Andi,

I still did a fair share of throwing away of jelly jars, rubberbands from the newspaper, cake tins, margarine containers, recycled juice bottles and towels that were still good, but, had seen their day. Clothes from 1960's that no longer fit. I have heard that that is quite common.

The first time I did it, I made a box of stuff to bring home and we put everything in storage until later. When it was certain that we were not setting up an apartment again for her we called a 2nd hand furniture company. Her entire home was only worth $2500 and my box of things I had reserved got taken and misplaced. They were not valuable -just small things I would have liked to have had. My first Mother in Law was my mother's best friend and I grew up in her house too so there were some sentimintal things.

The second Mother in Law's house was harder because I did not have the same attachment to what needed to stay and go and Frank did as much as I did and he made the decisions. I did the whole thing alone the first time because my ex was in grad school and couldn't leave to do this..

Yes, it's very hard to do all of this. When it was time to do it for my own mother, my sister was left the house and it's contents so we all helped her but it was local and my mother had passed away, so it was different again.

If you end up using a NAPO person to help, my friend is a founding member of the national board and knows many of the members so I would value her opinion as to who to contact in Tuscon.