When illness strikes a family, everything changes.  Our priorities, our schedules, our interests ~ everything. Everything changes. Suddenly everything seems out of balance. And I do mean everything. If I may, let me offer five suggestions for keeping life in balance, when it seems that it is not.

1) Change as few things as possible. Whatever “normal” is for you is how life should be. Keeping your “normal” provides a sense of security.

2) Eat well. Times of difficulty often take our appetite. Give your body fuel to work with even if you do not “feel” like eating. During Chemotherapy treatments, a person’s sense of taste if often altered. Keep trying until you find foods that do taste delicious, but eat healthy.

3) Rest when you need to. When my kids were small and still taking naps, I would utilize their nap time to do housework rather than rest myself. I was sure that the housework wouldn’t get done. and I wasn’t tired anyway. (I see you smiling. You thought the same thing.) Oh, if I had the priorities then that I have now. The housework was always done, but I was rarely fully rested. Likewise, practice what you now know to be true ~ rest when your body needs it.

4) Laugh often. Does this need any further comment? We all know about endorphins.

5) Read blogs. Although the statistics are not out on this yet, I’m sure there must be some therapy in keeping your mind engaged and your heart happy. All right, there are many ways to do both of those without reading blogs. But it couldn’t hurt to read and contribute to a blog or two.

So I invite you to contribute here. How is that you kept life in balance when there was illness in your home whether it was you or someone else?

There is nothing new in the five suggestions that I have made, but what you will find here as we walk and talk down Pineapple Lane, is a great admiration for those who have fought and won the battle with cancer, a great sense of loss for those who have fought and lost, and a deep empathy for those who have watched their family member fight.

If you have or have had a family member with breast cancer, please share with us how you brought balance to the topsy turvy world of cancer.

Every year the top two New Year’s Resolutions are to lose weight and to get organized. If folks were motivated to follow through on their resolutions, then obesity would not be at an all time high nor would we  see so many magazine articles and books on organizing. It is the motivation that tips the scale (no pun intended).

There are probably as many motivators as there are people. And I’m sure that our motivators change throughout our lives. Our children accomplish many things solely by the motivator known as Mom or Dad. Later it is rewards or prizes that motivate us. Sometimes our motivator is duty. Sometimes it is love. Motivators may be many things ~ different strokes for different folks.

You and I will find many articles on overcoming procrastination, on having in place a system of negative or positive reenforcement, reward systems, etc. to help motivate us.  But the truth is that we are only motivated by things that we really believe. And without motivation, we rarely accomplish anything.

The real trick then is to find what motivates you. And that, at times, can be fairly elusive.

Take organizing for instance. An individual who calls on a Professional Organizer to help organize a closet can go through the steps to organize her closet and be trained by the Organizer in the process of keeping the closet organized. Invariable, if the closet returns to its previous condition, the individual will be heard saying, “The system the Organizer gave me didn’t work.” I will concede that there is a possibility that “the system” didn’t work, but most Organizers I know would gladly return to teach another process to the individual.

More often than not it is a case of no motivation to maintain the organized closet. Why not? My guess is that there is “no cost” in an unorganized closet. Let me follow-up quickly on that expression “no cost.” There is a cost to most everything if: 1) we are honest with ourselves and 2) we are willing to admit it.

In the case of an unorganized closet: 1) there are beautiful clothes waiting to be worn, if only you could find them; 2) there isn’t room for any of the new things you buy; 3) the wonderful clothes that you can get to come out of the closet are wrinkled, resulting in time needed to iron them; 4) you feel overwhelmed just looking in the closet; 5) your sister laughs every time you open the closet door; 6) you feel embarrassed to let your friend see your closet. Should I go on?

There is a “cost” to the disorganized closet. Your motivation for getting the closet organized may very well be in one of the above reasons or something entirely different. Then there are times when you are just willing to accept the “cost,” resulting in no motivation.

Motivation is individual, no question about it. I can’t come up with the reasons why you should or should not do something. What motivates me doesn’t motivate you.

But . . .

Finding your motivation is key. What is it that you really believe?

~ I believe that my clothes will look better and last longer if I take care of them by having my closet organized.

~ I believe that I will save time getting dressed on those harried mornings if my closet is organized.

~ I believe that I will be more pleasant to those around me if  I’m less frustrated.

What will this behavior/action/commitment (or lack or it) cost me?

 ~ Having my clothes organized will save me time in the morning, meaning that I will actually have time to eat breakfast.

~ Not organizing my closet means I’m wasting money because I cannot find specific garments.

~ I am frustrated when I cannot find the things I need. It will cost my dignity ~ why should objects control my disposition?

Why would I even bother?

~ I want to model order for my children.

~ I don’t want my children to learn to live with the feeling of being overwhelmed just as I have.

~ I bought the clothes because I love them, and I want to wear them.

However elusive motivation may be, we need to find what motivates us and get busy. What do you believe about your next project? What price tag is on your next project and are you willing to pay that price? Why?

It’s tempting to pick up that $1.00 calendar at a local store and feel like you are set. But truth be known, most people muddle through with something less than a workable calendar. I have mentioned this before here on Pineapple Lane ~ among a networking group that I belonged to, only one out of 30 was happy with his calendar/planner. Wow! That’s a good number of us that just make do with whatever calendar we find.

Here is the problem ~ if our lives are so busy, and we really don’t have time to lose, why is it we are not taking the time to find the calendar/planner that helps us make the most of our time. I’m for whatever helps me have more time with the people who are important to me.

There are a plethora of calendars out there. No more are we stuck with the typical wall calendar hanging in the kitchen. Let me say quickly, that the typical wall calendar hanging in the kitchen works great for some. If you are one of those, continue to use that method. This is not an attempt to get anyone to switch from what works. But there are many out there who need something specific to their lifestyle.

Which brings me to another point ~ our calendars will change as our lifestyle changes. Where once you needed a calendar to accommodate multiple family members’ schedules, now you may be able to use just a typical square grid.

Stay-at-home moms with children’s schedules to mesh may benefit from what I call “mom calendars.” The kind with a two-page grid and columns for each person in the family. Or she may prefer one to carry around with her with space for menu planning and grocery lists.

Business people may need a calendar with times slots for appointments.

Some may need large blocks of time that simply map out mornings, afternoons and evenings.

All of the above layouts exist, the differences are in the details ~ full year calendar in view, enough space to make monthly notes, phone/address directory in the back, grocery list pages, note taking pages, etc.

I can assure you that the layout of your preference does exist, just keep looking. Please don’t run down to the local office supply store and pick up a calendar that “will do.”

First, a few tips for using the calendar:

1) Use only one calendar for both personal and business.

2) When planning daily activities, only plan about 75-85% of your day. The rest of the time is buffer time for interruptions and activities that take longer than expected.

3) Teach your family to participate in listing activities on the calendar ~ that equates into respect for each other.

Secondly, I’d like to suggest a few sources for calendars/planners that you may not be aware of. None of the following are affiliates, but I have used some and researched some. Different calendars are best functional for different kinds of thinkers. Check them out. Perhaps you’ll find something that is more beneficial than what you have used in the past.

www.levenger.com ~ design your own calendar with pages that can easily be moved around, using their exclusive design.

www.plannerpads.com ~ a unique design that allows you space to list everything for a week, meaning you can add things to this list at any time alleviating little slips of paper. Then on the same page, your activities can be moved into a planner area for appointments or to-do list. I call this the planner for inductive thinkers.

www.listplanit.com ~ this is linked directly to the eplanner for calendars, but please peruse the site. You’ll find a couple of membership options for this site, or just purchase the eplanner alone and make your own calendar. The eplanner gives you a variety of pages and you can use the ones that best suit your needs.

www.cozi.com ~ an online calendar for my tech savvy friends

I would be remiss not to mention the calendar that is already in your hand ~ your phone.

Just don’t forget to schedule time with your family. By this time next year (and you know that we are going to be saying, “Where did the year go?”), we will not want to have forgotten our loved ones.

You see, I have a peanut butter lover in my family, and it just so happens, that November is his birthday. So, I could hardly let the ocassion pass by.

A couple of facts that I picked up from the Kansas State Housing and Dining Services website are:

1) Peanuts are not nuts; they are legumes. I can assure you that this fact has nothing to do with why my peanut butter lover loves peanut butter.

2) The amount of peanut butter eaten per person in the USA every year is 3 pounds, which equals about 700 million pounds. To visualize ~ that’s enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon! Oh my! Have you ever seen the Grand Canyon?! That’s consitutes quite a bit of peanut butter to say the least! I can, also, assure you that my peanut butter lover has indeed eaten his 3 pounds worth every year for sometime now.

I don’t have any scientific evidence to prove our family theory, but we think peanut butter makes people “skinny.” At least, many of the trim people we know love peanut butter. What is with that? Someone should do the research, because if that is so, we should can it and sell it. Oops! Someone already has canned it and sold it. The evidence just isn’t in yet on using it for weight management.

I’m from the South, and down here we know about Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwiches. And while, my peanut butter lover would turn his nose up at that sandwich, he does love his other sources of peanut butter: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, peanut butter cookies, peanut butter cups, peanut butter pie, and the all time best way to have the delicacy ~ by the spoonful! Right out of the jar!

So here is a Happy Birthday for my peanut butter lover!!!  I wish we could go for a piece of peanut butter pie. But since distance prevents that, I’ll join you virtually ~ for a spoonful ~ right out of the jar.

Can’t see the connection between the holidays and the subject of flexibility? Be flexible with me for a minute, and I hope to make the connection for you.

If you are a stay-at-home mom, then you know what a day looks like for you. You begin a day with a to-do list or even a general idea in you mind of what you would like to get done. Like most stay-at-home moms, there are many things that we do that can be done today, or if things go crazy and we don’t get to those jobs, we can do those things tomorrow. For example, if you don’t get the baseboards dusted today, they can be done tomorrow. If you don’t get the light switch plates and doorknobs disinfected today, you can always do that tomorrow.

If you are a work-outside-the-home mom, I can see you rolling your eyes. Dust the baseboards?! Disinfect the light switch plates?! You might be saying, “Does anyone do that?”

I have been both kinds of moms. I worked outside of the home for the first couple of years after I had children. I was and am so grateful that I could transition to being at home. But after all of these years, I can still remember how I felt the first time I realized I was actually cleaning the light switch plates. It felt so good to get the nitty-gritty cleaning done. It took a while to get all of that done, and I found myself (talking to myself) and saying, “How did I get these things done when I was working?” And then I answered myself (no comments, please), “I didn’t!”

But whether you stay at home or work outside the home, the fact is that mothers always have some kind of list (written down or swirling in the head) of things that need to be done. But moms are usually flexible. We delay . . . grocery shopping . . . Christmas shopping . . . cleaning out the closet . . . sewing curtains . . . if someone “we know and love” needs something else done.

Moms let their days control them instead of them controlling their days, and this comes disguised as flexibility. We are carried along by . . . excitement . . . activities . . . events . . . demands . . . surprises, etc. instead of being directed by organization.

Before, anyone chimes in here, let me say that I totally get that kind of flexibility. If after all, I’m home all the time and can make those kinds of concessions to help meet the needs of others, then why not?

We could also spend time chatting about whether or not what other are asking of us is really a need or just a want or just selfishness. That actually would be another post and not my purpose here.

I’m simply suggesting that we evaluate whether or not it is flexibility or disorganization that puts that kind of demand on us.

Now the tie-in to the holidays. With the holidays upon us, this would be a great time to do that evaluating. Moms will find themselves in more demand than usual, and I don’t need to iterate those things for you. You may be feeling the crunch already if you look at the calendar.

So, I have a couple of organizing ideas for you.

1) Put your activities on the calendar. I believe that I have suggested this here before. We have our family put their events and activities on the calendar so that we can “be there” for them. Our family, given the opportunity, might rise to the occasion and “be there” for us, if only they knew what our responsibilities were. Wouldn’t you love to hear, “Mom, I see that you are decorating the house tomorrow, would you have time one evening this week that the two of us could bake cookies?”

2) Build buffers into your time schedule. Believe it or not, there are interruptions in a day.  Secondly, sometimes things just take longer than we had expected. Lastly, you don’t want to be so tightly scheduled that you can’t stop for the special moments that come along when you least expect them.

3) Plan ahead what is important to get done during the holidays. Once you have determined what you absolutely must or want to do during the season, then everything else is flexible. Me? I would put family events on the calendar first because family is important to me. Your family events may include school programs, school parties as well as family gatherings. Next, put on the calendar any special events that your family is interested in doing ~ a tree lighting ceremony, the festival of lights, a Christmas play. A side benefit to getting that on the calendar now is that you can get the information, time schedules and tickets for the events before the event is sold out. Don’t forget to schedule in your shopping, baking and decorating time. If you get to flexible on the later, you will be, well, let’s just say, “It won’t be a pretty sight.”

The best thing you can do to be hospitable to your family and friends is to be organized enough to allow flexibility where it really counts.

Share with us how you organize for the holidays to help reduce your stress.

Still, I’ve begun to be more adventuresome. Last year about this time I found myself clipping away at recipes, knowing full well that I already had a folder with YEARS of clipped recipes. There was nothing else to do but get tough.

I went through every recipe, re-evaluated its worth, tossed some and kept some. Next plan of attack was to get a system that forced me to stop collecting or get cookin’. Last year I talked about a system that keeps me from overloading myself with recipes that I’ll never actually try. It’s not complicated ~ have 10 protector sheets in a notebook, allow one recipe per page (you can see the front and back of a recipe card) for a total of ONLY 10 recipes. You are not allowed to collect anymore recipes until you try one and move it to your permanent recipe files. Easy ~ no overwhelm, just a manageable system for trying new recipes.

I’m at it again this year. There I was in line at the grocery store, and what to my wandering eyes did appear ~ a recipe magazine. So far, I’ve resisted the temptation to purchase, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. What am I talking about?!?! I just clipped a recipe from the grocery store’s ad flier!! At least it wasn’t a whole magazine. And thankfully, it wasn’t a dessert recipe.

If you have more recipes than you can actually try, check out my system. Remember ~ no new recipes until you have an empty page in your notebook. Also, help yourself to my menu planner. It will help you plan more nutritious meals, more balanced meals or even keep track of what you are eating if you are on a special diet.

Let’s talk about your recipes. Do you have a system that keeps you from stockpiling clipped recipes? Are you trying any new ones during this holiday season?

Christy explains that the book is like passing on a recipe. You’ve done it and so have I ~ you hand a friend a recipe and immediately you begin giving the history behind that recipe. Why? Because recipes are like triggers to our memory. In spite of a serious recipe purge recently, I still retained a few recipes that I have never prepared. I kept them because of who they were from or because of the occasion the food was prepared.

Now I have a whole book of recipes that will elicit memories ~ one of meeting Christy Jordan ~ it was totally my pleasure.

Two of the “old folks at home.”

I can’t look at the recipes in her book without thinking of my relatives. I have to tell you that sitting there listening to Christy talk, in her Alabama accent about her ancestors triggered old memories of my own ancestors. I have a heritage of country folks who lived and farmed in the foothills of North Carolina. (I like calling North Carolina home.) No, they were not hillbillies; they were country folk. You know the difference.

These were hard-working, happy, gracious people who lived their lives in much the same way that Christy describes ~ if someone dropped by, everyone just moved down a seat at the table and set another plate. It really made me homesick to see my relatives “who are rich in the ways that really matter.”

Third of food that I have not eaten since my paternal grandmother passed away. No one has ever made a pone of white bread like her, not even me. The recipe for that is known only to my grandmother and probably never saw a piece of paper.

A recent twitter party with SouthernPlate.com brought up the topic of bacon grease in cooking. Oh my! If you have a health concern about bacon grease, I’m sorry. But it has satisfied many a soul. There was a bacon grease container on every country stove that I know of.

And that bread pone I mentioned? Made with lard! Not shortening; lard. Yes, there is a huge difference, both in quality of taste and quantity of saturated fats. But food served with love is healthy food!

“Comfort food that makes everyone feel like family.” I can’t think of anything more hospitable than feeling like family. Let me move down and make a place for you at the table.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) estimates that we never look at 80 percent of our filed paper. Wow! Think about that ~ how much space is that in your filing cabinet?

So should you decide to clean out your files, here are some tips to help:

1) Throw out that 80%. If you are unsure of which papers you need, many CPA offices and tax accountants have a nice list of which documents that you need and the length of time you need to keep them. Ask for one.

2) Within a filing drawer, it is recommended that you leave two inches of space. This allows for opening files to retrieve papers.

3) Be sure  important documents are easy to find should your children need to locate your will, insurance policies, etc. If your originals are under lock and key or in a safe deposit box, be sure the files stating where the information can be found are clearly marked. Perhaps a colored folder would be in order here.

4) If you have a file that you need to revolve papers in and out of, develop a standard  procedure that you will use for all files like this. For example, if you keep your energy bills for a year, then always place the most recent in the front of the file and remove one from the back of the file at the same time or vice versa. You could do the same with your tax records. Depending on how long you need to retain the tax forms, every year when you place one year’s records in the file, remove the oldest one.

5) If the task seems daunting, try cleaning out one file at a time. Or work for short increments of time on the project until complete ~ 15 minutes for cleaning out the files at the end of ever bill paying session. Or designate a topic per month: October ~ insurance files; November ~ health records; December ~ warranties; January ~ tax files; February ~ banking records, etc. until you have purged all of your files.

This really isn’t a hard project. You will know right off if you are not accessing a document or will not need it in the future.

All that’s left is to decide what you will do with the extra space. I use the back of my filing cabinet drawers as storage, a pantry for office supplies, if you will. You may even find that the filing drawer on your desk is sufficient. How delightful to be able to get rid of that eye sore of a filing cabinet.

Is there another company or charity that has convinced major corporations to create their products in pink? Have you ever known any bride to say that she wanted her kitchen to be pink. And yet there are pink mixers, pink measuring cups, pink silicon hot pads and a plethora of other pink kitchen utensils. Do people really pay the high price for a pink mixer that doesn’t match anything in their kitchen?

The other day I noticed a display of pink craft tools. I’ve seen pink ribbon office supplies, stationery, socks, hair accessories, totes, water bottles, exercise mats and sports wear. And by sports wear, I mean major sports teams with official uniforms donning the color pink, or, at least the pink ribbon.

Please do not misunderstand, I think that the pink ribbon marketing has been genius. Is there anyone anywhere here in the USA who has not heard of the Susan G. Komen Foundation or the Race for the Cure?

Perhaps a more poignant question:  is there anyone anywhere in the USA whose life has not been touched by breast cancer ~ either yourself or someone you know has had the disease?  I’m afraid that in reality we are all more aware of breast cancer than we care to be.

But the milestone of October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, gives me a reminder, if you will, to schedule my mammogram. For, you see, I am aware of breast cancer, painfully aware. My own mother is not a cancer survivor; she is one of its victims.

After her untimely death, the sage advice for me from the medical profession was to be aggressive in my own health care. Advice that I put well into practice when a mammogram revealed a tumor. Fortunately, I had wonderful health care professionals who worked with me in my insistence that every step on the journey had to be taken quickly. In just a few short weeks, a benign tumor was taken out and a thankful heart remained inside.

Still, there is no sigh of relief that relaxes me to sleep ~ a vigil must be kept.

May I encourage you to not only be aware of breast cancer, but to be aggressive in your own health care, whatever may be your family history? No one will know as much about you /your family history or care as much as you do.

I am always thrilled to hear of a cancer survivor and empathize with the battle they fought. As a friend of mine who was facing surgery after 24 weeks of treatment said, “Fight like a girl!” And I say, “You go girl!”

Recently, we had a wedding in our family. If you have a wedding, you soon realize that there is a world of topics that just don’t fall under the heading “common knowledge.” Take for instance, RSVP. I’ve tried (and failed) to figure out what many people think that RSVP stands for. Me? If I didn’t know, I would want to find out quickly, mostly because I wouldn’t want to look stupid ignorant unrefined (there I finally got the polite word).

And then there is the topic of dress for such an occasion. How dressy should you dress? Should the dress be street length or formal? Can it have rhinestones or will a print be appropriate? When may a bride use candles in her wedding? Who is seated last at the ceremony? On and on the questions may go for a wedding.

Recently, I went shopping for lighting. And that brings ups some other home management issues. If you live in a dwelling without overhead lighting as I have for the past 14 years, you learn quickly that there are never enough lamps in a room. So which kind of lighting do you need:  incandescent, halogen or fluorescent. Clear bulbs or frosted bulbs? Does it matter which wattage you use?

Back to when I went shopping for the lighting. I bought a lamp base ~ no shade. Now most people try to “eye” whether or not a particular shade looks right on a specific lamp base. While that is a method, there are also guidelines to lessen the guess-work. So one of the areas of home management is locating a suitable lamp shade, purchasing it at an affordable price and incorporating it into my home. All I’m trying to say is that there is a plethora of information that a woman needs to manage a home. (I see you nodding your head.)

And then there is the cookware I was recently discussing with my soon-to-be daughter-in-law. (That’s right ~ “had a wedding” and “soon-to-be daughter-in-law” implies two weddings in a four-month time span. Am I having fun yet? YES!) Cookware? Well, you could just buy Paula Deen’s cookware because they have it at Wal-Mart or because you like the way she talks or because you like the color it comes in. Or you could buy Giada’s cookware because you love her on the Food Network. But none of those, and I repeat, none of those are good reasons to buy anything that cost that much money.

So, do you know which metals are the best conductors of heat? Which metals dent easily? Which metals are hard to keep clean? What temperature will the pot handles tolerate in an oven? Are there benefits to having glass lids for your pots? Is it necessary to have a non-stick coating? You really need a lot of information to make educated decisions about matters that concern your home management, don’t you?

So, recent activities made we realize that we needed to have a page where we could access information that we need to manage our homes ~ information like the topics that I have mentioned. Information that you probably were thinking of as you were reading. While I work to get some topics covered, I would love to hear from you. What are some questions that you have that we can put on our new FAQ page?

But, honestly, I do NOT want to call the page FAQ ~ that’s so . . . so . . . plain, so ordinary. I’m open to suggestions for what we should call this area that we can go to just to pick a fact or two that will help us be the best home managers that we can be.

Leave you ideas for a page name, topics for discussion or questions in the comment section of this post. The comment section is at the top of the post  directly under the green header on the right side. I really don’t want to be offering information that actually is common knowledge. I’d rather help out with information that you need in your quest for practical and hospitable home management.