Swedish Tech Cleaning

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Start your week smiling with your friends. Kathy's aunt and Michelle Frechette. It's time to get ready for some weekly motivation with WP motivate. Happy Thursday, Cathy. [00:00:15] Speaker B: Happy Thursday, Michelle. How are you? [00:00:17] Speaker A: Oh, it's another one of those days where I woke up thinking, oh, thank God it's Friday. And then I realized it's not so same. [00:00:25] Speaker B: I woke up and thought it was Friday, and then I saw the garbage cans and I'm like, dang it, Thursday. But I mean, happy to get rid of the garbage, but still. Exactly. It's like holiday weekend, you know, if at least it's gonna be hot holiday. And I'm like, three day weekend. I'm all ready for it. [00:00:44] Speaker A: I mean, it's not like work is torture or anything, but still, like, you know, Friday has that special feeling to it, so. [00:00:51] Speaker B: It does. It has a special feeling. Especially when Monday is not going to happen next week. [00:00:57] Speaker A: I guess I could say that since I felt it today. I get that special feeling twice this week. [00:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:02] Speaker A: But also the unspecial thud of, oh, no, it's Thursday. Yes. It's a roller coaster. This week isn't a roller coaster. [00:01:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, same thing here. It's been. It's been an interesting week. It's been a very bizarre week. Yeah, I told you. My brothers asked me for some help kind of find, basically just doing an investigation into my mother's, you know, because she's my mother's elderly and she's not online anymore. And so they wanted me to just like get into her stuff, see what I could find. And so I feel like I'm in the wayback machine, maybe just like excavating some of finding things that. It has just been an eye opening experience. Say that. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Oh, and you sent me a couple of messages of things you're finding, and I'm not going to out any of them for you. But I will say that it reminded me of, I don't remember how long ago we talked about it. Maybe the spring or something. We talked about the art of swedish death cleaning and the idea of getting rid of things now so that your loved ones don't have to when you're gone. And how when I moved in here, even though my parents were still alive and still are, by the way, my mom and my stepdad, it took me the better part of a year to work through all the stuff they left behind without even touching my own stuff yet. Right. And that my daughter knows that I'm really trying not to leave a ton of stuff. I mean, I'm only 55. I'll be 56 as well. It's not like I'm planning to die anytime soon, but you could get hit by a bus tomorrow. It happens. Lightning strikes. Right. So I just. I'm conscious of the amount of shit I have in this house that is dear to me. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Or maybe like, I thought was dear to me, that kind of thing, but would not matter at all to her. Right. Then you start talking about, like, reading your mom's old emails, looking through her accounts, things like that. And I'm like, oh, maybe we should talk about, like, the art of swedish tech cleaning. [00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:07] Speaker A: Because there's things that email we should not see. [00:03:13] Speaker B: Or what they're subscribed to on YouTube. Although I think my mom was like, you know, everybody, you know, at the end of every video is like, if you got something out of this video, make sure you hit the like button and subscribe to the channel for more. And I think she's like, I better do that. Every. I'm like, I'm unsubscribing from a lot of things and I'm not even through the a's. Like, it's just. I just kind of want it all just kind of tidied up. But it's doing that for her is making me look at my stuff now. And I'm like, oh, my. Let's get rid. Think about it. I'm sure you're like this. You wake up in the morning, you look at your emails and you probably delete how many of them that you're just like. You read the subject line and then delete them. [00:03:59] Speaker A: They're just gone. Yeah, I just, like, wipe them clean. I'll spam. Yeah. [00:04:03] Speaker B: And I'm not doing anybody any service by being subscribed to their newsletter at all. Like, if I'm not reading it. And so I just felt like I am. I'm going through my own emails now. Like, as I get it, I'm not going back and looking at stuff, but as I get something, I really am looking like, do I really want. I'm not consuming this person's content. I think, you know, what they put out on socials is great and I subscribe to them at one point, but it's time to say goodbye for the inbox. The inbox. Cleanliness has just become incredibly important to me right now. And just, yeah, that and, yeah, and also I. I kind of want to create just this document of, here's what you need, kids. Something happened. Here's what you need to know. I just don't want my kids to have to go through what I am going through with my brothers. And then Google's like, wait a minute, you don't live in Texas. What's going on here? Give me another six digit code. And I'm just like. And my mom's at the point where she can't help with that. So my brother, I'll just say to my brothers, whoever's there next, I need to re authenticate here. And so it's just that I don't want my kids to have to go through this for me. [00:05:20] Speaker A: Right. Nope, same. [00:05:21] Speaker B: I've had to go through this with Mark stuff, you know, because when he had the stroke is, you know, he's offline now. And so every day I have to go through, I've unsubscribed, like, to all of his, like, crazy stuff, too. And there's just a few that are still in there, but I still have to check his email at least a couple times a week and just see what's going on. Checking on his socials every once in a while and see if anybody's writing to him because he is still frustrated. [00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah, he is. Of course. [00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:48] Speaker A: And it might be nice to tell him so and so said hello and those kinds of things. Of course. [00:05:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:52] Speaker A: Your mom may or may not recognize that, but even then, it's still nice to be able to pass those things along. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple up in, up in the Pacific Northwest that were clients of my husband. They still sent him postcards. Like, they go on a trip and they send him postcards and they're like sweet gold. They're just wonderful human beings. [00:06:14] Speaker A: And I bet he likes when the postcards arrive. [00:06:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I just put him up and then I send them a note when I get around to it. But thank you for doing that. Thank you for remembering he's, he is still here and getting better. He's. He's motivated this week, which is good. [00:06:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:33] Speaker A: It's also exhausting for you. [00:06:36] Speaker B: He is not a small man. And getting him up. I'm stronger now, though. It doesn't torque me as much as it used to. That's one good thing about, like, going to the gym and getting stronger is I can pick. It's not as hard. It doesn't hurt as much. So. [00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah, I can understand that. You mentioned the word unsubscribe more than once. There are some things I would like to unsubscribe from that I can't. For example, my father as we know, my father's no longer here. My father, every day when he'd remember, which was usually at least five days a week, would send out, he would receive a text message from one of my youngest brother's basketball coaches with a Bible verse of the day. And that coach, coach Roy. Coach Roy's take on the Bible verse. Okay, so a little mini Bible study in your phone. My dad would copy that, paste it into a new text message, add his two cent at the top of it, sign it bro Phil. It's my brother from brother Phil. And then send that out to over 60 people a day. Individually, he would do that. [00:07:50] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:07:51] Speaker A: And my mother, who of course, is my father's ex wife, first ex wife actually got so tired of it, she just typed unsubscribe. Now, when my dad died, his twin brother decided he was going to take up the cause. So at least five days a week now I am getting the same kind of thing from my uncle Joe. [00:08:17] Speaker B: Wow. [00:08:17] Speaker A: I don't even read it. I just delete it every single time. I just delete it because I. Yeah, Uncle Joe's spiritual journey is not my spiritual journey. I'll just say it that way. And I don't need his take on Bible verses and everything else. And of all the people in my whole family, he's my least favorite. I hope he never hears this podcast, but it's the truth. But I can't bring it upon myself to be the person in the family that types back to Uncle Joe unsubscribe. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so funny. [00:08:49] Speaker A: But I want to. [00:08:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:08:55] Speaker A: You know, I've had my phone number for so many years, I can't just change my phone number to avoid them either. Anyway. [00:09:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So funny. It's like, yeah, once you get that phone number and it's on so many things and it's tied to so many accounts, it's like, that's almost like a Social Security number. [00:09:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And when we were younger, if you moved one town over, you got a new phone number because they were all landlines and everything. But now that's not the way it is, right? So, like, when I was growing up, you never, you didn't even know your area code. So I said, what's your phone number? You rattled off seven digits, right? [00:09:33] Speaker B: I just told Claire that. I'm like, oh, I remember my phone number when I was growing up. And I rattled it off and she's like, why is it so short? [00:09:41] Speaker A: Well, the area code was also this. I could still tell you it was a yellow telephone. It hung on the wall in the kitchen. It was the only phone in the house. It had a 15 foot cord, so my mom could put it on her shoulder, wash the dishes, anywhere in that kitchen she could reach with that cord. And the phone number was 617-238-2511 and if anybody has that number now, and anybody who actually listens to this podcast calls it, I am sorry to whoever owns that phone number that I just sicked at least one person on YouTube. But that was it, right? That was it. Now, man, I've had this phone number for so long. I. It's gonna. I'll take it to the grave with me. I don't care what version iPhone I have. It's going in the casket in case I'm still alive. I can call out. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Oh, that's funny. [00:10:27] Speaker A: I'm not gonna be buried. I'm gonna be cremated. And if they put it in there with me, it would probably explode, so. But it's a funny thought. It's a funny thought, too. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Funny. [00:10:38] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's so true. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Funny, because, like, do you remember, like, you used to memorize all your friends phone numbers and you had to. Yeah. And now it's like, I don't even know. I don't know a lot of people. Like, I like the things that I would have to do to get into my mom's stuff. They would say, now verify the phone number. And it would say, like, the n two numbers. And I'm like, okay, that's her number. What is the number again? [00:11:03] Speaker A: Remember? I mean, look it up. My own mother's phone number. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Like, and I don't know my kid. Like, I don't know my kids phone numbers. It's just in the phone. I'll look it up. It's crazy because I used to, like, memorize that. I remember, like, when I was in junior high school, I would, you know, you had your folders, and I would decorate folders, and I would do, like, little circles and put everybody that I knew, I'd put their phone number on it. And so then, like, I'd make a new friend, and I'm like, oh, let me put my phone, your phone number on my little design thing. And people would be like, oh, that's so cool. Will you do that for me, too? I do designs on people's folders with their phone numbers of all their friends. And I'm like, okay, well, who goes in the inner circle? It was so funny. [00:11:46] Speaker A: It's so funny when I moved in here, like, I have a new refrigerator now, because I learned to replace the refrigerator before it dies. [00:11:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:56] Speaker A: And I did that without losing any food, but I inherited the. Inherited. They're still alive. But I assumed, I guess, is the right word. The washer dryer, the. The furnace, which also has been replaced because whatever, the hot water tank, you know, the dishwasher, all those things in the kitchen junk drawer was a big old thick folder of all the manuals for all of the things. The microwave, the oven, the stove. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:25] Speaker A: Okay, first of all, as long as I've ever owned anything, I've never opened the manual. Secondly, we live in the digital age. If I need to look up how my microwave works, I'm not going to look for a little booklet that might be sewn a drawer in the house somewhere. I'm just going to pull out my phone and search for it. Right? So my mother was mortified that I. [00:12:47] Speaker B: Threw all of those away. Yeah. [00:12:50] Speaker A: She's like, oh, by the way, if you need them, all of the manuals for all of the appliances are in that drawer. I go, oh, yeah, I already threw them out of. What do you mean you threw them out? I'm like, mom, everything is online. I don't need another stack of papers in the house. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah, seriously. Yeah. I've got the drawer full of manuals, too, that the previous owners left and I've added to and. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Yeah, but at least you do not have a. You do not have your wine fridge open, right? So at least there's that. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Yeah, the wine fridges. Still don't know where that key is. I'll find it one of these days when we move, most likely. [00:13:29] Speaker A: There you go. [00:13:30] Speaker B: What the heck's this thing? Ah, throw it in the junk drawer. I won't even know what's the wine fridge key for sure. [00:13:37] Speaker A: The other thing, too, is just those little trinkety things. I can't remember if I told the story or not, but, you know, when I was married, before my husband's house, we. It was in really bad shape, so we put it on the market to flip it. Didn't make a lot of money off it. We just basically got out from underneath it. So we're in that house cleaning it out. Have I told you this story before? And we're in the house cleaning it out. And we're in. It's a split level, and we're in the half of the basement. That's the utility room. Right? Like the rest of its tv room, whatever. So we're in the part that's the unfinished, the washer dryer, everything. And we're sweeping up and we're sorting through what tools he wants to keep, what he's going to get rid of, all these things. And I reach down on the floor, and I pick up the face of a dial. You know how, like, you have the dial in front of the dryer? It says, like, permanent press cotton, like, whatever, right? I pick up one of those, and I look to the dryer, and it's got one. I look to the washer just in case it's got one. So I toss it on the trash pile. My ex walks over, picks that up and puts it in his pocket. And I said, what are you doing? Well, I'm just going to save it. I said, for what? These washers and dryers have them. It's clearly from a unit you no longer own. Well, you never know when you might need one. I was like, you think you're going to buy somebody's old used dryer, that this one actually is the replacement for something that might be missing at some point in the next 50 years of your life? I said, throw it away. Did he? [00:15:20] Speaker B: Could happen. Come on. [00:15:23] Speaker A: He didn't throw away. He didn't throw it away. I should have been the first box. [00:15:27] Speaker B: Like, I've got the box of important things that I'm like, oh, what's in here? And I opened that up of my husband's stuff and went through that. And it's like, that kind of stuff in there. [00:15:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Or old keys. Like, I found so many old keys in this house, they don't go to. The first of all, I've replaced all the locks anyway. I've replaced because I don't know who they've given keys to, what neighbors might have a key. So I replaced all the locks anyway. So I find an old key, just throw it out. There's no safe here. There's only two doors. One through the garage, one out the front door. Those have been replaced. Any key that I find in this house doesn't go to anything. Run them away, and then they accept the mailbox. I did keep the mailbox keys because I do need those, but. And I don't. And my locks are all electronic now, so I only need a key to drive my car. Like, that's it, you know, in my mailbox. But, um, she was mortified when she found out I threw away keys. Well, mom, I don't have anything for them to go to. Well, you might need them for what? [00:16:31] Speaker B: You know, you could just put them on one of those giant keychain or binder clips or whatever it is. And, you know, you have a giant thing of keys that you can shoot. [00:16:40] Speaker A: Fruit of our family. [00:16:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:46] Speaker A: Make a necklace of them. Like, wear it on Halloween so it jiggle jangles and things. [00:16:52] Speaker B: Exactly. Well, you're harvesting your beets. You have. [00:16:57] Speaker A: Now, our parents were the original boomers, right? So they were the ones whose. Whose parents served in the world wars, one or two or, you know, whatever age they are, they were the ones whose parents went through the depression. They were the ones whose parents scrimped and saved and repurposed because we didn't live in a disposable society like we do now. And I'm not saying that I want to throw everything out, but what I am saying is our parents were afraid to throw anything out because that's how they were raised. You know, my grandmother saved everything because she lived through World war two. She lived through the great depression. And you really didn't know when something like that might be useful? I mean, not necessarily the dial to the dryer, but things. Right. Like, maybe I could repurpose that into an art or a craft, but my excess was neither artsy or crafty. Regardless, the fact that his name was art, and none of those keys are going to go to anything, so. Yeah, but to get back to the digital aspect of it, you've inspired me, because if I go. If I go and look at my regular Gmail right now, good lord help us. Oh, there's only 3134 sitting in my inbox. [00:18:12] Speaker B: Unread emails. [00:18:13] Speaker A: Oh, no, they're read. I just never delete anything. [00:18:18] Speaker B: Gotcha. [00:18:19] Speaker A: So that's gonna be. I'm not gonna say I'm gonna do it this weekend because we all know I won't, but that'll be a winter project. I will challenge myself. [00:18:26] Speaker B: Thousand emails in there, 49,000 arc. [00:18:29] Speaker A: I don't feel so bad. [00:18:30] Speaker B: I don't feel so bad. But, I mean, they're all archived. But still, what's in there? And why does, you know, I mean, obviously, if it's in Gmail, it's in a database at Google somewhere. Do I want a permanent record in big tech of everything that's in there? Like, I mean, I've had a Gmail account for 20 years. I was one of the, you know, remember when Gmail came out and you had to get an invite in order to get. I was just like, oh, I want this Google email. I bet you it's gonna be amazing. And got my invite, got in, and it's just. Just like, yeah, this is so much easier. I'm not going to deal with, like, the web hosts email system. I think I was on my dream host at that time for my email, and it was, nah, still dream hosts email. It's not all that great for webmail. So they were using squirrel mail. It was just a bizarre interface and. [00:19:20] Speaker A: Oh, I remember squirrel mail. Yeah. [00:19:22] Speaker B: You remember squirrel mail? [00:19:23] Speaker A: I do, I do. [00:19:25] Speaker B: It was pretty basic. So when you've got Gmail versus scroll mail, you're gonna go with the big g, right? [00:19:32] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:19:33] Speaker B: So 20 years of my digital correspondence in there. Like, I don't even know. I mean, what goes, what if I go back to the beginning? What am I gonna find? I'm, like, mortified. I'm going back through, like, my mom's got. Has, like, 80,000 emails in there, and there's, like, 50,000 when I started that were unread, that needed tension. I mean, 99% of it so far has just been going through and finding mailing lists and just, like, select all, delete, unsubscribe, just, like, going through this whole process. And, I mean, I can do it and do other things at the same time because it's easy to multitask doing all of that, but it. I don't know. It just really is a wake up call of, do I want a permanent record of me in big tech? I mean, Facebook's already going to have a permanent record of me. Why don't Google to have that? And who else has a permanent record of me? [00:20:26] Speaker A: Your doctor's office, every hospital visit you've ever had, like, all of those things. [00:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And honestly, you know, big tuck hasn't necessarily shown a commitment to the sanctity of your information, so to speak. So you never know. I mean, remember when Google used to say, do no evil and that was, like, their thing, and then they took that off, and then, who knows? Do know what now? I don't even know. [00:20:56] Speaker A: But now it's just, do evil? Do evil? [00:21:01] Speaker B: Do evil? [00:21:02] Speaker A: Yes. [00:21:03] Speaker B: For $1 million, I will be evil. But people change. Leadership changes, philosophies change. And really, you're the only one that's, like, in charge of, like, what? You're putting places, like, all of the slack messages that we commute, like, we've trusted slack for so many organizations, and it's like, you're not in control. It's all being stored and warehoused somewhere on these big servers. And I'm like, yeah, no, and I don't also want my kids. You know, there's certain, certain things. I mean, I'm looking at, like, I'm looking at the emails when I first met my husband of, like, all the goofy stuff we were saying back and forth. And I'm just like, I want to remember that and I don't want to delete it. [00:21:45] Speaker A: Right? [00:21:46] Speaker B: Do I want my kids reading all of it? Probably not. I don't think they want. They'll probably be like, oh, mom was so gross. [00:21:58] Speaker A: I can't remember if I told you about when I took the job at the University of Rochester years and years ago, how the fellow that had the job before me left his pay stubs in the drawer. And I discovered at that point that I had actually was hired in making more money than the man that was leaving the position. And I felt like, you know, Helen, ready. I am woman here before. But they also didn't shut his down, his email down for a couple weeks, so I could make sure that anything that came through. Yeah, I could take care of if they went to him because it was a big university. So what do I do is I'm trying to learn my job. So I go into his email. I'm just looking to see what kinds of stuff he's received, what kinds of questions, how he answered them. And he had a folder in his email that I don't remember what it was called, but it was something innocuous. But as soon as I opened it was pictures of his girlfriend's boobs, like, naked, nude pictures of his girlfriend's anatomy. And I was just like, okay, number one, your work email. [00:22:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:58] Speaker A: So, yeah, you never know. It's like, you know, girls, we joke about the fact, like, we have a girlfriend who, if we die, knows to empty the nightstand before our kids find the nightstand. [00:23:09] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:23:10] Speaker A: All right. Because, you know, we're adults, but the same thing should be true of your email. Like, there. There should be somebody who goes in and, like. Like, you need to delete these folders. Don't look at them. Yeah, just delete them before my daughter gets in there. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't have pictures of my boobs in there. I'm not saying that. But there's still, like, there's a whole file from my divorce of things in there in case I ever needed whatever. And my daughter doesn't need to read through those things. She doesn't need. There's nothing that she. She can't, but she shouldn't have to, you know. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Anyway. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:48] Speaker A: What kind of digital footprint. What kind of carbon footprint are we using? [00:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Like these. There's a server. There are server farms. I know that, like in the northern Illinois area where I'm from, my brother works for landscaping company and I know part of the work that they've done has been around a certain data center and it's massive, absolutely massive. And it's all just servers. And servers use electricity and so how is this necessary? You know, I mean, people complain about bitcoin and all of that stuff and all the servants complain about like the data farms of data and information of an email you sent to, you know, some guy 20 years ago. Do you need to keep this stuff? [00:24:44] Speaker A: Probably not. Really? I'm going to go with not burn. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Up fossil fuels to. You want a server to keep this stuff? Because I know for my mom, I'm looking at my email going, geez, I don't want kids going through this, like. [00:25:00] Speaker A: No, just print it out and keep that much. Keep it in the folder. [00:25:03] Speaker B: Embarrassing, but what's that? [00:25:06] Speaker A: Print it out. Keep it in a folder in the junk drawer. Just kidding. [00:25:10] Speaker B: I'm kidding. I had, when we lived in Mount Shasta, I still had my high school journals and I just kept everything. Like I had certain things, like I had certain clothes from college that I kept and I had certain journals that I kept that paper journals that I had. And when I left Mount Shasta, I knew that that was the last time I'd probably have because I was moving to Arizona. I didn't, knew I wouldn't have a wood stove again. And so I just had a little party reading the old journals and burning it up. It's gone. I am healed. I don't need to remember like the emotional trauma of being 16 ever again. Burn it up, burn it down. And so I kind of go into like a digital bonfire, my mom's stuff, and I'm going to start my own. So. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Good for you. I love it. Yeah, I actually wore the motor out on a shredder once, like shredding all the old stuff. I don't want anybody else to have to deal with. Yeah. Like, yeah, it's not even that. I like, it's not that anybody couldn't, like it was anything people couldn't read, but it was like old bills and things that had numbers on their account numbers and phone numbers and addresses that I didn't want to end up, you know, in a garbage or in a recycling center. So I shredded at first, but man, that was, that was putting off some heat, that shredder. [00:26:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I bet. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just the idea of I like to think I'm so tech savvy, but I know that there will become a time when tech is going to outpace me. I'm going to get older, and I'm going to be like my mother who thinks she needs a computer and doesn't really need a computer anymore, and it's dangerous to have a smartphone in my hand. Like. Like I told you, like, the time my mom accidentally went live on Facebook. [00:26:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yes. I was talking to a friend of mine, too, and she's like, you know, I've watched my mom with a smartphone, and it's gonna be. She either needs to get a cover for it so that she's not, you know, accidentally pushing things, or she needs to, like, transition to, like, a dumb phone, because it's not working for her right now. And I'm like, yeah, I can't imagine getting to that point. But maybe now I'm starting to wonder, you know, I'm looking at some. The further back I go as I'm going through my mom's stuff, it's like I'm seeing where, like, okay, there's, like, a whole spate of password resets, and here you forgot your username. Well, here it is. You could see where about the point where things started kind of getting rough for her. I'm like, how will I know? I guess I'll know that if I get to that point. It's like, if I can't remember, like, username password, if I can't get into my password manager, then I know. Please take this all away from me. Let me just go sit and watch clouds go by. I'm. I'm done. [00:27:59] Speaker A: I think it's funny because, like, last even. Was it last? It was when I went to word camp Asia. Not this year, but last year. And my mother, you've heard me talk about her. Other people have heard me talk about her. We've talked about her on this podcast. She doesn't have the ability to walk well. I don't walk well, but I'm fine sitting right. My legs work. They just don't hold. Hold me up. My mother has no balance, and she has Ms, and she has no control over Hitler. And she said to me, at that point in time, can I borrow your car while you're in Asia? And I said, no. And she said, oh, are you lending it to somebody else? And I said, no, but, mom, you cannot drive anymore. Well, I still have a license, but you cannot drive anymore. It's not safe for you, and it's definitely not safe for other people. Who are walking or on the road. I think that when it comes time for my daughter to say, mom, we think it's time for you to give to, you know, sell your car. That will be easier than mom, we're taking away the laptop. [00:29:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:29:07] Speaker A: But luckily those are still years away. Let's hope, right? [00:29:11] Speaker B: Knock on wood. [00:29:13] Speaker A: I know. [00:29:13] Speaker B: It's just years go by so quickly. I mean, if you think about it, my mom's, she had me on when she was 25, so she's 25 years ahead of me. So totally, like, four or five years ago that she. But you know what? I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to say that to myself. Like, I've only got 20 years, right? I can't do that. I feel different. And of course I'm not. You know, she's still my mom. Love my mom. She has smoked her entire life, and she's still. My brother goes over there and he sits and he washes, he supervises and he lets her smoke. He's like, she's in her eighties. If it hasn't killed her yet, just let her have it, right? I've made much different choices about my health and taking care of myself than she has. But still, it's just the idea of aging. I'm just like, I'm not ready to just start retire. I'm like, so much more. I'm so excited about the future of what can happen. Not ready to give up. Like, no. Makes time stop. Like, 20, only 20 more years. I better get busy. So I'm having all this, like, it's really affecting me. Like, I'm very discombobulated right now in terms of, there's so much more I want to do. I want to get busy doing it now because it's like, then I want to retire, and I want to have a good. I want to have good retirement years. Not retiring because, you know, something's wrong and I can't do stuff anymore. I want to retire because it's like, all right, not going to work now. And now let's go party, you know, let's go have some fun. Maybe I'll move to Florida and put up one of those, like, loofahs or whatever. No, I'm not doing that. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Kind of put the pineapple upside down on your door. [00:31:04] Speaker B: Oh, is that another sign? [00:31:05] Speaker A: I think so. [00:31:06] Speaker B: You know, about the colored loofah things. I'm, like, out of it. [00:31:11] Speaker A: I can't even remember what the name of that, that retirement community is called. The trade winds or something. Like every single, every single. I was ancient. What's the elderly person has like chlamydia and gonorrhea or something? They're constantly bed hopping. [00:31:32] Speaker B: Yeah, see, that's not the party I'm going to. I don't even know what party I'm going to. It's like, it's. Are we, is there a party for retired people who just want to like, go hang out in the mountains and go hiking with their dogs? Because that's the one I want to go to. If that party exists. [00:31:48] Speaker A: That sounds like more fun for sure. Absolutely. Taking the dog for a walk, maybe a few crystals in your pocket. [00:31:55] Speaker B: That's it. Yeah, that's it. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, unfortunately these things don't clean up themselves so we still have to go through. I went through and cleaned up my mother's email not too long ago as well. She finally, when we had the, she went live on Facebook accidentally episode, she gave me passwords to log into everything because she at that point realized that she makes mistakes. And I think it was difficult for her to realize that. It also was at that point that she made me the password protector expert login person. I don't know, I guess you can give somebody else access to your one password or I, Dashlane or whatever she's using. I don't remember. And then she also added me as the other person on her, my chart, so. Her medical charts. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. I see a lot of receipts of those things. I'm like, what is all of this? Yeah, I just throw it all in one folder. I'll look at it later. It's not money. That's what my brothers are like. Yeah, she's got money somewhere. I found money, though. So this has been a profitable excursion, at least for my brothers. You know who. Yeah, that they've taken care of her, but yeah, my charts. What is all this stuff? I have no idea. Do I save these years of them? [00:33:14] Speaker A: I called my mom about two weeks ago and I said, are you okay? Yeah, why? I said, well, because I know you were in the emergency room last night and that you didn't break, you know, you didn't break your shoulder and you only broke your arm because she has a broken arm from falling a couple weeks before that. How did you know? I said, mom, you have me on your Mychart. I was getting text message notifications of all your test results all night long. [00:33:39] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, I should take you off of there. [00:33:42] Speaker A: I said, no, don't take me off of there. I just need to silence my phone when I go to bed. But, yeah. So our parents, we love them. Maybe we'd never be them. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, that's a good way of thinking. [00:33:57] Speaker A: That's the title of swedish tech cleaning. Or there's a fly. Or the. Or, you know, our parents, maybe never be them. You're the one who titles our episodes. [00:34:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Just choose whatever feels good. [00:34:10] Speaker B: All right. We'll do cleaning. Is. Is a good one. [00:34:14] Speaker A: I do too. I did, too. [00:34:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:16] Speaker A: Well, whoever you are, listening to us, wherever you are, make maybe, you know, take stock of what you have out there in your tech world. Things that you can unsubscribe from, things you can delete and things that you should maybe put in place so that if something did happen to you, you wouldn't have to go through all of the issues that we as children have had to go through for our parents just to gain access to the things that they want us to have access to, but at this point, don't know how to give it to us. So, yeah. So put some things in place for those to make life a little bit easier for yourselves and for your. Your kids or your nieces or nephews or whoever will be taking care of you and your end of life situation. So thanks for the laughs, Kathy. [00:35:02] Speaker B: That's what I'm here for. I'm laughing over here. The comments. [00:35:05] Speaker A: We could cry. [00:35:06] Speaker B: Pretty ripe with a few things because I'm just like, mom, what were you doing? She. She. I will say a couple of things. She sent an email to herself. No body, just a subject line to herself. And it says, I can't get this to print. I'm like, she must have been really frustrated to send herself. Just like, imagine her there. Like, I can't get. [00:35:44] Speaker A: It's like that woman I told you about a few weeks ago that kept putting in the next door app. Unsubscribe. People are saying, that's not how this works. Yeah. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. So funny. [00:35:59] Speaker A: People are funny. Gotta keep laughing. [00:36:02] Speaker B: That's all we got. [00:36:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, thanks for keeping me laughing, even through that. Tough times, Kathy. Love you so much. [00:36:12] Speaker B: Love you, too. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Everybody else. Yeah, we like you. We'll see you next week. [00:36:19] Speaker B: Bye bye. [00:36:22] Speaker A: This has been WP. Motivate with Kathy Zant and Michelle Freshette. To learn more or to sponsor us, go to wpmotivate.com.