CLEAN HOUSE!

I have a couple of friends who have moved recently or are planning a move and the topic of clutter has come up a lot. Seems like no matter how little you think you have, when you start packing it up to move, it seems like a whole lot more than you imagined. I know that there are several storage containers in my garage that have not been opened since 2005. So in keeping with the cleaning and decluttering theme, I thought I'd post some books here to help.

From Peter Walsh of TLC's "Clean Sweep" we have:

Enough already!: clearing mental clutter to become the best you

Does this clutter make my butt look fat?

It's all too much: an easy plan for living a richer life with less stuff

Gail Blanke has a very popular book out called: Throw out fifty things: clear the clutter find your life

And then there is Don Aslett. He has been writing books about cleaning and clutter for YEARS. When I was a teenager living at home in Indiana I remember finding one of his books on clutter underneath a pile of newspapers at my Grandmother's house. Here are just a few of his books:

Weekend makeover: take your home from messy to magnificent in only 48 hours

Is there life after housework

For packrats only: how to clean up, clear out, and live clutter-free forever!

SHOP CLASS AS SOULCRAFT

Two books about work were recently featured in Newsweek, Shop Class as Soulcraft, and The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work. "Shop Class..." by Matthew Crawford focuses on the value of hands-on physical work. He says that the fastest growing demographic group at Community Colleges are people with 4-year college degrees who are going back to get a marketable vocational degree. He promotes the job satisfaction that is attained by having a job with a clear goal that is obviously successful or not. For instance if you are installing a new lighting fixture...does the light come on or doesn't it? Did you do it correctly? Or not?

In The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, author Alain De Botton looks at work from various angles and time periods. Among other aspects of work, he talks about why we think we should enjoy our work. Why isn't work...work? Why do we think it should be a fun and happy place?

REAL LIFE MEDICAL DRAMAS

The next book on my personal "to read" list is Life Support: three nurses on the front lines, by Suzanne Gordon. The book follows three nurses as we learn about the trials and also the positive side of this profession. In a similar category, the next book for my Book Group is Complications: a surgeon's notes on an imperfect science, by Atul Gawande