Tag: #springcleaning

Aging in Place, DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Moving

Have the OTHER Conversation, Bringing Your Loved One to Your Home

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

You know, the one with your spouse and household family members about bringing your aging parent to live in your/their home.  Take a deep breath before you do this then understand as much as you can about what you are agreeing to.

This should not be a quick decision.  Talk to your family to get their opinion.  A lot of times family members will allow you to do what you want because it takes the burden off them.  Perhaps think about why they are allowing you to do this (and not them) and clearly understand their reasons because they are valid and perhaps you should consider them before making your decision as well.

This should not be done alone. You need support and will need to take breaks so set that up now.  Hire someone to relieve you daily.  There are many resources available both for free and pay.  Don’t wait until you are at the breaking point to get help, set that up at before your loved one comes to your home.

Talk to healthcare professionals treating your loved one.  Healthcare professionals have a clear understanding of your loved one’s health and what is required to attend to their needs.  These needs might not be something you ever anticipated as health deteriorates.  Physical and mental status changes come with their own challenges.

Preparation is essential.  Look at your home with an eye to the future.  Is there a 3-foot radius between furniture that a wheelchair could maneuver around?  Do you have stairs that will require a chair lift, budget for this now?  What about getting into the home, are there stairs, do you need to get a ramp?  Are there grab bars strategically placed in the bathroom? Are weapons accessible? and I don’t just mean guns, I mean items that can be used as weapons against you or someone else.

Communication is key.  Not only between you, your spouse, siblings, and family members but their extended network as well.  A quick conversation to the extended family will go a long way when your spouses’ family understands your spouse agreed to this arrangement and there’s no need for judgment.

Draw a line in the sand. Plan now as to when you will hand over care to someone else.  When the caregiving affects your family, your work, your mental and/or physical health.  When certain traits begin to show in your loved one. When certain equipment needs to be used for care. When friends and family tell you it’s time to make changes, you agree to listen to them.

This is doable!

Make it as easy as possible as soon as possible so your time together is pleasant and as stress reduced as it can be.

You won’t regret taking care of your loved one.

 

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DeCluttering, DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Moving

The Guilt You Feel When Moving

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Throwing GUILT, oh my!  We can all probably say we’ve thrown a little guilt at one time or another!  Here’s the thing about guilt, it makes the guilt-delivering-person and the guilt-receiving-person feel bad. Not wanting to Move-Family-Treasures-Guilt is the pain of not wanting to let go and hoping that others feel the same way about your treasures as you do OR you will try to make them feel the same way and that does NOT work!

Mostly, it’s elder parents who downsize before their adult children downsize and want the adult children to take all the “stuff” they have collected from ancestors before them.  Many years earlier the elder parents accepted their own parent’s treasures because, during that particular period of time, things generally were A. well made, B. cost a fortune and C. it was understood those treasures were intended to be passed down.  So, we have Baby Boomers holding on to their grandparent’s possessions and now they are the ones looking to downsize and give the items they no longer want or need to their children.  Guess what?  The grandchildren, in general, don’t want those family treasures.  They have purchased or rented furniture that is contemporary, sleek and light in many cases: heavy, brown furniture does not fit into their lifestyle.

Many adult grandchildren move frequently and change jobs just as frequently, they are not “Company Lifers” and I don’t mean that “Lifers” is a bad term, it just doesn’t seem to apply lately.  They tend to rent more than own and the dwellings they rent are smaller and cannot fit the large profile furniture of their grandparents.  Their color schemes are different than the muted greens, browns, oranges of their grandparents and frankly, you can buy a new piece of furniture in the color you want cheaper than if you take something to be re-upholstered in a new color/pattern.  AND, the fabrics are different now, a big one being they can be sun and stain resistant, something their grandparents didn’t have incorporated into their furniture.

Trinkets, novelties, figurine collectibles are not so desirable to the adult grandchildren.  They have no space and many former family treasures have no meaning to them.  They, smartly, prefer to have less to dust and keep clean!!  Good for them, let’s join them and get rid of that Not-Moving-Family-Treasure-Guilt!  Contact me for help moving and sign up on this home page for my newsletter.

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DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life

Examining Your Childhood DeCluttering Habits

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

The key to DeCluttering is to create a Habit of DeCluttering. And one of the keys to adopting the Habit of DeCluttering is to understand where your cluttering or DeCluttering Habits first started so you can adjust the bad habits into new, positive DeCluttering Habits.

What is your earliest memory of a DeCluttering Habit or lack of a DeCluttering Habit?  Was your earliest memory of cluttering and DeCluttering before you were a teenager?  Take a minute to return to your 15 year old self, what were your DeCluttering Habits?  Did you have any that you had observed and adopted or were told to do?  Were they related to just your space or to your home and if you had a yard to your yard? Now think about your 25-year-old self, what did those DeCluttering Habits look like during that period of your life?  Were they different from your 10-year-old, 15-year-old or 25-year-old habits? When did the Habit of DeCluttering change? What are the DeCluttering habits you would like to keep?  Which habits do you want to release?

I have found a person’s DeCluttering Habits are established early and are only changed by a shift in perspective or a dramatic incident.  Many times it’s a tragic, life-altering event, it can also be as simple as someone showing you that another way to present yourself to the world works better than the current way.

To start your DeCluttering journey examine when those Habits of cluttering and DeCluttering first appeared and what caused them.  Then observe how they have changed, or not, over the years. Thirdly, decide which habits would best serve you going forward in your life and make those changes. Believe that you can make a small change right this minute, you can.  I believe in you.

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Aging in Place, Closet Organizing, DeCluttering, DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life, Kitchen DeClutter, Moving, Safety in The Home

Wasting Away

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

Wasting Away

Growing up most of us are taught not to waste anything because there are people starving, that people would love to have what we have so be sure you don’t waste it.  I remember the nuns saying don’t waste your food there are people starving and some classmate would say under his/her breath “then why don’t we send it to them”, GREAT idea and this concept of sending things we don’t use to someone who could use it is most easily translated to our “stuff”.

I work with people who possess an overabundance of “stuff” and when I ask them why they keep so many pieces of a certain item, many times, I’m met with a shrug and “I don’t know”.  I encounter tens and tens of collared knit shirts, tens of multiples of tens of T-shirts (I might go so far as to say hundreds of T-shirts) and lots and lots of black pants.  People don’t know what to do with these item s and they don’t want to be wasteful, so they don’t deal with the overabundance of items they possess.

What if we looked at being wasteful in a different context?  What would you say if I said to you these items are being wasted because they are shoved into the back of your drawer or closet and NO ONE is using them, and they are wasting away when they could be put to good use by someone else.

I know that if I find T-shirts stuffed into the bottom of your hall closet you are wasting them.  I know that if I find collared knit shirts hanging in your laundry room covered in dust you are wasting them.  I know that if I find boxes of socks in the basement covered in mouse poop you are wasting them.  I know that if I find a total of 270 shirts in your home in various rooms that 240 of them are being wasted.  I know that if I find cans of tomato paste, vegetables, tuna fish, or any food item, past their expiration date they are being wasted.

Your money is being wasted.  If you stopped buying excess what could you do with that wasted money?  Would your bank account have a positive number?  Would you be able to go out for a beautiful meal once a month? Would you feel better because you contributed to a soup kitchen or homeless shelter?  Would you be able to volunteer somewhere with the hours not wasted buying items you don’t need?

Be conscious of your spending, donate what you can, enjoy experiences.

Stop Waste NOW.  You can do it!

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DeCluttering For the Next Phase in Life

Spice & Herbs

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

It’s important to keep current with expiration dates on food. Do some of your spice containers look like the containers of your youth? Do you have fond memories of your grandparents or parents using those same spice containers? If yes, throw them away! Branding experts change packaging about every 10 years, even a slight change so if your cabinet contains 3 package iterations of the same item, toss the older versions. Without expiration dates on jars and cans it’s difficult to decide if the product inside is still safe, if your jars or cans have NO expiration date, take a good look and if you feel at all uneasy do not take a chance eating from them. Best practice is to make sure canned and jarred goods in your cabinets are not beyond their expiration date stamped on them. Try to take a look at expiration dates once a year, especially canned goods.

Here is what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says about expiration dates on food: “With the exception of infant formula, the laws that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) administers do not preclude the sale of food that is past the expiration date indicated on the label. FDA does not require food firms to place “expired by”, “use by” or “best before” dates on food products. This information is entirely at the discretion of the manufacturer.

A principle of U.S. food law is that foods in U.S. commerce must be wholesome and fit for consumption. A “best by”, “use by” or expiration date does not relieve a firm from this obligation. A product that is dangerous to consumers would be subject to potential action by FDA to remove it from commerce regardless of any date printed on a label.”

People tend to place spices in the cabinet above the stove but as we age it gets harder to lift our arms that high and they get forgotten. Place herbs and spices lower so they are easily reached.

Be aware and stay healthy!

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DeCluttering

Indulgent Purchases vs. Making Memories

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

(How does that indulgent purchase feel compared to experiences you’ve spent money on?)
Clutter is baggage and can underscore indulgent purchases. What is an indulgent purchase? I’m willing to bet you had an immediate answer, not a second wasted in thought, on the tip of your tongue, before you finished reading that sentence. Is it a three-quarter length chocolate brown leather coat that you charged and paid off in three installments plus interest, hanging in the closet that hasn’t seen the light of day for several years because it doesn’t fit the same as when you first bought it and it’s no longer in style? Perhaps the fountain pen you paid $500 for is sitting in your desk still waiting for the day when you will sit and write long letters to friends and family? For a moment, stop and think, “What is my most indulgent purchase?”
Often times indulgent purchases may require justification because they were an impulsive decision. Indulgent purchases can be the choice that feeds your vices. Retail therapy, lethargy and/or denial of a difficult situation or period of life are the perfect combination for spending on, and justifying, an indulgent purchase. Right behind the feeling of immediate gratification comes the feelings of regret and perhaps irresponsibility. And, thanks to clutter, a visual reminder of the physical baggage.
The good news is a study shows that buying “experiences” is good for you. (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/to-buy-happiness-purchase-an-experience) The “happiness magic” is all in what, how and where you spend your money. Aside from the excitement of the initial purchase “high” of a material indulgence, the experience of the purchase can be short-lived and generally does not hold long interesting. When you spend less money on “stuff”, you spend less on maintenance of the “stuff”, rewarding you with more discretionary income.
More discretionary income means there’s more opportunity to buy experiences. Having fun, exciting experiences and making memories is something we look forward to and we get to re-live those experiences when sharing them with others over the course of a lifetime. The positive feelings we get from experiences is satisfying and lives longer in our hearts and emotions. The memories from the experience last a lifetime. And isn’t it more exciting and engaging to share about something you’ve done rather than something you own?
As you declutter your living space, you create space, the breathing room for clarity to uncover what you really want, what makes you truly happy and how you want to feel. The next time you find yourself about to make an impulsive, indulgent, or debt producing purchase, ask yourself these questions: 1) Am I buying for immediate gratification? 2) Am I buying because of the status it represents? 3) Am I buying to “fit in” because everyone else has it? or 4) Am I buying an experience?

Enjoy a20160520_225521 fun experience: Boy George and Cyndi Lauper singing Karma Chameleon

May your next purchase be a happy memory.

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DeCluttering

Spring Time is Clean-Up Time

By Deirdre Dolan Nesline

daffodilLiving Among the Paper Clutter and Dead Trees

It’s real!  The dining room table is buried beneath heaps of paper because the kitchen island has morphed from a rolling land of hills into a mountain ready to break an avalanche.  In the living room, there’s a mound of magazines and newspapers multiplying on the ottoman, with some spill over on the coffee table or chair awaiting for someone with spare time to read, sort through, clip and save, and maybe even restack.  The file cabinet is chock-full.  There could possibly be a box filled with paper in an attempt to deal with this issue at a more convenient time.  Better yet, there could even be a designated room housing the clutter of paper.  In any way, shape or form, there is acute knowledge of the accumulation of paper as it permeates throughout the house with ultimate plans for a takeover.

This may be a bit extreme, but the barrage of written and printed information we receive every day surrounds us.  Even though we live in an electronic age, the regular mail gets delivered just about everyday.  That’s almost 365 days of some form of paper delivered in one year.   And this doesn’t’ include the myriad of other avenues paper seeps into our space.  We reach for sticky notes to jot reminders, we send and receive printed-on-paper invites, receive subscriptions to newspapers, magazines and the insurmountable obstacle of brochures, flyers and promotion postcards, and more.  School artwork, your business and possibly parent’s personal business paperwork comes home, too.  Our spouse brings home paper from work.  We collect receipts for various reasons, some with very valid reason, and some…well, it’s a mystery as to why.

At the end of the day we walk in with the daily mail, just wanting to relax, and so we drop it on a counter, or a table thinking we’ll get to it “in a moment” or “later”.  Later doesn’t come.  That moment was long gone, perhaps several days ago.  But the paper…it’s still coming.  And it’s accumulating.  Whatever attempt we made or didn’t make is a conditioned response.  A habit.

Like tending to the garden or the yard cleanup every season removing weeds and debris, we need to tend to our “inner yard” – the landscape within our homes and with the same fervor and commitment.  We need cleaned up space, free from clutter and debris in order to grow, thrive, feel good, be our best and be profitable.  Surely, looking at the accumulation of paper reveals the high amount of usage that is occupying valuable real estate – the inside of your home.  As the mounds of paper continue to take up space, the daily process of recycling is halted.  And recycling is critical because about one third of new paper comes from recycled paper; therefore saving living and thriving trees.  Recycling the accumulated piles of paper is helping to conserve the trees in our natural landscape. Those stagnant mounds of paper are dead trees in your home, like the weeds and debris in a yard prior to clean-up.  In order for you to grow and thrive those piles of paper need to be cleared and brought to recycling.  Agree to designate a limited intake through change of habits, and possibly an intervention to end the accumulation of paper.

Ruthlessly, survey the interior of your home.  Where are the piles?  Look everywhere, the closets, the office file cabinet, the basket in the corner of the room, under the beds, the bottom shelf, that stuffed drawer, everywhere.  Tackle each section, one at a time, with the goals of organizing, sorting, shredding and recycling.  Spring clean-up starts today!

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