Next installment of my saga… (part two)

Zen I created in January 2010

May 23, 2010 – So now we are finally home thinking we have a quiet day ahead of us – it was not to be – I finally turned on my computer (for the first time in a week) and logged into Facebook to find a message from a very dear friend’s husband stating that “Rosie’s Light is Fading... We are looking for a miracle.” My heart stopped. We dressed and rushed over there to see her and the family.

A bit of background – Rosie and I went to college together, (way back when). A year ago in August, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and fought a very courageous battle. She, they had a great support system.

I was able to sit with her for a bit and was able to talk to her, I think she was listening but she was not responding. I felt better for going but it is very sad. They have three daughters 15, 13 and 10.

The week was OK except that I got some kind of stomach virus and was down for the count for three days.

One of my favorite Butterfly ATCs

On the following Saturday we were able to workout – when we got back in the car Scott had a very garbled message on his phone from Ben (Rosie’s husband) it sounded like we needed to get there as soon as possible. Not good – we did get there, after going home to shower and change. Hospice has been called and they had set up a hospital bed in the living room for her. I sat with her for a long time; the only thing that she is ingesting is ice chips, so I was happy to help with that. Later in the evening she actually asked for some ice cream. I was glad that we were able to be there because on Sunday evening, Scott got sick and on Monday at 7:00am we were on our way to the hospital, and there he stayed until Thursday at 9:00pm. I actually got in a full day at the office on Friday. We had a fairly quiet weekend – cleaning and getting stuff done.

The week started alright – my niece Emma turned 20 – I actually remembered to call and wish her a very happy birthday. It was also her parent’s anniversary so I was able to speak to both of them and wish them a very happy day. I worked a full day and even got to the gym after work – wow maybe things are getting back to normal – shocking… Whatever will happen next?!?

Tuesday – June 8 – on my way to work I received a call from Ben that Rosie had passed away a couple of hours earlier. I told him how very sorry I was and asked what he needed from me, I let him know what Scott and I would stop by this evening… Did I mention that I work with Ben? I knew that a few of our clients needed to be called and that I would take care of that, there are a couple people that I had promised to keep informed of Rosie’s progress. The week was filled with a lot of back and forth between the office and his home, as well as, helping with arrangements when and where I could. It was a very busy week. Rosie's Obit

On Sunday we headed out early again. We went to see Scott’s family – his dad is still in the area, so we spent the day with his family on the south side of Chicago, at least we didn’t have to drive all the way to Kankakee. We had a very nice visit with his family and were home before 10pm – I haven’t done that for over a week.

I have to start thinking about getting back into the garage/lockup to get that project back on track. I did a lot of organizing in the garage – going through boxes/bins and tossing what needed to be tossed, and resorting what needs to be kept and giving away EVERYTHING else, that mostly means that it went to the library as most of the boxes that we hauled out of the storage unit were books/magazines. I think that I am keeping between one-quarter and one-third of the “Stuff” that I had been saving. I’m feeling pretty good about what I’ve done. I do have some help schlepping stuff from the storage unit to the garage and to the library and back to the storage unit, and all I have to do is feed him. It’s a wonderful thing, and it saves my husband from getting in trouble with me by asking why do you have…

He lets Trevore nudge me into getting rid of stuff – “Do you really need to save that?” “When do you think you will use that?” “Why did you keep that?” “How many xxx do you think you really need??” He does make me laugh; where Scott would just get in trouble for asking the same things! That was very smart of him – having me ask Trevore to help me with this project. To be fair, Scott does help with the moving of the boxes from the truck to the garage and then helping with driving the full truck to the library or Goodwill. I believe we have brought 6 full truckloads (I drive a 1999 GMC Yukon) to donation locations.

I created this one the day my Dad Passed

Next installment – We have to start clearing out my Dad’s house….

Well, I can't have a post without at least one image from my cards. 

Slide Show

Today I finally figured out how to actually add the slide show in my blog without blowing everything up!  That makes me very happy!!

I haven't had much time to work on my cards nor my blog.  In the beginning of April we had the entire house painted. To say that I had a lot of stuff to move around so that the painters could get in to work is a MAJOR understatement. I should have taken better pictures of the process but alas.... I didn't. It is quite amazing what you can accumulate in 18+ years... We had to move stuff from room to room and then back again so they could get in the rooms to paint - just putting it in the middle of the room wasn't enough, they would not have been able to get to the center of the room to do the ceilings.

A silver lining is that we did do a complete cleaning - it reminded me of the old Beverly Hillbillies show where Granny wants to do Spring cleaning and they had to move all the furniture out of the house so she could clean... (Okay, now I'm showing my age)  We moved very old and tired bookcases to the curb as well as the workstation in the office that Scott used. It was solid oak and each peice weighed in at least 100#. We got it down the stairs and out of the house.  I did take a picture of the pieces by the dumpster.

I almost have the house part done, not everything is the way that I want it - some of our things are still being stored in the garage -- who needs to put a car there anyway? So far we have donated at least 6 full (and I mean there was no way to look out the rear view mirror) truck loads (I have an old 1999 GMC Yukon) to the Library, Goodwill and the dumpster. 

So now I'm on to the storage unit (I keep calling it "the lock-up" and one of my friends thought I was talking about going to jail - well, in a way it is!) - I have enlisted the help of the young man who was our Summer Intern last year - he had absolutley no idea what he was in for. He has just graduated college in December (Virginia Tech) and wanted to live in Chicago and lucky for us we hired him. As soon as he moved into his new apartment I asked what he was doing the next weekend and if he wanted to help me organize/empty the storage unit we have. I said I would even buy lunch and he could have almost anything we find in the lock-up. He said, sure I'll help (that was easy) - he had no idea what he was getting himself into - we opened the door the first time and he said, "I thougtht you were kidding when you said it was large, and full, I assumed we would be done in one afternoon." 

We have pulled four FULL truckloads out (one of which is in the garage being sorted as I type this note - I just can't go back in there tonight). Oh, the things I've found so far - receipts and checks dating back to 1979, old journals (they have been interesting to say the least). Kitchen stuff to rival some cooking stores. Boxes of books and magazines. Now tell me who needs to save boxes and boxes of magazines? They are a combination of cooking, Cooks Illustrated (I have all the bound editions), Fine Cooking (I have some of the bound editions) Saveur, and Cuisine at Home, Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Food and Wine I also have quite a few Crafting magazines, Rubberstamper, RubberStampMadness, VSN - do I need to go on here? Can you say pack rat????

Everytime I find something I ask Trevore "so do you want this?"  He has said yes a few times. Last weekend I asked what he still needed for the aprtment and he told me "pictures of cars". Okay, I thought, there is no way I'm going to have anything like that in storage - I've never been too into cars.  But I have to tell you I found three 1950s-ish framed photos of a guy changing a tire - he was thrilled at getting those pictures. He told me the pictures are the highlight of this procedure (so far). You never know what we will find next. We aren't even a fifth of the way through this nightmare.

I have completed three swaps in the past weeks though, a Grid Swap, Butterfly Swap and Anything goes black and white swap.

Here is also a link to one of  my Flikr images that was recently swaped - You will see all of the pictures on my site:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/7255011@N08/4584219696/