organizing…

27 gizmos and gotta have’s

Ok, our next 27 things to fling:

Kitchen utensils, gizmos, and gotta have its. Those one shot wonders. What is that gizmo for, anyway? What possessed you to buy it? Is it missing a part? Have you EVER used it? Can you do the job adequately without it? Is it one of those “who thinks up these things” things? A “people will buy anything” thing? Or a “Wow, why didn’t I think of this” thing?

Justify it’s existence in the cabinet or shelf or drawer. No gadget overflow into drawers where they don’t belong in.

Silverware. The largest number of people you have (not plan to or expect to in the future) hosted for a sit-down meal, plus 1. If you host that number only once every 24 months, move most of it to out of the way storage. Leave out enough to set the table properly. (Kitchen, all seats, or dining room, all seats, if you use it.) If you haven’t created this out of the way storage location yet, box it, bag it, move it out of the home location, and we will find a place later. HINT: It needs to be in the way ENOUGH for you to remember you own it!.

Dishes/ pots/ pans pantry shelving is all for another day.

Limit yourself to those locations where ‘gadgets gather.’ (Junk drawers, too!)

I have had four different people at work mention 27 things to me in the past week.

I hope you, too are finding this helpful and good encouragement!!!

27 things…the Reality episode

Name the 27 things you simply couldn’t live without.

Since we (I) are flinging 27 things a day, in an attempt at a new year, organization and all that fun stuff, can you whittle your list down to 27 things?

That’s right. List them, go on. Your cell phone, your computer, your Blackberry, your nice car, your….

Ok have you got your list?

All 27 things?

How many of these showed up?

Shoes. Pants. Or shirt, socks, mattress, blanket, pillow, cup, plate, fork, clean water, food, bandages, medications, electricity, a safe, dry place to lay your head. The knowledge your family was alive, and whole.

If these items are on your list, how far down are they?

How many Haitians would like to be able to even say that they possessed 27 things tonight?

I cannot watch the news. It’s not only that I rarely have the TV on, or that I can’t handle the images of the devastation in Haiti, but even more than that, I can not listen to how this is a political bonanza being manipulated for one side or the other, or how it is religious retribution.

I have no tolerance for anyone calling themselves ‘godly’ or ‘good’ or ‘god-fearing’ or ‘righteous’ or ‘just’ (or whatever religious term applies) and then saying that the God they believe in and worship would think that the images we see, the lives destroyed, are all justly sacrificed because of a 200 year old pact with the devil (by slaves, wanting FREEDOM,of all things…)

To publicly call out such backward nonsense, to use the power that they have for reaching people and asking people to give, to be donors, to help, to pray, to come together; to use that opportunity instead to be petty and to sound narrow and idiotic….

I can not tolerate the bickering about whether or not the President of the United States of America has the right to ask us to donate to a cause such as helping our fellow human beings. That by doing so, he is merely attempting to win people over. Or harvest emails.

Politics be damned, already. The suffering in Haiti, these human beings, are your fellow travelers in this world.

Whether or not their government was corrupt, or will remain corrupt, should be of no consequence right now.

Honest, desperately poor people are this very night mourning the loss of thousands and thousands of their family and friends.

ETA: Read THIS and tell me that we should be bickering over whether these fellow humans are worthy of our assistance.

Text “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 on behalf of the Yele Foundation, the leading contributor to rebuilding Haiti founded by Wyclef Jean.
Text “Haiti” to 20222 to donate $10 on behalf of The Clinton Foundation (former President Clinton is Special Envoy to Haiti)

Text “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 on behalf of the Internal Rescue Committee.

Text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 on behalf of the Red Cross in the U.S.
Donate to Catholic Relief Services, or to Doctors without Borders or Salvation Army, but donate.
We are blessed by the number of possessions we have,  (many times 27), the comforts we take for granted, and the warm, dry safe places we will rest our heads tonight.

27 thing Fling, Spices…

My completed categories are THREE. My Flinging total this year is 274. (People who have never been in my house may be amazed. Visitors, not so much.)

Moving into the kitchen for a bit, today I will fling spices.

Unless you are a gourmet cook, are there even 27 spices you should own? Have they expired? Is there less than a 1/4 inch left in the bottom of the container?

Tomorrow is my day off, but instead of continuing the Fling, I will be removing Christmas. I never take Christmas down before the Epiphany, and then after, well, it lingers. I like all the sparkle.

When I pack this year, I will be looking to assure myself that I am not packing anything better sent to Goodwill, or anything broken.

I am also going to do this. All those Christmas crafts (half finished, or purchased post-Christmas for next year) are going to stay in the studio, so that over the year, as I find inspiration lacking, I can work on some of these crafts.

Then, my good intentions to give hand crafted items next year will not get swallowed in the abyss of the pressure of Christmas once again.