Your Life. Organized.

Quote of the Week: Please Remember Them

As I write this, I'm on a plane 30,000 feet in the air somewhere over the southeastern seaboard. From my seat in 18C I can see uniformed military men and women on the plane. Before I boarded my flight in Atlanta, I ate lunch in an airport restaurant where there were several other servicemen in desert fatigues. I thanked them for their service as I normally do, and today on Memorial Day, I want to publicly say a heartfelt THANK YOU.

I'd like remember and thank all the servicemen and women who have served in all branches of the United States military, both in wartime and in peacetime.

Most especially, I think it's important to remember and honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of this great nation. Thank you to you for serving. Thank you to your family, who carried on without you. You can never know the depth of my gratitude or how much I love this country, but from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

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10 Ways To Produce an Inept Adult

I recently wrote a post titled Life Lessons From Laundry, explaining all the great lessons that laundry teaches kids, besides the actual ability to do laundry. It got me thinking about all the other great lessons kids learn by being given household responsibilities when they're young. It also made me think of the sad result of NOT asking children to contribute in the home...

Quote of the Week: Attitude!

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

Thomas Jefferson
Founding Father and Third President of The United States

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What's Old Is New Again

I recently interviewed Monica Decker at the International Housewares Show in Chicago. She and I talked about the new product lines Con-Tact has come out with and their creative and unusual uses. Con-Tact now has products for all kinds of places in the house and even outdoors. From gorgeous cushioned and ultra-suede liners for your closet, dresser drawers and jewelry drawers to textured adhesive vinyl for covering outdoor picnic tables, Con-Tact isn't just making your grandmother's kitchen cabinet liner anymore! Check it out:

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The Checkout Line: Contact Keeper

Purpose: To help you keep business cards, contact information, and meeting notes together and organized. It's a yellow lined page with specially cut slots in it, which you slide a business card into. The pages are kept in a binder, and I took one (the medium size) with me to the International Housewares Show in Chicago a few months ago. It got comments and quizzical looks every time I opened it up. So yes, it's different.

Pros: It gives you a LOT of space to write notes and reminders when you collect a business card from a new contact. If you're a person who typically writes on the back side of a business card when you get it, you'll really like the Contact Keeper. You can see the slots in the image above -- that's where you put the business card. Once the card is locked into place, you use the rest of the page to record your notes and ideas about the person you just met. The image below shows the pages as they look inside the binder.

 

Cons: If you meet a lot of people, you'll need to get refill pages pretty frequently. It's one card per page.

Retail Cost: The Contact Keeper binders come in three sizes: Small business card size for $12.99, Medium for $24.99 and Large for $29.99.  Refill pages are less. Also, a note: the small size doesn't have the proprietary slotted pages; because of its small size, it only has a pad of sticky notes inside the card holder.

Value: If you're the kind of person who likes to refer back to a lot of hand-written notes and you're a networking fool, the Contact Keeper may be a great value for you. It is truly different and it might be THE thing that helps you stay organized and avoid stacks of business cards cluttering your desk.

Overall Rating:  

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Quote of the Week: Dreams

"A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. You must break out of your current comfort zone and become comfortable with the unfamiliar and the unknown."

Denis Waitley
Author and Speaker

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Vicky, Jen & I Take On Your Closets!

If your closets drive you bonkers, listen to the newest episode of The Big O where we take on closets! We're joined by Katie Parsons, Rubbermaid's Brand Manager and together we tackle the age-old problem of how to make your storage spaces work best for you and your lifestyle. We're also giving away a Rubbermaid HomeFree Closet system, so after you listen to the podcast, click on the contest link at VickyandJen.com to enter to win!

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Shoulder Nipples Beware!

Shoulder Nipples. Shoulder Bumps. Whatever you call them, they are NOT pretty. Now you can eradicate this scourge from your closet (and the earth) with the HangShaper! Here's a quick from-the-trade-show-floor interview I did with Barbara Murray, Inventor of the HangShaper.

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What If You Outgrow Your Storage?

You've heard me say that when you struggle with clutter, adding more storage isn't the answer. If you have clutter all over your house, buying a larger house isn't the solution because your old habits will quickly fill up your new space. But sometimes, (I said sometimes), in specific circumstances, increasing your storage space actually is the answer.

Let's say you have a lot of books and you love them all, you use them, but you don't have enough book storage so they're in piles all over the place and giving you grief. Do you eliminate some of the books, or do you add another bookshelf? Maybe both, but here's how you choose... 

Quote of the Week: A Good Woman

Today's quote is in honor of yesterday being Mother's Day! 

"No man succeeds without a good woman behind him. Wife or mother, if it is both, he is twice blessed indeed".

Harold MacMillan
First Order of Stockton

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