Estate Progress

A lot has been accomplished this week on my mom's house.  I meant to get over there every evening this week, but some other things took priority a couple days.  Monday night was Bunco night - couldn't miss that!  Tuesday night I went over and sorted through things in a chest of drawers.  These were things I found way back a couple years ago, so I couldn't really remember what I had put in there.  I wanted to make sure there weren't any family items, and sure enough, found my mom's baby book in one of the drawers.  Then Wednesday, my daughter, grandson, and I went up to Tacoma to do some shopping.  We ended up getting a couple things for everyone and some Krispy Kreme doughnuts to eat on the way home.  That night I baked a cake for one of my co-workers for their birthday.  Thursday, my daughter and I went through the cupboards in my mom's utility area and cleaned it all up.  I moved all the furniture around and we vacummed everywhere.  We still have one large walk-in closet to go through.  My brother is supposed to have taken some dead electronic things to the dump today:  an old console TV, an old non-working console stereo, and my dad's old lift chair.  Then he is supposed to be moving some of the furniture we do want to sell into the living room.  Hopefully by the end of the week it will be ready for the Estate Sale ladies to start doing their thing.

~Jane

Endings

I met with a couple ladies yesterday about having an estate sale at my mother's house.  I've gone through just about everything and taken what I wanted, mostly fabrics and trims for dolls and a few dolls and accessories.  But there is so much more that needs to be sold.  We had a nice chat.  I showed them what was there and they agreed to hold a sale.  They will organize and sort and hold the sale for a percentage of the profits.  I will get the job done.  I have been anticipating this for quite a while and thought I would be elated that the task was passing to someone else.  But instead I just felt profound sadness.  First, a panicky thought that I would be turning everything over to these ladies and no longer able to keep any of it.  Then, just an overwhelming sense of the end of an era.  That these things are my last tangible connection with my mother.  I said goodbye to the women after promising to get back to them next week and went back in the house and cried.

A number of years ago a good friend passed away.  Before she died, she had invited me over to her home to pick out a doll as a remembrance of her.  She was selling the doll, not giving it away, but selling it to me at a very low cost.  I'm sure she knew I couldn't afford much at the time and wanted me to have it.  After her funeral her daughter called me demanding the doll back.  I was rather shocked, but since I had paid for it (maybe that was the reason her mother "sold" it rather than just giving it away) I refused.  The friend's husband called explaining his daughter was trying to hold on to her mother by keeping all her things and to ignore the request since she would eventually figure out that the things were not her mother and that his wife had specifically wanted me to have the doll.  I couldn't really understand it all at the time, but I certainly did last night. 

I can't keep everything of my mother's, nor would I want to.  Most of the things I have no emotional attachment to.  But it's easier to forget for a little while that she's gone when you can go to her house and handle all her things and wonder why she bought this or that.  In a couple weeks everything will be gone.  I can see that I need to sort things out a little more.  That I need to go through a few more chests and boxes to make sure that everything we want to keep we have.  My brothers need to make a pass through everything also.  We need to get rid of the non-working TV and the lift chair and bring in the furniture we want to sell.  But within a few weeks this task will be finished.  I will be both happy and sad.

~Jane

Finally Finished on Friday #4

I finished Malachi's brown hoodie sweater yesterday.  It's blocked and drying.  I hope it fits.  The sleeves look a little long but I guess they can be turned up. 

I finished the set of 9 printed diapers this week and started on 8 plain white ones.  I think my daughter will have 18 or 19 larges and that should be enough.  I am still planning on making some extra-small diapers for the new baby.  When he outgrows those, we will reuse the smalls and mediums I made for Malachi. 

I cast on the fronts of my sweater today.  Now is when it will get more complicated as there is a cabled panel up each front piece.  I am excited!

I found a lady to come look at my mother's things.  The things that I have sorted out from the junk as being collectible and hopefully having some value.  I want to see if she would be interested in holding an estate sale.  Hopefully she is or can point me in the direction of someone else who might be.  I am so ready to get this project done.

~Jane

Quote for the Day

"Being a parent is not transactional. We do not get what we give. It is the ultimate pay-it-forward endeavor: We are good parents not so they will be loving enough to stay with us but so they will be strong enough to leave us."  Anna Quindlen

Mr. Carson

Last week was a tough one for me.  I had to put my corgi, Carson, down.  He has been slowing down this past year, but suddenly started getting weaker last weekend and then just stopped eating on Sunday.  I knew where it was going, so finally steeled myself to take him to the vet on Tuesday and found out he probably had cancer.  He had lost 7 pounds, which is a lot.  He was so furry you didn't really see how much he had thinned out.  Anyway, the vet said it was time for him to go visit the other dogs at the Rainbow Bridge.  He was such a crazy, neurotic little dog.  He came to us very abused and never totally got over the abuse, but he was a loving little dog that just wanted to be with you.  He lived with us for 11 years.  Rest in peace, Mr. Carson.

~Jane

Gimpy Knees

I finally made a visit to my doctor last week.  I have been limping around with really painful knees for months (years) now.  I wanted to know exactly what was wrong with them and what my options were.  Turns out I have moderately severe arthritis in both knees and I'm bone-on-bone in both knees.  No wonder it hurts so much!

The doctor gave me some prescription meds that he thinks will help with the inflammation, some exercises to do to strengthen my quads and hamstrings so that when I do get a knee replacement, my recovery will be quicker, and some stretches to help with the tightness in my calves.  Apparently though they don't do knee replacements until you are 60, so I have a few years to wait.  He has a plan to get me through till then.  I guess we'll see.

Meanwhile, I have been really watching what I'm eating to see if I can lower my blood sugar further.  I've been doing pretty well, but you can always do better.  Losing a few pounds would help both issues.  It's hard to do either of these, lower your blood sugar and lose weight, when you can't really exercise, and yet exercise is what you really need.  A sad situation.

Hopefully in about a month I'll be able to report that everything is working well and I can move around a little easier.

~Jane

Can You Say A Little Crazy?

 Finally, the Legislature is done for the year! Yeah. Now life can get back on an even keel. I have been working on three knitting projects. One for me, one for my little guy, and one for the new baby. It's fun rotating between them. Basically, I'm doing a section on one, and then moving to the next one. I finished a skein of yarn on the sweater for me, so I moved to the sweater for the new baby. I picked up stitches for the sleeve. Then I couldn't figure out if I had the right needles at work, so moved back to my sweater since it's just mindless knitting. The seed stitch band at the bottom keeps folding up, hopefully blocking will take care of that.

I wanted to make myself a sweater.  I've attempted to do this at least twice and never succeeded.  I wanted it to have some cables, but not be too complicated.  This sweater will have cables up the fronts and down the sleeves, but the back is  plain.  I hope it turns out!  I love the hollyberry color.

 

 This is a sweater for the new baby.  It's supposed to be a six months size, but I'm not sure.  It looks a little big, but I guess he can grow into it.  I love the peapods all around the front edge.

The brown sweater is for Malachi to replace the teal one that shrunk.  It isn't turning out quite as nice as the first sweater, but he won't mind.  :)  He'll just like the fact that Grandma made it for him.

Last is a picture of the diapers I'm sewing.  I've finished four new large ones and have these five left to finish.  Then I'm cutting out seven more from plain white.  That will give them 18 larges.  Hopefully that will be enough.



~Jane