This week we made usable again a small home office and a hallway closet. We also cleared one basement shelving rack of 2007 boxes. Getting started was emotionally difficult, but the results realized have kindled a spirit of success, positive expectations, and a strengthened resolve. Day 1 of 43: Office Transformed (3 hours) Problem: The […]
Two compassionate organizing companions are with me now for 40+ days of desert practice. We realized a significant start in our first three days/sessions this week (for the sake of my sanity, I am diving into the desert sands just 3 hours per organizing day). “What’s the purpose?” some may ask. If you are a […]
Ouch! That hurt! Today we dismantled another closet filled with bags and boxes from the time I unexpectedly became a full-time family caregiver and watched my life-at-that-time disintegrate. Opening this chapter again felt raw as I unpacked the contents of these bags for the first time since 2007. During the eighteen months I was a […]
Today we will begin a 3-month project to unpack boxes from a sudden move that happened in 2007. These boxes were packed in a hurry and stored/sat as a 15’W x 15’L x 6’H block in my mother-in-law’s basement for 18 months while I became a displaced person and took on the role of primary […]
If someone had called me a homebody before now, I may have been offended or at least puzzled, as my focus during my work (as an experience design consultant, a family caregiver, and now a cause-founder/champion) has not been on being at home, or home life, but on the work itself: consulting way more than […]
“Clean the closet” is likely among the very last things to do on a long-term carer’s list of to-dos when home care and or visits to doctors, the hospital, or the assisted living is higher on the list of priorities. When long-term caring for loved ones extends for years and years, it is not uncommon […]
When cleaning out the family home, we sometimes find pieces from the past that relate closely to our current life. My grandmother’s Girl Scout Inc. Nature Notebook from 1925 (stored in an antique stationery desk all of her and my mother’s adult life) made its way into my hands and heart today. “What would you […]
Monday evening, August 19, 2013 My neighbor Barb is helping me weekdays like a surrogate sister. This morning we emptied the last storage cabinet in the basement. We had hoped it was full of old AT&T bills and bank statements that could be tossed directly into a shredding bag. In addition to this expected content, […]
Golly it’s hard to be handling the personal items of my parents’ lives. It is August 18 and I’ll be working the next 10 days, through August 28, to shake out as many good-will donations as possible from the first and second floors of my family’s colonial home. We’ve completed sifting through the contents of […]
My parents have passed on and we are now sitting and sorting the contents of my family home. Friends and family are helping, as is a phased-approach and the method of working within categories. Phases include: reducing, recycling, and re-using. We are mostly finished with the first two phases and are now within the re-use […]
