Hello, beautiful friends. I hope you and your loved ones are healthy, safe, and well.

At the beginning of January, I shared that 2020 would be my Year to Be Present/Year of Presence, which was inspired by a sign on a church down the street encouraging us to BElieve THEre is GOOD in the world." I wrote about my intentions to be the good, see the good and do good.

Sleep is critical for our emotional, mental and physical well-being. In fact, a study from the University of California-Berkley showed that just one night's loss of sleep produced a 30% rise in anxiety levels compared with how the participants reported feeling the night before.

The purpose of my blog has always been about connecting with you, my LIVE WITH LESS peeps - a way to share what's been happening with my business, and provide tips and stories about how to live with less and create an office / kitchen / closet / bedroom / home that you can be proud of.

Hello, sweet friends. I hope you and your loved ones are well. What a past few weeks it's been! We've all been trying to adapt to an ever-changing situation. I'm so grateful for my daily home yoga and meditation practices, as they've helped to keep the racing, anxious thoughts at bay.

When my client opened the door, I could see the stress all over her face. With a look of exhaustion, she told me things at work were incredibly busy, she was feeling a lot of pressure and working long hours.

We all do our part to tread as lightly on the earth as possible, and most of us recycle, but not everything is recyclable. What are we to do with our old electronics, light bulbs, and other items we cannot put in the recycling bins?

As I slow down and catch my breath after the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, my focus has shifted to goals for the year ahead. These past few years, I’ve chosen an intention to incorporate into my life as a guiding force throughout the year - Balance in 2017, Confidence in 2018, Clarity and Courage in 2019. This year I’ve chosen Presence.

If you ask most people, one of the worst parts of taking a trip is unpacking when you get home. Many people leave stuff in their luggage for days afterward because they dread emptying the bags.

When working to declutter and organize your closet and wardrobe, some people find it helpful to impose rules or limits on the number of items they own. Putting self-imposed limits in place around the amount of clothing one owns can be an easy way to simplify one’s wardrobe and end the constant wrestling of, “to keep or not to keep?”

Unfortunately, the journey to the Land of Organized never ends. There will always be laundry to wash, dry, fold, and put away, new clothes to purchase, old clothes to donate, groceries to buy, meals to prepare, mail to sort, beds to make, bills to pay, items to return, paper products to store, to-do lists aplenty, hobbies to pursue. Our houses are a revolving door of stuff coming in and going out.

Nearly six years after starting out as a professional organizer, I’m thrilled to announce exciting updates to the services I provide.

I'm going global, y'all!

The process to purge, declutter and organize a space involves motivation, time, commitment, energy and decisiveness. When these five components work in conjunction, this creates a recipe for success. If one of these aspects wanes, the system begins to break down.

As a fair-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman from Minnesota, I’ve never been a big fan of the sun and the heat. In previous summers, I’d avoid the outdoors as much as possible from sun up to sun down. When we moved to Atlanta eleven years ago, my biggest fear was how to deal with the heat while living in the south.

I choose to live with less and embrace living more simply for many reasons. Here are my top three:

Funny story…. After my sister read my most recent blog post about my getting rid of memorabilia, she sent a text expressing her surprise that I had kept my creepy-looking babydoll all these years (25+). As you can probably guess, I have a reputation within my family for not keeping much of anything! Her text got me thinking about why I had held onto these, and other, childhood relics for so many years and why it was so easy for me to part with them now.

In terms of organizing projects, memorabilia can be the most difficult category to tackle. We keep tangible objects to remember an event, a place, an experience, a loved one, or just because it makes us happy.

As my Year of Clarity has progressed, I've been presented with some interesting personal and professional projects that are forcing me to stretch in new ways. Clarity has brought them to light and bravery is needed in order to move forward.

The temperatures are rising, flowers are in bloom, and the desire to emerge from our cocoons means springtime is here! And you know what else this means for me? Time for an energetic shakeup in my home! 

Remember the days of 35mm film and cameras that were only a camera, not a phone, computer, and camera all rolled into one? Back then, when you took a picture, you hoped it was in focus, everyone in the shot was looking at the camera, and nobody's eyes were closed but had to wait until the roll of film was processed to find out. And once the film was developed, instead of immediately tossing the blurry pictures or the shots you didn't like, you stuck the whole stack back into the paper envelope and threw them in a box, container, or drawer, to be discovered years later. Such is the case for many of us, including some of my clients.

As a happy minimalist, I don't keep much memorabilia by choice. I'm not a heartless robot - I just appreciate things/objects as they happen in the present moment and don't tend to hold onto many things.