The Blog

Does Your Car Fit in the Garage?

03/24/2011 By Nancy Borg With 9 comments

Most would confess, no. Chances are whether you have one car or multiple cars, there’s usually never enough room in there anyway. It’s not about the cars, it’s about the stuff. If your garage is looking more than a storage facility than a “proper” home for your car, this would be a telltale sign that it is time to start your spring cleaning.

The garage is an ideal zone for your car to live, accommodate bicycle storage, sports equipment, shovels, and assorted hardware. But once you violate the parameters of this zone, you are inviting everything else that doesn’t fit in you house.  Typically, we just store our random homeless stuff and forget that it’s even there.

Ask yourself this;  do you even know what’s living in your garage that you’re holding on to?  Is it just stuff that’s collecting dust and buried in boxes because you thought you’d need it someday?

Well, make today that day to check it out!  Trash or treasure.  If you dig and find some old amazing stuff that you love and still love and need, congrats on the dig…you’ve found gold!  More importantly, if you find items that belong inside your home, then preserve it, respect it,and store it back inside your home in a temperature controlled environment.  But if you peer into the old dusty boxes and find nothing but your old life or useless memorabilia, trash it.

Pick a nice day, take all of your stuff out of the garage and bring it outside and rummage through the junk.  Make it a fun exercise. Have your own private yard sale before deciding you may need a public one.   Call in a Professional Organizer to help sort and facilitate the decision-making process.  Someone who is not emotionally attached to your sentimental cutter can be more objective and motivate you to toss neglected clutter.

My favorite junk removal company is Junkluggers. They will respectably remove and hand carry out your unwanted clutter, and re-purpose it. As an eco-friendly company, you can feel good about bidding farewell to the old bicycles, roller blades, the rusty paint cans,  moldy coolers, broken chairs, and rusty tools.  Hey, there are lots of cool new stuff out there and I bet you would opt to buy a new anything before you’d use your old stuff.

Seriously, time to get that car back into the garage.  Why store and protect the junk inside that you’ll never use, and leave your nice car outside on the street?

Read this post on single page to comment →

Managing Travel Stress

03/16/2011 By Nancy Borg With no comments yet

Didn’t travel used to be so much fun?  I can recall very hazy memories of being so exhilarated arriving at the airport where you could feel the buzz and excitement from all the fellow travelers around you. We all were going somewhere and were eager to get there in a hurry.  Happy faces everywhere.  Now?…..not so much.  The chaos and commotion at curbside alone can fuel the anxiety level of any traveler. The remnants of the 911 disaster changed us all forever and as a result of that life-altering event, we understood that our compromised security system had to change as well.

Most of us are all too happy to cooperate with the sometimes intrusive searches because we feel safer, and so we tolerate it.  However, the new and ever-changing baggage restrictions and issues with overweight luggage can be a nightmare.  How often do we see people, who failed the weigh-in,  transferring their neatly folded clothing, shoes, and often embarrassing personal items, and shoving them into alternative baggage and carry-ons so that they can pass the test and GO!  To go where, I ask ? ….. to hurry up and wait, and wait, and wait some more on those endless snaky lines that at first glance you’re thinking you’re never going to make the flight.  Then it’s finally your turn to enter through security. The cacophony of those plastic security bins being thrown and stacked distract you, but you continue and grab a bin and start dumping your stuff into them as if you feel comfortable with this sort of thing, like this is a natural instinctive way to travel. The shoes come off,  jackets disrobed, relinquish your bottled water you forgot you brought in with you, your laptop, your carry-on, handbag, cell phones, and maybe if you’re lucky you get through the first time; because for some miraculously reason your belt, bracelet, or money clip did sound that unnerving buzzer. OK, now you’re in.  You get to your gate to wait some more.  Time to board, great.  Think again,  now you are jockeying for overhead cabin space because everyone seems to have caught onto the carry-on game. There’s no room for your stuff because you booked such great seats, you boarded last.  You finally settle in and relax until you hear the flight attendant announce that your flight is delayed or that you are the 19th plane in line before take-off!

Hours later, you de-plane tired and cranky, and head to baggage claim.  Now that’s one happy place for ya.  After what seems like an eternity, the carousel slowly starts to turn, spitting out one bag at a snail’s pace, and so you wait….  again.  The re-circling of assorted sizes of the same black pieces of luggage passing over and over again is hypnotizing. This would be the time that you wished you’d bought a unique shade of green or purple that would be more easily recognizable.  You pick a prime spot at the edge of the carousel so you can maneuver, grab and go! Your body language is obvious as your eyes dart back and forth while you hover over your post.  But as the frequency of luggage pours out with a more rapid speed, the baggage is being jostled around, falling on top of one another and people are cutting in and pushing their way in to vie for a better position.  If you’re not alert, you could get injured.  I’ve seen it get ugly.

But sometimes, and it surprises me every time, there is kindness and it renews my faith in mankind;  like when someone has seen me attempt to reach for my bag and thoughtfully retrieves it for me.  It seems that travel can bring out the worst and the best in people.

When you have finally reached your destination, you can enjoy the vacation you needed and much deserved.  The only thing is…..  you’ll have to repeat the same ordeal on the return trip home, plus the dirty laundry and the dreaded unpack.  I often wonder whether or not it is sometimes easier to just stay home.

Read this post on single page to comment →

Make March Your Reset Month

03/09/2011 By Nancy Borg With 2 comments

man adjusts_watchAdmittedly of all the months in the calendar year, March is clearly the most vague month, no pun intended.  It is technically still part of Winter and yet three quarters into it, the first day of Spring launches.

The worst is behind us and although there might still be a chill in the air, we can sense that brighter and warmer days are just around the corner.  This positive mental attitude provides us with the tools to combat the doldrums of what remains of the long cold winter.  Sure, we are all going to have bad days now and then, but we know they are short-lived because the change of season is closer than further.

So let’s get busy and changing our mindset before the spring is upon us.  Set goals NOW so that you can wrap your brain around them and have a plan to ensure that they are realistically attainable.

What do you want to accomplish this Spring that you did not do last year?  Think about what tripped you up?  If you have fallen off the wagon in regard to exercise, then get to the gym and onto the tread mill today! On that first gorgeous Spring day you’ll feel good about yourself and your body, instead of regretful and disappointed.

Organize your to do list  NOW and evaluate it by prioritizing and creating  a plan on how to attack one goal at a time. By giving yourself ample time to mentally prepare, you are giving yourself a fighting chance to accomplish at least some of your goals.

Too often, we procrastinate until we are overwhelmed with too much to do and so nothing gets done at all. 

Don’t wait for Spring to pop up and catch you by surprise, then realize that it came and went and you never cleaned out the garage. Trust me,  before long it will be Summer and you know you won’t be able to resist the pull of the beach and you’ll be thinking….you’ll do it tomorrow !

So now that you’ve reset the clock,  reboot yourself.  Make March your month to literally Spring forward to a fresh start.  Go crazy and be overzealous with your wish list.  Ya know, “March Madness” doesn’t need to be just about college basketball.

Read this post on single page to comment →

Pages