Sold!

We finally have officially sold mom’s house. We ended up canceling the contract we had because the buyer wanted things we were not willing to do. Then last week sometime my realtor contacted me to ask if we would sell as is for a lower price and the buyer would do all the repairs. So we said yes. We updated the new contract with new disclosures and today we transferred the title. I hope that’s the last of it.  I have to cancel the utilities and insurance tomorrow but then we wait for probate to run out and pay off the debts. It’s been a lot of work to get to this point.

Half of my dining room table is actually covered with mom’s containers of papers. I need to go through them but I just don’t want to do it right now. Maybe this summer when it’s too hot to go outside? Or whenever I decide I want my table back. 

Dealing with All the Feelings

Grief is a weird thing. Maybe it just comes in waves? I’m not all surprised that I can be happy and sad at the same time but whatever I thought I might go through when my mom died, I’m pretty sure this is not it. And I know I had some hard times dealing with my dad’s death, but I don’t remember them so much as now I just miss him. 

The last 2 weeks have been hard on me. We got the house emptied and put up for sale and had 2 offers within 24 hours. The inspection came back with a lot of things wrong. On one hand that’s what the inspector is supposed to do and it’s an old house so of course there are repairs needed. On the other hand, there is some water damage, mold, and a leak under the house that we have to repair. These were unexpected but are not crazy repairs and of course we won’t sell it with mold growing under there. But what would normally be something I let roll off and just take in stride felt absolutely devastating to me. And since then every single thing has just been too much for me to handle without wanting to have a good cry first. I know this will pass but I’m not sure how to deal with it in the meantime. 

We have a plan for the house. The buyer actually wanted a lot of repairs besides the ones we are willing to do. We have a counter offer out to her. At this point I might feel better if she says no and we have a little time to get a few things fixed before we list again. We are definitely not going to fix everything. It’s going to sell “as is” with a few repairs. 

I have a plan for myself this weekend too so I don’t just sit around and mope. It’s not the sadness that bothers me but the lack of emotional resilience I’m showing right now. Part of the plan includes a walk and getting outside a little bit - I got sick this week and am finally feeling like moving again. Then I’ve got a few things to work on. A few more things can be organized or cleaned out. I might even want to take flowers up to mom and dad’s grave. I haven’t been there since the funeral, because that’s not really where I feel a connection to them. But it might be nice. 

I will admit that I am actively avoiding Mother’s Day. I feel no shame in this. I can’t even celebrate my sisters being moms and I’m not going to try. The year at least, there is no making the best of it. I have to be at church a bit to fulfill my obligations but I don’t have to listen to any of the speakers. I’ll either be out in the foyer or behind the organ reading my scriptures or the Ensign while people talk. That’s the way I’m coping this year. 

Happy Spring

Spring has finally arrived! The tulips and daffodils are up and I have pansies blooming from last year along with my yellow primrose. I cleaned out my flower bed and it’s ready for some spring planting. It will still be a few weeks before I get to it, but it’s coming. 

I also took a couple evenings this week and cleaned out my garage. It feels soooooo good to have that done. I had so much junk in there. I still have things to throw away and boxes to break down but my garbage can was filled. So over the next week or 2 I’ll get rid of the rest of the small things that should have been thrown away years ago. I did not even remember that I own 2 dutch ovens. I must have taken one from my mom’s house about 10 years ago when we cleaned it out when they moved, but I don’t have any idea where the second one came from. It’s still in its original box. Ha ha it’s not like I use them. You can cook with them in the oven though so maybe I’ll try some of that next fall/winter. 

We have one last weekend at my mom’s house. Saturday night it will be empty and clean and ready to sell. We’ve met with the realtor and she will have it listed shortly. We’re a long way from closing out the estate, but selling the house and car will be big steps. Sometimes I feel like I’m still in shock and can’t believe she’s gone. It’s a weird feeling. 

Reading Blues

When this year started, I had some high hopes for reading some of the bigger books on my shelf and was looking forward to where the mood would take me. Well, the mood has taken me to re-reading old favorites instead of new stuff. With everything else that’s going on, I’m just not in the mood to start new books. I only read 3 new to me books in March and one of them was a novella with only 87 pages. 

Ha ha ha I had put only 24 books in my Goodreads reading challenge because I didn’t want any pressure from numbers and it looks like that’s a good thing. I had a great January so I’m still at 15 books read, which is still one book a week on average and still better than what a lot of people read in a year. Plus, the fact is that I am reading and sometimes I’m reading a lot. It’s just not full books or new books.

I am a little antsy about it though because my brain knows this really isn’t normal, even though I know it won’t last. I just can’t settle on what book to read. Hmmm maybe I’ll just watch some k-dramas instead.

Easter

I had a nice Easter weekend. On Saturday, a lot of my family went with me to see Clue at the Hale Center Theater. It was fun and the play was really good. Because I had an extra ticket that was my mom's, my brother came with his whole family. 

We had Easter dinner at my sister's house. She cooked the ham I got from my company at Christmas. That's usually mom's job but my sister did a great job. It was really good. Guess that's her job from now on. :)  We are still trying to figure out how much food we all need to bring. I'm realizing that it was a big job for mom to do dinner for the whole family. We also got the kids to play spoons. They never had before. We actually had to Google just to make sure we remembered how to play it. We had fun. 

I am still really feeling mom's death when we do family dinner. We have a big empty spot where she should be.  

Sale

Well, we had the estate sale at my mom’s house today. It was a really long day. I can’t say we had a great turnout, but we had people there. Ha ha ha probably half of them were related to us. And then another bunch were mom’s neighbors. 

We posted it on FB marketplace and had a bunch of people ask questions but my sister wasn’t interested in answering all of them and it looks like most weren’t willing to drive out and see for themselves. Plus, the rules in the neighborhood said no garage sales and we got away with it because it was mostly indoors and we didn’t stick signs out all over the road. I think if we could have had a sign out, it would have got the casual people in. In hindsight, we probably should have posted a sign and then just taken it down if someone complained. Oh well. 

We really did get rid of a lot of things. The only really large items left are a dresser and the washer/dryer. Plus a few small things like side tables. What we didn’t get rid of is glassware (and we did get rid of some of it, but there was a lot) and a lot of the holiday decorations. She had so many decorations. So many. My sisters are still posting a few things for free on FB in case anybody is willing to take them. I just don’t care and am kind of done with it, at least for today for sure. 

So now we empty and clean it up a bit. LOL I’m not thinking about that for a few days, at least. 

Sorting and More Sorting

I’ve now spent a chunk of the day for the last 3 Saturdays cleaning out and sorting my mom’s house. Most of the family has been chipping in and helping. She had so much stuff in that house. It’s hard to believe that we already cleaned out when they moved and downsized. We’ve thrown out so much food storage that was either opened and we couldn’t figure out what it was, or it was expired. We thought we were almost done until today when we opened a few cupboards we hadn’t been in. She had so much home canned foods. We divided up a lot of it but just could not take it all. I have no idea where I’m going to put everything I brought home. But I will be enjoying some home canned food this year for sure. And planning meals around some of it to get it used up before it goes bad. 

She would kill us for the mess her house is in right now, but there’s no getting around it. We had to get stuff out of places to see what it is. We are planning right now to have an estate sale in 2 more weekends. Hopefully, the weather is nice. We are “selling” most of the stuff for free, if only somebody will take it. So I’ve got 2 more weekends of being over there and then we’ve decided to take a break over Easter weekend and then General Conference weekend. After that, we will be making runs to the thrift store and dump. We do hope to have it up for sale sometime in April though. 

I’ve got my own goal to start getting my crap in order as well. I bought a book I can write in to help me get it organized but I’m going to get it done this year for sure. My own house is kind of filled as it is. Ha ha ha…