The Family Plot Blog
Newsflash: Funeral Planning Not A Priority For Americans
Funeral planning is a serious consumer issue, yet Americans persist in NOT planning ahead for their eventual mortality. It's even worse than I thought. For the fifth consecutive year, the National Funeral Directors Association's (NFDA) annual Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study indicates that consumers acknowledge the importance of preplanning their own funeral, but fail to do so in practice. This year's findings reveal that 62.5 percent...
June 25: Meet the Author Book Signing at NM Arts & Crafts Fair
The 56th annual New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair ranks among the largest events in the state and one of the top arts shows in the nation. With a book signing event with Gail Rubin, author of KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die and other books, it's a hotbed of art and literature! Look for Gail at the LPD Press/Rio Grande Books booths at EXPO New Mexico on Sunday, June 25 between 11:00 a.m. to 1:00...
Funeral Directors: What Are Your Biggest Changes and Challenges?
When the award-winning book A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die was published in 2010, funeral service was quite different. A lot has changed in seven years, and author Gail Rubin, Certified Thanatologist, wants funeral director input for updates to the second edition. “In November of 2010 when A Good Goodbye first came out, the national cremation rate was still under 50%, death discussion movements like the Death...
Introducing the First “Before I Die” Albuquerque Festival
Even though humans have a 100% mortality rate, less than 30% of us make any end-of-life plans. What will get adults to discuss and plan for their eventual demise? Put some "fun" in funeral planning to get people to discuss this serious topic. Announcing the inaugural “Before I Die” Albuquerque Festival, to be held Friday, October 20 to Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at various locations around Albuquerque, New Mexico. The six-day festival offers...
Home Funerals Explained on Redfin Real Estate Site
You don't expect to find an article about home funerals on a real estate website. But, homes are where you would hold a home funeral, and the real estate website Redfin recently posted this story about how to plan a home memorial service. "As the project manager for this article, I wanted to create a piece of content that related to the importance of a home outside of investment, decor, or upkeep advice," said Bailey Chauner with Redfin....
SouthWest Writers Interview with Gail Rubin
The respected writers organization SouthWest Writers recently posted an interview with Gail Rubin about her latest book, KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die. Here is a portion of the Q&A related to KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: What’s your elevator pitch for Kicking the Bucket List? Kicking the Bucket List is two-thirds about downsizing and one-third about organizing for end-of-life issues. We’re...
TEDMED Talk: Lucy Kalanithi on Living Fully When Facing Death
A friend recommended this TED talk presented by Lucy Kalanithi, "What Makes Life Worth Living in the Face of Death." It's a thoughtful discussion of medical care, end-of-life issues and choices. Lucy Kalanithi is the widow of neurosurgeon and writer Paul Kalanithi, who was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer at age 36. She's also an internist at Stanford. Shortly after his diagnosis, Paul wrote about his transformation from doctor to patient,...
Loving Our Pets, and People Too
Here's some news you can use if you are a pet parent. My article titled "What is a Pet Trust and How Can It Protect Your Furry Friend?" recently ran on the popular women's website, Sixty and Me. You can also read the story on The Family Plot Blog. Need a little push to get those downsizing and end-of-life plans in place? Attend this June 13 University of New Mexico Continuing Education class, “Keys to Downsize and Organize Your Life.” The class...
How To Protect Your Pet With a Pet Trust
As I write this, my big black cat Ilsa is stretched out on my desk, snoozing on top of my calendar organizer. Her little sister Yvonne stares intently out the window at the enticing birdies she can’t reach and kill. Such a blessing, our pets. But what would happen to Ilsa and Yvonne should my husband and I die, or no longer be able to care for them? These scenarios that we don’t want to think about are good reasons to set up a pet trust. What’s...
June 13: Osher Class on End-of-Life Downsizing and Organizing
Need a little push to get those downsizing and end-of-life plans in place? Attend this June 13 University of New Mexico Continuing Education class, "Keys to Downsize and Organize Your Life." The class, taught by Certified Thanatologist Gail Rubin, will take place at Del Webb Alegria Active Adult Community in Bernalillo from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Here's the class description: You don’t have to be old or dying to downsize. When you’ve lived in the...
Memorial Day Stories at Sunset Memorial Park
For Memorial Day 2017, Sunset Memorial Park here in Albuquerque, New Mexico hosted a unique storytelling event honoring those U.S. servicemen and women who died in wars. The storytellers were actors who looked like green toy soldiers. "On a day like today, for many of us it's a day off, it's barbecues, it's time for family, and it is. It should be all of those things, but the reason we have all of that available to us is that there are people...
Love New Hampshire’s Motto: Live Free or Die
Just got back from New Hampshire, the Granite State with the motto "Live Free or Die." Of course, you can live free or not. Given humans' 100% mortality rate, the "Die" part is not optional. Phaneuf Funeral Homes & Crematorium in Manchester held two community outreach education events on May 23 with Gail Rubin presenting "Kicking the Bucket List: Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die." Approximately 75 people attended the...
June 17: Albuquerque Death Cafe
Mark your calendars to attend the next Albuquerque Death Cafe, scheduled for Saturday, June 17, from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Gail Rubin’s home. The objective of the Death Cafe is “To increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives.” It’s an interesting, unstructured conversation – open and free-flowing with no specific agenda and respectful of all points of view. It’s an opportunity to discuss...
June 2: KNKT-FM Interview with Gail Rubin
Mark your calendar to tune in to KNKT-FM 107.1 on Friday, June 2 at 1:00 p.m. MDT to hear a conversation with death educator Gail Rubin on the station's Albuquerque Marketplace program. Host Peter Benson will talk with Gail about practical funeral planning tips such as: 1. The five things you must know NOW about anyone for whom you might plan a funeral. 2. What funerals and cremations cost in Albuquerque. 3. Why you need to shop BEFORE you...
Enjoy These Videos on The Family Plot YouTube Channel
After adding the latest batch of "you are there" videos from the expo at the latest International Cemetery Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) convention, the number of subscribers to The Family Plot YouTube channel has climbed over the 1,000 mark. With more than 400 videos related to funerals, cremation, downsizing, and end-of-life issues, you're sure to find something of interest. If you are a YouTube user, hope you'll subscribe too, if...
Video: Happy Painter Funeral Director Embalmer
John Smith is a funeral director who paints artistic landscapes in under 30 minutes. His brother Matt runs Homeward Bound Shipping, a mortuary service that gets the dead where they need to be, looking their best. The brothers combined their talents to make an attention-getting splash at the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) convention expo. "The primary focus is on great embalming," said John Smith. "Everybody...
Introducing the PICLIF Memorial Video App
PICLIF is an app which launched in January 2017, providing a way for multiple people to contribute photos to instantly create memorial videos. The company was a new exhibitor at the ICCFA expo, there to introduce funeral directors to this groundbreaking service. "Anyone who knows the person who passed away can download our mobile app, or use our website, to share photos directly from their phones, from Facebook, they can use our built-in...
How to Magically Make a Stained Glass Window
If you had a funeral home with a windowless chapel, how could you change the look without having to spend major dollars on a reconstruction? Church Window Film, one of the new exhibitors at the ICCFA convention, has an ingenious solution. The company has been producing custom made stained glass UV window film that looks like genuine stained glass since 1979. They offer colorful custom designs that can be applied to existing windows, changing...
Video: Sich Casket Company at ICCFA
Sirius Chan is very serious about making high quality American style caskets available to U.S. funeral directors at astonishingly low prices. He's able to do that by making Sich Casket Company's products in Ningbo, China and importing them to the United States. At the ICCFA convention and expo, Chan said, "We build all of our caskets in China, but they're all American styled, and made according to American specs.... We're always seeking to...
Video: Interview with Before I Go Solutions
Jane Duncan Rogers is a death educator based in Scotland. She runs a website called Before I Go Solutions, offering information, preparation and inspiration to address death, dying and grief. She provides workshops, programs, and consultations for people to plan ahead. She also does webcasts on her site. Jane recently did this online interview with Gail Rubin, The Doyenne of Death®, whose business is A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those...
Publishers Weekly Gives Rubin’s Bucket List Book a Positive Review!
Publishers Weekly, the bible of the publishing industry, recently ran a positive review of KICKING THE BUCKET LIST: 100 Downsizing and Organizing Things to Do Before You Die. Here's what they published (with paragraph breaks added to ease the eyes of the reader). Rubin (A Good Goodbye), a certified thanatologist, takes a not-so-grim look at how to reap life’s benefits while preparing for death. Rubin’s common-sense approach is broken down into...