r u l y

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and that you are refreshed after a four-day weekend.  This is the time of year when life gets so busy that months flash by in seconds.  I can hardly believe we are at the end of November!

As it is the end of the month, it is time to recap what happened in November at beruly.com.

November’s focus was on food and eating.  First, we issued the Ruly Challenge to eat from your fridge and pantry stores and clean out your fridge and pantry shelves.  I must confess that I am still working on this challenge and will be cleaning out my fridge and pantry this evening.  I hope that this challenge was as valuable to you as it was to me.  There were many things I needed to be reminded of about our relationship with food, including:

• Cooking at home is as much about time as it is about money.  When I forced myself to eat at home, even on the weekends, I realized how often we eat out!  Fast food and restaurants are a frugal woman’s personal chef.  When I am planning my next grocery list, I will factor in fewer groceries to account for the times we just don’t want to eat at home.
• Although it is often cheaper to eat at home, restaurants do provide incredible quality for the price and, for the restaurants we frequent, it would probably cost us more to purchase the ingredients to reproduce restaurant meals at home than to eat out.
• I seem to purchase a lot of food that I hope I will eat because it is healthy but I don’t actually want to cook or eat.  I still have a bag of frozen scallops, several varieties of exotic rices, pancake and biscuit mix and frozen fruit left to eat.  Even though I am not eating them, it seems that I keep buying them in the hopes that maybe I will eat it if I just have more of it around!  Now that I have forced myself to eat these foods and appreciate how difficult some of them are to prepare, I will be less inclined to make impulse buys of them in the future.
• Forcing myself to eat my stores of healthy food, however, has also helped me to shake up my regular eating patterns.  I have learned to expand my range of cooking and am not as dependent on frozen or quick-to-prepare foods.
• I completely take for granted the availability of fresh, crisp produce available in all seasons of the year at the grocery store.  After eating canned vegetables for weeks, I am excited to do my December produce shopping for crisp cucumbers, fresh tomatoes and lettuce.
• One of the side benefits of having a lean fridge is that you are party-ready.  Entertaining requires a lot of fridge space for platters of food, beverages to chill, etc.  When it was time to prep for my daughter’s birthday party, we had no problem squeezing in the food we needed for the event.
• Modern American life offers few opportunities to feel deprivation.  If there is something we want, we generally buy it in a relatively short time period.  We don’t spend time longing for things.  Eating at home every day, denying yourself the pleasure of your favorite foods or restaurants, does make you feel deprived.  I often had to remind myself that for us this was a temporary experiment but for many families this is reality.  Comparing our average monthly expenses for groceries and restaurant meals to the USDA Cost of Food at Home budget shows that we generally subsist beyond the “Liberal” plan.  This was our chance to understand what the “Thrifty” budget means.
• While I generally thought that we didn’t have much “fat” in our grocery and dining budget and we aren’t generally extravagant in these expenses, we saved approximately $600 this month by eating at home!   It is a great boost going into the holiday season and also valuable to know that if we ever had to, we could stretch our budget in this area.

We also looked at organizational strategies used by restaurants and grocery stores and applied these strategies for use at home.  We poked some fun at the office fridge and discussed emergency food storage strategies.  I am still working on my emergency food storage list as I decided to taste test some of the items before buying a lot of them but my local grocery store had some great finds.  Soon, I will provide a bonus post with my list.

In addition to our food entries, we reviewed the 2010 IKEA Catalog, discussed the benefits of disorder presented in “A Perfect Mess,” and reviewed news stories related to organization.

November was also the debut of Ruly Ruth who provided insight on how to honor and remember our veterans.

Phew!  I hope you enjoyed November’s posts.  The comments and feedback posted were excellent.  We will continue to discuss food and eating strategies periodically.

On Wednesday, I will preview December’s posts.  Given the busy-ness of the holiday season, I will keep things light and promise not to add to your stress.  Type to you then!  Have a great week!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day in America and typically this is the day to write a note about what we are thankful for.  Yesterday, I attended my daughter’s preschool class celebration of Thanksgiving where each child had on either a pilgrim or Native American headdress and sat down to a mini-Thanksgiving meal of turkey, corn, mashed potatoes, rolls and cranberry sauce (oh, and their favorite part, brownies, because none of them like pumpkin pie).

In preparation for this post, and knowing that many people might have a hard time being thankful this Thanksgiving due to the difficulties of this economy, I wanted to know a little bit about what it was like for those original pilgrims and Indians.  The story, it turns out, is quite interesting and much different than the version I was taught.  While I am no historian, the Thanksgiving version below was cobbled together from Wikipedia entries on Thanksgiving and the Plymouth Colony as well as this children’s educational presentation from Plimouth Plantation.

In 1620, a mixed group of 102 passengers set sail for modern day America aboard The Mayflower.  Of the 70 adults on board, 27 were religious “Pilgrims” seeking freedom from religious persecution and 43 were “Strangers,” i.e. people hired by the financial backers of the venture to govern the colony and provide for its defense.  When they finally landed in modern day Massachusetts, they faced a difficult winter.  Many of them continued to live on board the ship while some began to build houses.  45 people (almost half) died that first winter from either disease or the difficult living conditions.

That spring, the colonists met Samoset, a Native American from the Abenaki tribe who had learned English from his encounters with English fishermen off the coast of Maine.  Samoset introduced them to Squanto, a Native American from the Patuxet tribe who had been previously captured by the English and taken as a slave to live in Europe.  Squanto learned English well and managed to return to America as a guide for another colonial expedition.  Squanto taught the colonists basic survival skills, including how to plant corn.  Squanto also served as interpreter for the colonists interactions with Massasoit, the grand sachem of the seven Wampanoag sachems (tribes) in the area.

The relationship between the Plymouth Bay settlers and the Wampanoag was a tense one.  The English colonists offended their Native American neighbors with unprovoked killings and by stealing their corn rations, disturbing graves, and manipulating land sales.  The Wampanoag, through Massasoit, negotiated a peace settlement.  Massasoit wasn’t necessarily thrilled with the colonists but the Wampanoag numbers had been decimated by smallpox and an alliance with the English would help the Wampanoag fend off attacks from neighboring tribes.

In the fall of 1621, Governor William Bradford called for three days of celebration and military displays in light of the fair harvest they had obtained (due to Squanto’s help).  The 53 colonists complied with this request.  At some point, Massasoit and 90 members of the Wampanoag tribe arrived to join the celebration.  (It is not clear whether they were invited or just crashed the party.)  The Wampanoag brought five deer for the feasting and the colonists provided fowl, fish and corn.   It is not known whether there was any interaction between the Wampanoag and the colonists other than through food, games and firing off weapons.  There were only four adult women colonists still alive at this point so they were either working madly to entertain 143 people for three days or they just sat back and watched this masculine festival.  It was never called “Thanksgiving” which was the name of a specific Pilgrim religious service.  Squanto, who might be given credit for the fact that the first “Thanksgiving” ever occurred, died a year later and it is not clear whether he might have been poisoned by Native Americans who mistrusted him.

In 1777, the Continental Congress called for a national day of Thanksgiving to celebrate the American victory in the Revolutionary War.  For unknown reasons they picked a Thursday in December.  National days of Thanksgiving were proclaimed by various Presidents, although not necessarily on an annual basis, and typically in response to military victories.  Some states also marked Thanksgiving on varying days of the year.  In 1863, President Lincoln declared the first recurring national day of Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November at the suggestion of the editor of a national women’s magazine.

After this research, it is not entirely clear to me exactly what we are celebrating on Thanksgiving!  The theme through all of its incarnations, however, is likely the endurance of the human spirit and the ability to appreciate small successes and look forward toward a brighter future after difficult times.  That message resonates this year perhaps more than most.  There is so much negativity in the news today and if you read the news regularly, it is easy to become fearful and depressed.  Our troubles today perhaps are small compared to those faced by people in the past, but can seem insurmountable.

Taking time to find and appreciate the small points of light in our lives is important.  Yesterday evening, I had the privilege to reflect on this point when my neighbors hosted a gathering and impromptu concert by a young opera talent.  An opportunity like this is quite rare and my neighbors recognized this.  Even though my neighbors are hosting Thanksgiving for their own friends and family tomorrow and will have a house full of people, they made the time to organize the event for the neighborhood and prepare a beautiful dinner for 20+ guests!  Neighbors took time from their own busy lives to attend, some even getting formally dressed for the occasion.  The opera singer struggled through hours of traffic on I-95 to make it.  When she sang, her beautiful voice filled the whole house and instantly captivated all of us, including my two squirmy young children.  Hearing her voice was incredibly inspirational and it was exciting to know that this young woman was sure to go on to many great performances, including a performance tonight at the Kennedy Center.  The whole evening was a reminder that the future holds great promise but that we also need to make time to remember and celebrate that promise.

This Thanksgiving weekend, I hope you make time to discover and remember something that makes you hopeful for the future.  As for Ruly, I am grateful and thankful for my wonderful readers who energize and challenge me.  Your support keeps me going!

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!  Due to the holiday, there will be no post this Friday but I will be back again on Monday.

It has been another great month for organizing news.  Highlights from this month’s news stories:

Recession Eating Trends

A recent MarketWatch story indicates that the recession is taking its toll on our waistlines.  As  we are driven to economize, we are buying heat-and-eat meals from the grocery store that are significantly less healthy for us than the restaurant meals we previously consumed.   The article provides some suggestions to eat healthy at home.

Clean Spouses Versus Messy Spouses

This great article from the Wall Street Journal provides a hilarious but disturbing look at the tensions that arise in a marriage when one spouse is tidy and the other is messy.  You will not believe the antics when the messy spouses rebel! 

More Twitter Angst

Following up on last month’s news summary about organizing your communications on social networking sites, Therese Poletti at MarketWatch discusses the sad state of affairs when your real-life friends are not also your social networking friends:

After one month, I have five followers. My friends don’t even follow me. But some of them want me to follow them, of course, and sent me e-mails that they were looking for me on Twitter. So I followed them, and got nothing back. The publisher of my book isn’t even following me.

Is this bumming me out? Um, yes, a little bit.

–Therese Poletti, “What if Your Friends Won’t Follow You on Twitter,” MarketWatch, November 12, 2009

Brain Capacity

If you have ever felt that your brain is so full of information that you need to forget some information in order to fit more in, it turns out that your instinct is right.  U.S. News and World Report reports on New scientific research from the University of Toyama in Japan that shows that it is possible to fill up your short-term memory.  When your short-term memory is at capacity, the brain has to transfer the information to other parts of the brain and erase it from short-term memory in order to fit in more new information.  The research also shows that exercise might help to increase your brain capacity.

Dustology

NPR profiled a story about research on dust that might motivate us all to vacuum and dust regularly.   

One thing that’s remarkable about dust is that it sticks around. Without vacuuming, [Andrea Ferro of Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.] says, it can stick around for a long time. . . “We’re finding things like [the pesticide] DDT in many floor dust samples,” says Ferro. “We banned that decades ago, but it’s still there.”

Type to you on Wednesday!  For my American readers, I hope you enjoy a short workweek this week and safe travels to your Thanksgiving destinations.

When I tell people I am an organizational consultant, one of the first and most common reactions I receive is an embarrassed confession that someone is disorganized.  We have been conditioned to expect neatness from ourselves and others and the failure to achieve true neatness leads to profound feelings of shame or inadequacy.  One of my primary motivations for founding Ruly was to challenge traditional thinking on organization.  I don’t believe that we all need to be compulsively tidy or that our lives need to exist in perfection.  When I see a messy home or office, the first thought that runs through my head is not a negative one about how disorganized or dysfunctional the person must be.  Rather, I am thinking about the good and best attributes of the person and figuring out how the back end systems the person currently has support those best attributes and how I can add to and improve upon what is already there.  There is not one universal “system” that is going to work for everyone but sometimes people do need a core set of ideas to start with in order to build a system that functions for them.

This month’s Ruly Bookshelf choice is a work that challenges traditional notions of organization.  “A Perfect Mess” subtitled “The Hidden Benefits of Disorder: How crammed closets, cluttered offices, and on the fly planning make the world a better place” by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman gives voice to the millions of us who are naturally messy.    Is that such a bad thing?  Abrahamson and Freedman argue no.  While they admit that there is a limit of messiness (just as there is a limit of cleanliness), a little mess can be a good idea.

“The truth is, we are all at least a bit of a mess — and all the more interesting for it.”

–Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman, A Perfect Mess

Abrahamson and Freedman argue that there are six key benefits of messiness:

1. flexibility
2. completeness
3. resonance (i.e. being in tune with the outside world and our constantly changing environment)
4. invention
5. efficiency (i.e. it takes time to properly organize things and one system of organization will be a time-waster to at least someone who does not categorize their own thinking in the same way as the system)
6. robustness (i.e. messy systems have an easier time coping with unusual objects, concepts or thinking, whereas neat systems try to change those items to fit a predefined category or eject them from the system)

The book then details interesting examples from a variety of sources, including business, science, art, politics, and language showing how some of the greatest achievements have been made as a result of an exposure to a random idea, a chance encounter, a novel way of thinking.  Abrahamson and Freedman argue that constraining processes and thoughts into highly ordered systems squelches this type of innovation.

The book profiles businesses like Harvey’s Hardware that stocks an infinite variety of hardware implements in a completely haphazard fashion essentially requiring that customers ask for help from one of their knowledgeable clerks.  “[W]hat the store excels at is providing an opportunity to find what you aren’t looking for.”  Similarly, the book has praise for search engine “BananaSlug” that inserts a random word (like “poodle”) into your search terms in order to provide you with a set of results that is both relevant and thought provoking.

Like all organizational systems, however, the hypothesis is not entirely perfect.  The book was published in 2006.  Some of the business profiled for their innovation have since failed, such as DayJet (a system for scheduling plane flights to smaller cities for business travelers based on unpredictable scheduling) which ceased operating September 19, 2008.  The author also contrasts the fluid management style of Microsoft and the success of Xbox 360  with the “fastidious, turtleneck-only control freak” management style of Steve Jobs.   While he acknowledges that “Apple finally scored a large hit with the iPod,” he tries to end on a sour note stating “by early 2006 analysts were predicting the iPod would soon be losing market share.”  There is clearly room for business success for both “clean” and “messy” management styles.

The book makes the case as well as I have ever seen it made that messy people are not disasters but rather creatively organized.  A messy person can be very functional, efficient and sucessful.  I have met many people like this.  However, even messy people have room for improvement. Just as obsessively tidy people may be missing out on detail, nuance and flexibility, obsessively messy people may be missing out on opportunities to expand their opportunities for achievement through introduction of more discipline.

This book is beautifully written and an interesting read.  I have three pages of quotations written down that I love from this book but I will restrict myself to just a few of my favorites.

“There is an optimal level of mess for any aspect of every system.”

“Office messiness tends to increase sharply with increasing education, increasing salary and increasing experience.”

“Many of us are already operating at a more-or-less appropriate level of mess but labor under the mistaken belief that we’re failing in some way because of it.”

“Our brains evolved to function in a messy world, and sometimes when we insist on thinking in neat, orderly ways, we’re really holding back our minds from doing what they do best.”

“Even though you can’t count on serendipity, it’s more likely to find those who are open to disorder.”

“It we were always good at recognizing our powerlessness to control randomness– that is, if we fully accepted how disordered the world is — we might too often become paralyzed by indecision or hopelesness.  Being quick to imagine that we can assert order and improve the odds to a greater degree than we actually can is what often inspires us to act boldly.”

This book is appropriate for a variety of audiences, including a tidy person who is trying to understand a messy spouse or child and a messy person who needs some validation and support.  Some of the business information could use a little updating but it is also an interesting snapshot in time of 2006.  I encourage you to experience it for yourself.

Have a messy weekend!

When I first announced the Ruly Challenge for this month, one of the first private comments I received was a question about emergency food storage. Food is, of course, necessary for survival and getting rid of your food supply can trigger a sense of unease. Many sources recommend that we store extra food in case of emergencies. The problem is that there is not much specific guidance about what to store, where and how much.

Ready.gov suggests a minimum of a 3-day supply of non-perishable food that requires little to no preparation and is not salty. They provide a partial list of items like dried fruit and nuts but leaves the advice generic, “Choose foods your family will eat.”

The book, “SAS Survival Handbook: For Any Climate in Any Situation,” by John “Lofty” Wiseman, gives some general guidelines about how to store food (cool location, place not vulnerable to flooding, hurricanes or whatever disaster you are likely to experience) but also advises that “choice of foods will depend upon individual taste.” The book also makes the point that food does not have unlimited shelf life so whatever goods you plan to store, you need to be eating them and purchasing new on a regular basis. It also advises that you store multivitamins to ensure you are getting proper nutrition.

“[T]he main elements required for survival are food, fire, shelter and water. . . Food is rarely the first priority. Even in those places where it is difficult to find there are usually other problems to face first. . . . A person can survive for 3 weeks without food but for only three days without water. . . .”

–John “Lofty” Wiseman, SAS Survival Handbook

The book, “Be Alert, Be Aware, Have a Plan,” by Neal Rawls, devotes just one partial page to food storage and the advice is similarly vague:

“Emergency food should consist of items that store easily and have a long shelf life. Better yet, consider foods you have around the house all the time and consume and replace regularly. I’ve never stashed away canned meats or other strange items I don’t ordinarily eat. I figure if a disaster strikes, why force myself to eat lousy food?”

–Neal Rawls, Be Alert, Be Aware, Have a Plan

The book, “Americans at Risk: Why We Are Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now,” by Irwin Redlener, does not discuss food storage at all! The number one item on his “Eight Principles of Citizen Preparedness” is:

1. Stay healthy and fit. I cannot emphasize this enough. In a serious emergency, people need a good reserve of physical and mental strength to cope. Boarding up windows or moving belongings to a safe place in a short period of time may be physically demanding. Escaping from a dangerous situation may be physically and mentally taxing.

–Irwin Redlener, Americans at Risk

Mr. Redlener does reference the National Center for Disaster Preparedness which advises in its “Model for Disaster Preparedness” that the most important food storage tip is to make sure you are storing plenty of drinkable water. As for food:

“[M]ost adults can survive without food for weeks . . . . There is no accepted standard of how much food to stockpile, or what type to have. You must decide.”

–Model for Disaster Prepareness, National Center for Disaster Preparedness

Growing up in my home state of Utah, I would be remiss if I did not also include a reference to the emergency food storage practices developed by the LDS (Mormon) church. The Mormons have long advised their members to store food. It appears the current guideline is 1 year(!) of food storage. lds.about.com provides a food storage calculator here where you plug in the number of adults and children you are storing for and it spits out a list of staples needed for 1 year of food storage.  The LDS food storage guidelines, however, seem best suited for someone who is not concerned about portability of food. If you have to evacuate, hauling around sheaves of wheat or large sacks of sugar will probably not be possible.

From my experience this month eating my fridge and pantry stores, I realize that it does not take much extra food to develop a stockpile. I had at least 15 days worth of food for our family without even purchasing anything additional! (By the way, we are still going strong but the supplies are dwindling. We have a ton of pancake mix to get through though. Flapjacks or waffles, anyone?)

Based on the disaster preparedness recommendations above, I think it is reasonable for our family to start storing approximately one month’s worth of portable food. Any more than that and I worry about the burden of monitoring the food supply and preventing it from going bad. In a true survival situation, we could probably stretch out this supply for at least three months if we didn’t eat every day or just ate one meal a day. If we also store a survival book with our food supply, we could learn how to hunt animals and birds or forage for plants to get us by a little longer.

So, what to store? My only experience in a disaster/survival situation was during Hurricane Isabel in 2003. During that hurricane, we lost power for about three days, which meant that we also lost water for three days since we are on an electric well system. Fortunately, the natural gas supply lines were not cut so we could still cook on our gas stove. We ate spaghetti at least once. Since the power was out, the fridge and freezer could be opened only rarely to maximize the cooling capabilities for the items inside. Most of that food went bad and had to be tossed. Several very large trees came down in our neighborhood blocking roads so the advice about being physically fit is appropriate. It takes a lot of strength to operate a chainsaw and haul even small parts of large tree branches. Even if a road was cleared, there was not much point in driving since all of the stores and restaurants were closed due to lack of power. Also, you had to conserve your gas since the gas stations were also without power and there was no gasoline to be had. After a day and a half sitting in the dark at home, fetching water from the stores in the bathtub and hot water heater, we got in the car and headed to Ruth’s house who, fortunately, had not been affected by the storm. Not much of a “survival” story but it was a good taste of the modern life concerns you have to cope with in an emergency.

Ruly’s emergency food supply list will be based on some basic meal ideas (cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, spaghetti, tuna fish sandwiches, etc.) for one month and the non-perishable (but routinely edible) supplies needed. I will post the list here at beruly.com later in the month if you want to use it as a guide for your own planning.

Although it was disappointing to learn that even the experts are not any better at food storage than the average person, it is also comforting to know that if you feel disorganized about your food storage methods, so does everyone else! Here’s hoping we can inject a little Ruly-ness to address this problem.

Have a disaster story to share? A survival tip? Comments are welcome.

A little slice of heaven arrived in the mail this weekend . . . the 2010 IKEA Catalog! If you have never had the pleasure, the IKEA Catalog is part shopping guide, part art exhibition and 100% inspiration. The products, as always, are stylish, practical and affordable and the example interiors are chic, clean and dream-like.

In the Washington, D.C. area, IKEA is an institution and nearly everyone I know has at least one IKEA product in their home. IKEA is a particular draw in our area because it has always offered stylish, Scandinavian-style, assemble-it-yourself, furniture at an affordable price (before stores like Target got in on the act). IKEA is a godsend for those who have recently moved to the Washington area and are experiencing their first taste of “sticker shock” at our high housing costs–particularly college students, recent grads and young families. IKEA is also a draw for our area’s international population and often the shopping experience is like attending a United Nations home design conference. It is not unusual for me to find actual Swedes shopping in our local IKEA.

As I go through the Catalog, I like to imagine what life would be like in these gorgeous spaces.

How relaxing would it be to shower and get ready in the zen-like GODMORGON bathroom on page 198?

I could easily be best friends with the cool crafter living in the living/dining room combination on pages 94-95. Who else has their knitting yarn and needles stored fruit-bowl like, their fabric yardage hanging from towel racks on the living room wall and a pincushion at the ready on the dining room table?

Would the kids in the gorgeous white living room with children’s art corner on pages 10-11, really keep their chalk for the blackboard wall confined to the corner or would it end up all over the white sofa?

Would the fashionista living in the open closet bedroom design on page 174 really keep it that tidy all the time? And where does she stash her running shoes, underwear and jeans? Has she really managed to fit them all in the two small drawers and the hatboxes?

In addition to my make-believe exercises, I also take a hard look at the organizing products in the Catalog as well. Some of the new IKEA products for 2010 that I find intriguing are:

• Book/magazine rails for the BILLY bookcase system.
  The BILLY bookcase system is celebrating its 30^th anniversary this year and is the subject of an upcoming book launching January 2010.  If you have never heard of it before, BILLY is one of IKEA’s classic products. At its core, it is just a basic bookshelf with height-adjustable shelves.  The great thing about BILLY, however, is that you can order it in multiple sizes that you can combine together to make wall units or entertainment centers or add on accessories like glass doors, shelf inserts and now, a book/magazine rack!

  The book/magazine rails are not listed on the IKEA website yet but you can see a picture here. (Click on “About.” The magazine rack is on the third shelf from the bottom in the wide bookcase.) These racks would be a great way to either display your current books or magazines to remind you to read them or maybe give your bookcase a little flair by using it to display a small painting.

• RATIONELL waste sorting bin
  In line with IKEA’s commitment to the environment, they are introducing a new recycling bin with folding handles.  You can use the bin with their AKURUM kitchen cabinet system and create a great under-counter recycling station that keeps your recyclables easy to access but out of sight.




• HEMNES twin day-bed frame with two drawers
  I wish this product had been around when I was shopping for a toddler bed for my daughter. I love the storage drawers underneath and the fact that this fits a regular twin mattress. It could also easily be used as a guest bed if you ever need to use your nursery as a space for visiting guests.




• HEMNES shoe cabinet with 4 compartments
  This great shoe cabinet unit has 4 tilt-drawers and a narrow profile, great for storing all the shoes that pile up near the entrances and exits to your home. The flat surface on top provides more storage spots for outgoing mail, library books to return, or other items.

I am looking forward to visiting our local IKEA near the holidays. Their holiday decorations are always unique and fun and it is great to admire them from the cafe over a plate of Swedish meatballs with lingonberry jam.

Do you have an IKEA assembly story to share? How about a favorite IKEA product name? I am typing this to you from the light of a SNABEL. Hope you have some fun of your own perusing the 2010 IKEA Catalog. Wishing you an inspired week!

There are few issues in a business office that involve as many politics as the shared office refrigerator.  Naturally, we treat lunches and snacks very personally and when we leave our food somewhere for safekeeping, we want to find it safe and fresh when we come back to it.  It brings a distinct sense of unease to find your sustenance moved, tampered with or otherwise disturbed.

The most common problems with the office refrigerator are overcrowding, stolen lunches, forgotten food left to rot and assigning responsibility to some unlucky soul to periodically clean out the office fridge–one of the most thankless and awful tasks.

Of course it also doesn’t help things that we are all bringing with us our own hangups about food and eating into the mix.  Dietary restrictions, food snobbery, calorie counting, secretive eating, allergies, cleanliness routines…you name it and someone in your office has an opinion on the matter.  The office itself may cause our eating behaviors to become more bizarre.  Once we are in a shared food environment, primal survival instincts are triggered and we become supremely intolerant and compulsive.  Or, some may be trying to put on a front of good eating habits to appear more conscious of nutrition and calories in an attempt to enhance their professional image.

If you need a lift for your Friday, try not to laugh as you read these true articles related to food in the office:

• Office refrigerator packs punch, stench sends seven to the hospital (CNN, May 13, 2009)
• The Half-Donut Bandit
• Popcorn Thursday
• “Smelly Food”
• Synagogue Fridge
• Diet Coke Jesus
• Elementary School Ice Cream Devil
• Disgruntled Fridge Cleanout Victim
• You Clean It!

So what can you do about the office fridge?  At the risk of creating a passive agressive note of my own, here are some Ruly suggestions.

1. Each person using the fridge should store lunch for only one day’s worth of food at a time.  Excess food will be considered open for sharing with the rest of the office.
2. At the end of the week (or day), everything in the fridge and freezer gets tossed and the fridge is cleaned.  The tossing should occur, however, well after working hours have concluded, preferably during the late evening or on a weekend.  You don’t want to toss dinner for someone working late.  Once employees learn that this policy is ruthlessly enforced, they will learn quickly to take care of their food or pack it in disposable containers they don’t mind losing.
3. Include cleaning of the office fridge in your company’s janitorial/housekeeping contract.  Avoid assigning this task to an employee who does not have janitorial responsbilities as part of their job description unless you really want to destroy their morale.  Alternatively, offer additional compensation for the person who “volunteers” to clean out the fridge.
4. If you have enough space, consider designating one space in the fridge for shared food and mark it with a colored shelf or label.  This is where you can put leftovers from meetings or extra portions from lunch.  Note that catered, perishable food should not be kept out for more than 2 hours from serving.  Put leftover catering in the shared spot in the fridge and leave a note on the kitchen counter rather than leaving it out.

Keep smiling and enjoy your fridge and your weekend!

Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and

Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; . . .

–June 4, 1926, Concurrent Resolution of the U.S. Congress establishing Armistice Day, reprinted at “History of Veterans Day,” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs

Today is Veterans Day in the United States– a sobering day to reflect on the sacrifices made by many for the cause of freedom and to reaffirm our commitment to world peace.  Ruly joins the nation in remembering soldiers who have lost their lives in conflicts recent and past and those who have made and continue to make sacrifices large and small to serve in our armed forces.

Ruly also recognizes the spouses and family members of those serving in the military whose own “service” to the nation supporting our military is as important.  Today, Ruly announces a new monthly feature, “Ruly Ruth.”

Ruth is the spouse of a military service member and is perhaps the most social person I know.  She is a classic extrovert and makes friends everywhere she goes.  Ruth is also one of the most energetic people you will ever meet and is impossible to forget.  I am proud to claim her as my sister.  Ruth’s role here at beruly.com is to share tips and advice on bringing order to your social interactions.  We will toss her the tough questions about difficult social situations from a personal and business perspective.  She will share experience gained from the working world (as a former mining engineer and an MBA), from her life traveling the country as a military spouse and as a mother of two young children.

Today, in honor of Veteran’s Day, I asked Ruth to share with us some of her insights as a military spouse as well as tips for how we can honor and remember our veterans.

There ought to be a boot camp for military spouses.  Being a military spouse requires physical, mental and emotional toughness.  I can just see the challenges now….alone, with two children in tow, your assignment is to: 1) fix the car, 2) handle a medical crisis involving you or one of your children, 3) dispose of a dead bird, mouse and iguana in your home (or call the neighbors in a screeching voice and beg them to do it for you), 4) volunteer to watch your neighbor’s children (you owe them for the extermination services), 5) bake cookies for a school or military social event, and 6) serve as the communications hub for your spouse, your family, your spouse’s family, your friends and neighbors and other military families. As they say in the military spouse world, as soon as the service member leaves (whether on wartime deployments or peacetime training exercises), that’s when everything falls apart—and usually within the first 3 weeks!

Of course, the indescribable fear that a spouse may be killed or injured in the performance of their duties is one military spouses have to suppress and do our best to ignore on a day-to-day basis.  Yet, this fear is all too real sometimes.  Unfortunately, a close friend lost her husband in a helicopter crash the last week of October. Her Facebook page reads: “My husband, my best friend, my hero….how do I go on without you? Thank you all for your prayers!”  We don’t choose who we fall in love with and spouses and children have to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice too in terms of losing a treasured family life, picking up the pieces and moving forward.

This is why I ask you to honor Veterans Day, a day to honor those who serve and have served in the United States Armed Forces as well as the families behind those service members.

Whether your employer gives you the day off of work or not, I believe all of us need to start a new tradition for Veterans Day with the involvement of ALL family members. I am providing a list in true Ruly fashion of some ideas that each of us can do. Some are very quick and only take a few minutes, some require months-long commitments, but all are extremely worthwhile both to the recipient and the giver.

1)     Send a card/drawing/letter to either a retired veteran or spouse living in an Armed Forces Retirement Home. Unfortunately, some of these residents are without family, so any correspondence is greatly appreciated:

Washington, DC – 3700 N. Capitol St. NW,
Washington, D.C.  20011-8400
Gulfport, MS – 1800 Beach Drive 
Gulfport, MS 39507

2)      Send a letter or care package to a deployed service member. Some organizations require you to “adopt” a servicemember for the duration of their deployment, just an fyi. Below is a small sample of the organizations involved in such projects:

Marine Parents Care Package Project
Cards for Soldiers
USO Care Packages
U.S. Department of Defense, Community Relations
Give 2 The Troops

3)      Fly the American flag! And here’s a great site on the proper rules accompanying our flag:

4)      Make sure any neighbors–especially spouses of deployed service members with children– have a place to go for Thanksgiving. Many of us are living away from our own families and would welcome the chance to form a new “family” with those that live near us.

5)   If you live near a military base, many have programs so that those that are single can go eat with families in the area. It’s a chance for these guys and gals to relax and have a home-cooked meal IN A HOME!  Call the base information number, and ask for the PR department.

6)      Go to a local cemetery and walk by the graves marked with flags. Those are the veterans who have served our country with pride.

Most importantly, please take a minute to thank a veteran this Veteran’s Day.  I can tell you from my husband’s experience that this sentiment is not sappy or ridiculous and that most members of the military will receive this thanks with pride.  My thanks to all who have supported our family as well!

Ruth

For readers in the Fredericksburg, Virginia area, an additional way to honor and remember service members killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom is to attend or participate in the “Run for the Fallen” shadow 5K event this Saturday, November 14, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. starting at the downtown library on Caroline Street.  This event is hosted by CrossFit Spotsy and additional information can be found here.

Inspired by the courage and dedication of our military service members, may we all strive to make the world a better place for people in all nations.

Remembering especially today:

Robert L. Holt (CWO4, U.S. Air Force)
Kyle Van De Giesen (Capt., U.S. Marine Corps)
Gregory Fleury (Cpl., U.S. Marine Corps)
Dale Griffin (Sgt., U.S. Army )
James R. Taylor (Col., U.S. Army)

Hope you had a wonderful weekend and that you are continuing your efforts to eat from your fridge and pantry stores.  Remember, the more you eat at home now, the more money you are saving, the more space you are freeing up for yummy, fresh foods next month, and the less time you will have to spend cleaning out your fridge. Plus, you are doing a good deed for the planet as well.

Now that we have reviewed the organizational strategies employed by the food industry, you may be wondering how you can use these strategies at home.  Here are some Ruly suggestions:

1. When you get home from the grocery store, no matter how tired you are, make sure you put away all the groceries properly.  Take a few minutes to unpackage items like juice boxes, bottled waters, pudding cups, or bulk packages of items so that the foods are easily accessible and ready to eat/cook. “Face” the products so that the front of the package faces toward you like they do in stores.  This small routine has been a big help to me.  If your food/snacks are ready to grab-n-go/cook, you are less likely to get take-out because you are too tired to fix anything.
2. In general, store your food with like items together (ex. all the milk together, all the juice together, all the meats together, all the cereal together, etc.)  The newest purchases should be placed at the back and the oldest purchases upfront.  This will make it easier for you to see what you have and what you have run out of.
3. Store beverages in easy-to-pour clear containers or dispenser boxes so that you are encouraged to drink them and can easily see how much is left.
4. Consider purchasing pre-cut fresh vegetables and salads to save time, reduce food preparation waste and encourage you to actually eat the vegetables.  (Note, however, that pre-cut veggies are often more expensive so you will need to balance the expense versus the possible benefits of eating more veggies because they are more accessible.)  Alternatively, when you are chopping vegetables, chop extra into a clear plastic container so that the veggies are ready to use as sandwich toppings, in salads, etc.
5. When you put leftovers or meats in the fridge, attach a label with an “eat by” date.  Generally, leftovers keep for no more than 4 days in the fridge.  If it will take you longer than 4 days to eat the leftovers, package them for the freezer instead. It may be helpful to print this Food Safety chart and put it on your fridge as a guide or create your own chart based on the food items you frequently store.  This chart from the Dietary Managers Association has a more exhaustive list but is too big for the fridge.
6. Consider designating one space in your fridge for items that need to be eaten right away before they spoil.  That way, if you are looking for a snack, you will peruse those items first. You will also know which items to toss when you take out your garbage each week.

If you are on a diet or trying to encourage healthy eating (who isn’t these days!), use marketing strategies for food presentation and sales in your own home to support your own eating goals.  For example:

1. Eye-level placement – Put the foods you want yourself to eat at eye-level and the foods you should be saving for treats in harder to access places.  It would be interesting to note what you have at eye level now.  Are you eating the most of your eye-level foods or are you wasting this valuable space with frequently unused items.
2. Displays – Create your own special “displays” for items you need extra encouragement to eat or quick items to grab on your way out the door. Maybe a banana stand with fresh bananas, a bowl of fruit, packages of nuts, muffins on a cake stand, the traditional cookie jar, etc.
3. Loss Leaders – grocery stores often place an item on sale next to items with better profit margins.  You could use this strategy to encourage nutrition.  For example, put a bowl of dried fruit next to the brownies.  Make it easy for yourself to get back on track with good eating habits.

Below are some organizing tools that may also be helpful in your efforts.

	RubbermaidEasy Find Lids 36-pc. Food Storage Set
	Storesafe Dissolvable Food Labels (11-0004)
	Lock & Lock Storage 1 Gallon Large Pitcher
	Double Dry Food Dispenser – Silver
	Anchor Hocking Montana 1-1/2-Gallon Jar, Brushed Metal Lid

Keep up your excellent work!  In the next post, we will introduce a new monthly feature that you are sure to enjoy.  Type to you then!

As you are eating from your refrigerator, freezer and pantry this month, you may be amazed at how large a food stockpile you really have and wondering how you can better manage your food inventory in the future.  For some suggestions, we look to the business world, specifically, grocery stores and the restaurant industry.

“[M]arketers have put more thought into grocery stores than any other type of store”

–Kit Yarrow, consumer psychologist, quoted in “Grocery Store Displays Can Mask Higher Prices,” Associated Press, November 5, 2009

Grocery stores present food so that it appeals to us both visually and economically.  Some of these “secret” strategies include:

1. shelf placement
2. end stands and special displays
3. pricing that encourages bulk purchases
4. store brands versus name brand products
5. selective discounting.

The next time you are in the grocery store take a good look around at all of the merchandising strategies used.  What do you end up focusing on in the sea of merchandise?  To see an example of the marketing messages bombarding you in the grocery store, check out this video:

Restaurants also have lessons to offer on food preparation and service.  Fresh ingredients and a clean kitchen and pantry are the foundation of a good restaurant.  If you watch any episode of “Kitchen Nightmares,”  the first thing Chef Gordon Ramsay always does when he attempts to turn around troubled restaurants is clean out the “back of the house.” The video below is a classic clip comparing the cleanup required in a troubled restaurant with the pristine kitchen in Ramsay’s own restaurant. (Warning: Chef Ramsay uses some “colorful” language if you are sensitive or at work.)

Granted, a restaurant has some constraints on food preparation that we do not face at home, i.e. 1) the restaurant must always have enough of each ingredient to be able to make every item on their menu during all open hours; 2) the restaurant’s success will heavily depend on using fresh, unblemished ingredients; and 3) the restarauant cannot take any chances with foodborne illness.  At home, we can tolerate a shortage or lesser quality food.  The nature of restaurant operations therefore necessitates some food waste.

However, even restaurants have room for improvement in their food storage strategies.  Below are some suggestions to encourage food conservation from the California and New York waste management agencies.

Rotate perishable stock at every delivery to minimize waste due to spoilage.

Clean coolers and freezers regularly to ensure that food has not fallen behind the shelving and spoiled.

–”Food Service Waste Reduction Tips and Ideas,” California Integrated Waste Management Board

Consider using a computerized inventory tracking system to help better analyze inventory levels and spending while projecting future needs.

Improve purchasing and inventory control by installing order-tracking software to count the number and type of entrees, appetizers, desserts, etc. ordered each day.

Prepare a combination of recipes to use up all of a food product.

–NyCWasteLe$$, “Agencies & Schools,” New York City Department of Sanitation, Bureau of Waste Prevention, Reuse and Recycling

Also, restaurants have recently began to embrace conservation in other ways.  The National Restaurant Association has launched a “Conserve” program aimed at helping restaurants become more environmentally friendly.  The video below highlights the initiatives made in this area.

So, how can you apply lessons from the food industry to help you organize your food supply at home?  We will discuss that on Monday.  Have a good weekend!