• If you wake up and came downstairs to a chaotic kitchen, starting your day off facing a dreary, piled up mess...wouldn't it be nice to hit that button and start over?
• If you get into one of "those fights" with your spouse where you fight over the same stuff you have for years (the one where no one wins and you'll never see eye to eye and both lose)...and you could just eject from that slippery slope with the re-sync button?

Now, here's the best news you've heard all day (maybe all year)...there IS a re-sync button! It's called restoration.

• Maybe it's time to "restore order" to your household so you won't have to "pay the piper" every day, having your mess drain your energy time, and money. By restoring your space and setting up systems, you're making your home right again...or perhaps for the first time.
• Maybe it's time to call a marriage huddle and set some new ground rules about fighting and which topics you're just going to drop. By showing your spouse you value them too much to continue the strife, and asking forgiveness where necessary, you're restoring the relationship.

So, why don't we all use the re-sync button we have access to? It's so easy to stick with the painful status-quo. It takes no effort to continue as-is. When you change something big, something that matters, it requires something of you. In the case of organizing, it takes commitment and some time and new ways of doing things. So, we resist hitting that re-sync button because we don't want to do what it takes. Sadly, we'd rather pay the piper every day - frustrated with our life - instead of doing the work and making changes. When it comes to relationships, change requires humility, self-assessment, putting everything in perspective, forgiveness, and a lot more...and whew, that's HARD! So, we'd rather fight the same old fight than re-sync.

I don't know about you, but for me, it's usually pain or gaining perspective that helps me to decide to re-sync. What do you need the re-sync button of restoration for?

~Vicki Norris

At these Sales, I aim to:

1.     Bless the needy with useful and needed household items (the beneficiary of unsold goods will be Love Inc.)

2.     Provide station-holders a chance to lighten up, simplify, and make money (they don’t have to advertise their own sale nor deal with the stuff left over)

3.     Give attendees the opportunity to buy bargain re-purposed stuff and enjoy a fun day with live music, BBQ, and a fair-type atmosphere

4.     Introduce the community to a handful of local small business owners (sponsors) who help people manage home and life.

"I GOTCH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!" he screams in my ears as he presses his two year old face into mine with wild vigor. So much for my makeup. But I don't care. I'm just lapping up this toddler love.

I guess he learned that from all the cute little games we play where I proclaim"I got you!" (usually followed with a tickle) as he dissolves into giggles.

My heart aches to think about the day when my babies don't want me to snuggle them close anymore. I'm already seeing signs of this impending day with the emphatic "Do it my OWN self, mommy!"

And I'm reminded how blessed I am to be the object of his affection.

I wish for you a life - amidst paying the bills and the daily grind - where you can clear the way for the things that truly matter. If you're living on the edge of sanity, buried with clutter and overwhelm, (like so many are) you are likely turning inward and forgetting to SAVOR the screams in the face. If you're stressed out, you bark at the family, are quicker to anger, and are less thankful for the little things.

It's time to make room for savoring the simple things. Who do you gotch and who gotch you?

A long time ago I created an anti-superhero. His name is "Low Effort Man". (But you have to say it like this in a radio announcer voice: "Loooooh Eeeeeffort Man!" to get the full effect).

Low Effort Man does only enough to keep his head above water. He doesn't unload the dishwasher when the dishes are clean; it's easier to just let the new dishes pile up on the counter. He doesn't change out the toilet paper when it is almost out...in fact, he leaves at least one square of toilet paper on the roll so that it's therefore someone else's responsibility to change the roll. It can't be his, he has better things to do. He waits until he is completely out of his anti-superhero shorts before he attempts any laundry. Most things just get the smell test.

As much as we hate to admit it, we are all guilty of Low Effort Man habits sometimes. Myself included. It is much easier to be lazy than to be vigilant.

Ironically, though, we are buried by our own low effort habits. While it may seem like liberty to let ourselves off the hook from the chores of life, what appears to be freedom actually becomes bondage.

If you suffer from LES (Low Effort Syndrome), your organizing efforts will be short-lived at best. In order to break-through this wrong thinking, you'll need to face the facts: organizing takes time and effort. It's not a glamorous truth, but it will set you free.

Tonight I spied my belt (which I didn't know I was missing) in the TV armoire behind a stack of DVDs. Later I was searching for the black television remote and found it a half hour later in the dog's bed. I am a professional organizer. I have a toddler.

-Vicki Norris

Thanks, Stacey Wilson. For telling me I can "poach" your friends on Facebook. Thanks for taking pity on my pathetic 30-something FB fear. Or is it malaise?

I think I figured out how to add a network. I've tried 10 times to add who I am married to and FB won't record it.  Weird. For the record, I'm married to Trevor Norris, who is my best friend, a brilliantly talented craftsman and pilot, and a defiantly disorganized man! God has a funny sense of humor.

Not sure why I've resisted FB so long...perhaps I've been too busy doing things to stop and tell people what I'm doing. I need to get over the time commitment obstacle. I can do this! I am a college graduate! With honors! (Whatever that means.) I run a small business in the midst of an economic crisis and I am my own economic stimulus. I am a woman for heaven's sake. What can't we do?

Vicki Norris

I like to buy furniture that is already distressed. That way my son's array of tools don't add any discernable damage. Almost every piece of upolstered furniture I own is slipcovered...good for Charlie the Dog's lovely "moments" and the pen my husband bought that looks like an airplane and is therefore irresistable to my son.

When we moved into our dream home, I actually hired someone to make my kitchen walls look old. It's the vintage look I adore. I love to be surrounded by the comfortable...the mushy gushy couch covered in yummy fancy fabric that invites snuggling and the red wood stove that I love to gather around and get toasty.

But it's more than the vintage, comfortable "look" that I can't live without...it's a throw-back, true-to-basics, deeply comforting way of life that I can't live without. You see, if my shabby chic farmhouse burned down, I would still have my shabby life.

My shabby life has gathered some nicks and scars along the journey...but it has been those marks that I've allowed to make me richer. A life where I've learned to anticipate and accept the bumps and bruises that will be coming my way in life and plan for them so I don't let them break my spirit. Instead of expecting life to be perfect (which a lot of mis-led folks mistake for "organized"), I am learning it to live in the present and consider it a gift. 

More thoughts on my shabby life in my next blog...stay tuned!

~Vicki Norris