Page 56 - Sonoma County Gazette - August 2017

Museums
presenting historical artifacts, stories & photos from Healdsburg's 19th Century identity as a tourist destination. 11-4p, Wed - Sun, Healdsburg Museum & Historical Society, 221 Matheson St., Healdsburg, 707-431-3325, healdsburgmuseum.org/
thru - Nov 5 ~ Equine Epochs - History of Sonoma County Horses - Museums of Sonoma County. Tue.-Sun., 11- 5p. - Presented by: The California Equestrian Park and Event Center & The Sonoma County Horse Council Adults: $10.00, History Museum of Sonoma County, 425 Seventh Street, Santa Rosa, 707- 579-1500, sonomacountymuseum. org/exhibits/history-museum.aspx
Visit Cal. Missions Museum - historic display of all 21 Cal. Missions built to scale. The building was designed speci cally to house these models. 24737 Arnold Dr. Sonoma 707-939- 8051 californiamissionsmuseum.com
Aug 5 ~ The Significance of Petaluma's Incorporation Documents - Arielle Lehmann, a Public Historian and Petaluma native, presenting a free lecture delve into Petaluma’s rough and tumble past and the e orts its early leaders took to establish the city we know today. Free admission to museum and lecture, 2p, The Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, 20 Fourth Street, Petaluma, 707-778-4398, petalumamuseum.com
Aug 11 ~ Harness Racing Queen - Lou Dillon was the rst standardbred trotter that broke the 2.0 mile in 1903. $25 for non-members 6:30p - 8:00p, History Museum of Sonoma County, 425 Seventh Street, Santa Rosa, 707-579- 1500, museumsc.org/events/?eid=1996
Downsizing: the Demise of Stuff!
In big business, of course, it involves closing satellites, firing employees and cancelling expansion plans. In personal life, in very personal contexts (particularly after the youngest has flown the coop), it involves all the kinds of stuff one has but no longer needs – including stuff one saved from their children’s early lives to give to them, later.
Downsizing in all aspects of your life (because it’s time) can become pretty complex – just when you long for simplicity. It can plunge you into rapidly oscillating states of consciousness that bog down the process and make it drag on; and, on. You know, lingering too long over the old photos while trying to cull and sort!
Anyone who has put in their time in large, densely populated
The two-story houses (with multiple bedrooms, baths, rec areas, kitchen, garage -- not for the car, heaven forbid -- yards, gardens, etc.) can suddenly
feel like the rock of Gibraltar has just landed on your head -- when the last kid permanently leaves home, and you have all that space and all the stuff that’s in it, minus people!
For a few years you hang in because, after all, they will be visiting and it would be nice for them to have their old rooms available...yadda, yadda; you know, memories and all. But, trust me, it gets old, and –yikes! – so do you. The answer: Downsize. Eventually, it’s the necessity; and yet in some ways feels more like a burden than just a natural next step.
I am moaning & groaning about this subject because I am
currently immersed in it.
This possibly last little house that I have bought is truly all the space I need when I look at it in a pristine perspective! However, it presents a very real functional challenge when trying to process and sort through the old file boxes, bins of photos, quantities of housewares and other “multiples” no longer needed. Living alone (at last!) who needs three muffin pans, six cookie sheets, three sets of mixing bowls, duplicate this and that and so on. But to move it along, you have to go through it all! It buries me. It resembles disorder and even chaos at times, when it is actually a carefully choreographed and executed downsizing process all my own!
In The New York Sunday Times of June 4 there was an intriguing article ”The Tyranny of Tiny Living” in which the author, Gene Tempest, goes into the lifestyle changes – both real and perceptive that she and her husband encountered when deciding to live in very small quarters – a 492 square
foot apartment! What is somewhat implied in that delightful piece is either formerly larger living space, or the dream of future larger living space. It brought to mind the related issues that accompany opting for smaller over spacious; i.e., the imperative of downsizing one’s living inventories, on all levels.
I know it’s the right thing to do (my children, all over 50, confirm this to me...) live smaller with less maintenance, better economies and “...easier on you, Mom.” And I am hoping it will be if I can ever get through the storage locker contents, the three sheds... the stuff.
households for umpteen years or so will easily relate.
Featured Service for Seniors
Aug. 4,11,18,25 – (Fridays) 9 a - 12 noon, AARP Tax-Aide program, Rohnert Park Senior Center, 6800 Hunter Drive, Rohnert Park, 707-585-6788, aarpca2.org/ sonoma-napa-counties-district
From May to October, the AARP Tax-Aide program operates a tax clinic in Rohnert Park on Friday mornings. The clinic is for taxpayers who have a tax return they need to file, have a tax return that they want to amend, want assistance in understanding or responding to a notice from the IRS or California Franchise Tax Board, or just have a tax question or concern. Before you visit the Tax Clinic, or one of the regular sites during the tax season, please make sure that you’re bringing all the documents that you need. Check list is located here: http://www. aarp.org/money/taxes/info-01-2011/ important-tax-documents.html
thru - Oct 1 ~ "Destination Healdsburg"
I believe there is an almost deadly connection between the meaning of one’s stuff and one’s tolerance level concerning keeping something or moving it along. And, further, I believe that within that connection lies the key to
1) the elimination of storage facility rent,
2) the development of better possession rationales, and 3) successful downsizing. Amen!
Aug 19 & 20 ~ Open Cockpit: Vietnam War Weekend, - Look insidesome of our most popular aircraft, and climb aboard a few. 10-4p Charles Schulz-Sonoma County Airport One Museum Way, SR 707-575-7900 paci ccoastairmuseum.org
Zoë Tummillo is a Business & Marketing Consultant, Trainer and Commercial Writer, dba COMMUNICATION CONCEPTS and Writing Service, in private practice. SENIOR MOMENTUM: A Series of Situations!© Zoë Tummillo To contact her: email: writingservice@earthlink.net.
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