It's a sad fact of modern living, especially if you're a working parent. That's what inspired nine Triangle families to seek help from the producers of a new reality show, "Time Makeover," on Fine Living Network. The show offers time management tips for the perpetually crunched.

Scott Myers of Distillery Pictures in Raleigh -- which also produced "It's Easy Being Green" for Fine Living -- says that nine of 11 families featured in the first season of the show are from the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area because it offers a diversity of rural, suburban and city families.

One of those families, the Shedricks of Carpenter Village in Cary, were particularly strained by the overlap of business and home life.

Jen and Dan Shedrick own Cookies in Bloom, a gourmet cookie store in downtown Cary. They're also raising 4-year-old twins.

"We just recently bought the business -- it's only a year old," Jen Shedrick says. "I am a stay-at-home mom, but I do a ton of stuff for the cookie store, because it's a new business."

She needed more time for herself, and one of the things that time-management expert Geralin Thomas helped her with was finding time to finish a mural she had started in her sons' room long ago.

"She did a lot of great things," says Jen Shedrick. "She helped my husband bundle e-mails. He'd shoot me like, 70 e-mails a day, while I'm chasing kids, and taking people to preschool, and doing other things, and then wondering why I never got anything done. It's kind of hard to do when you get that many e-mails."

Thomas also helped out the Damares of Raleigh with time-killers like organizing laundry for a family of five.

David Damare juggles two jobs, working for a mortgage company and piloting part time for Delta. His wife, Kelly, is the mother of three young children and a Spanish teacher at various preschools.

"I was trying to handle all of the administrative tasks for the house and for my business," he says. "Kind of the manly thing to do, and it just was not working out."

The result was that mail from two years ago was still sitting in his office. Thomas helped him sort it out.

"My wife has since taken over most of the administrative tasks of the house," he says, and he reports that the situation is much better now.

"It gave her insight into our overall financial situation -- where we've been, where we are, and where we were headed," he says.

Thomas, who runs Metropolitan Organizing in Cary, says both families suffered from a common problem: failing to set clear boundaries between work time and family time.

"Instead of communicating, as married people are supposed to do, they were just kind of reporting to one another." Once the lines are drawn, she says, the romance often returns to stressed-out relationships.

When asked about the main thing she learned from the experience, Jen Shedrick says: "It's going to sound really kind of stupid but -- watch the clock."

"Time Makeover" debuts at 9 p.m. Thursday with a family from Durham, the Moores.

'Beauty' moves on

Since being cut from last Tuesday's "Beauty and the Geek" on The CW, Hooters promotional model Natalie Reeves is keeping busy and making plans.

The 23-year-old, who grew up in Cary and now lives in Raleigh, is back working at Hooters and signing calendars for fans. She's also putting up a Web site, nataliereeves.com.

Reeves seems undaunted about being cut from last Tuesday's show. She and her geek partner John Gardner posed too much of a threat to other contestants, so a rival team voted them off. Reeves says she saw the strategic move coming.

"As soon as they said they had to choose one team, I said, 'Yep, we're gone!" she says.

That leaves only geek William (no last name has been revealed yet) from Chapel Hill to represent North Carolina on the show. It was down to Reeves' team and William's team last week when elimination time was at hand.

The funny thing is, William actually wants to leave because he dislikes his partner Jennifer Carter so much. The feeling is mutual since he told her she looked fat.

"I know he didn't mean it," Reeves says. "I know it's very wrong. At the same time, when someone's going to ask you the same question over and over again -- 'Do I look good in this dress? Do I look good in this dress? -- you know, it's the same dress every time." She laughs.

Reeves says she plans to move to Los Angeles in June with fellow "Beauty" beauty Erin Schneider to pursue TV roles.