One year later...

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 marked one year of marriage to my husband, Dana. Time flies when you're having fun!! It wasn't necessarily the most romantic of days for us. We have been expecting company from Texas and had a major project of remodeling our master bedroom, and the deadline in getting ourselves out of the guest bedroom and finishing our room in time for guests and new bedroom furniture was quickly approaching. Our anniversary saw us wearing old t-shirts and raggedy shorts while we finished sanding and painting our room. But, we did it together and actually had some fun working on a project by ourselves and playing while we did it.

We also managed to take a break at the end of the day to pull our wedding cake out of the fridge to share a traditional moment of eating a piece of your wedding cake on the one year anniversary of your wedding. My girlfriend had packed it up quite nicely last year, and my sister had it stored in her freezer all this time. We let it thaw in our fridge over the weekend, and carefully unpacked it to see what we would be encountering. It certainly didn't have the beautiful look it had on my wedding day, and despite looking a little messy, it smelled good. We cut into it, and it didn't look bad at all. We sliced a couple of pieces and placed them onto a couple of plates, stuck our forks into our pieces and fed them to each other...Phew! Besides being slightly dry, the cake tasted fine...Yay! Success!













One year down...life to go...and looking forward to every minute of it!!

I wish I could sleep like this!

This is Mowgli, one of our cats. That is my recliner. He seems to like sleeping in it. I do too, but I don't look as comfortable as he does.

5 things to get you uncluttered!

1. Define your vision

In her new book When Organizing Isn't Enough, SHED your Stuff, Change Your Life, Morgenstern advises people looking to declutter to come up with a theme. "No one lets go without reaching for something else," she says. "You need to come up with a theme for the next phase of your life. Giving a name to what you want to do or feel or express will help dislodge you from your current state of stagnancy." Some common themes are creating a nurturing home, striving for career excellence, and focusing on self-expression and enrichment. Walsh agrees. "If you focus on the stuff, you will never ever get organized," says Walsh, author of the bestselling It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff. "The starting point has to be, 'What is the vision you have for the life you want?,'" he says. "Then you're in a position to ask, 'What do I need for this space?"

2. Define the clutter

Once you have your vision or theme, separating the treasures from trash should be a little easier. Ask yourself: does this item help me get there? What doesn't fit gets purged. Morgenstern emphasizes that clutter doesn't have to be messy. "A perfectly organized closet or drawer is clutter if it is filled with clothes that you haven't worn for years," she says. And clutter doesn't have to be made of stuff. "It can be any obsolete object, space, commitment or behavior that weighs you down or distracts you or saps your energy," she says. "It can be bad habits that take up too much time."

3. Start small

Purging can be very emotional. "It's a big mistake to dismiss clutter as junk," says Morgenstern. "These piles are things that were once important to you, to who you once were or who you wanted to be." To help ease you into the process, she suggests starting in the room you are least attached to. If books are your great love—and clutter weakness—don't start your purging project by the bookcases. Move to a less emotional area, like the kitchen or hall closet. Once you are successful in those parts of the house, it may be easier to tackle the rest. "And be ready for the panic," she warns. Every once in a while you will be overcome with thoughts of "what if I really need that later?" If that happens, just take a deep breath, remember your goal and keep going. "Keep in mind that if you aren't careful, what you own will end up owning you," says Walsh.

4. Let your good riddance help others

It might not be as difficult to say goodbye to your belongings if you're giving them to organizations that can really use them. For instance, those books that are gathering dust in your home could be page-turners at a library, school or senior-citizen center. And those skinny clothes that you'll probably never fit into again could be doing a whole lot more than making you feel bad; take them to a charity shop or shelter.

5. Examine all aspects of your life for clutter

Morgenstern points out that poor uses of time, outdated commitments and bad habits can all be defined as clutter and are worthy of purging. Walsh makes the case for a strong mind-home-body connection in his latest bestseller, Does This Clutter Make My Butt Look Fat? "If you think about it, the reasons why a lot of people buy stuff are exactly the same reasons why a lot of people run out and eat inappropriate food—to make themselves feel better," he says. "The parallels are amazing. Our homes, heads and hips are connected." At the end of the day, experts agree that there are many different types of clutter, and they all rob us of peace and harmony. So look at the vision that you have for your life and then ask does keeping this item — whether it be a chair, vase or eclair — help me get there.

I feel like I shouldn't be surprised, but yet, I am still shocked...

Regardless, of what many people may think of Michael Jackson and the strange, eccentric life he lead that was definitely filled with much controversy and scandal, I can't deny that he was a huge part of my childhood who influenced my taste in music as I was growing up in the 80's. I remember fondly, how I asked my parents for the "Thriller" album for my 11th birthday in February of 1983. My sister and I used to listen to it religiously on our turntable stereo in the living room and sing and dance to all of the songs...We had them all memorized!! The first full-size poster I ever had was of Michael wearing white pants, a white shirt and a light yellow vest, and he had his hands in his pockets. My sister and I shared a room, and the poster was hung on the wall between our 2 dressers and right over our TV. We even wore one white glove to school occasionally with whatever outfit we were wearing that day. Our dad was a police officer, and he had given us each of pair of white gloves that he would use to direct traffic. I even had the Michael Jackson doll...the one in which he is wearing the "Beat It" outfit. I am a product of the MTV generation and used to love watching his videos...in fact, it was an event, when the "Thriller" video made its premiere. A whole group of us gathered at a friend's house to watch it for the first time...I thought it was scary. And, I also will never forget when we had our 6th grade dance, and one of the highlights of that evening was when we had the moonwalking contest...I did not win, by the way.

It did seem that as his look and lifestyle changed in the post "Thriller" days, he seemed to lead a sad and troubled life, and no doubt, had an incredibly dysfunctional childhood, but I will always remember him for what he was to me in my growing years...which was the King of Pop. I now understand what it was like for my parents when it was announced that Elvis Presley died. I do feel strangely sad today, and I think I will go dust off my "Thriller" album now and give her a spin.

RIP, Michael Jackson.

I had no idea!

I didn't even know this business existed, until I drove to Boothbay Harbor yesterday. When did I open this?