This Holidays

Writen by Carolina Fernandez

"Being organized…frees you up to prepare you for both the dizzying frustrations and distractions, as well as the surprising opportunities and celebrations, that come our way." Carolina Fernandez (from ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance)

Towards the end of the summer, I took my thirteen-year-old daughter and her friend on an unexpected shopping excursion. Having gotten kicked out of Six Flags Water Park by thunder and a cloudburst, the girls voted on—-and won-—a quick trip to the mall on the way home. Dragging me (and younger brother and brother's friend) to a favorite clothing shop, we were met by two denim skirts possessing magnetic powers, as they almost immediately found their way onto these girls' torsos. Proving adorable on, we got two. The fact that my daughter's skirt has a row of dangling threads (seems to be the new style) doesn't diminish my liking to it. But I find myself with a nearly insatiable desire to get out my scissors every time my daughter prances by wearing it. I want to snip those loose threads. Trim it up. Have it hang from her dangling-thread free.

The story of my life.

My personality yearns for a dangling-thread-free life. For loose ends to be snipped. Garbage taken out and clean laundry folded. Thank-you notes written and emails replied to. Calendars synced up and ducks perfectly lined up in rows.

Don't get me wrong. Oil painter that I am, I have a fairly high tolerance for chaos. Half-finished canvases have lined my family room floor-—in my makeshift studio—-for months. A pint-sized violin rests most days on the back of my living room sofa, rather than safely tucked inside its case. And Victor's new oboe finds itself almost always on the edge of his bed, which remains, many mornings, only half-made. What with four kids in four different schools, a traveling husband and a needy lapdog, my life can be summed up by my girlfriend's license plate: "BEDLAM." Add to that our ongoing chemo protocol with upwards of nine-hour days away from home some days, and I'm ready to throw up my hands in desperate resignation.

I long for simplicity. For having loose threads snipped such that I can meet my responsibilities-—with discipline-—as well as celebratory opportunities—-with creativity-—that come my way.

Fall is officially upon us. Leaves are falling (onto my freshly-swept deck); bulbs are begging for planting (in my just-weeded garden); and clothes are waiting to be rotated (in my recently-edited closets). Thankyouverymuch.

There's always something.

So how do we rocket moms get our acts together in order to lead more creative, gratifying lives? While oodles of strategies are found in my book, ROCKET MOM!, here are my 4 Quick Tips for fall:

Sniff: Walk around your house and sniff our patterns of inefficiency. Last Tuesday, in a bout of fall fever and its resultant flurry of housekeeping, I realized that no one in my family—-including myself-—was benefiting from my art "studio" plunked squarely in the middle of the family room floor. Nearly-constant-begging-for-a-barn-studio-for-my-birthday notwithstanding, I realized that, in the meantime, I needed to create a more organized workspace for my favorite hobby. So I carried all of my extraneous canvases to the basement and hid all extraneous supplies in a nearby cabinet. I left two easels standing, each one holding a half-finished painting, and kept the rest of the area bare. Once done, I started walking around the whole house, doing the "sniff" test. Piles of clutter were perused; useless stuff was tossed. I kept sniffing until I was satisfied that things were (almost) as they should be. I venture to say that you border on the bizarre if you are capable of maintaining a perfectly perfect house while simultaneously raising kids and your spouse. But keep sniffing and keep trying.

Snip: Whatever threads are dangling, snip 'em. Be they painful letters to write or junk mail to sort, toy closets to re-organize or car seats to vacuum...resolve to use this changing of the seasons to snip anything that's been dangling over you. The resulting liberation is nothing short of dizzying! I confess that the piles of papers on my desk and the dozens of emails in my inbox are the two dangling threads in desperate need of snipping this week. Claim yours, too.

Sort: Clear out anything that reads "summer." Now that the weather's finally changing, sort out t's, shorts and sandals; get ready for sweaters, jeans and boots. Sort through your kids' clothing and donate or rotate. Give away items that no longer work; shuffle things around so that fall clothing is more readily accessible. Ditto for closets. Be scrupulous. Regular sifting and sorting prevents painful dredging a few years down the road. Trust me.

Stage: As Ernie took Nick to chemo on Tuesday, I had a "free" day with which to deal with my fall fever. When a girlfriend called that night to check up on me, she was shocked to hear me tell her that I had "staged" my home for fall. Having no idea what I was talking about—-she admitted that her home looked the same all year long-—I explained that I had put away all summer accessories and had brought out those for the fall. Floral arrangements were re-arranged, annuals were replaced with mums, and summer's fresh colors were reinvigorated by autumn's subdued warmth. Mantels and window sills and tabletops were given renewed status for roosters and sunflowers, porcelains and candles. Are you building collections? Use the changing of the seasons as an opportunity to showcase and stage them. Your home needn't look like it fell out of a Ralph Lauren scrapbook or a page in the Orvis fall catalog. But it can be creatively staged to reflect the new season in which we find ourselves.

In short, use these next couple of weeks to get your act together. Allow the crisp, fresh air to invigorate and inspire you to organize your home so that you can lead the creative, energetic life into which you were called.

Carolina Fernandez earned an M.B.A. and worked at IBM and as a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch before coming home to work as a wife and mother of four. She totally re-invented herself along the way. Strong convictions were born about the role of the arts in child development; homeschooling for ten years provided fertile soil for devising creative parenting strategies. These are played out in ROCKET MOM! 7 Strategies To Blast You Into Brilliance. It is available on Amazon.com, in bookstores everywhere, or by calling 888-476-2493. She writes extensively for a variety of parenting resources and teaches other moms via parenting classes and radio and TV interviews. Please visit http://www.rocketmom.com to subscribe to her free ezine and get a weekly shot of inspiration.