Organizing your death sounds a little depressing, but it will be a blessing to the ones you leave behind if you put a little thought and effort into it now. Recently I’ve been going though it with a long time client and now his executor and it’s been a bit of a challenge. This client [...]
OK, I’m a little compulsive when it comes to order in my home, but not ALWAYS. Sometimes, I have to fool myself into getting things done. For example, yesterday I wanted a salad for lunch but that was too much work. But then I thought that if I needed 5 minutes to warm up the [...]
When the weather cools and evenings come earlier, the energy changes and we have a need to be cozy. In the warmer months there’s an urge to go out, to be active, explore and conquer things outside the home, but when the leaves fall, we’re called to be indoors again. To make your home inviting [...]
Last week my sister called me an overachiever, because I made a rhubarb pie that morning. It’s funny because it required little effort on my part and was in the oven in about 15 minutes. Later I realized that so much of what I do is built on life hacks. These hacks simplify my life [...]
I used to try to do things perfectly and as a result, not much got done. OK, that’s not entirely true- I did go to college, got married, had kids and in general those things turned out pretty well. But there are a lot of things in life that I struggle to do perfectly, like [...]
It is the number one cry in America on any given morning. Without keys, your life stops. You are stuck in one place, racing against the clock and feeling your blood pressure rise. Every possible disaster is perched to pour down on you within minutes of the lost keys. You can rail against the idiocy [...]
I love dinner. For me it signals the end of the day and it’s time to unwind. I start to think about dinner while having breakfast. Sometimes I’m even thinking about dinner the day before and in my family, we may even be thinking about dinner at Easter while eating dinner at Christmas! We are [...]
My grandmother had a little pot of beaded flowers on her kitchen table; it was charming and iconic in my childhood memories. I remember sitting at that table with my cousins, eating our fancy grapefruits together. Secretly, I coveted that little arrangement but tragically it was lost in the sweep of my grandmother house and [...]
My mother has threatened to move a couple of times, but that’s not happening. At this point, she has enough of her marbles and resources to stay put in a house that’s too big with a barn that needs painting and a yard that needs professional gardeners. I’m not mad about that; it’s the right [...]
When my kids were little, it seemed like there was never enough time to get organized and keep the house neat. We were just happy to get them on the bus in time with clean underwear and a lunch! The truth is, you will not have enough time until they move out. So for now, [...]