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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I was sad when my g'mas house was sold, and no matter how long I stay away, visiting the family house still feels like home.

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I think your aunt will be happy with her newfound freedom but she'd better find a hobby and/or some friends to fill up her time. She sounds like a sociable person who is used to company.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Yeah, the missing part can take longer to come up.

This is going to be a big adjustment for your aunt though. But having you around to help her will ease her mind.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I was sad when my g'mas house was sold, and no matter how long I stay away, visiting the family house still feels like home.

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Yeah... When I was pretty gung-ho about getting stuff out of the house the other day, I decided against disturbing anything in the livingroom where I knew we'd be talking to the guy about arrangements yesterday. I didn't want to take that feeling of "home" away from them with what might be the last time they all sit together in the house. I'm going to be starting to clear out furniture tomorrow, and now that the hospice stuff is out of the dining room I can start pulling anything that's still left for them to sort through all in one room for them to make decisions before I throw it away or take it to Goodwill.

There's no sense in prolonging any of those nostalgia feelings now. I know that they're all grateful to me for being the one to go through all of it so they didn't have to look through it themselves and get all emotional. I'm very thorough and have saved any pictures and anything else that would have any sentimental (and/or cash) value.

I hope everybody who wants to can take a little piece of her with them over the next week or two before it's all cleared out.

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I think your aunt will be happy with her newfound freedom but she'd better find a hobby and/or some friends to fill up her time. She sounds like a sociable person who is used to company.

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She's really looking forward to riding her bike again. She has two really nice mountain bikes that have just sat in the back porch for about 5 years. She loves nature and going to the preserves. Maybe I'll ask her if she wants to take a trip to Starved Rock this spring. She used to love going there with my uncle before he passed away.

She's not super sociable outside of work. Kind of like me in that regard. One time she said "I like the idea of people" and I giggled because that's kind of how I view being out with most people too. I don't ever see her doing the whole "senior group" thing like her mom did before she got "too old" to do it anymore. I bet she'd like doing it if she were busy doing things like working in a soup kitchen for the homeless or something though. She's like me and wouldn't want to just sit around and socialize. She'd want to keep busy the whole time and feel useful.

It's like how my friend wants me to come over and play pool all the time. After about an hour of that I don't want to do it anymore. I'd rather be helping him work on projects on his home than just playing pool. I have plenty of down time, but I prefer to spend most of that time alone. Honestly, I think she's going to fit right in with living alone once she's processed everything. And now that both of my Grandmas are gone and I can't call them anymore and she's going to have all of this free time on her hands, I get the feeling I got a new phone buddy.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Yeah, the missing part can take longer to come up.

This is going to be a big adjustment for your aunt though. But having you around to help her will ease her mind.

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We'll figure it out.

I just got off the phone with her and she seems good. She's really happy she went back to work today. I'm a little worried about her state of mind about the possible "danger" of staying overnight alone in the house though. She had these two spotlight lamps and she told me she had them both on in the back porch pointing out the windows and she put cardboard up on the back porch door to block the window.

She's usually pretty almost OCD about routine and having the same lights on and off every day/night as well as the same blinds open and closed and I told her that's WAY different than anything outside has ever seen before. I also told her that when I think "spotlight" I think of car dealerships pointing them to the sky or of a Lighthouse, and putting all that powerful light outside is more a beacon than a deterrent.

So she's settling for just leaving the lamp on in the porch and keeping the cardboard up on the window. I told her "whatever makes you feel safe", but she shouldn't worry about anything. It's not like she's got a Bentley parked in the drieway and the house doesn't look like shit from the outside. Nobody has ever broken into that house in 60 years and it's not going to start tonight.



She told me she already brought the extra TV back up to her bedroom too, and I'm going to have to do something about that. She should be staying at her apartment and we need to get things down and out of the house... not back upstairs.

Hopefully we have a productive few days while I'm back out there. I'm prepared to stay longer again if I feel that I need to.


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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Well........

I was about to say that I think we're done with the snow around here this year. But then I had to look.

It was almost 60 yesterday. It will be 49 today, 59 tomorrow, and it doesn't appear that we're due to see a high lower than 36 for the rest of winter.

But Friday night it's dipping to 27 degrees and they're saying we're going to get 6 to 10 inches on Friday night.

If that's true, that might be more snow in one night than we got all winter here all bundled into a couple of hours.

What a way to top off a wild winter.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
More snow for my area SIX and I got a dental appointment. So I am heading out early to make sure I can get a bus to get there.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
More snow for my area SIX and I got a dental appointment. So I am heading out early to make sure I can get a bus to get there.

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And a belated Merry Christmas to you too. Is there any way you can cut your walk short?

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Back and in. My dental appointment was cancelled due to the fact that the dentist couldn't get into the office. So mild kerfuffle there. Pharmacy was short on my seizure meds so will have to make another trip to them. It was rain mixed with snow while I was out and now that I am in the sun is out. So some of the snow will melt.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Back and in. My dental appointment was cancelled due to the fact that the dentist couldn't get into the office. So mild kerfuffle there. Pharmacy was short on my seizure meds so will have to make another trip to them. It was rain mixed with snow while I was out and now that I am in the sun is out. So some of the snow will melt.

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oh that is frustrating!

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I'm glad for the time you are getting with your aunt and your dad, SIX. That's what's important now.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I'm glad for the time you are getting with your aunt and your dad, SIX. That's what's important now.

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Yeah. Everything will be alright.

I feel like I haven't properly grieved Grams yet. Maybe there isn't any such thing as proper. I was a lot more emotional when my other Grandmother died, but that happened right in the middle of the worst of my drinking and I didn't even go and see her before she died. Maybe a lot of that was more about me and my guilt. I dunno.

I've also been keeping myself so busy. Except for my aunt throwing things to the curb after they were out in the garage and helping me move a few of the larger pieces last year, her kids haven't had to worry about clearing any of the junk out.

I told my aunt and uncle yesterday that I'm finally finishing the job that my deceased uncle and I started when I was just a kid when we cleared out a room in the basement and collected a bunch of scrap metal in the garage and got 87 bucks for it.



My buddy and his family are going down to Florida for 10 days next week. I'll be over there patching up his daughter's room and getting it painted for her before they come back.

After that, unless it warms up here again, I'm going to have little on my plate for a while. It will probably hit me when I can't call Grams then.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
There is no proper way to grieve. It is individual to each person. Take it from someone whose done a fair amount of it.

Busy can be good to help deal with things. It's a coping mechanism.

Helping friends is good as well.

It most likely will. I had that happen when my favourite aunt died. I wanted to talk to her then I remembered that she was gone. It was awful.

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Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
There is no proper way to grieve. It is individual to each person. Take it from someone whose done a fair amount of it.

Busy can be good to help deal with things. It's a coping mechanism.

Helping friends is good as well.

It most likely will. I had that happen when my favourite aunt died. I wanted to talk to her then I remembered that she was gone. It was awful.

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Yeah. It's hard for me to get motivated getting my own house in order right now since I kind of have to do a tandem house/garage re-org and it's cold and snowing at the moment. It will be a lot better on Monday when it's warm and everything melts.

I felt a bit of it this morning. I talked to my dad for a while, but he's not much of a phone talker and we just spent a lot of time together just yesterday. My aunt and friends are all working right now. I wanted to call Grams, but yanno...

Didn't get emotional about it yet. Don't know how that's going to effect me going forward, really. I did have that good cry while she was still alive. Maybe that's all there's going to be.

It's different this time than with my other Grandma because I was there through almost all of it and I know it was a relief for her and everybody else when she finally passed, and I've been spending so much time and energy helping everyone else out so far that I haven't had any time to really process it while it was still "new". It's kind of shocking to think that it's only been 6 days right now. It feels like 2 weeks have passed already since she's been gone.


It's not like I don't have a ton of stuff to do here today and many, many days going forward. I just wonder where my energy and enthusiasm to work goes when I get back home. I was so amped up I could hardly sit still the last 3 days of helping over there, but now that I've home I've hardly done anything but a bit of paperwork since I've been up 4 hours ago.

I'm glad spring's coming. Warmer weather and sun always makes me feel better.

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Growing up in a Republic was nice... Shame we couldn't keep it.

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Off to get my laundry done then a walk in the rain.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
Off to get my laundry done then a walk in the rain.

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Laundry, positive step. Walk in the rain? Not so fun.
I'm heading out to do some yardwork while it's cool and I can crank up the motivation.

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Trying to get published ..that's quite a process, isn't it? And here I was, think you just typed it up, sent it in and crossed your fingers. Heh! What do I know??

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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SIX, I get tired just reading your posts.

You're like the Energizer Bunny.

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