Keep Your Pets Safe This Summer
Pets! We love our cats and dogs in Seattle. It’s true! News stories have been written about it. Now that summer is here, let’s practice pet safety and keep our furry pets safe at home and in the outdoors.
Pets! We love our cats and dogs in Seattle. It’s true! News stories have been written about it. Now that summer is here, let’s practice pet safety and keep our furry pets safe at home and in the outdoors.
The school year is over! Your child is thrilled about the start of summer vacation. Before it’s forgotten about, follow these 5 easy steps to clean out the backpack and organize all the art and school projects that have come home. The end of the school year is one of the best times to clean out the school year detritus and organize your child’s keepsakes.
On becoming a professional organizer, you might say I was born that way. As far back as I can remember I have wanted my possessions and surroundings to be neat and tidy and have everything in its place. I remember as a child cleaning out the family garage, or wanting to clear out cupboards or closets. As a college student, my dorm room was always clutter-free and organized. Keeping my environment orderly was like therapy for me. As an adult working in a corporate world, I was teased about my clean and organized desk. People thought it was a sign that I didn’t have enough to do, when in reality I couldn’t think or focus properly with a cluttered desk. All of my life I’ve been teased about being tidy, but intuitively I knew that being organized meant a calmer and less stressful life.
How I became a professional organizer:
Today, it seems, families are busier than they used to be. We work long hours, we drive our children to after school activities and sports every night of the week, and we spend our precious weekend hours trying to catch up and get ready for the upcoming week. There are so many demands on our limited time and energy that sometimes we feel like machines. I am a strong believer that an uncluttered and well organized home helps our family “machines” run smoother.
All moms know that as soon as everyone gets used to the family routine or schedule, the schedule changes. For families with school aged children, perhaps the most abrupt change comes with the end of the school year. The school year hums along one minute, busy as usual, and then all of the sudden it’s June! The last few weeks of the school year are a flurry of projects, exams, end of year parties, and graduations, and then abruptly the school year is over, and the children are home with nothing to do. I can just about count the minutes before someone in our house says, “I’m bored…”
If you didn’t spend the month of February planning vacations, summer camps and enrichment activities for your children’s summer don’t despair! There is time yet to establish a summer routine that will work for you and your children.
Some families start the summer by brainstorming a list of activities, both indoor and outdoor. They post the list in a public spot in their house. Periodically, one member of the family chooses an activity they would like to do. Maybe your son wants to go bowling and chooses that as his special outing one week. Maybe your daughter wants to go to the driving range and hit some golf balls. Maybe you really want to take your children to the art museum or on a hike. Maybe your toddler would like everyone to go to the zoo. Everyone can have a turn to do something they like and hopefully you’ll have more buy-in when it’s your turn to pick.
Enjoy your summer travel with TripIt!
Summer vacations should be all about having fun and making new memories. But we all know that there are some aspects of traveling which can be stressful. One cause of travel related stress is managing all the logistical information that comes with every trip.
Garages have so many uses which are different from what the space was intended for…parking your car. They serve as laundry facilities, garden sheds, holiday decoration storage, home gyms, sports equipment storage, bicycle parking, workshops, household overflow and garbage can storage. It is no wonder that sometimes we can’t fit the car in there!
Clients struggle with getting started on organizing the garage for several reasons. Garages can be overwhelming. Garages tend to be dirtier and dustier than the rest of the house. Garages have that “out of sight, out of mind” thing about them. It is much easier to hide garage clutter from visiting friends and family, therefore it is easy to also postpone uncluttering. Furthermore, because garages serve all family members, often multiple family members need to present to make decisions about what stays and what goes.
Local Seattle Reporter Stephanie Yoder helped Sparefoot find the top recommended professional organizers. Stephanie’s focus of the article was on moving skills that is a task that we at Simplify Experts take on with gusto.
My journey toward starting Simplify Experts began in 2007. I was looking to make a change in my career. I had been running auctions for non-profits and feeling burned out. I had some flexibility in my mornings and became aware that I was planning my cardio machine workouts at my gym at the time that the organizing shows were on HGTV. I was hooked on the shows Mission Organization and Clean Sweep with organizer Peter Walsh.
After working in the high tech industry for seven years followed by a decade at home full time with my children I felt a longing for something that would be interesting for me to do outside of the home. I considered professional organizing, interior design and nutrition as areas in which I would enjoy working.