The failure to create a personal financial plan is in fact a plan of its own. This week I attended an evening presentation here in Napa, put on by a local Financial Planning company. Although the target topic was 1031 tax deferred exchanges, the message I took away was that by our healthy living we are going to live longer and the longer we are going to live, the more money we will need.

November is the perfect time to evaluate your rose garden or plan a new garden. Walk through your garden and ask yourself a few questions. Did you select healthy roses with good disease resistance? Did you put the right rose in the right place? Did you choose a planting location with plenty of sun and air circulation? Did you dig a big hole and add lots of organic material? Did you correctly prune your roses according to type? Did you feed and water them regularly as needed? Did your roses develop and bloom prolifically?

In the previous article, I mentioned how difficult it is, when trying to get organized, to throw away items, even those that add little value to our life. "Purging," a common word in the organizer's dictionary, is what helps people who desperately want to gain control over their clutter. Getting over this hump, once and for all, is what you are about to master, as you gain insight in how people go about decluttering their lives.

Dozens of news tips cross my desk each week, and not every one turns into a story. From questions about police activity to concerns about government decisions to cat-in-tree tales (some of which we do write up), Managing Editor Bill Kisliuk and I receive -- and subsequently pass on -- quite a few news bits that don't warrant a full-fledged story.

NOTES AND QUOTES for a Saturday in the Napa Valley: UCLA's Ed Blanton makes his final Bay Area appearance today as the Bruins (7-0 overall, 4-0 Pac-10), who are ranked No. 8 by The Associated Press and USA Today/Coaches, take on Stanford in a 3:30 p.m. game.