Thanksgiving In New Orleans

I am so glad to be spending a week in New Orleans with my husband, brother, brother's girlfriend, my niece and nephew. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving withg everyone. The other great thing is to be taking some time off from organizing. As much as I love my business and my clients, I really needed some time off. Fortunately, I have been very busy and working like a maniac. So, it is really good to be taking some time off and visiting the Cresent City.

We were supposed to go on a walking tour of the Garden District this morning. It was cancelled, so we will be taking that tour tomorrow morning. This morning, George and I took our dog Sammy for a walk in the French Quarter. We took a carriage ride and the carriage driver conducted a tour, which was quite good. I also love walking down Royal Street, checking out the wonderful antique shops, not that I want to buy anything. I love the crystal chandeliers and beautiful jewelry in the shops.

This afternoon we went to Cooter Browns (cooterbrowns.com) for oysters on the half shell. Boy were those oysters good. Cooters has at least four hundred different beers. George enjoys drinking Dixie Blackened Voodoo and Abita Turbo Dog.

This evening, we are going to the Mid-City Rock & Bowl (rockandbowl.com) to bowl and hear some really great Zydeco music. We will be rockin' at Mid-City. It's good to be on vacation...

When Hoarders Make Life Miserable

I read a Wall Street Journal article that was good on one hand and slammed professional organizers and the therapeutic community on the other hand. From the point of view of a child of a hoarder, they are tired of having the hoarder get all of the consideration while the children are ignored. This might be a common scenario for the child of a hoarder. They might have been ignored by the hoarding parent or parents and are still being ignored by their parent/s. That article can be found at: file:///Users/admin/Desktop/When%20Hoarders%20Make%20Life%20Miserable%20for%20Others%20-%20WSJ.com.webarchive

The person that made many good comments was Elizabeth Nelson, who is the spokesperson for the website "Children of Hoarders" http://www.childrenofhoarders.com.

She makes the point that the hoarder is portrayed as the victim in most situations, and all those involved in the life of the hoarder tiptoe around the hoarder. She advocates action against the worse cases of hoarding to protect the hoarder. There has to be a middle ground, and that is what I am exploring. Please weigh in on this issue.

Life of your dreams

"The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams." This was a quote from Oprah Winfrey. What is the life of your dreams? It is a fascinating question and one that I would like to spend a day or a week or a year going around and asking all that I meet "What would it mean to you to live the life of your dreams?"

For me, I've always dreamed of traveling around the world. Having the time and money to do such a thing is a dream of mine, as far off as it might seem. I can't imagine having the freedom and/or the money to just take off with George and travel the world. Where would I want to start that journey? Maybe I'd start with Australia, or maybe Italy, since I have not been to either of these locations.

I can imagine traveling to many exotic locations. I would have a wonderful time sightseeing and trying to discover the out of the way places that would give me a true sense of what it was like to live in the location I was visiting. I do look forward to a time when I can afford to do that kind of traveling. Right now, it seems like a very far off dream.

I think of this traveling around the world as living a dream, but in my current reality, I am too busy running my business and learning new ways of helping my clients live a simpler, less chaotic life, filled with joy. I live a joyous life and I get great pleasure in doing meaningful work with my wonderful clients. That to me right now is living my dream. I can wait for the traveling at a later time.

If you are interested in world travel, there are some really good travel sites such as: http://www.iexplore.com Check it out.

Can I get kicked off my own blog page?

O.K., the last time I posted it was in October. I know that I might need to blog more for this blog to have any meaning other then my own blog diary. I also need to read and respond to others blogs. I hardly do that, therefore, no other bloggers know that this site exists, with the exception of a few wonderful people that check this out from my website. Thank you to them!

Here is the million dollar question "Where do I get the free time to do this?" I am a professional organizer and there is a myth that professional organizers are "Super Heros." Please share where that myth came from and I will "kill the messenger" of that myth. We humans have to understand where our priorities lie, and mine have not been blogging, obviously. If anyone is reading this blog, feel free to respond to the questions posed within this text.

On to a bit of information for all those that find hoarding information very important, interesting and useful. Check out 65 Ways To Start the Conversation About Hoarding by Catherine MacDonald @ HowToHelpAHoarder.com

That is all the time I have for this blog. Good night.