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Yearly Archives: 2012
My Epiphany(s)
Epiphany Part I – Organizing is Not Difficult, but it is NOT Easy either!
I am a born organizer, but organizing takes on a whole new dimension when you are doing it for a living.
First, I found myself, making sure that I am organized. In my spare time (?), I tidied up my pantry and kitchen cabinets… No, I don’t have BEFORE pictures… Remember, I’m a Professional Organizer! 🙂 LOL! Now if you are critiquing my degrees of “neatness”, please understand, TOO “neat” is almost impossible to maintain (unless you live alone). Your space must be liveable. You will just have to trust me on this one. But don’t misunderstand, if you hire me and you want “neat”, I will give you whatever degree of “neat” you want. 🙂
When someone is paying you for a service, things change. It is no longer the way you think it should be, but now you have to determine what the customer wants and deliver it. Organizing is Not Difficult, but at times, tapping into what the customer wants & needs will not always be easy. This premise applies to you also. When you begin organizing, you will need to develop a “system” that you can sustain/maintain, yet live with. This applies to home, work and Life, in general.
Epiphany Part II – It is not about what it looks like!
I am in the process of promoting my business and I was working with one of the on-line ad companies to increase the traffic to my website. The representative was explaining to me how she could optimize my ad, however, she said, Well, you do know that the professional organizing industry is saturated.” I didn’t comment, but it struck me. Had I really retired and entered a market that had no potential? The enemy loves to siege an opportunity to get you discouraged. However, what I decided during my session of 2nd guessing myself again…. My Steps have been Ordered! … I must practice what I am preaching. The “industry” will just have to make room for me. I am passionate about Organizing and it goes WAY BEYOND “Organizing” in the traditional sense. When I talk to anyone about my mission, my ministry, my vision for “Order Your Steps”; I get excited… my voice goes up at least an octave or two and my heart starts racing!
“Order Your Steps” may not look like or feel like what “I” think it should be, YET!… All I can say is that we will just have to wait and see what God has in store for me!
Related articles
- Epiphanies of Life… (throughhimwithhiminhim.wordpress.com)
FEED Your Spirit for TEN Minutes Every Day!
F
Focus on Your Breathing for ONE Minute
E
Enlighten Your Heart for TWO Minutes
E
Elevate Your Mind for THREE Minutes
D
De-Stress for FOUR Minutes
Y O U R
S P I R I T!
Financial Planning
Or Lack Thereof…. I thought that I should add just a few thoughts with regards to “The Dream”. My reality is that I did not properly plan financially for my retirement. I understand that if you are my age, we need “MILLIONS” of dollars saved in order to live comfortably when we retire. In my attempt to be transparent and hopefully, help others, my savings does not even come close to “MILLION” (singular). My 401K took a beating like many of ours over the past several years and so did many pension funds.
But, as the Lord would have it, I was eligible for the early retirement buy-out when it was offered and I had reached the retirement age in accordance with the guidelines of my company (which by the way, I achieved in Sept., 2011… Coincidence, I think NOT!) So I will be drawing my pension, but I will have to wait on Social Security… No, I won’t hold my breath!
Now don’t get me wrong, I am not flying solely by the seat of my pants. I have figured out how much income that I will need to bring in from “Order Your Steps” (more info to come on that). But although we don’t have any credit card debt, we do still have a mortgage.
So without telling you all my business, I am sure that a LOT of you are thinking… “SHE MUST HAVE FALLEN DOWN AND BUMPED MY HEAD!”
I would love to hear your thoughts and I promise to take the constructive criticism with an open mind 🙂 ……
Related articles
- How Much Money Do I Need To Retire? (celebritynetworth.com)
FEED Your Spirit for THREE Minutes
TODAY…
ELEVATE Your Mind For Three Minutes,
FOCUS on those Things that will take you …
Beyond where you are Today!
FEED Your Spirit for TWO Minutes
During your day,
Allow the EYES of your Understanding (Your Heart) to be ENLIGHTENED!
Take TWO minutes to Meditate on your favorite scripture,
A poem or An inspirational quote.
FEED Your Spirit for ONE Minute
During your work day,
Take an entire MINUTE to focus on your breathing.
Take Real DEEP breaths, fill your belly with air,
INHALE & HOLD IT ….. THEN EXHALE!
You may be AMAZED at how long ONE Minute really is.
The Recovery
I survived what I considered a Major setback when we failed the certification, but in the early ‘90’s, I did become a manager once again. God had to get me ready and now was my time. I was no longer “defensive” (for the most part). I remember being in a staff meeting and I was given, what I considered an “unreasonable” (rather dumb in my opinion) request. I responded, “So what do the rest of you think about that idea?” When I saw the expression on their faces and it appeared that they truly understood my point of view, I knew that I had passed my initiation.
If you still haven’t made the connection, please continue to read throughout my journey. There are things in our work and our home lives that occur that are simply out of our control, which makes it critical to hold on to the moments of Order that we can create. Life, in this day and time, can be so very stressful. We must do anything that we can do to minimize the “stupid” stuff that really doesn’t matter anyway. When we organize our day to maximize our quality time with family and friends, and promote those things that give us peace…..
We then capture the Joy in Life that God intended!
wishingcircle.wordpress.com
The Certification
Hope you enjoyed my little segway blog post, “Purely Random” and it was really random…
Back to the Certification, the day of was extremely nerve-racking, to say the least. Our two-inch 3-ring binder was complete with colorful dividers and creative title pages.
The people had been quizzed and quizzed some more, and we were ready. The managers and I gathered in the conference room to be tested for several hours. We had to prove that we knew what we knew and did what we said. But at some point during the process, the examiner seemed somewhat agitated with our responses. The atmosphere became rather tense.
- AARRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!
What is happening here? I planned this whole thing out and this was going to be the icing on the cake… Although this was a new process, I anticipated a rather calm, smooth “testing” session??
Needless to say, we didn’t fare so well….
Purely Random
For some reason, I woke up thinking back to when I was a child. It appears that in those days, I made my own chaos and it was rather constant. Between the ages of about 4-6, I had these “eating episodes”. Once I ate a whole jar of dill pickles, I guess that I couldn’t eat just one or two or ten, I had to eat them all. Then one day, my mother baked a cake and had set it out to cool. She got a phone call and you can guess the rest…. My mom got off the phone and asked who had eaten the middle out of her cake (I guess I thought that if I left the outside of the cake, that she wouldn’t notice). I said “I don’t know” (mind you that I was the only child in the house at the time).
Attack of the “brain-damage” kid syndrome!
In another “episode”, I ate a whole can of peaches. A real BIG can of peaches. I just threw caution to the wind!!!
EVEN MORE RANDOM…. Now when I was 6, my mom sent my dad to pick me up from my first day of school. He returned with the report that he did not have any trouble finding me because “she and the teacher were the tallest ones in there”!!! But that’s a whole ‘nother story.
Check Out My Daughters’ Blog for more on the TALL phenomenon!
THE JUNOESQUE
Finding Order in Chaos 