Tips: Camping reservations

Camping is a wonderful way to take a break from the routine, and to take a break from the always plugged-in lifestyle we have come to embrace. I grew up camping in California, and the state is blessed with extraordinarily beautiful and varied regions to explore. My husband and I have long wanted to make camping more of a priority, and until yesterday we had everything you'd need to go car camping except a tent. After a trip to REI, we now have a tent and are raring to go.

So, we had our gear. We had a couple of free weekends blocked out on the calendar. All we needed was a campsite. Since we both like to have things arranged ahead of time, we decided to use the online registration systems provided by both the state and federal governments so we could be assured of a spot in the campgrounds we favored. From experience, first come-first served sites fill up extremely quickly on the weekends. Apparently, the reserved sites also fill up extremely quickly on the weekends. We were hard-pressed to find anything free for the weekends we wanted that wasn't in a place likely to have snow covering it. Eventually, we found something suitable, but we learned a lot in the process.

1. If you have a favorite campground and want to camp on the weekends, mark your calendar about six months in advance of your dates to check the online reservation system. That's when most reservations open up for a given campground. It really pays to plan ahead.
2. If possible, plan your trip during the week, when campgrounds are much less busy and you'll have more options and more privacy. However, in summer, even this won't always guarantee you'll be able to get in at the campground of your choice.
3. If you do want to attempt to get in at a first-come-first-served campground, have directions to some nearby alternatives in case you aren't successful at the first place. 
4. Be sure to read the online descriptions carefully for a given campground before you make reservations, and be totally sure of your dates. You don't want to arrive and find out that pets aren't allowed, or that you booked a tent spot but you have an RV.

I'm counting the days until our first trip, and am marking my calendar to remind me to block out next year's dates early!

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Video: Lelah at the 2011 LA Organizing Awards

I attended the 2011 Los Angeles Organizing Awards at the end of January, and recorded this little video about my business while I was there. What do you think?



Thanks to Lisa Suchesk for her help recording it!

 Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

A year ago: Reviews and resolutions

February just zipped by, didn't it? Here's a selection of past posts from around this time last year.

A year ago today I reviewed Unclutter Your Life in One Week by Erin Rooney Doland of the blog Unclutterer. This book is out in paperback now, and a great, simple approach to restructuring your life in a more streamlined way.

I tend to use and reuse plastic bags. After my trip to the Burbank Recycle Center, I'm even more conscious about bringing stuff into my house that will ultimately end up in the garbage, no matter how many times I reuse it, so I've been buying less and less over time.

Last year, still in my old apartment, I undertook a major rearranging of furniture. It was sort of the last attempt to make a space that I had been slowly outgrowing work. Now in a new apartment, it's fun to look back at the pictures from this time, but I'm glad I made an even bigger change by moving.

And, belatedly, my Valentine's Day post from last year in which I talked about the things I love, including being a professional organizer. Awww. It's still true, and as I continue with my third year of organizing, I'm grateful that I'm able to grow along with my business.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by suavehouse113
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

March 2011 Upcoming Events

SoCal business owners, professional organizers and anyone who wants to help themselves out of a destructive relationship with paper, here are some upcoming events you should be aware of.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011 5:30pm - 7:30pm
at Bokado in Studio City
Free! Biznik business mixer hosted by Lelah Baker-Rabe
Sign up for Biznik and RSVP at
http://biznik.com/members/lelah-baker-rabe/events/the-san-fernando-valley-networking-mixer-1st-anniversary

Saturday, March 12, 2011 9am - 12pm
at my paperless office in Glendale
$75 The (Almost) Paperless Office Workshop
Registration form online at http://www.lelahwithanh.com/paperless/

Sign up for my newsletter (published 1-2 times a month) here.

Creative Commons photo posted to Flickr by Divya Thakur
Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com

Day in the Life

Monday, February 21, 2011.

Though it was President's Day and a holiday for many, a self employed person can work on such days if it suits her, which it did me yesterday. I woke up at 6:45 and did my morning routine on the computer, checking email, updating Twitter and Facebook, catching up on the feeds in my Google Reader and reading some articles on the Los Angeles Times website. I also ate breakfast and prepared for the day's client.

At 7:45 I left the house and drove to meet my 8 am clients at their home in a nearby mountain community. In the car I caught Steve Inskeep's interview with Lisa Cholodenko, writer and director of The Kids Are All Right, a movie I really enjoyed. She was recommending movies and it was cool to hear her espouse the virtues of Ordinary People, Chinatown and Y Tu Mama Tambien, three movies I love, too. Then I arrived at my clients'.

It was our first session together, so I familiarized myself with their needs and spent a solid four hours sorting papers and getting a filing system set up. As I told my clients, I could do that all day long. I'm not sure they believed me, but it's true. My brain loves to categorize, sort and put away. However, the session was over at noon, so I returned home and fixed myself lunch while going through my email inbox for the second time that day.

I spent the next three hours on my computer promoting my upcoming workshop. It's on March 12, and I'm hoping there will be a good turnout. Getting free of paper in one's office seems impossible, but it isn't, and I think it's something that can really help people's state of mind and productivity. Plus, the workshop price is like getting 3 hours of intensive coaching from a professional organizer for the price of a single hour with that same organizer in your home or office. Anyway, I created notices for the workshop on a number of online bulletin boards. I also emailed a few clients to follow up on their progress and updated Bento with my recent income and expenses information. I also started this blog post.

I took a break to catch up with a relative on the phone. We talked about writing, and I got inspired to set myself a new goal. I write fiction, and have been plodding along in the middle of a novel for months. My new goal is to write ten thousand words in the next week and a half, hopefully getting me over the hump and into the final stretch of the story.

Realizing it has been a while since I hosted a Biznik networking mixer, I also set up one for two weeks from now, on March 8th. It will be at Bokado in Studio City and you can find all the details here. It's amazing to think that I've been hosting these on and off for over a year now!

I spent some time polishing up an article I'm writing called "Taking the Paperless Plunge." I'm sending in to the San Diego chapter of NAPO to see if they want to publish it in their online newsletter. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, and I'll probably publish it here in the future.

Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher.

After a light dinner and an episode of Murder, She Wrote on Netflix Instant (my favorite corny TV show and a good palate cleanser for my brain), I turned to my book. I'm writing a romance and I feel like I've been writing the same scene for days. I got in almost 1,000 words, which is really good for one sitting for me. I then did the dishes, made sure my work kit was ready for tomorrow's client, and finished writing this post.

So my day was productive, if a little unexciting. Now you know what a day in the life of a professional organizer* is like!

*I got the idea to do a day in the life of a professional organizer post from Bay area professional organizer Amanda Kuzak.

Lelah Baker-Rabe is a Los Angeles-based professional organizer. To discuss your organizing needs, call her at 818.269.6671 or email lelah@lelahwithanh.com