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Elevated pantry aesthetics with us!
Prepare for a peaceful christmas
As we enter into the month of December, I wanted to encourage you to sit down, breathe and assess your priorities.
It is SO easy to become overextended during this time of year. There are so many activities and events and invitations.
- Over-spending
- Over-indulging
- Over-scheduling
It is okay to decline invites and to say “no” to certain things.
Can there be too much of a good thing? Yup! Your family will cherish the quality-time with you; not necessarily the gifts, the immaculate house, the decorations and the plethora of elaborate goodies. Make the commitment to cultivate relationships, invest in quality-time with loved ones and eliminate anything that doesn’t align with your priorities.
I personally look forward to “Bake Day” with my mom, “Tamalada” with friends, and attending at least one Christmas Concert with my hubby and kiddos. All of these are already booked on my calendar as priorities. How about you? I’d love to hear about things you prioritize in December.
Wishing you much love,
~Amanda
Discovering The Power of Habits
Have you heard of the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear?
Hello! Go read it! End of email.
No, not really.
I still want to offer my “two cents” and encouragement.
I believe our daily habits have the power to influence our futures and the lives of those around us. If it is our goal to live abundantly, I feel it is imperative that we make the small incremental changes in our lives with consistency and intentionality to truly achieve that goal.
cultivating genuine community
I have a treasured neighbor who invites me over for coffee visits.
She has a way of making people feel valued, loved and cared for.
She always makes me feel this way by the way she smiles and says, “Tell me things.”
This is her way of letting me know that she genuinely cares about what is going on in my life and she has the time to really listen.
Do you have someone like this in your life? Are you this someone in your community?
A Real Organizing Story
I HAD a plan.
The mission was To serve a large family with a whole-home “purge and pack, unpack and organize” project.
The trouble was (Our first obstacle): the severe weather phenomenon was NOT part of the plan!
It put a wrench in the project timeline-a big wrench.
Another unforeseen problem; due to unforeseen circumstances, one of my organizers was unavailable.
I had to quickly adapt to accomplish this seemingly overwhelming task.
I called upon every soul within my sphere of influence that I knew of that possessed a strong work ethic and organizing skills!
The team was assembled, the plan was modified and we began the purge and pack process with our client.
Our second obstacle: The movers were late. Very late. Which again adversely affected the timeline of the project.
On unpack jobs, the kitchen bathrooms and closets are always first. I wanted these specific boxes to be relocated to the new house ASAP to be unpacked and organized.
My team two of the client’s family members became a mighty force. An assembly line was formed, boxes were loaded in personal vehicles and transported. Another assembly line was created at the new house and those 123 boxes were unloaded in 20 minutes. My team of organizers divided into two groups to begin the process of unpacking and organizing the most critical areas.
By the time the movers arrived with the furniture, Our zones were almost completely unpacked, boxes broken down and loaded up.
Our third obstacle:
Were the movers actually movers or recently released convicts? They were rough, brash and nothing to guffaw about!!
My expectations of what a moving company does and should do and the reality I experienced was as bizarre as the south Texas weather we recently lived through earlier that week!!
In a perfect world, what happens is that the movers will place the boxes in the room that corresponds to the label on the box. They place the boxes where they belong so we can take it from there and unpack it and break down the boxes. Easy.
In this case however, the convicts (I mean movers) mixed them up and then threw them into the house! They ended up wherever they landed. When they disassembled furniture they lost the hardware at the old house so none of the Furniture was reasonable at the new house. Again, like the crazy freezing weather this was feeling similar to a twilight zone experience!
I asked my strong son and his friends to move the boxes where they should’ve been placed and to assemble all the furniture.
The following day the original plan to unpack and organize the new house ensued.
In conclusion, the client was given the gift of peace.
At the end of the day, it was communication and collaboration that resulted in a successful mission accomplished!
Teach the kids by getting them involved in the process
Exercise hospitality. Have people over!
Elevate your mood by improving your surroundings.
