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Trash or Treasure: De-cluttering That Preserves The Memories
Written by: Barbara E. FriesnerArticle Overview: Do you have a "memory box" filled with treasures such as a corsage from your high school prom, your Girl Scout badge sash, old Valentine's cards, a napkin from your wedding, ticket stubs from your first pro ball game, or your baby's first shoes? While this "stuff" may look like junk to others, to you these mementos represent precious memories, the story of your life - what I call the "family fortune".
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Free Download - Elder Caregiving: How to Help Family Members with Denial By Barbara E. Friesner |
Trash or Treasure: De-cluttering That Preserves The Memories
Do you have a "memory box" filled with
treasures such as a corsage from your high school prom, your Girl
Scout badge sash, old Valentine's cards, a napkin from your wedding,
ticket stubs from your first pro ball game, or your baby's first
shoes? While this "stuff" may look like junk to others,
to you these mementos represent precious memories, the story
of your life - what I call the "family fortune".
Now imagine having to go through these treasures and deciding what to keep and what to give up. That's the overwhelming and emotional task your aging parent faces when preparing to move. In fact, for many, this is so overwhelming and emotional they are unable or unwilling even to start.
If you're a family member and you want to help your elderly parent with this task, what do you do? That was the problem a brother and sister in California were facing when they called me.
About 4 years ago, their mother and father had moved from their big family home into a smaller home nearby and easily got rid of about 2/3 of their possessions such as furniture and books. When their father died 2 years later, their mother was enthusiastic about moving into a small apartment in a seniors complex. The house was sold and the siblings agreed to help their mother pack and move. When they arrived with boxes in hand, they were astonished to discover how much "stuff" she had. The son made an offhand comment that, rather than packing boxes, they should have just arranged for a big dumpster. At that point, their mother refused to proceed! With progress at a standstill, and less than a month before the house had to be emptied, the siblings called me.
My first task was to help them understand the significance of all their mother's "stuff" - and how much it meant to her. Once the they understood that often it's not so much about the actual item as it is about the memory and the story that goes with it, and that people will more likely let go of something if they are able to "hand off " the memory, they created a plan. In this case, because time was quickly running out, they decided that the first step should be to help their mother sort and box up everything by generation (eg: everything of their mother and father's together, everything of grandparents together, etc.) and take the boxes to the siblings' houses. Then, after the move, they would bring 1-2 boxes at a time to their mother's new apartment and videotape her stories while she sorted through the boxes.
Then together we "scripted" a series of conversations for the siblings to have with their mother to convey their respect for her treasures and get her excited again about the move. They were thrilled when she eagerly re-engaged, and even made improvements to the plan! Rather than using a video camera, she decided to get a digital camera and tape recorder with the idea to create a scrapbook with pictures and her narrative for her grandchildren.
Some of the items she kept and some she gave to her children. However, once the memory was preserved, she willing disposed of the rest. She threw out quite a lot and the rest was donated to a local school, the nearby library, and a senior center tag sale. And because the move had already been made, they were able to proceed at a leisurely pace.
In this case, time was of the essence and they had to move quickly. Yet they were still able to make the move happen and find the time they needed to preserve the family history. Why wait for a move? This is a process that takes time so why not start saving your family's fortune now. If you don't know how or where to start with your own unique situation, please give me a call and see how Generational Coaching can help you resolve your situation by choice, not crisis.
Barbara Friesner
AgeWiseLiving LLC
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Article Tags: caregiving, dad, decluttering, elder care, generations, memories, mom, moving, packing, parents, planning, storage, stress, trash
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About the Author: Barbara E. Friesner RSS for Barbara E.'s articles - Visit Barbara E.'s website  In addition to her FREE weekly Senior care newsletter filled with tips for taking care of the elderly, Barbara is the Eldercare Expert and writes a monthly senior care guide column for the National Association of Baby Boomer Women. In addition, Barbara has been quoted in newspapers and magazines throughout the US. For over 25 years as a senior care manager, first for her grandmother and for the past 17 years for her mother (with dementia), Barbara learned firsthand how overwhelming, stressful, and time consuming senior care can be. As a result, Barbara started AgeWiseLiving to help others navigate through this challenging time, and avoid the emotional and frustrating task of finding the answers themselves and trial-and-error implementation. Barbara has collaborated with hundreds of family members who are providing senior care, professionals with Senior clients, and employees of Assisted Living communities to help them successfully build relationships and address critical senior care issues. As an adjunct professor at Cornell University, Barbara created and taught "Seniors Housing Management" at the School of Hotel Administration. Prior to starting AgeWiseLiving, Barbara was the Director of Education & Development for Loews Corporation and Dean of Loews University. She received her Master of Business Administration from Boston University. Click here to visit Barbara E.'s website   Recognizing the Clues to Your Aging Parents Situation Should You Sign A Nursing Home Admission Agreement Caring for Aging Parents How Do I Know the Right Thing to Do Helping Your Aging Parents Help Themselves Step One Keeping in Touch How to Avoid Return to Sender |
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Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer
- Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the New Consumer
Michael J. Silverstein
2006
From the inside jacket:
"Today's consumers can seem impossible to understand, and even harder to please. For instance, the average mall shopper will spend about $100, then leave when she hits that limit. SHe'll probably buy shoes rather than clothing, because she doesn't want to think about her dress size. And the store most likely to get her money isn't the one with the nicest display or the deepest discounts - it's the one closest to her parking spot."
Okay, ladies here at evancarmichael.com? Do you follow this generalization? I myself go to bookstores, and nowhere else. Being self-employed in a home office, I don't need to buy new clothes, but I confess I did buy a new pair of bike shoes recently...
The Introduction states:
"This book tells the story of how middle-class consumers around the world are reshaping the consumer-goods market by trading down to low-price products and services, trading up to premium ones, and avoiding the boredom and low value that increasingly characterizes the middle. These consumers, mostly women, are better educated, have more disposable income, and are buying with more sophistication than ever."
Table of Contents
1. The Bifurcating Market
2. The New Middle-ClassConsumer
3. Cheap is Good
4. Spanning the Poles
5. All Treasure, All the Time
6. When the Calculus Shifts
7. In A Pickle
8. Nickels and Dimes
9. Left in the Dust
10. Taking Action
Don't they know there are spammers out there?
- Just a rant....
I have a spam filter on my email, such that every day probably about 20 or more emails a day end up in my Bulk folder and I don't even see them. But I still see dozens of spam messages a day in my Inbox, and I recognize them by their titles, if they just say, "Hello," or "Hi" or some other generic title, I know it's spam and I just delete it without even opening it - as you must do.
Today I got an email from someone, and the title was "wff".
Just that. Not even capital letters.
Normally I would have just deleted it without reading it, but fortunately I saw the name of the author, and it was a name I recognized, not a friend but an acquaintance - someone who works for the Williamsburg Film Festival. And the title "wff" was of course Williamsburg Film Festival.
And I wonder how many businesses send out emails to potential customers with generic subject lines so that their stuff gets sent to the Trash file without even being looked at.
Re: Don't they know there are spammers out there?
- [quote="OmnivoreInk":utcjbiv6]Just a rant....
I have a spam filter on my email, such that every day probably about 20 or more emails a day end up in my Bulk folder and I don't even see them. But I still see dozens of spam messages a day in my Inbox, and I recognize them by their titles, if they just say, "Hello," or "Hi" or some other generic title, I know it's spam and I just delete it without even opening it - as you must do.
Today I got an email from someone, and the title was "wff".
Just that. Not even capital letters.
Normally I would have just deleted it without reading it, but fortunately I saw the name of the author, and it was a name I recognized, not a friend but an acquaintance - someone who works for the Williamsburg Film Festival. And the title "wff" was of course Williamsburg Film Festival.
And I wonder how many businesses send out emails to potential customers with generic subject lines so that their stuff gets sent to the Trash file without even being looked at.[/quote:utcjbiv6]
Hi Barbara,
Personally, I do my best to skim all the sender names and subject titles before deleting everything in my "bulk folder" because you never know if you're missing out on something. For instance, I had a friend whose email used to make it safely into my inbox, but then I later found a few of them in mislabeled as spam in the bulk folder.
Re: Exotic Tea Shop Website for Review
- Hi David,
- Background is nice and fitting, but I don't like the header. The title completely blends in with the background?
- About Us shouldn't be second from the left on the navigation bar. People read from left to right. The commercial intent is to buy, the online store should probably be second.
- Online Tea Store... too many choices without supplementary information. No description of product choice. oz and pricing should be stylized separately from the name of the product.
- Online Tea Store.... Visuals is definitely very important in raising commercial intent. Someone who comes to the site through SEO is searching for exotic teas and not particulars. Meaning they're browsing. Text is not enough for a browsing shopper.
- World of Tea... the information can be organized a bit better. Again, visuals. Some of this info belongs to online tea store. I'm not too sure on the name.
- Tea & Treasure... not sure on this name either... mainly because you have "World of Tea" next to it. Navigation should be transparent in conveying information to the users. Why not call it "Find Us" or "Visit Us"?
- Email newseletter.... "occasional updates" containing what exactly?
Again, my humble opinion. Hope you find it useful!
Books for Women Entrepreneurs
- There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here.
It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new.
In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment!
1. The Old Girl's Network
2. Mother's Work
3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women
4. Pitch Like A Girl
5. Workplace Warrior
6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer
7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery
8. She Wins, You Win
9. Napoleon On Project Management
10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do
11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years
12. The One Minute Millionaire
13. Talking From 9 to 5
14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions
15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success
16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded
17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful
18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End
19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide
20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen
21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business
22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker
23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business
24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises
25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy
26. The Promotable Woman
27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it
28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home
29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women
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