The Art of Gift-Giving

As we dive deeper into November, we are quickly reminded of the approaching holidays. Being an organized person, coupled with the fact that it seems as though many supply chains are suffering, I think that now is a good time to thoughtfully consider gift-giving.  Here are some tips to help you get organized before the holidays hit. Because, wouldn’t it be nice to slow down … really s-l-o-w down … and enjoy food, friendship, family and festivities?

• Start by jotting down a list of everyone you’d like to remember.  A master list helps so that no one is overlooked plus it keeps you on budget.

• Remember to literally think “outside of the box” when giving gifts.  Some people already have a LOT of stuff and another coffee mug, albeit funny, takes up already lacking cabinet space. 

• Consider things that make memories or feed into “self-care”: tickets for a future event, a special dinner at a new restaurant, a day trip, a manicure, Graeter’s gift certificate or a gift card for books.  These gifts are wonderful as the receiver will have something to look forward to in the New Year.

• Buy something unique from one of the varied local vendors and artists.  You will be buying something one-of-a-kind while supporting small businesses.  A win-win.

• Take the time to capture the memories you have already spent together.  There are numerous online outlets making books, coasters, calendars, cool posters, stuffed animals made from sentimental keepsake soccer t-shirts etc.  The list is long.  Everyone saves things for “one day”.  Well, today could be your day!  You could ship these items off and have them made into something useful, beautiful and creative. Memories are the gifts that keep on giving.

• An easy go-to for younger children is to “add to” sets of toys they already own.  It  spurs on and renews interest in existing toys.  A thoughtful addition to a gift like this would be to include some sort of storage bin (parents would be grateful too)!

• Go “old-school” and have photos developed and framed.  Costco, my favorite, takes it to another level and puts things on a metal, canvas or acrylic!

• Another creative gift is taking your grandmother’s recipe … and handwriting …  transferring it to a usable serving piece/pie plate/cutting board/platter.  

The opportunities to add meaning to your gift are endless with a little forward thinking.

Last but not least, as gifts come in, wrap them.  Do it while watching tv.  I don’t like to admit this aloud, but I will happily wrap gifts and binge-watch Bravo TV (don’t judge). 

Cheers to a happy, healthy and meaningful holiday season.

Joyfully yours,

Ashley

Getting Your Home Ready to Sell

 A Decluttering Guide to Get Your Home Ready to Sell

Putting your home on the market isn’t as easy as slapping a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. To get the price you want in the shortest time possible, you will have to do some work. Purging your clutter and cleaning your home will do a lot to win the hearts of buyers and help you land a sale quickly. Plus, decluttering will make your move easier and more affordable! Here are some tips to help you sort through your belongings, manage your clutter, and keep your home spotless while it’s on the market.

Start with a Deep Clean

Deep cleaning your home will play a very important role in getting it ready for sale. A clean home will appear much more inviting in listing photos and will attract more buyers to visit for showings or an open house. Cleanliness gives the impression that your home has been well-maintained, so buyers are less likely to worry about major repairs. While you likely clean your home regularly, Redfin recommends going above and beyond as you prepare for your open house.

The most efficient way to deep clean a home is to work from top to bottom, dusting off the tops of cabinets, fan blades, and high shelves and finishing with your floor. This way, you won’t have to wipe down the same surfaces over and over. Don’t forget to clean often-forgotten things like your sinks, baseboards, light fixtures, closet floors, and window sills.

If you own pets, take extra care to eliminate stains, odors, and hair. Even if your home appears clean and clutter-free, pet odors will scare potential buyers away before they even get a chance to explore your home. To tackle pet urine, use an enzymatic cleaner to release the stain from your carpet and neutralize the odor. If you can’t find any clear source of the dog smell, Kitchn recommends sprinkling baking soda on your carpets and upholstery and letting it sit for a few hours before vacuuming. This is a cheap and easy way to freshen up any home!

Say Goodbye to Stuff

When you’re ready to take your cleaning project to the next level, do some decluttering! Clutter — even if it doesn’t look like clutter to you — can distract potential buyers from seeing the best features of your home. Clutter can even make rooms feel smaller and darker than they really are, which is definitely not the image you want to portray when selling your home. 

Decluttering will also make your move a lot easier. Why waste time — and precious truck space — to haul stuff you don’t want anymore? Getting rid of multiple moving boxes’ worth of stuff or bulky pieces of furniture can also save you money on your move, especially if you’re paying your movers by the hour. If you want, you could even sell some of the items you no longer want. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you can make money by getting rid of those odds and ends you’ve been hanging onto for so long!

Show Off Your Clean Space

Once your home is clean, decluttered, and organized, you can finally list it for sale. Make the most of your online listing to show off all the hard work you did! Hire a real estate photographer to take high-quality, professional photos of your home. You may even want to invest in a video walkthrough, especially if you’re selling during the age of social distancing. It’s also important to hire a good real estate agent who can help you market your home online and show it off to potential buyers during an open house or showing. Your agent can even offer staging recommendations and let you in on special tricks to highlight your home’s best features!

Selling a home is never an easy task. While at times, preparing your home for sale may feel completely overwhelming, the work involved is bound to pay off. Take it one day at a time, paring down your possessions, cleaning, and getting organized until you feel confident that your home is in shape for a quick and easy sale! 

Contributing Homeownership Specialist/Author: Natalie Jones. You can find more information at Homeownerbliss.info

One Day at a Time

I think about how we are in the midst of uncharted territory with the impending corona virus seeping into our daily surroundings. What remained off-shore in a distant country is now nipping at our heels in our homeland. What was scary to hear on the news … the panic, devastation and lives lost in China now take on a new hue, pulse, heartbeat, level of attention and anxiety as we prepare for the unknown. As I try to find balance in my days which now lack definitive borders, I am reminded to take things one day at a time. When you’re young these words can fall flat; carrying no weight or importance. But as you grow older and find your sea-legs in this life you realize the beauty of the expression … “taking one day at a time”. It has served me well when navigating the joys and worries of raising young children; moving overseas without direction or expectation; picking myself up and dusting myself off going through a divorce; starting a relatively unknown business; and letting part of my heart leave for university while cheering from home base. All of these instances involved me reminding myself that I can get through this day … just this one day. And I did. And when I woke up … I did it again. Kind of like “wash, rinse, repeat”.

This also overlaps with how I encourage people wanting to get organized. So many times there are calls to action to “get organized” … especially at the beginning of a New Year, following different transitions in life, on the heels of a death, divorce or move, or maybe even after binge-watching Marie Kondo. Whatever the impetus, I caution people that what has taken, sometimes, many years to get to a certain point … won’t be undone immediately. Oftentimes that advice can deflate even the most positive people.

So what does it take to get organized? It starts with taking the first step … just one day … and then trying it again the next day. Even the day after. Until you have gone through your house, purged and found a designated space and a place for everything.

If you’re starring out the window and wondering what you can do while spending a little more (maybe a lot) time inside, just open up a drawer. One drawer … one day. Start there. No grand plans. Just start where you are today.

One Day at a Time

Start small … and repeat.

12 Critical Things Never to Tolerate

I love lists ... and, given my personality, this should come as no surprise.  For me, there is an immediate impact and take-away.  And, as I gleaned this list I noticed, with great interest, #'s 5 and 7.

#5. Never tolerate a disorganized living space

To some this might sound a tad dramatic, but to me ... it's my national anthem!  It's not just a driving need for things to be pretty and tidy, it's bigger than that.  It is the pursuit of having a home that is filled only with things that we absolutely love and fill us with good memories, and, to be able to find things when needed.  It's having a beautiful and functional living space that lets you relax and recharge.  It's about making a place which allows you to focus on what is important to you .. a place to actually live life (crazy concept, right?)

Clutter is an emotional drain - every object in your house requires some sort of attention whether it's storage, physical space, cleaning or maintenance.  If things are old or broken; no longer fitting you or your lifestyle; projects lining up to be completed; they take up space in your home and ultimately in your mind.  Letting go of things frees up more than just physical space.  It cleans up your mental space.  If you don't believe me, try it.  Take a "mini-challenge".  Let's say that you re-work your closet ... keeping only the clothes that you love, fit properly and make you feel fab ... you will find that getting ready in the morning is much more of a joy.  Not only loving what you have will be a bonus, but, giving away things (your surplus) to those in need is a rewarding act itself.  Or, even selling at a consignment shop provides welcome extra money.  

#7 Don't tolerate too much stuff

This one is easy ... "less is more".  You can literally apply this theory to almost anything in your life.  Fewer things on your shelf means less to dust.  Fewer so-so friends, focusing only on your special friends, nurtures relationships and builds stronger and deeper long-lasting friendships.  A less stuffed fridge means that it's easier to find foods to eat or prepare; less food will spoil or go bad, and it will take less time to clean out your refrigerator.  Fewer commitments in the evenings mean less running around, more dinners together, more conversations and less stress. 

Just like anything in life, this idea of organizing is a commitment.  It involves letting things go ... and, for many, that is hard and scary.

But, if you give it a try, even on the smallest scale or level, you might be surprised at how much more life you gain.  

Feel free to share your successes with me!

The Road Not Taken

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by,  And that has made all the difference".  Robert Frost                                                                             

It's always interesting to look at your life in retrospect.  So many times, while life is happening quickly ... it's hard to understand exactly where life is taking you.  And, what that path will look like.  

Moving truck in Barcelona, Spain 2009

For me, our young family took a leap of faith and moved with our 6 and 10 year old daughters and wild Westie to a village outside of Barcelona, Spain ... Sant Cugat del Valles.  And, while I pride myself on being organized to the nth degree, I found myself turned upside-down with an unfamiliar land, layout, culture and language.  Nothing sounded like home.  No familiar faces.  Nothing smelled like our fresh cut lawns in Kentucky.  Nothing tasted the same.  Nothing was laid out like our sprawling strip malls and mega stores.  And, as beautiful as Barcelona appeared to be ... it didn't feel like home.  Not an ounce.

So, while I was trying to keep my "we-can-do-this" smile pasted on my face, I realized that our comfort would start at home.  That would be our "safe" place.  And, even though we were moving from a nice cape cod home in the outskirts of Louisville, Kentucky to a nearly 1,400 sq. ft. apartment in Spain, I knew that this was the place to start.

After a long wait for our container of household goods; the day finally arrived when we were reunited with our belongings.  They were "jammed" into a local moving truck.  The movers didn't speak English and weren't able to read the labels on the boxes and I didn't know how to tell them where the boxes should go ... so we ended up with a traffic-jam of goods in our living room.  

I knew, from the outset, that we would only be able to take our favorite things.  And, that was eye-opening.  And, that applied to EVERY category in our house.  A closet full of sheets ... we could only take 4 sets plus a guest set.  Our dishes?  One set and not the complete set.  No china and nice serving pieces.  The girls' toys (this was the hard part), only a very small amount.  Our book collection?  Maybe just a shelf or two at most.  Decor and art ... only our most loved and valued.

The rest of our things went into two categories: donate or store.  We donated a ton.  And, then we put the remainder into storage.  

What surprised me, when I was setting up our new home in Spain, were two things.  First of all, I was thrilled to see only my favorite things.  Truly.  We brought the best of our best ... the most meaningful.  Things that we had accumulated over the years that were kind of tatty or old ... or were no longer our style ... we let these things go.  And, all that was left were things that brought us joy.  The second "Ah-Ha" moment (thank you Oprah), was that we didn't actually miss any of the things that we kept in storage.  Truly.  When we came back, we moved our big pieces of furniture that wouldn't fit in Spain, back into our house.  But, the rest of the stuff .... we got rid of. 

We were so accustomed to living with less, that we LOVED it.  We loved being surrounded by our favorite things.  We loved not having to dust around or care for things that overwhelmed us.  Let's face it, possessions can be overwhelming.  Possessions require care, maintenance, attention.

We learned to live with less.  And, the freedom that it gave our family was a blessing in itself.

Now, 6 years later (with one more move under my belt ... a 2 year tour of duty in San Diego), I have put the puzzle pieces together and realize that this is what I'm meant to do. (This, along with my mosaic art ... which is a passion). Over the years I have been doing it for our family.  And, now, I am ready to help others.

You don't have to move to use my services.  Although if you are moving, I can throw you a lifeline and help.  But, if you want to live a simplified and productive life, I can help you too.  Even if we start with a closet, rearrange a cluttered garage or find a solution for your in-home office, I can be the one to help.

Turns out that the road less traveled turned out to be where I needed to go.