what you’re organizing.

The actual act of organizing is little more than moving one thing to one place and other things to other places. In fact, you could say this is true about entire lives. What does anyone do besides move stuff around? To think is not to be; to move stuff around is to be; and to move stuff around to specific places is to be organized.

The first step in the physical process of organizing is to get a bulldozer. If that seems a little extreme, then think about what a bulldozer does. It moves large amounts of stuff around, en masse. That’s what you need to do. You’ve already figured out the general area where everything goes, now move it. But move it generally. You’re not looking for a specific place to set an item, you’re just moving items into a general vicinity. Put the workout stuff in the workout room. Put the linens in (or near) the linen closet. Put the office stuff in the office. You’re making piles, and it’s going to be a mess. Just don’t make a pile of number 2. There’s already a designated area for that.

What all of this moving around does is gets the similar items grouped together, gets them out of the way of other non-similar items, and gets them into the general area where they will be, allowing you to assess all of your various goodies.

If you don’t have a specific room or area to put some stuff, designate a temporary spot. The main point is to get things grouped. If you’re trying to arrange your garage, for example, you might think that the first step is to assign locations for your various tools. Nope. The first step is to simply cluster the similar items so you can assess the damage of all your hoarding.

If you’re organizing papers or other smaller items, make piles or sort into various containers.

11. Organize en masse and en mess: Group all of your stuff, preferably in the general vicinity of where it will be stored. Bulldoze.

Everything has a priority, and even if it doesn’t, it does. You can’t cross home plate without passing 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and if you do, you ain’t playin’ baseball. Even if priority is not apparent, you still have to choose what to focus on first. This is a good time to stop and consider if something needs to be done right away. Don’t forget to pay your bills or file your taxes just because of your monstrous piles of junk (all very nice junk, of course).

12. Some things are more important than others: Prioritize.

Once you have decided what takes precedence, it’s time to buckle up and knuckle down. This is where it gets a little hairy – especially if you’ve buried the cat.

13. Be ready for ideas: You will invariably come up with brilliant thoughts and things to add to your to-do list while you are sorting your stuff: Keep your notebook handy.

While you are sorting, and especially if you are sentimental, you will most likely come across heaping gobs of emotional baggage and resistance mixed in with the bottles of hair gel you should have thrown away last decade.

If you simply find yourself resisting, who can blame you? If you’re not a complete dork, like me, organizing your house, your closet, your garage, or your paperwork might seem a little like yanking out your fingernails with a pair of pliers (if you can find them).

14. If you’re resisting out of the agony of boredom, crank the tunes, take breaks, or suck it up, soldier.

When our hands are busy, our minds are often idle. Idle and ready to floor it. The task of sorting is prime for emotional wounds to open up and seep. Years of ignoring my feelings taught me that feelings do not go away with time. They go away when we deal with them. My advice is to accept how you feel. Be honest about it. Cry it out. I’ve learned to accept my feelings and to allow the unpleasantness of them to live solidly in me until they go away on their own. For past issues, like lost loves and missed opportunities, this, for some reason, usually takes me about three days. It’s really surprising to find out what business gets left unfinished in our psyches.

15. If you’re digging up the emotional dead, attend the funeral and grieve.

Sometimes when we do something good for ourselves, it causes a discrepancy. If we see ourselves as being incapable, worthless or unworthy, and then attempt a change for the better, our minds will leap in and point out just how much this new activity does not fit. It’s like trying to stick the proverbial round peg in a square hole. No, we are informed, this does not work; these two things do not go together. We can be amazingly smart about duping ourselves out of positive change.

There is a book called Self-Love by Robert H. Schuller that astonished the heck out of me by how much it helped. As much as I am not religious (albeit, I am spiritual), I was surprised to find that I did, indeed, hold some pretty nasty convictions about myself that I was projecting onto the powers that be. The author does a superb job of explaining what unconditional love means to us each as individuals.

16. If you’re wallowing in the pigsty of your own self-loathing, stop being pigheaded and ask for some help.

Most of the time, I am quite happy to be off by myself, entertaining my own mind with my own mind. But, at times, when my brainpan isn’t simmering with an interesting concoction, like when I’m doing some mundane task, I might find myself feeling lonely. Most of the time, my cure for this is to engage in a lively “dialogue” between myself and a naked man I dream of doing my dishes, but this can be a sign that I am not getting out enough around real people. Everyone has a different threshold for being alone, but some people do not tolerate it well at all. I have 40-year old friends living with their parents because they are such social creatures they can’t stand to live by themselves. (Living with your parents at 40, by the way, can create the double-edged sword of never finding a good mate you could end up moving in with.)

17. If you find yourself dreading organizing because of the loneliness it brings up, either bear it until it passes, make some more friends or see a good therapist.

I tend to find that aggravation arises for me while I am doing some particularly distasteful chore or something physically demanding or tedious. I especially find myself fantasizing about my husband saying terrible things to me. This happens most frequently when I feel that he is not slaving as hard as I am. Last weekend, while I cleaned the toilets, he called me a fat slob, said I need to dress nicer, smell better, lose weight and cook more often. All in my head. Even though he never said such things, I was tempted to file for divorce anyway. The jerk.

18. Beware of your internal chatter. It can talk you to the brink of disaster.

Probably the number one cause of failure to organize is sentimentality. This can come in two forms: assigning animate emotions to inanimate objects, and guilt.

When you assign animate emotions to inanimate objects, it means that you believe that things have feelings, and if you throw away, for example, your old worn out shoes, you might hurt their feelings. (I still sometimes hear my old Reeboks crying.)

Guilt is a little tougher because it involves real people. You might really hurt your grandmother’s feelings by getting rid of that atrocious cherub-ish shaped knick-knack she saddled you with 30 years ago. Or, as a friend of mine worries, Daddy Earl might be watching from the heavens.

19. If guilt is an issue, you have two options: Option One: Get over it. Option Two: Keep it.

I forgive myself for getting rid of stuff that is still useful by imagining somebody else wanting to use it. Now it feels like I am giving somebody a gift. Actually, I am.

20. One clutter bug’s not-quite-trash is another’s treasure: Fill up the donation box (keep the receipt for taxes).

21. If it’s worth a little somethin’, you can eBay it, garage sale it, consign it, auction it, or Craig’s List it.

The act of sorting through your stuff can be agonizing, liberating, or both. The good news is that once you do it the first time, it gets easier after that, a lot like prostitution.

The very worst part is that every single item in your various piles has to be dealt with, down to the last safety pin, broken tennis racket and pleasure enhancing gel.

22. Throw away anything you will never use that isn’t worth donating. Don’t fool yourself here. You won’t miss it once it’s gone. Get a trash can.

If you’re suffering from “But I might need it someday,” you have some hard choices to make. If it genuinely is useful and would be too expensive to replace later, I say keep it. Or, if it’s small enough to store easily and tidily enough, I say keep it. But if it’s something you probably won’t need and could easily zip over to Home Depot to replace, then forget about it. You don’t need to keep a dozen empty pickle jars for that one day you have to capture the flock of pickles running rampant through your yard.

I just got rid of a mound of clothes I had been waiting to shrink back into, storing them until I finagle myself into a size 6 again. But it finally occurred to me… I didn’t even like those clothes anyway and would rather wear my same old Pink Floyd shirt every day (which I just about do) than wear any of that old stuff.

But… If you can’t bear to part with something, then don’t. There is no law that says you have to get rid of all that old stuff you don’t use anymore. However, you do have to deal with it; if you want a clean house, that is. You can stash it. You can build shelves for it. You can rent storage space for it. It’s your stuff. It’s your choice. Sometimes I tuck away things I know I will part with one day, just to ease my guilty conscience and to give myself time to see that I am, indeed, not going to use it.

23. Once you get the trash and donations sorted out of your keepable stuff, group together all of the similar items into various piles, areas or containers. Sort and group.

Now it’s time to take inventory.

At this point, you may be appalled to find that you own a 15-year supply of nail polish remover that might make the UN believe you’ve been stockpiling an enormous cache of biological warfare agents. If you are this kind of hoarder, there are several possibilities for it. A: You’re so disorganized that you have no idea what you’ve already got, B: You grew up very poor and think that things equal wealth, C: You’ve been stolen from, D: You’re paranoid and are keeping stores for your fallout shelter, E: You’re always buying the next best thing before using up the old.

My mother is a classic example of a recovering hoarder. Her remaining stuck point is with food. Opening her freezer is a dangerous endeavor requiring steel-toed boots, as frozen pounds of ground beef are wont to fall on your feet. She could quit shopping for the next decade and still gain weight. She keeps a spare fridge in the basement packed full of TV dinners.

There was a time long ago when I went to the store with my mother, and as I wandered around and back up to her, I found her standing near a shopping cart filled entirely with bottles of salad dressing. I stopped short and gasped, mortified that she had come across the deal of a lifetime – a lifetime supply of Ranch and Thousand Island. Thankfully, it turned out not to be her cart but belonging to the store. But I wouldn’t have put it quite past her, and that’s why I was so afraid. I still have posttraumatic stress from that terrifying moment.

That my mother has done so well in paring down and cleaning out – TV dinners notwithstanding – is a testament, not only to the difficult task of clearing out clutter, but to the much harder task of clearing out emotional clutter, because that is, truly, where we get stuck.

24. If you are a hoarder, here are some things to remember:
• Unless you’re the FBI, the backup doesn’t need a backup.
• You don’t need sixteen bottles of shampoo in your linen closet unless you’re bathing a herd of cattle in your shower.
• Keeping less inventory will help you to know when you’re in ‘dire danger!’ of running out. (How many times have you thought you had 3 jars of tartar sauce in the pantry when it turned out it was really 5 jars of horseradish? Uh oh.)
• Hell is not going to freeze over, and you still don’t need that spare fridge in the basement.
• Buying in bulk only saves you money if you use the bulk all up.
• Wal-Mart is just 5 minutes away. You can always get more.

Once you’ve whittled away at the gigantic heaps of your belongings, you might actually have room for what’s left. Crack open that notebook and whip out that pen (if you can still find them) and answer the following: What storage items do I need to store my items? Your list might include bins, shelves, hampers, filing cabinets, file folders, trays, binder clips, baskets, drawer dividers, hangars, hooks, pegboard, bags, etc. If money is an object, you can fit most any price range.

25. Your similar belongings need to stay together: Get storage items.

Do your best to fit all of your belongings where they belong. Keep the linens in the linen closet and the dishes in the cabinet. Put the books on the bookshelves and your socks in the sock drawer. Put all of the dead bodies in one mass grave. If you can’t easily see what’s in a container, label it.

Organize rooms into areas of tasking. Hang the yard tools together, away from the sporting equipment.

Label and alphabetize every file folder for each kind of item. I like to label vanilla folders with my Brother Label Maker and then drop those into a hanging folder (I’m not a fan of those plastic tabs). I haven’t gotten around to upgrading to real filing cabinets and still use filing crates. If you have similar types of papers, you can label them so they stay together alphabetically, for example, “Credit Card: Wachovia” and “Credit Card: SouthTrust” or “Writing: Nobody Move” and “Writing: Coming to Terms with Mediocrity”, or “Home: Improvements” and “Home: Landscaping”.

26. Shelve it, box it, bag it, tag it.

By now, you should be exhausted, filthy and disheveled, and your house should be clean, organized and looking good. Take a shower. Take a nap. Take a load off.

Take me out to the ball game.

For future reference, to keep yourself organized, adhere to the following:

27. Keep a perpetual donations box revved up and ready to roll. Toss anything in there as you come across it. When it’s full, take it away.

28. Use up what you already have before buying more. Unless your new laundry detergent smells like BO, like mine recently did (no, it was not BO!), use it up.

29. Spring clean. Go through everything once a year. You’ll be more aware of what you use and what you can get rid of.

30. Don’t mindlessly shop. Make sure you want or need something before you buy it.

A couple notes on mindless shopping:

• Sometimes when I shop, I will carry something I like around the store with me and then put it back after deciding I don’t have to have it. Maybe carrying it around uses up that initial sense of newness and ownership I desire.
• If I feel the urge to buy something I’m a little unsure of, I will wait a day or so to see if I keep thinking about it. This tests the level of how much I really want it. (A naked man to do dishes is still on the list.) If I go back, and it’s gone, I tell myself it was never meant to be.

Everything has a place, and if it doesn’t, it should. If your belongings have a home, it’s easy to put them away when you’re done with them. If you were your own child, you would tell yourself to put your toys away when you’re through playing.

Nothing is absolute. The best plans are flexible. Keep what works for you and adjust what doesn’t.

Just remember: Your home is a big part of you. It is the number one supporting structure in your world. Putting it into working order helps you with the rest of your life – your time, your goals, your relationships, your health, your finances.

Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Ha! Right!

Life Lesson: Your supporting structures will support you if you support them.

This whole hoopla about Sharon Stone is getting on my nerves, and all it took was a couple of minutes on some entertainment “news” station before I clicked it off in disgust. A lot of people are up in arms about a statement she made that China may have, through karma, deserved the devastating earthquake it was recently hit with.

Everyone has a right to disagree with Sharon Stone’s postulation, but does it mean we should hang the woman out to dry for it? Aren’t we all the keepers of each other’s liberties? As well as disagreeing with her, shouldn’t we be protecting her right to walk down the red carpet and say something stupid? After all, each of us likely says something asinine every day – we just have the common sense to not be big, successful movie stars living in the public eye.

Our freedom of speech may be protected by government laws, but it is consistently trampled upon every single day by The Moral Majority – people just like you and me uniting together under one righteous opinion. Human beings are still persecuted for their beliefs, and the information age is making freedom killers out of us all. It’s easy to sit safely at our keyboards or in front of the idiot box opinionating and dictating the rules of what other people are allowed to do and say. But try living your life when every fat gram, every pimple and every stupid remark is splayed out for the world to comment upon – and comment we do.

When I draft these articles for my blog, I spend a good amount of time getting what I want to say just right. I have time to think about it, to edit, to decide, “Wow, that’s not going to come out right.” But if I didn’t, I’d be a bumbling idiot. In fact, I typically am not a good speaker, with too many thoughts trying to pop out of my mouth at one time. I’m sure I frequently sound like a moron, no matter how intelligent I really am. I still speak like a teenager. Like, you know what I mean?

We need to respect each other’s rights, because it’s not really laws that protect them; it’s us. It’s each of us. I protect you from persecution, and you protect me. When that fails, we all suffer for it. We can disagree with each other intelligently and without punishment. We don’t have to throw Sharon Stone to the lions when we could simply point out that what she said was insensitive.

Besides, how do we know it wasn’t karma?