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A New Year Resolution

Five, Four, Three, Two, One – Happy New Year!

Every year we gather for fun and festivities on the turning of the calendar to the New Year.  Many of us decide that along with the new date, we wish to turn over a new leaf.  The New Year’s Resolution is a tradition that some people embrace and others of us dread. 

All your family and friends keep asking “What are you going to do for your resolution?”  You think, let’s see, what is the list of my shortcomings and what plan do I have to fix one of them that will probably never make it to February?  You start mentally thumbing through the index cards in your head, considering and discarding them one by one:

  1. Start working out – Ok, this one seems achievable.  Just go into the spare room and unbury the treadmill.  Move the Christmas wrapping paper and ribbons.  Find a chair to hold the pile of ironing that needs to be done.  Uncover the big bag of dog kibble that never made it to the kitchen.  Hmmm… here is my Trust and Will documents that are dusty and out of date.  Is this a sign?  I’ll move it to the dining room table for now.

2. Start a diet – I will begin by pulling out all those recipe books I have gathered with healthy in the titles. Also, I’ve been reading that if you take the time to sit down at the table to eat your meal, it makes you more aware of how much you are eating.  Let me clear off the cluttered table so we all have a place to sit.  Curious – here is that pile of papers again with my Advanced Health Care Directive on the top.  Another sign?  I will move this to the kitchen desk for now.

  1. Clean out the hall closet – Well, once I recover from the cascade of Barney video tapes that we stored on the shelf for no good reason, I start to browse through the other boxes.  At the bottom, in the very back of the closet is a box of baseball cards that my dad collected as a child.  Sadly, I only have part of the collection.  My efficient sister had started selling them before checking in with me to see if I wanted them.  That was a very hard year.  I would give anything to make settling my affairs more simple for my own kids. 

Someone seems to be trying to tell me something.  I think my resolution this year is going to be really simple.  I will call my estate planning attorney and get my documents updated.  They are right by the phone in the kitchen, which makes it easy to take them with me for a quick review at my appointment.  And by starting now, I can get it all done by February.  Maybe New Year’s resolutions aren’t so bad after all.

Written by Amy Fisther

Amy Fisther is an Estate Planning Attorney with the Law Office of Jeffrey C. Nickerson

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