Update 10-10-06

Hi,

And the promised Newsday article featuring Emily Kleinman Schreiber.
   
    First, a brief introduction from Emily:  This is fun!  I didn't do anything earth-shattering, but there I was on the cover of Act Two of Saturday, September 9th's Newsday.  So if you haven't seen the article, take a look, smile, and read it through if you'd like.  And did you know that newspaper is great for cleaning windows?
        Also, a number of people have asked, "How did you get on the cover of Act Two?"  Actually, I simply responded to a previous article.  When the reporter interviewed me on the phone, she and I talked and laughed for a long time, and a week later a photographer was at my home.  What you see is organized clutter.  I spent a week cleaning up before the photographer arrived, but the before pictures are hidden away.  And I want to thank those of you who wrote to me about your own clutter afflictions.  Misery loves company.
   
    Deciding to Declutter:  How do you downsize the accumulations of a lifetime?  Sometimes it takes help.
   
    BY MEREDITH DANIELS
    Newsday, September 9, 2006

    A sign on the wall
    A thought on my mind
    A goal to accomplish
    But oh so difficult to achieve.
    The mail arrives
    The articles I pull
    The letters to answer
    Grow into a mountain to be ascended.
    Will the moment arrive?
    Will I ever find the time?
    Will I succeed in my quest to dump the whole pile
    (Which is outdated, over-rated, & too contemplated)
    Into the proverbial circular file?
    -- "File Don't Pile"  Emily Schreiber, 1992

    Emily Schreiber, of Bellmore, retired as an elementary teacher in 2001.

    She still is an adjunct professor at Hofstra University, but it's the accumulation of papers, books and memorabilia from her students over her 20-year career, as well as her own collectibles, that keeps certain rooms in her home in constant need of organizing.

    Stephanie Rivera, of Port Jefferson Station, had a garage so cluttered with fabrics from a previous home-based window-treatment business that neither her car nor her husband's could fit there.

    After years of accumulating photographs, papers and knickknacks, many people start to tackle decluttering only in middle age and beyond. The task of reorganizing or getting rid of large amounts of material becomes difficult amid life changes, such as wanting to downsize after the kids are grown, retiring from long careers and even losing parents and spouses and thus acquiring their personal items. The angst and guilt in getting rid of things that were part of the past sometimes stand in the way of starting the golden years that are the future.

    "When you're older, the things in your life represent a lot of memories," said Barry Izsak, National Association of Professional Organizers president and author of "Organize Your Garage in No Time." "Some people are ready and recognize this and want to feel unencumbered by their stuff, but more likely this age group has a real hard time letting go."

    Counsel for clutter

    Many people are calling on professional organizers to help. The National Association of Professional Organizers, begun in 1985 with five founding members, has more than 3,800 members nationwide and 130 in the New York area. Organizers typically charge by the hour, anywhere from $50 to $150, depending on location, project size and professional experience.

    "A professional will help you break down the process, define the project and develop goals," said Iszak. "I think this stigma -- that if you hire someone to help you organize [it] means you've failed somehow -- is beginning to break down. In 5 to 10 years, it will become as common as hiring a personal trainer or going to a therapist."

    Iszak said he rarely meets a baby boomer who isn't willing to pay for such a service. Boomers, in general, are comfortable paying for all sorts of services. Some believe organizers could easily be added to the list.

    Rivera, a mother of three, found Lorraine Kimmey of Simply Organized Solutions in Blue Point in January 2005, but was still reluctant to have a stranger come in and go through her inventory. It was six months after their first meeting when Rivera actually hired Kimmey. "It's a control thing -- that's why you have this stuff. You have to touch it and toss it," Rivera said. "But Lorraine didn't throw away anything herself. She would hand it to me to put in the dumpster. It was actually very liberating."

    Michelle Kerrigan, of Floral Park, is a boomer who has seen organizing from both sides. She started her own professional organizing business two years ago, after she was downsized out of her job as a vice president at Sony Music. At the same time, her father had just died. Kerrigan said she was lucky enough to be around to help her mother get through a difficult time as she was going through her own.

    "Personal organization is all about transitions," said Kerrigan. "I was out of work for the first time in 29 years, and my mother was without her husband for the first time in 52 years. I started helping my mom and saw the value in what I was doing."

    Kerrigan's mother, Joan Cuomo downsized, going from two homes -- one in New Jersey and one in Queens - to a co-op in Floral Park.

    While Schreiber, the retired teacher, wasn't dealing with a loss or a move, she was dealing with what she refers to as a "psychological paralysis." She said anxiety sets in every time she tries to tackle a cluttered room. Schreiber said she has no problem sitting in her work room with her laptop and trying to sort through e-mails or reformat digital images; it's the "touchable clutter" she can't seem to, well, touch.

    Schreiber did not hire a professional organizer, but her neighbors, Lena and John Musumeci, whose neat and tidy "Feng Shui house" she admired, offered their services. The newly retired neighbors came in for a few days last summer and attacked the living room, dining room and den, but Schreiber wouldn't let them upstairs in her two sons' old bedrooms.

    "I converted one of my son's bedrooms into a guest room where I keep my doll collection, and I try and keep it nice and neat," said Schreiber. But she admits that a closet is stuffed with her son's old Legos, Matchbox cars, Star Wars figures and baseball cards. Even when her grown sons visit and fill up more bags to be thrown away, Schreiber can't resist moving the stuff to another room.

    Rivera also understands, in a closer-up way, the desire to keep all the items associated with childhood. And while her children, Marissa, 20, Jeanette, 17, and Gregory, 10, are still at home, she's found a way to keep their belongings organized.

    She's got shelf systems in the garage, dedicated not only to her remaining fabrics, but also to her children's school projects and report cards, as well as what she calls the "sports center" -- a wooden crate that contains pads, helmets and a place for her son's lacrosse and baseball bags.

    Big Brothers and Big Sisters got 13 bags of clothing, old dishes and textbooks from Schreiber, but she still has more to give away. "I know I have a lot of things I really don't need anymore ... but it's ingrained in my generation -- don't waste. After all, our parents grew up during the Depression."

    Relief in donating

    Finding a suitable place to donate items can make the decluttering process easier.

    When it came to getting rid of Dad's old clothing, Kerrigan decided it would be most fitting for her father, the veteran, to have his clothing donated to Vietnam Veterans of America. She said it was a relief for her mother, knowing the clothing would be passed on to a group of people who had some association to her husband.

    Kimmey used a similar thought process when working with Rivera during two four-hour sessions. Kimmey let her keep her favorite fabrics and the ones for which she had immediate plans. Many others were donated to Materials for the Arts, a warehouse in New York City that helps thousands of organizations get supplies. And she gave others to a neighbor who works at a church where quilters make blankets for children in hospitals. "As long as I knew it was going somewhere where it would get good use, I was OK with the process," said Rivera.

    "Rather than continue to ... be frustrated you can turn the situation around and become in total control," said Izsak. "We don't just help people get organized, we teach them how to stay organized. It's all tailored to the individual."

    "Mom has a whole new lease on life," said Kerrigan. "She is extremely social and belongs to several women's clubs. Decluttering lifts an emotional burden. It's like packing light for a new life."

    Meanwhile, like others in her generation, Schreiber still has papers, books and her students' gifts cluttering her workroom, the basement and converted garage, as well as seldom-used clothing that takes up space in some of the second-floor closets.

    For her, it will be an ongoing process to clear the areas.

    "Whenever I decide it's time to rearrange some of the books or dust them, I don't know whether to laugh or cry because I have at least a dozen decluttering books," she said. "They all have chapters that speak to the reasons why people clutter -- they're not good decision-makers, they're filling an emptiness with all the junk. Yet the 'paralysis' remains; that inability to attack those piles or simply pick them up and throw them in the garbage."

    "After all," Schreiber adds, "there might be something important in one of those articles I've torn out of that ancient magazine."
   
   
    And several quick reminders:
   
    Washington D.C. dinner:  Thursday, October 19.  For information contact Stu Borman
                at:  sborman@gmail.com
   
    Class of '61 - '63 reunion:  Saturday, October 28.  For information contact Claire Brush
                 Reinhardt at:  reino@optonline.net
   
    Class of '66 reunion:  Friday and Saturday, November 10 and 11.  For information contact
                Michael Schimmel at:  mdschimmel@gmail.com
   
    Class of '86 reunion (new):  Saturday, November 4.  HR Singletons, Bethpage, New York.
                For information contact Barbara Kirby Miller at:  516-797-1121