Don't Toss My Memories in the Trash


Book Description

Vickie Dellaquila draws on her experience as a professional organizer and senior move manager to share her most valuable tips on downsizing and moving. Vickie brings expertise and warmth to helping seniors face the physical and emotional aspects of moving to a new home. Whether you are a senior embarking on this new chapter of your life or are helping family members or friends downsize and move, this book is your roadmap.




Don't Toss My Memories in the Trash


Book Description

Vickie Dellaquila draws on her experience as a professional organizer and senior move manager to share her most valuable tips on downsizing and moving. Here is a book that will help you downsize, organize, and move in an organized, efficient, and caring manner. With her background in healthcare and social services, Vickie brings expertise and warmth to helping seniors face the physical and emotional aspects of moving to a new home. Whether you are a senior embarking on this new chapter of your life or are helping family members or friends downsize and move, this book is your roadmap.




Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff


Book Description

America’s top cleaning expert and star of the hit series Legacy List with Matt Paxton distills his fail-proof approach to decluttering and downsizing. Your boxes of photos, family’s china, and even the kids' height charts aren’t just stuff; they’re attached to a lifetime of memories--and letting them go can be scary. With empathy, expertise, and humor, Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff, written in collaboration with AARP, helps you sift through years of clutter, let go of what no longer serves you, and identify the items worth keeping so that you can focus on living in the present. For over 20 years, Matt Paxton has helped people from all walks of life who want to live more simply declutter and downsize. As a featured cleaner on Hoarders and host of the Emmy-nominated Legacy List with Matt Paxton on PBS, he has identified the psychological roadblocks that most organizational experts routinely miss but that prevent so many of us from lightening our material load. Using poignant stories from the thousands of individuals and families he has worked with, Paxton brings his signature insight to a necessary task. Whether you’re tired of living with clutter, making space for a loved one, or moving to a smaller home or retirement community, this book is for you. Paxton’s unique, step-by-step process gives you the tools you need to get the job done.




One Little Bag: An Amazing Journey


Book Description

An evocative wordless picture book that is a loving tribute to mindful living on our precious planet. * "Beautifully effective." -- Kirkus Reviews, starred review* "Deeply profound... compelling... emotionally resonant." -- School Library Journal, starred review* "Elevating the life of an ephemeral object to the time scale of love across generations." -- Publishers Weekly, starred review From a tall tree growing in the forest--to the checkout counter at the grocery store--one little bag finds its way into the hands of a young boy on the eve of his first day of school. And so begins an incredible journey of one little bag that is usedand reusedand reused again. In a three-generation family, the bag is transporter of objects and keeper of memories. And when Grandfather comes to the end of his life, the family finds a meaningful new way for the battered, but much-loved little bag to continue its journey in the circle of life.




Organize This! Practical Tips, Green Ideas, and Ruminations About Your CRAP


Book Description

Vali G. Heist began organizing at the age of five while cleaning up her room with her older sister. She started her professional organizing business after years of being asked to organize the homes of her family and friends. Organize This! Practical Tips, Green Ideas, and Ruminations about your CRAP began as a collection of the organizing columns she wrote for a local newspaper. CRAP is Vali’s acronym that means Clutter that Robs Anyone of Pleasure. The book includes numerous tips on how to organize, green ways to recycle unwanted CRAP, success stories from clients, and further ruminations about CRAP. Vali helps her readers explore why they have so much CRAP in their homes, why they don’t throw it out, and why they don’t want to deal with it. She helps the reader answer those questions and provides practical, easy tips to organize their homes and help them live the life they really want. In addition, her book is chock-full of organizing resources, is fun to read, and makes a great gift for the organized person as well as the organizationally-challenged. Vali’s insight helps readers learn the difference between belongings and CRAP and empowers them to discover that less is more. Her book also proposes how to live a more ‘green’ life and help save the planet in the process. Her passion is to find simple, easy to implement ways to organize life at home and at work and pass them on to her readers. Bob Rios, of Bob Rios Visual Strategies, created unique cartoons for the book to illustrate the dilemmas many readers face as they organize and unclutter their lives. Bob is a graphic designer, website developer and of course a talented illustrator, who lives in Lebanon, Pennsylvania with his wife and five children. Bob uses his creativity and design expertise to further the business goals of his clients. Through consultation and conversation, he gathers content, colors, type, illustrations, and shapes to capture and convey a company’s message. You’ll find his self-portrait on page 99 of the book! Donna Smallin, Certified Professional Organizer and author of Organizing Plain & Simple and several other books on organization describes Vali’s book as “Simultaneously witty and practical, Organize This! is the intelligent person’s guide to a simpler, more organized life.” Look for Donna’s latest eBook entitled How to Declutter and Make Money Now! by Donna Smallin Kuper. Chris Crouch is president and founder of DME Training and Consulting, author of several books on improving productivity and developer of the GO System training course. He describes Vali’s book: “Stuff, or as Vali calls it, CRAP, can and will easily find its way into your life. The challenge is to limit the inflow and purge the unnecessary items that somehow remain stuck in your environment. Vali's insightful book will help you accomplish those two life-changing goals.” Chris continues to research and study both the mental and physical aspects of living a more joyful and productive life and pass them on to his readers. Debbie Lillard, Certified Professional Organizer and author of Absolutely Organize Your Family and Absolutely Organized: A Mom’s Guide describes Vali’s book: “Vali writes with an environmentally responsible attitude towards ridding the world of CRAP. She understands the causes of disorganization, leaves judgment at the doorstep, and jumps right in to tackle the problems. Her resources are valuable – this is a book you’ll want to recycle and reuse again and again.” Debbie owns an organizing business in Broomall, Pennsylvania and shares her expert advice on various media channels. Vali wants readers to know that the goal of organizing isn’t to have a perfect, ‘Better Homes and Garden’ house (hers isn’t!), but rather to provide order to enjoy the space you have, handle the tough times with grace, and aspire to live the best life possible!




The Stuff of Family Life


Book Description

Does putting your smartphone on the dinner table impact your relationships? How does where you place your TV in your home affect your family? The Stuff of Family Life takes readers inside the changing world of families through a unique examination of their stuff. From digital family photo albums to the growing popularity of “man caves,” author Michelle Janning looks at not only what large demographic studies say about family dynamics but also what our lives—and the stuff in them—say about how we relate to each other. The book takes readers through various phases of family life, including dating, marriage, parenting, divorce, and aging, while paying attention to how our choices about our spaces and objects impact our lives. Janning has joked, “I'm not a social scientist who uses large national datasets to illustrate family life; I’m the social scientist who asks people to examine what’s in their underwear drawers to tell stories about their family life.” From underwear drawers to calendars, The Stuff of Family Life offers an illuminating and entertaining look at the complexities of American families today.




The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up


Book Description

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The book that sparked a revolution and inspired the hit Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo: the original guide to decluttering your home once and for all. ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF THE DECADE—CNN Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list). With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.




It's All Too Much


Book Description

Are your counters covered with appliances you had to have but rarely use? Are your cupboards stuffed with clothes that you hope to fit back into or that you paid a fortune for but only wore once? Have you been hanging on to that hideous teapot your mother gave you 10 years ago only because she gave it to you? Every time you go shopping do you come back with bags of more stuff because that pillow/blouse/cd/mixer will be the one thing that changes your life and then it doesn't change your life because you have nowhere to put it? In It's All Too Much,organisational guru Peter Walsh challenges you to answer a very simple but scary question: Does the stuff you own contribute to the life you hope to achieve or does it get in the way of your vision? Peter helps you assess the state of your home without any sugar coating and will teach you how to confront and conquer the stuff that is holding you back by identifying the purpose of each and every object in your home and assessing your reasons for holding onto it. He shows you how to identify which room is the heart of your home and then shows you why it is so important to keep that space clean and clear of clutter - if the heart of your home is clogged what does that say about you? He then helps you go room by room to ask the important questions: What is the room? What's its purpose? What is this item? Does it contribute positively to the life you want? The answers to these questions will help you understand your priorities and fix your relationship with your stuff. And in gaining this understanding you can start to clear out the clutter!




Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Dapper Dan is a legend, an icon, a beacon of inspiration to many in the Black community. His story isn’t just about fashion. It’s about tenacity, curiosity, artistry, hustle, love, and a singular determination to live our dreams out loud.”—Ava DuVernay, director of Selma, 13th, and A Wrinkle in Time NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY VANITY FAIR • DAPPER DAN NAMED ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN THE WORLD With his now-legendary store on 125th Street in Harlem, Dapper Dan pioneered high-end streetwear in the 1980s, remixing classic luxury-brand logos into his own innovative, glamorous designs. But before he reinvented haute couture, he was a hungry boy with holes in his shoes, a teen who daringly gambled drug dealers out of their money, and a young man in a prison cell who found nourishment in books. In this remarkable memoir, he tells his full story for the first time. Decade after decade, Dapper Dan discovered creative ways to flourish in a country designed to privilege certain Americans over others. He witnessed, profited from, and despised the rise of two drug epidemics. He invented stunningly bold credit card frauds that took him around the world. He paid neighborhood kids to jog with him in an effort to keep them out of the drug game. And when he turned his attention to fashion, he did so with the energy and curiosity with which he approaches all things: learning how to treat fur himself when no one would sell finished fur coats to a Black man; finding the best dressed hustler in the neighborhood and converting him into a customer; staying open twenty-four hours a day for nine years straight to meet demand; and, finally, emerging as a world-famous designer whose looks went on to define an era, dressing cultural icons including Eric B. and Rakim, Salt-N-Pepa, Big Daddy Kane, Mike Tyson, Alpo Martinez, LL Cool J, Jam Master Jay, Diddy, Naomi Campbell, and Jay-Z. By turns playful, poignant, thrilling, and inspiring, Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem is a high-stakes coming-of-age story spanning more than seventy years and set against the backdrop of an America where, as in the life of its narrator, the only constant is change. Praise for Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem “Dapper Dan is a true one of a kind, self-made, self-liberated, and the sharpest man you will ever see. He is couture himself.”—Marcus Samuelsson, New York Times bestselling author of Yes, Chef “What James Baldwin is to American literature, Dapper Dan is to American fashion. He is the ultimate success saga, an iconic fashion hero to multiple generations, fusing street with high sartorial elegance. He is pure American style.”—André Leon Talley, Vogue contributing editor and author




Klara and the Sun


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Once in a great while, a book comes along that changes our view of the world. This magnificent novel from the Nobel laureate and author of Never Let Me Go is “an intriguing take on how artificial intelligence might play a role in our futures ... a poignant meditation on love and loneliness” (The Associated Press). • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! Here is the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her. Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?