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Please (like, pretty please!!) go vote for me to participate in the Go Getters Getaway in Guatemala! You can go here for each day’s new video from Sept 20-27, and you can VOTE ONCE EACH DAY!!!
Here is the first day’s video – Introducing Myself and Why I Want to Go!
My book – How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind
Jamie Ivey’s podcast talking about the realities faced by those affected by Hurricane Harvey
--Nony
Voted for you!! : ) My first time to be READING and WATCHING you in REAL TIME, so I am excited to be able to participate and hopefully help you WIN!! I am still reading your blog from the beginning, and am currently only up to 5/2012. I have also listened to many of your podcasts….many of them multiple times. I have 2 of your ebooks, and you really have brought me HOPE, for the first time in years. Thank you for allowing God to use you to reach so many of us who NEED that hope! P.S. And yes, you ARE funny!! : ) You have made me laugh out loud, for real, and that is NOT easy to do.
Heard in this podcast that your next book is on decluttering… Yay!
My mom and stepdad where super organized. (My stepdad was one of those people who couldn’t go to bed with a dirty spoon in the sink. 🙂 They were in excellent health and loved going to estate sales and buying knickknacks, books, dishes, artwork, stained glass, etc, etc. They were the opposite of “minimalists” and enjoyed a lot of treasures displayed on many, many shelves in every room. Their belongings made it feel homey and beautiful (to them).
They didn’t downsize in their later years, but instead bought a larger home and acquired more and more stuff during these decades. Being healthy, energetic and naturally organized, they were able to control and stay on top of a tremendous amount of belongings all thru their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s.
Then they entered their 80’s. My mom was diagnosed with dementia and can no longer make the simplest decisions regarding decluttering. And my stepfather was diagnosed and died two years later from cancer. For those two years, they were no longer organized and neat.
Instead, they struggled with day to day tasks and keeping up with paperwork and the weekly cleaning. They hired a weekly cleaning woman for a few months, but theirs was a very difficult home to clean with all the knickknacks, papers and stuff. She did the best she could, but their belongings transformed from estate sale treasures to a dirty hoard during those two years.
I started to type, “If you can include a chapter on decluttering in the later years…”. But I just realized that my parents were not your target audience. They had great control over their stuff… until they didn’t.
My sister and I have been dealing with their stuff/hoard. I take comfort in knowing that we are not alone in this. It is a tremendous issue for our generation.
It is overwhelming at times. But I also find it very motivating. I AM your target audience 🙂 and I’m using this experience to deal with my own issues and stuff while I’m in my late 50’s/early 60’s. Not that I’ll be done or anything. 🙂 I know that I’ll ALWAYS have to deal with my own clutter.
And as I’ve typed before… your hints to just start with the garbage has been so helpful to me!
I love listening to your podcasts while I clean and de-clutter! You’ve been so helpful to me and I just love you! I was happy to hear there was a little way maybe I could help you, so I’ve been voting for you for the Guatamala trip!! I hope you win!!
I’ve been voting – and I just need to say that you’re so funny and awesome. They should totally take you on this trip!
BTW – you can vote in different browsers everyday. At least it looks like it’s working for me. Every vote helps right?
Thank you for sharing this message. A number of years ago, my sister’s house burned down while she was in university and pregnant with her first child. The amount of junk that people gave them was astonishing…and being in her early 20s and completely bereft, she couldn’t say no. She felt guilty even accepting “charity” because there were people she saw of more deserving/in need/whatever. But then, she was left not only with the financial and emotional devastation, but also with a huge job to do: sorting the broken toasters to find ONE that worked, sorting out the raggedy clothing from the wearable stuff, bringing things to the dump because of limits on their garbage pick-ups, etc. And then, they even had people whom they hardly knew who gave them garbage bags full of baby clothes (very thoughtful!) who asked her to give them back when she was done with them. She couldn’t possibly keep all of the owners of those clothes straight in her mind, especially at a time like that. Seeing her go through this completely changed my perspective on donating. (More recently, the fires in Fort McMurray, Alberta had similar issues. When some donations were found in a dumpster, people were furious and it blew up on social media…but there’s only so much time that volunteers have to sort the items, some of them are trash, and many of them are items that no one devastated in a fire can use.) Since then, I only give what they’re asking for or cash. Thank you for sharing this message!