My Life in a Box: A Life Organizer

Do you have a family tool box? Most of us do but we don t use the tools every day. When we need a hammer, wrench or screwdriver, we know where to find it and how to use it. Within the pages of My Life in a Box..A Life Organizer, author, Laurie Ecklund Long will help you build a new tool box. This one is for family emergencies and natural or man-made disasters. You will be introduced to a simple way to locate all of your personal, legal and financial documents, then store them in one location. Each family member will build a 3-day Get Away Bag and begin creating a shelter-in-place kit just in case the power goes off in your community for over a week. Once you begin the process, you will be given new tools to successfully deal with major life-experiences you may face in the future. As with any tool box, you will probably not use each of the tools right away, but when you need them, they will be there and you will know how to put them to use.Crisis comes to all of us at some time. It may not always come as a major calamity like a terrorist attack, tornado, hurricane, catastrophic flood or earthquake. More likely it will be a death in the family, an accident, or fire, but the impact feels much the same. Several years before 9/11, Laurie?'s personal introduction to crisis management and emergency preparedness occurred when 12 of her family members and friends died over a period of five years. Once the grief and shock wore off, she realized she didn't have the tools to deal with the realities that accompany the death of even one loved one.Then after Hurricane Katrina, Laurie noticed that people who live through natural disasters deal with the same issues her family dealt with during all of their losses. They needed to locate document to prove who they were and what they owned. This project took on new urgency in October 2005 when a fire destroyed the homes of two of her friends. Both families were left standing in the street at 4 a.m., with nothing except their pajamas and whatever the fire crews could salvage from their flaming houses. These friends knew about Laurie?'s campaign to be prepared, and after they got resettled, one called her and said, "I have a new chapter for your workbook." She began telling Laurie all of the things she wished she had put into an emergency bag; most important of all, her legal and financial documents, a CD backup of her computer and her medication!The key to My Life in a Box A Life Organizer is KEEP IT SIMPLE, be prepared, get organized and stop procrastinating. We all still want the American Dream for our family, but attaining it requires a new mission statement "Be safe be wise be prepared, and keep finding a way to love and embrace life."