Special Editorial by my husband Robert Cilley
My husband had some thoughts that your publications might find interesting. He is retiring after 20 years on the bench; I hope I can talk him into writing more.
Happy New Year!
Marla and Robert
To Resolve or Not to Resolve by The FlyLady, Marla Cilley
None of us like change in any form or fashion! Every New Year's Eve we are faced with that proverbial issue: To resolve or not to resolve! The dictionary defines resolve with "to make up your mind" and "to do something". This means that in order to make up our minds we have to change what we have been doing to do something different. Change is so hard for us!
We like the ruts we have made for ourselves. They are comfortable! They fit us like good old pair of shoes! We don't want anyone to declutter our old shoes! The rule is that you can only declutter your own items. You cannot force someone else to declutter their things. Making a New Year's Resolution is a very personal decluttering process.
We have to evaluate what is not working and try to come up with a solution. Re-solution.... Could that be that we have made the same decision to make the change before. On Year's Day of 1999, I made my last New Year's Resolution and it was one I had made many times. My lack of organization was hurting me. I had problems finding things and keeping our home clean. I wanted to feel better about me and the way our home looked. I resolved to "Get Organized!"
I sat down on New Year's Day and tried to figure out why I could not keep house. I soon realized that I was not lazy but I didn't have routines for my home or for me! The only time I had ever keep my home clean was when I was using Pam Young and Peggy Jones card file system from their book The Sidetracked Home Executives. They had a card for everything to do in your home; daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal maintenance. They also had cards for personal maintenance.
That day I pulled my card file which was hidden under my kitchen counter and began to sort through my five hundred cards; after all out of sight out of mind. No wonder it never helped me for very long. I would begin to feel guilty when I would see the file unused and stuck it away! That is when I realized that I was pushing myself too hard. Change is tough enough in itself but to pile on and set yourself up for failure by trying to be perfect was not nice. That is when I made a second resolution. To be kind to myself!
My realization that day was my perfectionism was getting in the way of my decision to make a change in my life! This is probably why when we make a mistake and miss a day of our New Resolution; we give up! We chunk it out the window, beat ourselves up and get back in our ruts.
Only you can make a resolution! Only you can decide to make the change, because if a resolution is forced on you then it is not yours. Think about it this way! A wise man told me this a few days ago. If an alcoholic is forced into rehab, they will not stay sober. We all have our own drugs of choice and they keep us stuck in our ruts. You can make the decision to change if that is what you want! My blessing for you in this New Year is for you to find the Peace that I have found! This Peace came because I took babysteps to make simple changes in my life. Those habits became my routines and those routines filled my life with a calm that allowed me to become who I am today! As part of my journey I saw perfectionism as the saboteur and eliminated that stinkin' thinkin' one thought at a time!
The clutter we really need to fling is the clutter that is in our heads. I like to call it Body Clutter! I even co-authored a book by the same name that helps you to take those babysteps to make our resolutions became lasting life changes! Isn't that what making New Year's Resolutions is all about! Any day can be your New Year's Day if you make your mind up to do it!
My husband had some thoughts that your publications might find interesting. He is retiring after 20 years on the bench; I hope I can talk him into writing more.
Here is a Guest Editorial by Robert Cilley
I like flannel shirts around the house in cold weather. They're soft, they're warm, and they're very forgiving of minor smudges, so you can get several days' wear out of them before they need washing. They do wear out, though, so right after Christmas I went to a local store that was having a sale, ready to get a stack of new ones. I do that every few years; the old ones get moved to the work-shirt shelf, and from then on, they live hard. A work, shirt, in my personal dictionary, is a shirt you can wipe your hands on, no matter what they have been in.
So I trek down to the store, and there they are: flannel shirts: several brands, different colors, various patterns, ten dollars a shirt, which seemed fair. And how many did I get? Not a blessed one, that's how many. There comes a point when you look at a thing and say "No, I don't care if that is a bargain; I hate it, and I will not buy it." I have reached that point as regards casual shirts with button-down collars, and every flannel shirt they had, had a button-down collar.
Let's review. In the beginning or as close to it as I care to get there was the celluloid collar. It was stiff and flammable and uncomfortable, but just as a multi-thousand-dollar watch is not meant to tell time (since a twenty-five dollar Timex is more accurate), a celluloid collar was a mark of status. It was the white collar, in the distinction between white collar and blue collar. After the winds of style shifted away from the high celluloid-type collar, the stiffness required of a white collar was achieved with collar stays, which were (and are) little slips of plastic that slide into a pocket on the back side of dress-shirt collars to keep the collar point from curling up. Or, if you like, you can button the collar point down, which allows for a softer fabric and a less stodgy look in a dress shirt. I have several dress shirts with button-down collars, and love them.
But you almost never wear a tie with a casual shirt, certainly not with a flannel shirt. With those, there is only one reason to have a button-down collar: it works better with a pull-over sweater than a spread collar does. I grew up in a house with radiators, and we wore sweaters. We had to. Near the radiator, you could roast peanuts by the heat they threw off. And, I expect, the air at the ceiling was toasty and warm, but everywhere else, you needed a sweater. Those days are gone. Houses and offices today tend to be overheated, if anything, and the only men I see wearing sweaters got them as gifts. I own several sweaters, but I have never bought one, and I don't wear any of them. Which means, of course, that I don't need button-down collars on flannel shirts. I don't need them, and I don't like them. They are not comfortable, and they look like they wanted to be a turtleneck but didn't have the grades. You don't see men in turtlenecks either, except on Star Trek.
So, memo to store buyers: A lot of men maybe all of us genuinely hate button-down collars on flannel shirts. Granted, most men do not shop for their own clothes, but maybe that's because we go in and see stack after stack of stuff we dislike. To heck with it.
For more help getting rid of your CHAOS; check out her website and join her free life coaching at www.FlyLady.net , listen to her channel http://www.blogtalkradio.com/channels/flylady show or read her books, Sink Reflections published by Bantam and her New York Times Best Selling book, Body Clutter published by Fireside. Copyright 2008 Marla Cilley Used by permission in this publication.
