Take time daily to be alone with yourself, away from phones, the Internet and noise. Making time for solitude is a gift you give yourself. Insist on it, and don’t allow anyone, including yourself, to talk you out of it. It's enlightened selfishness and it's a very spiritual way to love yourself. Until your are feeling good about yourself, you can't feel good about others.

Here are six healthy benefits of quiet time.

1. Lighten Up

In a stressed state, it’s so easy to snap at the kids, the pets and your beloved; and then you feel guilty for "losing" it. You love it when you are compassionate and kind. In a relaxed state it's so easy to have a clear mind and connect with a deeper sense of purpose and good.

Meditation and medication are derived from the Latin word medicus, to care or to cure. A time of quiet calmness is, therefore, the most effective remedy for a busy and overworked mind. Anytime you feel antsy and headed into overwhelm, just focus on your breathing and quietly repeat with each in-and-out breath: Breathing in, Calm down, you're okay; breathing out, All is well. (Because you are and it is.)

2. Let Go

Love is always there between the thoughts, behind the drama, underneath the noise. What keeps us from experiencing our natural state of peace is the habitual and ego-dominated monkey mind. Meditation enables us to see clearly, to witness our thoughts and behavior and reduce self-involvement. Without such a practice of self-reflection there’s no way of putting a brake on the ego’s demands. From being self-centered, we can become other-centered, concerned about the welfare of all.

3. Gratitude

Take a moment to appreciate the chair you’re sitting on. Consider how the chair was made: the wood, cotton, wool, or other fibers, the trees and plants that were used, the earth that grew the trees, the sun and rain, the animals that maybe gave their lives, the people who prepared the materials, the factory where the chair was made, the designer and carpenter and seamstress, the shop that sold it—all this just so you could be sitting here, now. Then extend that deep appreciation to everything and everyone in your life.

Sometimes things can get a little hectic on Thanksgiving, especially if the gathering is at your house. Here's a grand idea using children's imaginations to keep them busy for an hour or so before the festive meal is served. All you need is a sheet, some butcher paper (or newspapers) and marker pens and you'll see what can happen in your home. Watch this short video clip and let your little artists take over.

Are you married to or friends with a BO (Born Organized) person? If you know some, you know they love deadlines. A SHE (Sidetracked Home Executive) tends to look cross-eyed at them. It's interesting that the word dead is in the word deadline, because deadlines can sap the spontaneity right out of life, especially when you make them and don't meet them. The House Fairy took two years to create and because of the creator (me) who is a SHE, it was done without deadlines.

We  recently launched our new website www.cluborganized.com which was slated to be live on January 1, 2015 and it just went live last month. It's my fault, because I live in a SHE time zone and I'm more concerned with enjoying life and less with some man-made deadline. 

This morning my husband and I had what I'll call a SHE-BO clash! I was playing in my kitchen making chili when he came in and said, “It’s been a week since you said you’d have the text for the Club Organized Manual edited and you didn’t work on it this weekend, and now Christmas is looming and we’ll be pushing it into next year, if we don’t get busy!” (We SHEs need to be very careful throwing around promises in front of BOs.)

Hmmm, can this marriage be saved?

Hey Mom, no one in your home is going to say, “Oh Mom, thank you for making dinner, doing my laundry and vacuuming the family room!” If one of them ever did, you’d be inclined to take his or her temperature.

Spouses may let out a few “hmmmms and ahhhhhs” over the salmon you barbequed, but most of the work involved in running a successful home goes without much thanks -- to include pay. So, Mama, champion of doing the thankless household tasks, here are some thankful thoughts you can think so while doing thankless work you’ll enjoy it.

 1. Laundry

As you fold each garment of your precious family’s clothing, bless those people and think about when you first met them. Be thankful your family has clothing and that you’re not all running around naked. Be thankful for your appliances and the fact that you don’t have to drag your hamper down to the river and wash stuff on one of those board deals.

 2. Dishes

As you wash the dishes, be thankful for hot, running water. Just think, you and your family don’t have to eat straight off the table with your hands, because you are civilized, you have good table manners, plates, glasses and silverware.

Look closely at the suds and see the beautiful colors in the little bubbles and be thankful you can see. I remember my mother being reduced to tears reading a true story about a woman who’d been blind her entire life and with a surgery was able to see. She wrote about the beauty of bubbles.

You probably don’t need anyone to talk you into getting your rest during this holiday season, but I decided to give it a shot on this video clip anyway,  Hey just maybe you'll fall asleep listening to me go on and on about getting your sleep.