The Virtues of Being Lazy

I know, I know, probably half of you are cringing at the very thought that laziness could be anything other than evil incarnate, but I posit that it's actually a magical key towards easy and organized living. Why? Because if we're not organized, then we're either the type who is always doing too much, or we suffer from trying to make organizing harder than it has to be, or we're just so exhausted we don't have the energy to do anything but throw the mail on the dining room table and collapse in front of the television when we get home. The answer? Lazy solutions. Sure you can call them easy or simple, but lazy is more fun. It's summertime, tailormade for lazy days, so it's time to give lazy the positive spin it's always deserved. 

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Happy 4th of July!

As I type this I am outside enjoying the great outdoors, sitting in a plastic chair sweating. It's almost unbearable and it's what I imagine India to feeling like on a sweltering day. I wish someone would invent a type of air conditioning that would let you enjoy the outdoors on a hot summer day without all of the hot part — the reverse of the heat lamps Parisian brasseries use for their outdoor patios in the winter. But for now I'll just take mini breaks inside with existing air conditioning technology. Someone once told me Life Should Be Easy and so it is as I've written today's PixieTip. What? You were expecting an actual PixieTip?? God bless America and also whoever invented good old fashioned air conditioning. 

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Easy Summer Meal Ideas

Summer is a time when nobody (regardless of personality type) wants to slave over a stove for long but rather enjoy a beautiful day & the company they keep. So I've got a few ideas, stolen from people with actual culinary talents, to make this a reality. First up is Martha Stewart Living's Speedy and Silky Mac and Cheese from her May issue. Quick, easy and I had all of the ingredients in my very pantry except one and of my Kraft Mac n Cheese loving kids (& husband) devoured it. Read on for the recipe plus a few small dish ideas. 

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Ingenious Beach Cover-Up Idea

I'm featuring a cool idea I saw in Martha Stewart's Living June issue. What can I say? It's summer and I'm working on homework our agent gave us for our book proposal, my well is dry. I love looking at Martha's calendar in the front of the magazine to see how she fits in time to visit all of her sundry homes; it's good to be Martha. But yet I digress. This tip has Organic Structure plus a few Classics and Funs written all over it. This is because the only way to implement her idea is if you already have a key sewing tool on hand. I have yet to meet a Smart who is an avid sewer. But write me and tell me about it if you're a Smart who is a member of a quilting bee somewhere.

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Shopping List Central

After six weeks of painful recovery from abdominal surgery, I'm finally beginning to feel like myself, or enough like myself to be able to give my long suffering sister a break. I've also been recovering in other people's houses, the better for my mom to take care of me and the better for me to do first hand anthropological personality type research. It's been a crash course in the big differences between Classic and Organic homes and I'm here to dish the dirt, or the lack of dirt as the case may be. The first thing I noticed in the difference between the two households — probably because this is what I seem to care most about when I'm in pain — was how my caregivers kept track of my comfort food supply.

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