Tick Tock

A glorious Wisconsin sunrise turned to wind and rain and then back to sun again.  

We are twenty days from closing on our house sale.  Julia's brother Scott is arriving later today to manage our moving sale, which starts on Thursday.  His take is 25% of the proceeds.  Whatever he can convince people to take will be one less thing to donate, throw away or store.  The moving sale will take place over the course of three days, which coincides with our community's garage sale weekend.

We are pretty much done sorting and deciding what we will put into storage.  It's been an interesting and liberating process.  Once the decision is made to let go, it becomes pretty easy to let go and let go and let go.  

One of the easy choices for disposition is my book collection.  We have bookcases and bookcases of books:  fiction, non-fiction, law school textbooks.  Most of these, I haven't touched in ten years. To be honest, almost all of the books that I read are ebooks checked out from the library.  Yesterday, I started to reacquaint myself with Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.  Once I started reading, it was like sitting down with an old friend.  

More Steps Forward

The house is under contract.  My mother has decided upon a continuing care facility in Iowa, where she will start out independently and move to higher levels of care, as needed.   Time to start packing to move stuff into storage for the summer.  We have to be out May 19th.

 

A Little Too Busy

 We've done a lot of sorting, preparing to either move or move stuff into storage until we figure out where to move.  One of the things I discovered was an autographed baseball and card of Hall of Famer Robin Yount.  I don't recall who gave it to me, and it's been in a box for many years.  Someone on Ebay wanted it, and it's now one of the items that's gone.

 

 There's good news and bad news.  

Our house is on the market.  We have open houses this weekend and a handful of private showings already  on the schedule.  On the bad side, we have incredibly warm weather for the end of March, and the Asian beetle eggs are hatching, making our home a hatchery.  We are doing what we can to minimize the proliferation of beetles, but it isn't fun.  At least no mice have died in the walls recently (knock on wood).

My mother's health issues have not improved.  I got a call from her Sunday morning, and she was headed to the hospital by ambulance.  There were then two trips back and forth to Cedar Rapids.  She hated the hospital and wanted to go home but doesn't feel secure at home by herself.  

So, in between preparing the house for sale/showing and assisting Mom towards the best path forward, it's been crazy.  I'm feeling a little PTSD, similar to going through Justin's and my dad's end of life.  The doctors haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with my mom, except that she's not eating enough  or keeping hydrated.  There's loss of appetite, feeling full after just a couple of bites, and no energy.  

Julia is headed for San Francisco for a previously-arranged trip to see Allie on Tuesday.  I'll be spending some more time in Iowa, figuring things out.  My uncle Lawrence used to tell me repeatedly, "It's hell getting old,"  when I was a teenager.  I didn't understand then.  I understand better now.

 

Winds of March

The winds of March bring change.  I saw my first robins this week while walking along Spring Creek.

My mother turns 86 today.  Happy Birthday, Mom!  We were supposed to go to Iowa for a visit, but she asked us not to come.  She is nursing a bad cold that has lingered for a week.

Julia called the realtor this morning to start the process for listing our house for sale.  We are in the last stages of getting things ready, and there isn't much more that can be done.  I loved this place for many years, but the time and expense for upkeep on an older home with its acres of land isn't that attractive anymore.  Wisconsin winters have also worn us down. With global climate change, less snow and more ice isn't a good trade-off.

We are nervous and excited about the changes ahead. Tucson is drawing further ahead as our next place to land, but we haven't made any final decisions yet and will probably take some time after this place is sold.  Renting for a year in Arizona, Colorado or even Mexico remains a possibility.

Sort, Gift, Sell, and Purge

Julia and I have been working very hard to get the house ready to sell and get ourselves ready for a significant downsize.  Over the last 30 years of living in this particular corner of southern Wisconsin, we have accumulated a lot of possessions and crap. 

Sorting:  Going through everything we own and making a determination of what to do with it.  Our house isn't particularly huge, but we do have a lot of storage space--a full basement and outbuildings.  It's too much stuff, and it isn't going to fit into our new place, which may be as small as 1100 square feet with very little storage space.

As we go through things, we are realizing that a lot of stuff is just plain worn out and not worth hauling half-way or more across the country.  Other stuff isn't going to be useful wherever we end up.  This week, I said goodbye to my Polaris Sportsman ATV with a plow, which was primarily used for digging us out during winter storms.  At the time I bought it, I was the one primarily maintaining the 1/4 mile shared driveway.  

After 12 years, we have more responsible neighbors with even bigger toys (tractor with a loader).  I haven't used the atv all winter, and it's time to let it go to a close friend who has recently moved north of Green Bay, where the winters are longer and the snow is deeper.  I gave him a very good price and also threw in all of my beer-making and wine-making equipment.  

 

Plus, he received his rototiller back, which he originally sold to me when he got divorced half a dozen years ago.  His new wife likes to garden, and the old house he bought has a big lot for plantings.  If our house sells quickly, he will also get my old John Deere lawn tractor. 

A lot of our furniture isn't going anywhere but the dump.  Old beds and mattress sets don't have any value on Facebook marketplace.  Neither do worn-out couches and futons. Or cheap end tables and coffee tables. At the end, we hope to do some kind of sale, but I don't have high hopes for any of it.  The hardest part, especially for Julia, is sorting through all of the kids things' and old photographs.   They all have sentimental value, but, honestly, there are lots of things we haven't touched in over twenty years.  Placed in boxes and moved from our prior house, they never got unpacked, and now it's time to say goodbye.  

Julia has found a new home for her large floor loom. It was a gift to us from someone who didn't know how to use it, and it will now be a gift to someone in Julia's weaving guild.  Once that's gone, the wood stove room (family room) will be almost empty.  But there are many more rooms and outbuildings to work on.  Our local transfer station (the dump) and Goodwill are going to be seeing a lot of our vehicles during the coming months.  We plan to list the house for sale in mid-March.  

Not really SAD, but

A lot of people are affected with Seasonal Affective Disorder in Wisconsin.  We have many, many days without sun during the winter months.  This year, we've had a string of days with heavy fog and unseasonably warm temperatures in the 30's and 40's.   Personally, I can't claim that I've ever really felt the effects of SAD, but this year, knowing that we are likely moving west later next year, I've been very impatient and annoyed with Wisconsin weather.  

Sun trying to fight through the clouds

It hasn't helped that my daily routine involves looking at the weather in Fort Collins and Tucson.  Their weather has been spectacularly sunny and more pleasant this time of year.  

So, I haven't been blogging much because not much is going on. I've substituted indoor pickleball for hiking. The trails have been muddy and not much fun. For Christmas, we had my mother, Julia's brother and Allie here.  I went and retrieved my mother from Cedar Rapids and brought her here.  My brother was nice enough to take her back.  

Brother, mother, and me

Julia would like to take a trip somewhere warm in February or March, but it's too early to say whether that will work out.  We are busy getting the house ready for sale in the spring.  In fact, we had our first showing to a friend of a friend who  heard we will be listing it in the spring.  Things will work out one way or another.  

One thing we have decided upon is not to buy anything out west until the money is in the bank from our house sale.  At that point, we plan to put our remaining household belongings in storage and head west with the Scamp to Fort Collins.  I took the opportunity to give some family stuff to my mother and brother in anticipation of our downsizing.

Callie soaking up the heat

From a personal standpoint, Julia and I will be glad to put 2024 behind us.  It was a very tough year with the loss of Justin, our son.  It definitely took its toll.  My body and mind are slowly recovering, and I am sleeping much better after some very poor sleep for many months.