Can you believe we are basically in holiday season right now? I don’t feel ready, ha. My house is definitely not ready. But luckily there’s still time! To get in the GIVING frame of mind, I have GIVEAWAY below, by the way ;-).

Speaking of the holidays, who is hosting Thanksgiving this year (my U.S. friends) or who HOSTED Thanksgiving (my Canadian friends?)? I am hosting this year and am excited to start preparing the menu. I am actually a little curious what our menu will look like! I am on my gluten-free diet now (I’ve had thyroid issues for years and was finally diagnosed with Hashimoto’s…I’m feeling GREAT, though! I will be sharing more of that journey soon).

Besides the addition of gluten-free options, my daughter Kylee and her husband Lance have been vegan for years now and several of our family members are “often” vegetarian and dairy free, too. I am thinking this year will be the most unique (and hopefully delicious) holiday meal yet! I’ve been pinning up a storm on my gluten-free dairy-free board here. Accepting all suggestions. :)

While we are no strangers to offering a fresh-twist on a traditional menu or ingredients, we keep food pretty simple. We try to keep the focus on the gathering of people, not stressing out over meal prep.

Embracing simplicity in so many areas of our home and how we celebrate the holidays has made all the difference for me as a hostess.

Ever since my kids were small I’ve loved the opportunities I’ve had to host Thanksgiving and bring our family together in our home. Our rickety nearly-antique dining table isn’t big enough for all of us, so we always bring up a card table to extend the surface out to the living room. We toss a tablecloth over it and make one big happy table! It’s not fancy, but it brings together what matters the most. Lots of memories, good food to nourish us, and the people we love.

Isn’t that our goal in creating a home? That we can freely open the door wide and invite people in to a warm and welcoming space? No apologies, no fears, no stressing out trying to outdo ourselves or impress anyone for the holidays, just creating a home where we can truly care about people!

Do you enjoy hosting? Whether you’re the hostess with the mostess, or more hesitant to host…my book Simple Gatherings will inspire you all year long with encouragement, tips, inspiration, and ideas for hosting with simple creativity and ease.

What’s your hosting style?

Today I have a fun giveaway to help us kick off the season of GIVING (and home and hosting!)! Besides these books making great hostess and Christmas gifts this time of year, I’m giving away A SET of my Inspired Ideas series (all three Simple books!) plus some other super awesome goodies :).

Find out about the giveaway and read about each of the three books below. Plus, find some helpful tips and free downloads for home and hosting!

Order Simple Decorating at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Jump-start your style and refresh your home with budget-friendly and practical ideas from my book Simple Decorating! You’ll learn to embrace your style, reimagine your spaces, and transform hard-to-love areas into favorite destinations.

Order Simple Organizing at Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Getting organized can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. Bring order and purpose to every room when you create an orderly vision for your home, design organizational systems to inspire you, and focus on progress, not perfection.

Order Simple Gatherings at Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Welcoming loved ones into your home doesn’t have to be intimidating when you discover your authentic hosting style, focus on what guests remember most and celebrate people as the centerpiece of any gathering. You can check perfection and intimidation at the door because this book isn’t hosting a Pinterest-worthy party…Simple Gatherings is about creating an experience that will draw people together.We hosted a giveaway awhile back and the winner never claimed her prize! So, first of all, don’t let that happen to you, always check your emails and promo folders if you enter giveaways or subscribe to my blog :). But the GOOD NEWS for YOU is that we have brought together a few of those pretty organizing elements to create a NEW giveaway!

So if you are the winner of this giveaway…you’ll receive a beautiful basket, a handy file box, pretty file folders, a notepad, drawer organizer, and hangers PLUS all 3 of my Simple books!

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below! I’d LOVE to send this prize to you! :)

WINNER WILL BE CONTACTED THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15th, so watch your email!

The Inspired Room on Instagram / The Inspired Room Books

Get Your Copy of Simple Organizing! Amazon // Barnes and Noble

I‘m so excited to welcome you to the launch of my Simple Organizing book (plus our Simple Organizing Clutter Confessions Blog Tour and Container Store Giveaway!!) This is going to be fun! You’ll find my confession in this post, and links to the other eight bloggers on the tour between today and Thursday below!

Don’t forget to scroll to visit the others on the tour as well as enter the giveaway at the end of this post.

Simple Organizing Book

We all love to look at drool-worthy organized spaces, but the fact of the matter is, a standard of perfection in our own home can paralyze us from making progress at all.

So today we’re getting real and focused on what we CAN do this spring to transform how we live in our home. To help motivate our spring tidying, I’ve asked a few blogging friends to take us “behind the scenes”, so to speak, to show us some of their clutter spots. We all have ’em. But why? And what are we going to do about them?

If you read my decluttering book Make Room for What You Love, you know I have to be very clear with myself and my family on the purpose of each drawer or basket or shelf. When we aren’t clear about our intentions, it leaves room for interpretation. And that’s where things can go terribly wrong when it comes to having an organized home.

Case in point. My house.

Exhibit A (pictured at the top of this page)
“Baskets for kitchen overflow” located in my front hallway.

Exhibit B.
“Clutter” found within the baskets.

Let me back up for a second and explain how all this clutter happened. These baskets served us so well while we were remodeling our kitchen. They were a lifesaver for kitchen items that needed a home. They keep our hallway looking streamlined and tidy.

Yet, I neglected to implement one of my number one rules for organizing. And that’s where things went horribly wrong.

Just like I told y’all in Make Room for What You Love, everyone just kind of knows to not put their pants in a silverware drawer (you do, right? Please tell me you do.). The reason we know this is because it is called the SILVERWARE DRAWER. It has a name that makes total sense to everyone. We know what DOESN’T go there when we are clear on what DOES belong there.

If anyone in your family was to put pants in your silverware drawer, you’d be like WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD, right? And if that was to happen, you’d deal with it immediately.

Well, that’s what I’m saying about these baskets. There was a breakdown in communication. The “kitchen overflow area” left too much to interpretation.

Here’s a sampling of what I found inside basket number one:

Exhibit C
Mission Trip 2006.
I’m not really even sure what to say about this, y’all. It’s 2018 and we moved to this house in 2015.

Exhibit D
Yearbook, 2007. Again, I’m not really sure how this ended up here.
Phil Wickham CD (we do not even have a CD player in our entire house).

Exhibit E.
Embroidery hoop. Let me be clear, I do not know how to embroider anything. I may have purchased this for a craft project. But I don’t do crafts, so I’m not sure why I torture myself by buying supplies for crafts, nor why this hoop ended up here.

Exhibit F.
Chewed up lid for wall putty. The teeth marks are (likely) from Jack.
Note there is a garbage can ten feet away, so I’m not really sure why we’re hanging onto to this. Also, where is the putty?

Exhibit G.
Faux Christmas greenery.
Apparently I thought I would keep this here so I’d be prepared to decorate in a hurry.

At this point in my investigation I was so overwhelmed that I stopped digging. Ha!

Clearly, my baskets could be so much better utilized. I fully admit it’s time to do some spring decluttering.

At least at a glance it still looks good right? Gotta love deep baskets for keeping clutter at least somewhat streamlined. They are definitely better than clutter just lining the shelves!

Clutter multiplies if we aren’t keeping up with it. We have to adapt our systems along with the changes that take place in our life. We need to continually pare down what we keep so we can be free to do the things we really want to do in life.

It’s so important to remind ourselves often that our home should be our sanctuary not a storage room. I know I need to remind myself of that often! It’s what motivates me to declutter and organize my home. I want my home to be a peaceful place and when things get out of control (which they do!), I’m inspired to bring them back to order because I know I feel my best when my surroundings inspire me.

Simple Organizing – Available Now! Amazon // Barnes and Noble

Now it’s time for the Clutter Confessions tour! Have fun visiting today’s participants!

Each blogger on the list is also giving away a Simple Organizing book, so be sure to comment on their post to be entered.

ENJOY THE CLUTTER CONFESSIONS TOUR BELOW!

Home Stories A to Z

ENJOY! (and big thanks to all of the bloggers and Instagrammers and friends who have supported this launch, so grateful for each and every one of you! XOXO).

ENTER THE $250 CONTAINER STORE GIVEAWAY BELOW

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Enter above! Can’t wait to see who wins the $250 Container Store gift card!!!