The Nightingale: A Book To Keep

Combining history and the stories of two sisters doing what is necessary to survive the horrors of war, The Nightingale held me in its grip from first chapter to the last.  It still does.

As Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale begins,  an elderly woman is packing to leave her home of fifty years to move to an assisted living facility. She opens her old trunk and retrieves an identification card - "Juliette Gervais". Insisting that her son permit her to take the old trunk with her, the woman allows herself to remember her past life during the years of the Nazi occupation of France. Most of the rest of the story is a flashback as the Nazi's take first Paris and then the French countryside.

 

 

Less Is More: Budget Living Room Re-do

If you've been following this blog, you know that I've been helping my sister prepare for retirement by decluttering and updating her newly-empty nest. She's been reorganizing using the KonMari method of keeping only "what sparks joy" in her home. Andi started with a major purge and the determination to "Collect Moments Not Things".

 

 

Now that her home is drastically decluttered, Andi is finally able to see the "bones" of her rooms and decide what she wants to put back, replace, or eliminate completely. This is the fun part!

 

Here's a peek at the newly-decluttered living room and a look at how we re-did it.

 

Oh Canada!

I don't spend all my time organizing and decorating. Camping is pretty important too! We spent the second week of August road-tripping through Down East Maine and New Brunswick, Canada in our little Casita.

We stayed at beautiful Cobscook Bay State Park in Dennysville, Maine. The sites here are huge , wooded, very private, and sit high over the Bay. In fact, the current issue of Down East Magazine lists it as one of Maine's 10 Best State Parks. We agree.

Collect Moments Not Things

“ While you are alive, collect moments not things."   

                                                  ~Aarti Khurana

I've had a great time this year helping friends and family members declutter, reorganize and redecorate their homes. I've always loved to organize (my spices were in alphabetical order long before Fly Lady and Marie Kondo!), never pursued it as a career, but look forward to being asked to help others "spark joy" in their homes.


So far, "The Accidental Organizer" (me!) has had great fun this year helping to "reclaim" the homes of  BFF Mary Elizabeth, niece Katy, and (the current project) my sister, Andi. Andi and her DH both had homes before they were married so the first step was a major decluttering. We had both learned a lot from reading (repeatedly!) The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up and Andi was determined to keep only those items which "sparked joy".