My own battle of the bulge is made easier by keeping that special drawer free of snack clutter. No more trail mix, nuts or banana chips. Gone. Empty. No calorie-laden foods in this house!

It’s not that nuts can’t be healthy. It’s just when bad habits develop — like eating a bowlful every night while watching a bit of TV — that the calories and fat grams add up to trouble on the scales. Moderation is something that is often difficult to achieve.

My solution?

Clear the cupboards of anything that might tempt me to sit down and overindulge. That’s the reason there is no crunchy peanut butter at my house. You would think that since I have given up bread-eating on a regular basis, peanut butter would no longer be needed in my life. Leave it to me to discover that a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter in a small bowl, sprinkled with a few squirts of liquid honey, makes a great afternoon snack eaten right off the spoon! Again, not too unhealthy in small doses.  But every day until the jar is empty? There’s trouble!

If you have resolved to cut down on the junk food in your life, help yourself succeed by taking the time to declutter your kitchen. Get rid of anything that will lead into temptation. If it’s not there, you won’t eat it!

If you’re not sure if something is “junk,” take the time to read the label for calorie and fat content information. If something is fat-free but sugar, sucrose or corn syrup are the first ingredients listed, you know that eating the entire package will be bad news.

Clearing out the junk food is also a great opportunity to take stock of your pantry — a first step to eating more healthily. Didn’t know you had four cans of chick peas hiding in there? Maybe it’s time to make a nice healthy soup or vegetarian stew.

It’s good to know that decluttering is not only good for the soul, it can do wonders for your body. Let the food decluttering begin!

Before I downsized to a condo in Cobourg (that’s before I upsized to a rancher on the lake in Leamington), our house in Ottawa was filled with books — mine, mostly novels, and my husband’s, a potpourri of novels, history, politics, geography, travel (how many books on Ireland does one person need?) and gardening (I won’t even mention the old novels he had read as a child and carried with him all these years).

When we sold off our furniture and other things so we could squeeze just what we needed into a 1,165-square-foot space, books were among our prized possessions to go. But we weren’t ruthless. We decided to keep our Canadian novel collection, plus some travel books and a few other personal treasures. It wasn’t easy parting with any of our books, but it did make living in the condo a whole lot more breathable.

Now that we have upsized to about 1,800 square feet of space, I see books slowly creeping back into the house (the Terry Fox Used Book Sale was hard to resist and Alice Munro won’t stop writing!). They are piling up in drawers and desks. And at least half of them are Canadian, which means they will have to be squeezed onto our already full bookshelves. I am starting to feel claustrophobic.

A new friend, Carlinda D’Alimonte, a teacher by trade, is a writer of poetry. She’s been published — twice — and graciously brought her newest book as a gift when at the house recently for Sunday brunch. It is a slim book, so I will forgive her — it fits nicely on my bedside table. Titled Other Living Things, the book  “deals with the hard process of undoing the hurt of childhood and adolescence.” Sounds a little like decluttering: learning to let go of the past to live happily in the present.

I picked up Carlinda’s book and smiled out loud when I read her opening poem, titled Dross:

Discarded scraps, gossamer gowns, unread books,
cassette tapes, garish picture frames clutter basements.
Boxes of surplus for another day, piled in corners
of musty closets, drawers stuffed with frayed threads,
coloured in dyes that add years to our complexions,
cloying scents of dusty perfume bottles,
oily cosmetics, filmy pill boxes
behind dinsinfected cabinet doors —

dust, dust everywhere

and everywhere, the stench of things
our hands will not discard, spectres that stare
from every corner of the house, find us dreaming
in the night,

wake us, wake us with a start.

Beautiful! And food for thought while you ponder that overstuffed basement.

I am happy to report that Carlinda has started her own blog. Happy reading!

The irony wasn't lost on the photographer, who tells us she gave this book, featuring Kim and Aggie from How Clean Is Your House?, to her friend as a Christmas gift a few years back and found it recently in this dirty state under the kitchen sink!

I’m a voyeur at heart, I’ll admit it.  And with reality TV, I can get my fix on almost any channel on the air. I can watch people lose weight, balance their chequebooks, renovate a house, become a model, give money away, drink beer while travelling around the world and pretty well anything else you can think of.

My new favourite reality show is the Canadian version of How Clean Is Your House? Here, it’s called Kim’s Rude Awakenings, starring that British prison guard-like Queen of Clean Kim Woodburn (she of the feather-fringed plastic gloves) and her new sidekick, Mike Chalut.

If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out on W Network, where the Canadian version airs on Mondays at 8:30 p.m. It’s like watching Jerry Springer, only instead of the hapless lovelorn making fools of themselves on national TV, it’s filthy, messy families.

In one episode, the mother of two grown boys still living at home had been sleeping on a recliner in the living room for two years because her bedroom was a disaster, with clothes and everything else piled all over the bed. She claimed she couldn’t keep the house clean all by herself because of her arthritis and the boys, including her husband, wouldn’t do it for her.

Ha! Even the laziest person on earth could stand up long enough to throw everything off the bed and onto the floor in order to get a good night’s rest.  Was this family for real?

Another episode featured equally lazy teenagers and parents who apparently have no idea that butts need to be kicked and clean-up orders issued and observed — or else!

Real or not, the show is good for a laugh. And like the British version, we get Kim’s advice on how to wipe the grime off the sink or polish the furniture without an arsenal of chemical cleaners. Brings you back to the days when “green” didn’t mean double the price.  Mostly, Kim teaches how to use things like baking soda and table salt to get the job done.

Very refreshing.

Back to those lazy teens.  In answer to a question from a working mom on how she can get her kids to help out with the cleaning, Kim advises:

“You’re a working mother you say, with two teenagers. You know I think what may have happened here dear is – bless you – you’ve spoilt them. But there are things you can do. Teach your children the basics of cleaning and how to do their own laundry and my love, if they don’t do it, don’t do it for them! Teenagers want to be independent so learning to do their own laundry is a very good step in that direction. If they run out of knickers they’ll remember to put the wash on next time!”

If anyone knows how to shape up lazy Canadian teens, it’s Kim. She’s a tough one:  according to her 2006 autobiography, Kim delivered a premature stillborn baby boy alone in her apartment in 1965 (her boyfriend ditched her when she told him she was pregnant).

What did the 23-year-old single mother-to-be do? Alone, scared and embarrassed, she wrapped the tiny body in a tea towel and placed it in a bowl. According to her story, Kim then slept beside it all night, before leaving, traumatized and desperate for a return to normal, to go to work the next morning. After work, she took the six-month-old baby’s body to a park in Liverpool and buried him, using a spoon to dig the grave.

“I told him I was so sorry for what had happened and how great we would have been together. I told him he’d have been a fine boy but that it just wasn’t to be. I had never felt more wretched in my whole life.

“I still talk to my son now,” she says in her book. “The deep sadness doesn’t go away.”

When the story came out — her autobiography was serialized exclusively in the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday — she was interviewed by police and faced the prospect of jail time for illegally burying a body.

“I know the offence carries a two-year prison sentence, but do you know what? I don’t care. I really don’t care,” she told the British magazine First when the story came out. “I don’t want to go to prison, but if it has to be, it has to be.”

Fortunately, Kim never went to prison for burying her secret. She believes that sad experience helped shaped her life and made her who she is today, a happily married woman who went from housekeeper to 60-something superstar on How Clean Is Your House? Co-starring Aggie MacKenzie, the show airs on Britain’s Channel 4 and in Canada on W Network on Mondays at 8 p.m.

Wonder if you would pass the clean test? Try the How Clean Is Your House? quiz and find out.

I took the quiz and for the record, I have been crowned “A Cleaning Queen!” No surprise there! Here’s how the quiz master describe me:

“Clean, clean, clean. It’s surprising you’ve got a social life, you’re so busy tidying up! You just love preening and primping your house, getting everything perfect. You know all the secrets of clean and you’re the first to give Kim and Aggie’s tips to your friends and even some of your own. It’s very noble, but don’t you think you may be verging on the obsessive? Sometimes it’s OK to let things go a little and put your feet up… we won’t tell anyone, promise!”

Guess I’d better go put my feet up now!

Well, here is your opportunity to declutter your home and feel good about it, too!

Grab your gently used books and stash them into boxes or sturdy shopping bags and drop them off at Windsor Crossing in the former Nike store (across from Guess, at the end closest to Highway 3) July 9, 10, 11 and 12 from noon to 4 p.m. Or you can drop them off in central Windsor at 1562 Bernard Rd. (between Seminole and Reginald). No need to knock: just place them on the front covered porch and Marian Drouillard, the organizer of the 2009 Windsor Terry Fox Run, will take care of the rest.

Books are being collected for a giant Used Book fundraising event on July 18-19 at Windsor Crossing. The outlet mall has generously donated use of the former Nike store for the community event, all proceeds of which will go to the Windsor Terry Fox Run.

For all you book hoarders in Wheatley, Leamington and Kingsville without transportation, here’s an incentive to get decluttering: you can donate your books without leaving your home! All you have to do is get your books ready and I will pick them up. Just drop me an email with your request and we’ll arrange a pickup date.

You’ll be amazed how good it will feel to declutter for a cause!

For those who just can’t live without hundreds of books around them, no problem: You can acquire more July 18-19 at the Giant Used Book event! A donation of $2 will get you a hardcover book, a large softcover can be yours for a $1 donation and those softcover novels you love taking to the beach or the backyard? A mere 50-cent donation will get you a great read!

As a bonus, you won’t have to feel guilty about bringing more stuff into the house because all the proceeds go to charity, plus … you’ve followed one of my favourite decluttering rules: Get rid of something before you bring something new into your space.

What are you waiting for?  We need books!  Start decluttering!

About Terry Fox Run
The Terry Fox Run, held in communities across Canada each year, depends solely on donations to raise funds for cancer research. It is one of the few Canadian grassroots charities that sees $0.87 of every dollar donated go directly to research. The 10-kilometre walk/run will be held on Sept. 13 this year, so mark your calendars! And stay tuned for more details here. For information on The Terry Fox Foundation, check out www.terryfoxrun.org.

Good feng shui in the home is when you have placed your furniture and objects, like mirrors and fountains, in the proper positions so that they invite positive energy (chi) into your life. If not done right — watch out! — you can inadvertently cause everything from divorce to illness.

Practitioners use the “bagua,” a road map detailing nine zones representing major areas of life, to determine how to set up a room so that it benefits from positive energy flow. These areas are:

Prosperity
Reputation/Fame
Love/Relationships
Creativity/Children
Family
Health
Travel
Knowledge
Career

According to the experts, each area of the home or office represents one of the life areas listed above. Once you have your map, and understand what each area means, you can begin to redecorate your home. For example, adding a vase of fresh flowers to the “family gua” of each room in your house will help improve your family relationships.

Sound too complicated? It can be. But if you’re anxious to get some positive energy flowing through your home now, without attending feng shui school, start with these 3 tips:

1. Good feng shui starts at the door, where career and opportunities come into the home. Clear the entranceway of clutter, especially shoes, to allow chi to flow right in. If chi picks up the scent of shoes, it will carry it through the house, putting your family at risk of illness.

2. Declutter! Too much furniture can block the flow of existing energy and prevent new energy from bringing opportunities your way.

3. Chi adores a dust-free home — yes, chi is a clean freak!

Oh, and that reference to divorce? Well, apparently you can keep your marriage safe by leaving the mirrors off the walls opposite your bed. Why? According to feng shui beliefs, mirrors in these locations will invite a third party into your relationship. Sounds like the makings of a messy divorce. Definitely not good feng shui!

Does this sound familiar?

“Coming!  Be there in a jiffy!”

That big bowl of ice cream and bag of chips you were eating in the middle of the day? These get hidden in the pantry cupboard after you turn off the TV and wipe the dust off the coffee table with your sleeve, then shove into the nearest closet the stack of laundry sitting on the couch ready to be folded. Next, you run into the kitchen and sweep the dirty dishes piling up on the counter into the dishwasher — or the oven if the latter is full. And just before you make your mad dash to the front door, you push crumbs from the morning’s breakfast, along with that big ball of pet hair rolling around on the floor, under the rug.

“Hi! What a nice surprise!”

I confess I have been guilty of this hide-’em-quick emergency cleanup a few times — after all, nobody can be guest-ready all the time! Unfortunately, these tricks don’t work when you’re selling your home.  Which is why you might want to supervise any bedroom cleanups assigned to teenagers.

Buyers love checking out closets — the bigger the better — and you can be sure a closed door won’t stop them from taking a peek. So where to put all that clutter you or the kids removed from the dressers and the floor?  If there’s no room in the dresser, pack it up and put it in storage. Just don’t throw it in the closet!

Other doors buyers will look behind:

- Kitchen cupboards/pantry. Since the cupboards come with the house, they have a right to check them out. So be sure to organize your cupboards before your Open House.  You don’t want buyers to think there isn’t enough cupboard space — even if there really isn’t.

- Bathroom vanities. Again, they come with the house, so buyers will want to see how much space they will have for their stuff.  Don’t embarrass yourself by leaving personal items on view.

- Linen closets. Make sure the closet isn’t so stuffed that sheets and towels will come tumbling out when a buyer opens the door.

- Laundry closets. Don’t leave dirty laundry, or items you’ve set out to dry, on the washer or dryer. Buyers will want to take a closer look at the appliances if they come with the house.

All of this, of course, means there is nowhere to hide … well, except for the attic.  That’s one place I have never seen anyone but the home inspector check out.

Have a favourite “ran around cleaning like mad for unexpected guests” story? Share it here!

Yes, I’m talking about that big thing called a refrigerator that, in most kitchens, is disguised as a) a children’s art gallery   b) a family portrait gallery   c) a magnet message board   d) all of the above.

“You can’t even tell the colour of my fridge,” says “smile,” a blogger on Yahoo Answers. “It’s nothing but artwork and school reminders. lol”

If this sounds familiar, then start decluttering.

When house hunters come calling, they want to see what they’re getting — dents and all — so you might as well strip the fridge of its clutter and show it in all its glory from the get-go.

Decluttering does have its benefits. Let’s face it, there is nothing pretty about our big North American fridges, even if they are stainless steel! That’s why in today’s modern high-end kitchens, refrigerators are disguised as cabinets.

By keeping the front free of photos, notes and artwork, you are actually taking the focus away from the fridge and giving yourself the opportunity to direct viewers’ eyes to your kitchen’s best selling points — like that new backsplash or fancy faucet.

Now that’s smart!

So what’s coming off your fridge when you declutter?

I’ve stayed at many a vacation condo, where the kitchen is stocked with the basics, and I never felt like I was four mixing bowls, three pots, two appliances or one place setting short of having everything I needed to get a simple dinner ready and on the table. It really is amazing how little we really need in the kitchen.

So if your counters and drawers are overflowing with appliances, assorted serving dishes and every new-fangled gizmo invented, book into a vacation condo fast! You’ll be cured within a week or two. Guaranteed!