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Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home

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These days, a groundbreaking theme is the need to rid yourself of excess and get to substance. Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home by Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand is an excellent resource book for those wanting to move from a bigger home to smaller surroundings, what to do if you're a couple whose children have recently left the nest and you want to downsize, how to clear out the house after a death in the family, or the best way for an elderly parent to get ready to move in with a son or daughter.

In every case, you have to know what to do with the stuff of life, like accumulated family possessions, unneeded household items, and family heirlooms. Moving On has terrific checklists, planning tools, and how to avoid squabbling among relatives.

If only I could have used this book several years ago when my sister and I had to move my mother out of her home of 40 years! Linda Hetzer and Janet Hulstrand are warm, witty writers who get right to the point in this short, concise, and immensely helpful book. Now I'll save it to use myself when it is time for me to move to smaller or different quarters, and I'll advise my daughter to consider it her handbook. This is a much-needed addition to "how-to" books.

I was really glad to discover this book. Several friends in their fifties and sixties are coping with clearing out Mom's stuff so she can move into an assisted living facility. Quite a few also have to clear out a lifetime's accumulation of their own, so they can retire and relocate.
Here's the topics covered in chapter one (Planning Ahead, Remembering Who's in Charge, Preparing for the Day, Agreeing on a Family Plan, Dividing Up the Belongings).
Chapter two covers Sorting It Out, Getting Started, Considering Storage, Making It Work. In chapter three it handles the emotional part of downsizing (Preserving Family Heirlooms, Finding Archival Materials, Preserving the Memories Themselves).
Chapter four tells how to turn some of it into cash (Yard Sales, Estate Sales, Auctions, On-Line Auctions, Secondhand Retailers, Selling Direct). Getting rid of the rest is covered in chapter five (Giving It Away to Friends or Family, Donating and Recycling, Throwing Out the Trash).
The book also lists
*Helpful Books and Websites
*Organizations (Professional, Trade, Consumer, & Support Groups)
*Suppliers of Archival Materials
*Donation and Recycling Directory
*A Checklist of Questions to Ask

Moving On is "a practical guide to downsizing the family home." It is full of practical suggestions as to how to tackle the concrete task of emptying a house, how to categorize the multitude of things that accumulate over the years, what to do with them, how to keep the things one wants to keep and how to dispose of the things one wants to get rid of. But this is a book that is by no means only about things. It is very much a book about people, the first generation of people who collect things, write things, hoard things, love things, and the next generation of people who necessarily have the task of deciding what to do with all these things.
It is a book full of understanding for the agony of closing up a family home - after all, closing up a family home is saying good bye to people who have played a huge part in one's own life and are ceasing or have ceased to do so. As their belongings disappear one by one through the door of the house, so they themselves seem to disappear. This book suggests ways of making this process of saying farewell a dignified one, one without rancor and one without regrets. It deals in practical ways with problems that far exceed the practical. It makes concrete suggestions for coping with issues that are far from concrete.
It is also a book that manages to look in two directions at once, speaking directly to the reader who stands at the crossroads of the aging process, that point in life at which the older generation is moving from the scene and the younger generation is inexorably turning into the older generation. In emptying your parents' house, do you not inevitably begin to think, "And what will happen to my house?" For the first time, perhaps, you return home, and begin in your mind's eye to see the next generation picking up your treasured belongings, and saying: "What shall we do with this?" Moving On speaks to you, suggesting ways that you can look this painful thought in the eye, see it as an opportunity to do things the right way now, so that you will be eased through the ultimate moving-on that will come to all of us.
Moving out of a house is a huge practical job. Moving On is a transforming experience.

I found this book to be an excellent source of practical information. The organizational tips given by the authors were excellent. I particularly noted the guidelines for preserving familiy documents and papers. I purchased one for myself, my sister, and my daughter!!

My husband and I have been in the Senior Move Management business since 1990. We share this valuable book with out Move Managers and also spread the word of it's value to the many senior seminars we present to. We find it an excellent tool and resource.

Diane Bjorkman
www.gentletransitions.com