I’ve been blocked with my writing for the last week, so I’m trying something different today. Also, since my parents are coming this week to stay with my kids while we are away, a few of these things have been on my mind as I assess the areas of my house that might frighten outsiders.
Below are some random household and life challenges for which I would love any ideas or secret tips. How do you:
1. Keep your medicine cabinet looking somewhat organized? (Mine is actually pretty organized by type but still looks like a nightmare.)
2. Clean and store vegetable and fruit and keep them visible enough to remember to eat them before they go bad? (Do you clean them before you put in fridge or clean as you eat them?)
3. Maintain a neat and orderly physical desktop while not forgetting about papers requiring action? (I am a stacker but the visual chaos unnerves me at the same time. There has to be a happy medium.)
4. Keep the incoming mail/ junky area in your kitchen organized?
5. Remember to take your eco-friendly fabric grocery bags with you into the store? I’ve tried keeping in the car, on hooks inside my laundry room door where I can see them, all to no avail. Every time I get to the register I could have had a V8 and realize that I forgot my bags once again (as the checker and bagger shoot me looks of disdain and the plastic bags begin to rustle).
6. Unblock your writing (when you’re not feeling inspired and you’re worried you’ve forgotten how to write)?
7. Drink more water? (I’m surprised I function with as little H2O as I consume).
8. Exercise regularly with no excuses? (I go through bouts of great routine exercise but then when I fall off the rails, why is it so hard to get back at it? Need ideas.)
9. Make yourself write on a regular basis? (The public challenges I proclaim (like the 100 day gratitude experiment) have worked for me. But how many challenges can one really do?)
10. Find easy recipes. Anyone have a website or app they love?
life on wry 
I developed the habit of taking in at at least 3 reusable bags into the store (even if I plan to only buy a couple of things) by walking back out to the car, where I store the bags, and getting them when I’d get to the checkout line and see that I had forgotten them. Several trips back out to the car from the store before paying for the goods taught me to think about them before going in.
Excellent idea… I will try.
I put plastic containers in my medicine cabinet with labels (I got this idea from my MIL, but she uses old ice-cream containers). Label them with whatever you’ve got in the cabinet – ie – Pain killers, band aids, stomach upsets, prescriptions, etc. It works really well and made me realise how much I double-up on things (like anti-histamines!)
Have a great holiday 😀
Thanks!
In the words of a very wise friend WPP. But, very funny. Good to know we have the same struggles. LOL
🙂
I don’t drink enough water either, despite my merry moniker. And I have no ideas for overcoming these arid ways. Theoretically, citrus slices should help. But they could compound your fridge issue. I say stand at the kitchen sink five times a day and sling back that H2O highball….Love, Hydro
One way I found to keep writing is to do a daily journal for your eyes only either on paper or in WORD but not online. That way you can write whatever you want with the total freedom of knowing that you don’t have to please anyone but yourself. I’ve been doing this regularly since 1997, ironically before there was Facebook or Twitter and before blogs were popular. It kept my hand in writing during the times when I was not writing for publication.
I will try this…. thanks!
1. Keep a lid on it so you don’t have to see it.
2. Hm. Keep anything that doesn’t absolutely have to go in the fridge on the counter in a fruit bowl or similar?
3. Beats me.
4. Rigorously throw away everything as soon as it comes in.
5. Keep them near the door? Visibly? Or fold them up in your handbag?
6. No idea. Sorry. I guess “just do it” would be the best advice.
7. Drink more during meals?
8. Tell me when you find out, I’m searching for an answer to that as well.
9. … that’d be the same as 8.
10. Nope. Try looking for students’ recipe collections.
Seriously, nobody has an answer to any of these essential questions. They belong to the great mysteries in life. I think one just has to muddle through somehow. Sorry I haven’t been more helpful, but you’re definitely not alone in your quest! 🙂
Oh goodness, my medicine cabinet needs a complete overhaul now that you mention it..
as for new recipes and such, this issue of Goop (Gwyneth Paltrow’s Site) has alot of really cool sites for everything from travel to recipes to peeking inside someone’s closet..
http://goop.com/journal/see/205/on-the-web..maybe something there will get the creative juices rolling.. I’m in a bit of a slump too..
I will check it out, thanks!