Homeless

 And feeling fine. More later.

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.

Ten Degrees and Getting Colder

 

Cold Sunrise

 

That's just the name of the song written by Gordon Lightfoot.  It was actually -13 F when I got up this morning (wind chill -24).  Tucson may have pulled back into the lead!  There's a lot of weighing pros and cons of Colorado vs Arizona by the wood stove.  Not much else to report.

I did enjoy a few games of pool and a beer with my brother this week.  We don't get together very often, so it's good to try to keep the lines of communication open, especially with my mother celebrating her 86th birthday next month.  He lives in Milwaukee and just started semi-retirement.  Our opposing politics and lifestyles keep things very casual and surface-level.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.   It's important to find common ground.  He and his wife have started going to concerts and recently saw the Steve Miller Band.  Music is one of our common interests.