Organizing Happiness: review

Do you sometimes think bad moods you feel may be due to the disorganized state of things around you?


If you suspected so, Organizing Happiness can help you, like it helped me deal with clutter issues, acquaint or reacquaint yourself with habits that will make you and others happier, and use spiritual weapons and organization inspiration for happiness.

The longer I have been busy with job and social responsibilities, the farther I have strayed from bible-based advice on living an organized life so well-presented on this ebook.


Being used to having paid help do cleaning and cooking chores for me, my place has become a war zone of clothes, books, stilettos, and my kiddo's toys here and there  following changes in our living arrangement. Having the practical illustrations and gentle advice of this darling ebook around mitigated my personal struggle with domestic chaos.

Author Lorrie Flem's attribution of clutter on "not having a designated place to put things" nailed it for me. I actually went to a supermarket to buy keepers.  I also tried the '15-minute' suggestion and indeed was amazed to see the bedside table got tidied up, the dresser tamed and the garbage sorted in just 15 minutes.

Under one of four headings in this ebook, I am especially delighted to be reminded of Philippians 4:8 - “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”

Be inspired as I am. You can read Organizing Happiness for free by signing up for the Eternal Encouragement newsletter. Find details of this ebook here. Unmistakably relevant to fellow moms keeping a home as well as working single ladies, I am sharing this post over at Mommy Moments , Happiness is..., & Color Connection.

Changes

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Charlie Quillen asks:

Has a book ever inspired you to change anything in your life, fiction or non-fiction alike?

Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad inspired me to change the way I look at money.  Kate White's Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do helped me change the way I evaluate myself.  The Da Vinci Code inspired me to change my attitude toward The Bible.  The entertainment of puzzles in Dan Brown's work and its references to concepts that ring a bell around times long ago when the Bible was spoon-fed to me, sparked a fancy to rediscover non-fiction mystery that the Bible has abundance of, as well as advice and knowledge that never gets old.

Thursday 13: Inspiring changes. Which ones speak to you best?

1. Change brings opportunity. ~ Nido Qubein

2. Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. ~ Life's Little Instruction Book

3. Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change. ~ Jim Rohn

4. Use what talents you possess, the woods will be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. ~ Henry van Dyke

5. Each person's task in life is to become an increasingly better person. ~ Leo Tolstoy

6. Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart. ~ Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford commencement address

7.  The greatest mistake you can do in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. ~ Elbert Hubbard

8. Twenty years from now you will be disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So sail away from the safe harbor, catch the trade wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain

9. Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix                     ~ Christina Baldwin

10. We all have big changes in our lives, that are more or less a second chance.      ~ Harrison Ford quoted by Gary Jenkins, Imperfect Hero

11. Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, humiliated before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, raped before you, yet someone survived. You can do anything you choose to do. ~ Maya Angelou

12. We have a strategic plan. It's called 'doing things.' ~ Herb Kelleher

13. Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind. To the fearful it is threatening because it means that things may get worse. To the hopeful is it is encouraging because it means things may get better. To the confident it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things better.     ~King  Whitney Jr

Literary pet peeves

In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Bookish Sarah asks:

What are your literary “pet peeves”?

Put too many swear words in a story and I lose interest. Too much cursing sounds like limited vocabulary, stunted creativity. The other one is something I have experienced for the first time - a novel with an unlikeable character. The Wise Woman is my first Philippa Gregory. If I wasn't fond of historical fiction (besides thinking that Gregory is brilliant at her genre) I wouldn't have minded not finishing the book. The heroine is so unlikeable almost every page developed in me a distaste of her that even her death in the conclusion didn't convince me it redeemed her. I want my reading experience (outside work) to be a pleasure; not characters that I don't enjoy.

 Thursday 13: Unusual words that begin with letter N

You may be familiar with or have encountered the following words already. If you do not know what they mean, I hope you have as much fun guessing as I had fun putting them together. 

1. nephogram - is a photograph of (a) lungs     (b) diaphragm     (c) clouds
2. nodated - means (a) knotted     (b) sprained     (c) inundated
3. neuralgiform - is like or shaped like a (a) brain     (b) nerve     (c) esophagus
4. nidify - to build a (a) nest     (b) an invalid argument     (c) wooden box
5. nesiote - means living (a) by a lake     (b) on a dessert     (c) on an island
6. ninon -  is (a) silk      (b) cotton     (c) taffeta
7. nacarat -  means (a) tangerine     (b) bright orange-red     (c) gold
8. naology - is architecture study of (a) a temple     (b)a manor house     (c)a castle
9. natiform - is shaped like (a)a nose     (b) buttocks     (c) hips
10. nemoricolous - means living in (a) valleys     (b) forests     (c) mountains
11. nervure - means vein of a (a)petal     (b) leaf     (c) fruit
12. nipter - is ceremony of washing the (a) feet     (b) nose     (c) hands
13. nepenthe - is something capable of making one forget suffering such as              (a) a drink     (b) an inhalant     (c) a liniment

Answers: 1. (c) clouds   2. (a) knotted   3. (b) nerve   4. (a) nest   5. (c) an island        6. (a) silk   7. (b) bright orange-red   8. (a) temple   9. (b) buttocks   10. (b) forests   11. (b) leaf   12. (a) feet   13. (a) drink

Courtesy to The Phrontistery for the list.