Organizing for the Type A

Organize Magazine Editor-in-Chief Joyce Dorny was kind to leave a comment a few posts back and I must tell you that I have read and re-read the premiere issue of Organize a few times now and have cruised their interactive site a good bit and I am so excited about this magazine.



I'm the first to admit that I am a label making, borderline OCD, alphabetizing, categorizing nut, so it's probably no surprise that this magazine would be a fave** but as such, I've picked up lots of these kinds of publications in the past and this one is truly unique. Here's why:

First, Joyce has started this magazine from the ground up and is the mother of 1-2-3-4-5-6, I repeat SIX children, so she must be the Zen master of organization. She brings humility and the genuine, real world experience to the conversation that has been missing. Other organization guides would have me hire a maid and build expensive-can't-move-with-me built-in-shelves in every room. Can't do it. Next. But Organize had some tangible, do-able advice on any budget without the condescension. And the ads are sparse but relevant.

I know life would be easier and more organized if we paid people to do lots of homeowner things for us like housekeeping and yard work. But what about those of us who budget with a different priority set, but still aspire to minimize the chaos? I'm hopeful that Organize Magazine will continue to offer some suggestions.

I have yet to assimilate the Little Tykes, Brio, Fisher Price mine field into the house. They are everywhere. I'm still polling girlfriends with small kiddos about how they are maintaining their sanity. Two girlfriends so far have suggested getting rid of as much stuff as possible and then initiating a separate container for every toy or group of toys. A home for everything. This is the seemingly unattainable goal, but I am willing to try. The Berenstain Bears and The Messy Room was my favorite book growing up because of that last page, with all of the labeled containers holding Brother and Sister Bear's toys. Even now, I get a warm, safe and comforting feeling just thinking about it.

**My favorite holiday tradition is re-organizing my loved ones' closets. Seriously.

2 "raisons" to get a babysitter

I can't wait for this one, 2 Days in Paris. Evidently Julie Delphy wrote, directed, produced, scored and stars in this one. Girl power. Her parents play themselves in the film. It looks very clever.

And then there are the Jane Austen nods this summer with The Jane Austen Book Club and Becoming Jane.

The Jane Austen Book Club looks reminiscent of The Love Letter and Becoming Jane of Shakespeare In Love, but in my mind, both bear repeating.



The voice over on the preview is cheeky, but I am a sucker for Miramax's use of costumes, heartache, a writer, and a bit on a beach. As Bridget Jones would say, "v. exciting."

Losing Labels

Click here for another great essay by Lee Woodruff in the Huffington Post today where she writes about losing labels in the new American family landscape. I think this is my third post mentioning something that she has written. Love her.

Summer Music

I put together a Teaworthy Summer Music Mix that you can download on iTunes called Sunkissed 2007 for picnics, road trips, clam bakes, and sandy afternoons.

The playlist includes Sam Cooke, Amy Winehouse, The Supremes, Jaime Liddell, Neil Finn, Ben Folds Five, Madonna, The Shins, Iron & Wine, Corinne Bailey Rae, Ceu, Bebel Gilberto, & Pulp. I don't get any royalties. Just thought it would be fun to share. You can practically smell the coconut.

Here's the link which you can preview for free:

Sunkissed 2007 Total Songs: 14 Date: July 21, 2007

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewIMix?id=260466991

Zen in my backyard

Last night's sky.

A Rock, A River, A Tree

I work in a law office of 50 people and in the same week, we had a birth, a funeral and a wedding. I took photographs to commemorate two of those events (links above) and maybe because of that, last week felt more important and more tangible to me.

For our office manager, ordering flowers to send to these respective events, it probably seemed just like any other week. All offices are filled with the details of our personal lives that can interfere with efficiency.

Last week was just an intersection.

But for me, last week, I witnessed a lifespan unfold in what seemed like a few moments -- thrilling and scary, solemn and beautiful, all at the same time. The human condition in fast forward.

The thing about photography and writing, I suppose, is that part of its primary purpose is to witness and testify, both of which are terms of art (no pun intended) that surround my legal practice, and frequently come up at church. I didn't realize they pervade my hobbies as well.

When I look through my camera's viewfinder, I am searching for that which I can empathize, what I would be feeling if I were the subject, what I would want to see if were in the frame, to find myself in the subject's experience. For me, an image should be relevant to the person in it. But there's that legal standard creeping in again. Evidence only comes into play if it is first relevant.

I'm sure someone else has put this much more articulately, but what I love about photography, writing and representing people is the feeling of connectedness with other people and in turn the world, finding universality in the details of our lives, and helping people tell their stories, testify. Birth, love, death, ache, joy, desperation, comfort. Maya Angelou's words on this topic have driven my career and motivated me since I first read them when I was seventeen, "...that beneath the skin, beyond the differing features and into the true heart of being, fundamentally, we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."

I think I needed to be reminded of that. In the days after 9/11, or the tsunami, or hurricane Katrina, we didn't have to be reminded of how that is all that matters: birth, love and the inevitability of death. It was right there on the tip of all of our tongues. People got married, had babies, quit jobs and made big decisions realizing the importance of carpe diem.

The morning of 9/11, my parents flew over the twin towers just a few hours before the fell. I lived across the country from them and the rest of my family. I stared a the TV, like everyone else, horrified. So many people were carrying photographs of missing loved ones. The photos were testimonies to their love, desperation, and inevitable loss. What I most remember about that day was the photos people held of their wedding days, of their brides or grooms, of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, co-workers. Our connectedness never felt more real.

That afternoon, I went to Kroger to stockpile baking supplies because that's what you do when the world is ending and you are Southern. My boyfriend (now husband) realized he had forgotten the Kroger Plus card (a must for students) and went home to get it, leaving me in the frozen foods section holding a bag of chicken breasts. I was in the exact same spot when he returned, lost in thought about how I wanted to make sure he would be able to find me, unlike the wandering people on TV, and how maybe the world wouldn't collapse if I made something warm that my Grandmother Viola once taught me to make when she was alive and we were together in the safety of her sunlit kitchen.

Feeling what these three families are going through --birth, death, marriage of two families-- was such a gift to me and brought me closer to my own feelings of the fragility and raw beauty of life, even in it's cruelties.

But this morning, as Maya writes, "on the pulse of this new day," I went back into the office, stepped into the elevator and, "looked into my sister's eyes, into my brother's face, my country and said, very simply with hope, Good Morning."

Because it's summer

Let's go to the Farmer's Market, listen to Pink Martini, eat some double chocolate chip Graeter's ice cream and not read the nutritional information. Why not.

Mail your favorite summer camper something with color, like these cards from Ink & Paper.



I found these (no kidding) scratch-n-sniff cards at the quirky Fred Flare.


Find a different-kind-of-read at Bas Bleu where their team has already made great book lists for every kind of reader and they have sweet little illustrations for the categories, like this:


To date, my favorite summer reads remain:
A Good House by Bonnie Burnard which may be out of print. Email me, you can have my copy.
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpha Lahiri
2 of the 3 of those were the author's first novel. Inspiring!

Where Have You Gone Carrie Tuhy?

Paul Simon was on Charlie Rose this week --I know, I'm officially 200 years old. Not only am I watching Charlie Rose, but my other media go-to shows are on NPR. Oldsville-- and he said that our society is too focussed on the "empty calories" of celebrity culture. I am certainly guilty of consuming the empty calories of Pop Sugar, People, Hello!, etc., and of enjoying every cotton-candy bite. My challenge lately has been finding things that aren't empty calories.

My legal ethics professor used to say that all human beings are mimetic. I was dismissive of that idea at first. I'm an original, right? I don't imitate people. But, when it comes down to it, I'm always looking for role models, professional mentors, people who are living positive lives and balancing responsibilities. I'm watching this play out with my daughter right now as she is picking and choosing what things she wants to emulate from the various influences in her life. I'm starting to think that our obsession with celebrities is more of that pursuit: for role models of success.

As a type A personality, semi-OCD, compulsive organizer who loves magazines, the launch of Real Simple Magazine was very exciting to me. I was a charter subscriber and read every issue cover to cover. Those were the days when they ran articles on actual families who had found ways to live simpler, quieter, less chaotic, organized lives! It was the I Ching of organizing and time management filled with ideas for creating zen in your home and office. For me, there were role models in the articles. People who were living life in a positive, simple way. Where can I find that now? Now, Real Simple is filled with 3 page comparisons on different kinds of ketchup. Boo! What is this, Consumer Reports? A Pepsi Challenge? I've tried to find comfort in the pages of others: Domino? Blueprint? Martha? In the words of George Costanza, NO. NO. NO. They are lovely, but Pixie Sticks nonetheless.

I'm thrilled that Victoria is coming back in December, but that's not going to fill my need for somebody to give me tips on how to (absent amphetamines) find time to organize my day planner, car, office and kitchen drawer while packing a nutritious creative lunch, planning a relaxing family outing/neighborhood picnic with time to spare to evaluate storage solutions for my imaginary farmhouse.

In those golden years when Real Simple began, Carrie Tuhy was Managing Editor and her essays at the beginning of each issue were always worthy of tearing out and keeping in a journal. Her piece after 9/11 was more poignant than anything else I've read on the topic. The magazine ran stories then about large families and how to keep schedules for them, streamlining at work, groups of girlfriends re-uniting for simple dinner or getaway, finding ways to bring a neighborhood together, adding time to your day by organizing obligations, running a restaurant with friends, coping with loss in a proactive way. Stick-to-your-bones journalism. Now, there is Heinz v. Hunts. Seriously.

A New York Times article said Ms. Tuhy was replaced as editor because she had "management problems." Whatever these alleged problems were, I don't care. She's human. What was inspiring to me was that she had vision and could find stories of people who are trying to make it work and who were willing to share what was working for them. I don't need my role models to be perfect, just willing to share in a meaningful conversation.

C'est Si Bon: Paris, Je T'aime

After two years of Johnson & Johnson, Graco and Pampers, it's hard to remember that before Elmo, my first date with my husband was on the left bank in Paris. Having a child has been a great love affair as well. But it's hard to carve out emotional space and time that is just for the two of us when our hearts are so full of our little girl.

Paris, Je T'aime reminded me of my first introduction to the love of my life and helped me see Paris from a new vantage point, the same way Amelie did in 2001.

Like a collection of short stories, 18 different directors filmed one piece about love in and with Paris. Each story takes place in a different neighborhood of the city. If one short doesn't speak to you, hang on for 6 minutes or so and it's over and then you are on to the next. It works almost like looking into doll house windows to see moments of love simultaneously happening throughout the city.

Here's the trailer:



If you can't make it to the theater, here are links to a few of the stories in their entirety. Thanks YouTube. Wes Craven, of all people, has one of the sweetest stories, but I couldn't find a link to it.

Here are 3 of the 18.
1. Alexander Payne's 14th Arrondissement. I love this one. Her French sounds about like mine.
2. Tom Tykwer's Faubourg Saint-Denis.
3. Gurinder Chadha's (sorry, no English sub-titles) Quais de Seine.

PS: The beautiful song in the trailer available in French (La Meme Histoire) or English (We're All In the Dance) is from Feist.