063. What To Do When You’re Feeling “Blah”

Missing someone after they leave, post-vacation blues, rainy-day doldrums—whatever the trigger, the “blahs” can hit hard (especially when you’re a busy, sleep-deprived mom). In this episode, I share seven quick, low-lift mood boosters that fit right into a working-mom schedule—all straight from my own Lazy-Organizer toolbox.

In this episode you’ll learn:

1. The power of sleeping well—easy tweaks that set you up for a true night of rest.
2. How planning something fun—from a class to a closet refresh—redirects the brain away from rumination.
3. What I call a “delicious” book…and 5 page-turners that snapped me out of a slump.
4. Feel-good viewing: my favorite series & films that lift rather than drain your mood.
5. Nature hacks for every climate (yes—even steamy Miami summers).
6. The feel good-ness of comfort food:  the foods that soothe without turning the kitchen into an all-day project.
7. The surprising, organizing-related benefit of inviting people into your home (hint: it’s the ultimate clutter antidote).

Links & resources

• FREE Mini-Class – 3 Steps to Painlessly Declutter Your Kitchen in Just a Weekend
  (and So the Clutter Doesn’t Come Back) → Join the wait list: https://fireflybridge.com/update
• Email Zee: support@fireflybridge.com
• DM on Instagram: @fireflybridgeorganizing
• Recommended reads & watches mentioned in the episode (Outlander, The Night Circus, The Fourth Wing, All the Light You Cannot See, Shrinking, The Residence, Baby Driver, Enola Holmes)

If you loved today’s quick wins…

• Follow Organizing for Beautiful Living so new episodes land in your feed every Tuesday.
• Leave a 5-star rating & short review—it helps other working moms find lazy-organizing sanity!
• Screenshot this episode, tag @fireflybridgeorganizing, and tell me which “blah-buster” you’re trying first.

Get on the wait list for my FREE class: 3 Steps to Painlessly Declutter your Kitchen in just a Weekend! This is how you get no-cry mornings and calm evenings in your kitchen. And I'll show you how you can do it in just a weekend without overwhelm and without getting stuck. And, of course, you'll learn how to make sure the clutter doesn't come back with minimal effort. Go to https://fireflybridge.com/update and get on the wait list!

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

It just never fails that when I return home from visiting family members, or when a loved one comes to visit us, and then leaves, I fall into a bit of an emotional slump.

I feel sad that the visit has ended, that the conversations and the laughter we shared is done.

Which is exactly what happened after I came home this weekend after a wonderful trip with my daughter. She was continuing on to another destination, and I came back home, and I’m already missing her tremendously.

So I know that after a visit like that, I have to have a plan to help myself out of it, to lift my spirits.

Feeling “blah”, as I call it, well that can sometimes happen because of a bunch of different things. Maybe it’s because of a series of gray, sun-less days, or it might be the emotional consequences of hormonal ups and downs, or it might be because of the end of a vacation or the end of a visit by a loved one, or for any other reason.

I’d love to share the 7 things that help me to feel upbeat again and I hope that these little ideas help you whenever you feel a little “blah”, when a little bit of that sadness kicks in.


Hey, welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living, the podcast for working moms and entrepreneur moms that provides sustainable organizing tips for your home, work and life.

I’m Zee Siman, Professional Organizer and Productivity Consultant, and I’m here to share simple ideas that don’t take a lot of time so you can love your home, excel at work, and have the time to enjoy both without stress or overwhelm. 

Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen!

Well, we’re just going to go right into it. Right?
The first idea I have is to get a good night’s sleep.
We all know this already. This isn’t anything new. But a lot of you listening are moms and you know how hard it is to sleep well - ever - once you have kids. It doesn’t matter how old they are, the worry just doesn’t turn off at bedtime.
And some of you don’t have kids, and you know the anxiety that kicks up right when you’re supposed to be falling asleep, yeah?
So yeah, it’s hard, really hard, to get a good night’s sleep. I won’t ever argue that.
But maybe you can recommit to trying to sleep better, recommit just to yourself that you’ll turn off your electronics at least 30 minutes before you’re supposed to fall asleep. An hour would be even better.
Maybe you can commit to whatever bedtime rituals or routines you’ve let fall by the wayside, like reading an actual paper book, or snuggling with your kids or with your partner and just chatting until you feel drowsy.
Because you know that not sleeping well or enough does affect our emotions, and any Blah’s you’re feeling will feel even more Blah if you haven’t slept enough, right?
The second idea is to dive into planning or researching something that makes you really excited.
This just allows you to find excitement and anticipation in something else instead of sinking further into the sadness. By the way, I will say that there’s nothing wrong with feeling the sadness. It makes the happy time that you spent even sweeter, but for me, I found that it can linger if I don’t actively do something. 
Maybe it’s researching a local cooking class you can take in the evenings once a week. It could be planning a birthday party, or your next trip, or planning to redecorate a room in your house.
The act of planning and researching is active and requires your brain’s attention, so your brain doesn’t have the chance to dwell on your sadness all the time. That’s why it works for me.
Now that I’m back from my trip, I have two client projects that I’m actively planning for the week, and I’m really looking forward to them. So I’m focusing on those, creating the workplans, and it’s really helping me stay distracted from the “Blah-ness” of being home after such a wonderful trip. All right.
My third idea is to read a delicious book.
The characteristics of a delicious book to me are that it has to be completely absorbing, it has to be a fun read, and it can’t be so deep or troubling that it just fuels the level of sadness that I already have. Yeah?
So, granted, this might require a bit of pre-planning on your part because finding a book like this isn’t guaranteed at the last minute!
I don’t always plan what I’m going to read ahead of time. The ways that I find books to read are from friends’ recommendations, from the New York Times Bestseller list, book prize winners, or general browsing. Sometimes it’s online browsing, sometimes it’s browsing in person at the library or at the bookstore.
Some of the books that fell into this category for me were the Outlander series, which just sucked me right in with the history and the detail and all the parallel stories of each character. Really well done.
And I was fully caught up in the world-building of The Night Circus and The Fourth Wing. And that pulled my thoughts away from my low emotional state.
I also remember reading All the Light You Cannot See and The Help during periods of time when I was a bit Blah, both of which are historical fiction stories, of course. It was really hard to put down All the Light You Cannot See. I remember reading that sometimes well into the early hours of the morning, kind of not getting a good night’s sleep on those nights! So don’t do what I did! Put down the book!
But that’s the kind of book you want. The one where every tiny 5-minute window you have in the day, you just want to continue reading the story!
It’s hard for me to pick out books! I don’t like starting a book only to find it uninteresting or absolutely not for me, you know? I feel like I just wasted my time!
So I’m really happy when I happen to pick one that’s really good! So yes, find a delicious book, and read it cover to cover!
My fourth idea is to watch a show or movie that makes you feel good.
So I started watching the series “Shrinking” with Jason Segel after my mom was here visiting last year. It’s on Apple TV+. We’d dropped her off at the airport and when we came home, I had an entire Sunday ahead of me, but I was feeling so “blah” that I knew I needed something to get me back up in spirits. Now, as I started watching the first episode, I almost turned it off because the premise was so sad! The main character’s wife had died in a car accident involving a drunk driver, and he, the husband and dad of a teenage daughter, he’s so distraught that he spends I think a year drowning his grief in drugs and other behaviors. He completely ignores his daughter.
But somehow, I caught a little flame of hope in that story, because his friends and his boss don’t give up on him, his neighbor takes care of his daughter, really loves her during that time.
I continued to watch the series over time, and to me, it’s a story of this family of characters, of different ages and backgrounds and personalities and all of them have flaws, but all showing love towards one another during really difficult, sad circumstances, that it actually makes me feel good. There’s lots of bittersweet moments though that have me in tears sometimes, so it may not be right for all your “blahs” - fair warning! But there’s also a lot of comedy in it.
You might prefer a true comedy, or a mystery or thriller. We watched ‘Enola Holmes’ a while back, and it was a fun movie to watch with kids, and it definitely distracted me and left me with good feels.
Another movie I remember really pulling me into the story is ‘Baby Driver.’ This one isn’t for the young kids at all, but it’s a thriller, there is violence, but the main character’s story is really enticing and I was just rooting for him throughout the whole movie.
The Residence is a series I’ve started watching, I think it’s on Netflix. It’s a murder mystery that takes place in the White House with a detective who is called in, and no one is allowed to leave the residence all night while she investigates what happened and interviews all the staff and guests who were there at the time of the murder. Sort of Hercule Poirot, but a comedy. Lots of great little characters, and the detective’s own ego playing part. This one is fun and funny, really good to help bust me out of my “Blah” moods! In fact, it could be a really good Sunday evening watch if any Monday anxieties start to pop up for you on Sunday evening.
The fifth idea I have is to get into nature.
I have to admit that in summer, I have a really hard time being comfortable in nature here in Miami. It is so very hot, and humid, and I’m not comfortable outside all day like that. 
But winters in Miami are glorious! And being outside is really amazing between October and April or so.
So getting into nature to get rid of the blah’s doesn’t have to be a major expedition, right? It can be a simple walk with the dog, of just standing or sitting in your back yard, or your balcony, and letting the sun hit your face. It can be watching the stars and the moon at night.
I have an app on my phone that tells me what I’m looking at in the night sky, and it’s fascinating! I look at the constellations, and I’m just as amazed by them now as I was when I was a kid! Just looking up at the stars for even 5 or 10 minutes can improve my mood so much.
Over the past few years, my kids have gotten me into watching the sunrise. Going down to the beach and watching the sun come up is awe-inspiring. There are a few places we like to go watch the sunrise, but a couple of favorites are Virginia Key and Crandon beach. They’re quiet and they’re easy to access. But once you’re back on the road, it’s full of life with the groups of road cyclists, and all the traffic, and it all feels really lively again. 
That’s been great for my blah moods. I honestly don’t go as much when the kids aren’t around, and definitely not during the school week, but as I’m thinking about this now, I feel like I should go more. So maybe that will be something that I do this week!
My sixth idea is to bake or cook some comfort food, and eat it!
I like to cook, but I’ve gone through the cycles of cooking feeling more like a chore than a joy.
Cooking and baking simply for pleasure, though, is what I’m talking about here.
I like to make a quick chicken curry in the pressure cooker. I use all breast meat, and I’ll make basmati rice and a veggie with it, or quinoa and a green salad. It’s really yummy when the chicken curry has a good amount of sauce so I can cover the rice and the quinoa with it! That’s comfort food to me, and it always makes me feel better.
Baking is also great! Orange-cardamom olive oil cake is one of my absolute favorite desserts! But I’m not opposed to brownies, banana bread, or chocolate cake!
The whole process of making these comfort foods is just as good as the eating, and getting involved in putting the ingredients together, chopping and mixing, that all helps to distract my mind from any blah feelings I might be having.
The trick, though, is that the entire hands-on process of making these foods can’t take a really long time or be super tiring, because that could just exacerbate your blah’s. Chicken curry, brownies, banana bread and chocolate cake are fast and easy. Orange cardamom olive oil cake takes me a little more prep time, so I have to be cognizant of that if I choose to make that one, so that I don’t tire myself out completely.
And my seventh idea is to be social.
In the deepest blah’s, I might be tempted to isolate myself. As an introvert, it’s hard for me to be social all the time. But I do know the benefits of being social especially when I have the blah’s.
Some things you can try out are to invite someone over for dinner, or dessert, or just for tea or coffee. 
Ask a friend if they’d like to go to the bookstore with you, and spend, you know, a half hour browsing books together, and chatting on the way there and on the way back.
Or play a board game with the family. There’s one we’ve gotten into lately called Codenames, where one Spymaster from each team tried to have their team identify all their spies by their one-word codenames using only single-word clues. The first team to identify all their spies wins. We’ve played it with my husband and me against the kids, and the kids have this shared vocabulary and stories and situations that my husband and I don’t understand. And they sometimes can often identify 3 or more codenames with one clue alone! They always win. And it’s absolutely fun.
But we love to play board games with our adult friends, too! It’s so much laughter and a fair amount of competition - all in good fun, of course. 
Being social does so much good to our emotional health. And honestly, being social is the biggest benefit to being organized that I can think of.
I can think of all the other benefits, like wasting less time, having no-cry mornings because things are organized, being good to the planet, having your home look and feel beautiful, and being healthier and less stressed when there’s no clutter - but still, I think connecting with other people in our homes is the most most life-changing benefit to being organized for beautiful living.
Sharing the safest place you have, which is your home, with other people is, I think, an act of love and care towards other people that is good for both you and the people you invite in.
If you’re not able to do that, or you’re reluctant to do that because of what your home looks like, or the amount of clutter in it, I know how you feel. I was there. One of the clients I’m working with this week is there. She’s coming back after a years-long medical battle, and she and her family were so focused on her recovery and their entire family’s well-being that clutter had a chance to build up.
She hasn’t been able to invite friends over in 2 years because the clutter took over her entire dining room. The papers and clothes and the gifts that people gave her overwhelmed her and her husband’s bedroom. They could only use three seats of their entire dining room.
But after just 3 days of working with her and the family, we’ve been able to clear her kitchen counters, her entire dining room, and her bedroom. And yes, there is more to be done, and there’s a maintenance plan we’re in the process of putting in place to make sure she and her family can continue keeping clutter out from now on.
But she’s already planned a family gathering of 12 people, and she’s so, so happy that they can all sit comfortably around her dining room table again.
That feeling of not wanting anyone to come over because of the clutter - that your guests won’t feel comfortable in your house - to inviting people over freely, anytime you feel like it. That’s what she’s most excited about, and rightly so. Right?
So my 7 ideas for what to do when you feel “Blah” are:
To get a good night’s sleep
Plan or research something that makes you really excited
Read a delicious book. Not just a good book, a delicious one!
Watch a show or movie that makes you feel good
Get out into nature, even if it’s just for a few minutes
Bake or cook comfort food, and eat it, and 
Be social in your home
These are the things that help me when I’m a bit sad, and I hope they give you ideas to try.
But I’d also love to know if you have things that you do when you feel blah that makes you feel better. It would be awesome to have more feel-good tools in my toolbox for when we drop off a child at school, or come home from a vacation, or when my mom goes home after a long visit. You can email me your ideas please at support@fireflybridge.com or DM me on Instagram @fireflybridgeorganizing with your ideas.
Thanks for spending your time with me today. I really appreciate it, and while this podcast might feel one-sided, me talking, you listening, I want to assure you that it’s not. I reply to every email, every DM voice message, I love to have those conversations with you. It’s why I started this podcast. So me asking you to email or DM me, I really mean it.
So have a beautifully organized week, and I’ll see you on the next episode!