I Don’t Chase the Garbage Truck Down the Street in My Bathrobe Anymore!

A familiar rumbling interrupted my lazy morning as I sipped coffee while reading yesterday's newspaper. Since my husband prefers the pages intact, I wait until morning to read so I can clip articles and recipes.
That rumbling…
Oh, no! It's Wednesday! The garbage truck!
This was not a new thing. Wednesday had been garbage pickup in our community for years. Forgetting to take the canister to the street also was not a new thing.
Not to worry…those fellows always start at the bottom of the hill and back all the way up the street, emptying canisters along the way.
Knowing their mode of operation had saved me time and again. I could roll the trash container to the end of the driveway before they reached my house.
Thank goodness my son left his old loafers right by the door! I slipped into his size tens, flung open the door, and gasped. The truck was nearly out of sight! Those guys had backed up the street and were emptying cans on the way down. Of all times to begin a new routine!
"Wait! Wait!" I clomped through the dewy grass, waving wildly.
The truck stopped. The driver, wearing orange coveralls, gulped from an orange soft-drink can as he looked at me, bemused. Another orange-clad worker dangled from a rear corner of the monster truck.
"Can you wait just one minute? I'll have the can here in one minute!"
"Sorry, ma'am." The driver obviously enjoyed this.
"Pleeeeease!"
Picture begging teary-eyed woman in fuzzy blue bathrobe and over-sized shabby brown loafers.
With no hint of a smile, the burly driver snarled, "We'll be coming up the other street in a few minutes. If you'll take your trash to the corner, we'll pick it up."
The corner? That seventy-five feet stretched five miles! The whole neighborhood would see. Should I protect my pride or empty the trash? An image of the overflowing can in seven more days made the decision.
As discreetly as I could lug a bulging trash can along a gravel driveway and down the paved street, I hurried to the corner. I don't know what the neighbors thought…no one ever mentioned it. But I made a decision that summer morning.
I won't chase the garbage truck down the street in my bathrobe anymore.
After leaving a successful journalism career to be a stay-at-home mom, I continued writing and speaking for women's events while giving my family priority. Trying to balance simultaneous roles—wife, mother, caregiver, mentor to young wives, writer, and conference speaker—I found myself being swept along by life, grasping for a rope, and crying for help to survive the swirling current. I craved organization and prayed for it, throwing my need at Jesus' feet. Lord, you promised, "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." If you help me get organized, it would be a great and unsearchable thing! (See Jeremiah 33:3.)
The Lord honored my desperate prayer, teaching me how to organize for the maximum life and giving me an opportunity through my speaking and mentoring ministry to teach other women to be "keepers at home" (Titus 2:5).
It's exciting to share my success with a broader audience because seldom does someone drowning in disorganization write such a book. Being pack rats and procrastinators, we're buried under our stuff and stalled by our good intentions. We have trouble implementing suggestions from organization experts because we aren't organized enough to make their solutions work.
Surveying seventy-five friends in sixteen states from Pennsylvania to Hawaii confirmed my suspicion that some people were organized at birth. These successful women—single, married, widowed—range in age from young adults to grandmothers, and they represent diverse backgrounds. They’re professionals in education, finance, science, medicine, environment, religion, technology, business, and family life.
University professors, counselors, bankers, teachers, nurses, physical therapists, dance instructors, authors, computer software experts, hair design specialists, flight attendants, administrative assistants, pastors’ wives, stay-at-home moms molding the lives of as many as seven children, health scientists, and business executives in assorted fields—my friends share one struggle: staying organized. From their responses I’ve identified four degrees of organization.
Category 1: Born that way and sailing smoothly.
Category 2: Learned to stay afloat in the riptide.
Category 3: Struggling to keep my head above water.
Category 4: Help! I'm drowning! Throw me a rope!
If these categories seem to parallel hurricane ratings, that's appropriate. For drowning category fours like me, life and home resemble a hurricane aftermath. Understanding five factors that contribute to disorganization encouraged me:
• Pack rat’s tendency to hoard
• Too much good stuff
• Too little storage space
• Too much to do
• Personality
Each chapter, along with my personal experience, includes a brief sidebar, "The organized in their own words" offering suggestions such as purge, give away, throw away, donate, simplify.
I hope the book title made you smile. I pray these pages inspire you to make changes that bring tranquility to your home, contentment to your soul, and glory to your Heavenly Father as you achieve a lifestyle of orderliness.