Tell Your Story
Please join me in celebrating 20 years of membership in the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals. NAPO has been the foundation of my professional life and business. I’m retired now, but I’m still an emeritus member. For 17 of those years I helped clients to declutter, simplify, organize, and refresh their homes, offices, schedules,…
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What are you always grateful for, if nothing else? My friend Jane and I have been complaining to one another for over 50 years. But we also count our blessings. And sometimes, when things look bleak, and we can’t think of anything current to be grateful for, we have certain reliable backups, like each other…
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Yikes! Witches? Really? Well, suspected and accused in court, yes! Convicted and hanged, thankfully not! . The Connecticut Witch Trials You’ve no doubt heard about the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-3 Massachusetts. But what about the Connecticut Witch Trials that predated them by 30 years? Yeah, me neither. The Salem trials were more numerous and…
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Dear Readers: I hope you enjoy this refreshed post from 2016. I was helping a long-time virtual coaching client with email maintenance, teaching her about Inbox Zero, and I admitted that mine was currently more like Inbox 200. In fact, as I continued to say, I don’t do anything (maintenance-wise) every day. She was…
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I always get excited as the year comes to a close. What will the New Year bring? Sometimes it brings fun challenges like the ones I have gathered here for your consideration. Is this the year you will start telling the stories of your photos, family, and things? If you’ve read my book, What’s a…
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I finally did it! Did what? I figured out my relationship to Henry Clay, the 19th century American statesman. How? By finding our common ancestor. Once upon a time, my Grandma Clay told me we were related to Henry Clay, about whom I had learned in school. (That’s what we called my paternal great-grandmother Bettie…
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I grew up in a family of six, with my parents and three younger brothers. We had few relatives. Certainly none who lived nearby. My parents did not share family stories or photos. Not really. We enjoyed slide shows of our own family…
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(This story originally appeared in a Facebook Note on December 24, 2012.) Luminarias are a New Mexican Christmas Eve tradition with religious origins. (Scroll down to learn more.) They are also one of my favorite family holiday traditions. But… in the cemetery? Let me explain.
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UPDATE: Mystery solved! (scroll down) What do you think happened when I offered my mom’s good silverware to my niece, Vinca, as a wedding present? One never knows what will happen when you pass a family keepsake on to the next generation. Will they love it? Or, not so much? There’s only one way to…
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I thought this phrase — If you can’t find something, clean up — was a well-known adage. But random people I’ve queried have never heard it. So, I Googled it. Turns out it’s one of Gretchen Rubin’s many Secrets of Adulthood, which she introduced in her bestselling book The Happiness Project. I guess it made…
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