Bee Organized, part 1

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

As we enter our senior years, activities and social opportunities may become limited. Care Partners provides the setting for new relationships and plan social events. Our staff directs multiple group or individual activities every day in surroundings that are safe and secure. Have Fun and be active again, not isolated. Care Partners Offers fifteen vibrant communities in western Washington and Spokane with high quality, affordable independent assisted living and memory care options. Visit Care Partners Livingcom. The following podcast is provided by an approved senior care provider on the answers for elders radio network. And welcome everyone to answers for elders radio on this Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and I hope each and every one of you had a glorious holiday. I know for me it was the time to reflect on all the things that have occurred this last year and a lot of us when we say coming out of a pandemic. I don’t know if we’re necessarily coming out of the pandemic, but we are certainly encouraged by the news that here in Washington state we have over eighty percent of our population have had at least one vaccine and close to ninety percent have had both vaccines and of course I just got my booster shot a couple of weeks ago. So you know, we’re making progress and we’re certainly moving forward to being able to be with people again and I hope all of you out there had a glorious holiday filled with with family and friends and all kinds of wonderful connectedness, which I think we all need. And part of that connectedness a lot of you may not have been around a senior loved one for a while and obviously there’s a lot of things going on in the pandemic where they may have been sitting, you know, alone in their homes, they’re allowing things to collect because they don’t have the abilities to do so. And you know your may find you might have a senior loved one, or not a senior just be in a situation where all of a sudden you want to know how in the world can you help and what is out there? And so we are so honored today to have Suzanne, I’ll be, who is the owner of be organized, that’s Beee, like the buzzing bee organizedcom and and Suzanne, you are here in the Seattle area and you help families with a million different ways in which they can eliminate chaos in their life, and I think that is the perfect time, this weekend for us to talk about these things and talk about how can you step up and not only help others, but how can you prevent chaos for building up in your life? So, Suzanne, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to be here. Sus Anne, you know I am very interested in what you do and certainly you know I can’t even imagine today what’s going on with our with our seniors population. Let’s just talk about our senior populations, especially as the result of the kept pandemic. What is happening these days, Susanne? Well, I think our seniors today are kind of worried about what their next steps are. They’re sitting with their family, perhaps over the weekend, knowing that their time is going to come where they are going to need to choose to live a different lifestyle and in different environment than they currently are, and that can bring a lot of angst and worry. Sure, there is our baby boomer population is growing. Over tenzero baby boomers every day turn sixty five. Think about that. Three million retired in two thousand and nineteen. Wow, I know it’s just growing. There’s that population is just a rapid growth. The expectation is that the eighty five plus senior population will increase a hundred and seventy seven percent in the next thirty years. My goodness right. So there’s a lot of those baby boomers out there now, but I think as we talk in the segment about how seniors are going to start thinking about their legacy, what they want to leave behind, it’s important to talk about a little bit about what the current situation is. So obviously there’s a lot of baby boomers out there, but we asked also have to think about, you know, how they live their lives. They are terms of success or the idea of success for mini baby boomors was to have their own home, to have a really nice car. True, you have beautiful things in their home. Those kind of types of things not only relate a sense of status but also that feeling of success that so many of them had. They work hard, they deserve some nice things. The problem with that is that they have a lot of things, a lot of stuff. So that’s what needs to be addressed, I think. Secondly, the last couple generations, especially are a couple decades. Consumerism is up. You know, it is so much easier to buy things. We can click on an Amazon link at two am and it can be at our our stuff the next day. Yep, like my neighbor’s in particular. I always laugh because I feel like they have an Amazon deliver ate every day. In fact I know they do, but you don’t see things leaving right. So not exactly from where all those things are going, but there’s definitely a lot of consumerism. In fact, kristen once shared a stat with me that I love, and it is it Christian is her CEO, who will be with US later this hour. Yes, yes, exactly, but the status this. It’s twelve percent of the world’s population lives in North America and Western Europe. Well, that twelve percent accounts for sixty percent of our private consumption spending. So think about wow, well, person of the population is buying sixty percent of stuff. Wow, right, is a powerful statistic, it really is. And then on the opposite side, a third of humanity live in Asia and Africa and only spend three point two percent of that spending. So just shows that Americans, we spend a lot. Hm, we do spend a lot of money. We buy a lot of things and I’m probably is guilty as your neighbor is in many ways, including, you know, I mean it’s so easy today when you’re talking about consuming. I mean I I buy my groceries on Amazon, I do my I do everything online these days, and it’s kind of interesting how that mindset transfers over into hey, you know, it’d be nice to have something like this, and you look at and the next thing you know it’s showing up at your doorstep. So you’re right, what are things that are are leaving and and it’s kind of interesting to see, you know, that mindset with in would you say that that it’s like the baby boomers primarily where you finding that is kind of the Oise. It more in the population. You know, I think that they’re definitely the baby boomers account for the majority of it, but there’s they are the majority of the population right now. But I think the next generation down my generation, those people that might be in their S S, you know, there’s a little bit of that in them, but then there’s also this turn and this idea of living more simplistically. Yeah, that is kind of coming into play. Their understanding as their parents are aging and having to deal with all their stuff, that maybe that’s not the right way to live their lives. Yeah, you know, do need the big punters anymore? You know, I’m what I’m found found with a lot of the you know, the adult children of our seniors that are moving into senior living, which we want to talk about. But what I’m finding is is that there’s a lot of this emphasis of I don’t want stuff, you know, and so that is really a new and an interesting dynamic. So obviously, those of us that are in the older scale, you know, of the baby boomer. I’m like flat in the middle of baby boomers. So I was born in fifty six, but forty six is ten years older. That’s ten years older than me. This we’re looking at people that are seventy five ish to to eighty, you know, moving into their what obviously they’re starting to think about, you know, senior living. Is that correct in that age group? Absolutely, I think one of those one of those keys to is that people live longer than they used to. Hum Very true. They are. You know, perhaps in the past at the idea of senior living wasn’t even present because there wasn’t as much of a need. No. So, for example, my own parents downsized from a very large home in the Midwest to senior living. In that process, you know, one of the big roadlocks was my mom had this idea of all senior living facilities are nursing homes. So and then her very commercing my y and a nursing home was like, you know, a horrible place to be. You know, it smelled like no, wasn’t clean. You know, and the idea of like these seniors now needing to relearn or rethink about what a senior community can be is a big deal now because they do need that extra step right, right. A lot of those seniors to have planned. I hate to say this, but they’ve planned for their death. For example, my own parents again, they’ve planned their funeral. They’ve bought our headstone. Good thing. No, yeah, it’s wonderful. I don’t have to deal with that, but that’s you know, it’s kind of eerie, you know, to see that headstone out there already with their birthdate but not the end date. But that generation did. They were worried about funeral arrangements. They didn’t want to have the burden of the funeral arrangements to their kids. Yet they didn’t really think about that time right before that, you know, those ten twenty years where your you’ve retired right, but now you’re at the point where maybe you can’t take care of your home or don’t want to. Yeah, you know, and what to do that. So I think that’s where when these senior living communities come into play, in that idea of bringing that absolutely knowledge of what these senior communities can be like. Well, and it’s interesting too, I think. You know, one of the things that we say, matter of fact, one of our promotional spots about the show that all of our listeners pretty much here all the time, is a lady that talks about it’s too much to deal with to to stay in our house, with having property taxes and all the different types of maintenance items, but it’s too much to deal with to move because I have too much stuff. I don’t know what to do, and so they end up doing nothing and it just gets worse and worse and worse. And obviously you know when I have my own personal story, just like you do, with taking care of your loved ones. You know, I took care of my mom and it took us four months to get that house from moving her into senior living and then trying to deal with all the stuff that she had behind. And I mean my mother had saved every picture that I drew in elementary school. She had all the scrap books of my piano recitals and my my graduation, Baccalaureate and commencement and all these things that, you know, was an honor to me, right and I’m going like I don’t want this crap, you know. So it’s it was a lot of stuff that we threw away that but that we’re in important to my mom and I remember feeling guilty. There’s part of me that felt guilty about that, but I understand. You know, it’s that when we talk about you’ve tears to us to term before with me legacy. Tell me a little bit about that. Well, I think, more than anything, this legacy that people want to live, they are want to share, they don’t want, more than anything, to burden their kids. They yet they want to honor those items, those family heirlooms, those pieces of their life that tell us story, or maybe there’s an item on a bookshelf that tells us story about an experience in their life. Right so I think a lot of seniors are concerned about losing that memory if they lose the item. Sure, but also, yes, wanting to leave behind these wonderful memories of themselves for their kids without giving the you know, placing them in a situation where they are burdened by having to deal with their stuff. Well, this is an important topic and so, Suzanne, before we go into our next segment, I we’re going to be talking about the relationship that we have with stuff. And in the meantime, how do we reach you? You can reach us at https://beeorganized.com/ or Susanne, at https://beeorganized.com/seattle/, or our phone numbers 206-627-0957 and it’s bee or organized right where worker bees. We get it done. I love it and saw anyway, Susanne, everyone will be right back right after this. -We at Answers for Elders thank you for listening. Did you know that you can discover hundreds of podcasts in our library on senior care? So visit our website and discover our decision guides. That will help you also navigate decision making. Find us at https://answersforelders.com/