Second July Island Trip – Day 3
We allowed ourselves to sleep in yesterday. It’s always lovely to wake up in Tim’s cabin, a hexagon in the woods with windows on five sides, on a sunny morning. We breakfasted on hard boiled eggs and almond meal and pumpkin/banana muffins I make. We arrived at the property by 10am. My tenants were scheduled […]
Second July Island Trip – Day 2
The day started at 6am after a fitful sleep. It was a delight to sit in bed and read for 30-minutes before taking a slow roll into reviewing the days tasks, heating water for tea on a hot plate, dressing, and enjoying, as it turned out, not enough breakfast. The day included: Constant triage on […]
Second July Island Trip – Day 1
Last minute packing, driving and the ferry ride went just fine. Upon arriving I unloaded my painted baseboard onto the deck of the house, and then drove up to the barns. My order of operations was going to be to unpack the over-subscribed truck, and then start organizing all the things. I quickly came to […]
Two Months…
Mom has been gone for two months. It seems like yesterday, and it seems like so long ago that she left. And indeed she did leave a long time ago. I miss her. I spent some time late this afternoon going through some of my dad’s slides. I came across three amazing pictures of my […]
Pulled out of Storage!
Today we moved the last three categories of stored items out of mom’s storage unit and pointed then toward their next way stations. My parent’s massive periodical collection, which according to EBay, has significant value, is now mostly at our place. We will bring the remainder home from the Island a week from today. The […]
Keys
I found my mom’s work keys. They were unmistakable with a 1922 silver dollar as a keychain I recall from my childhood, and each key with a room number stamped on it. I’ve repurposed the coin to decorate my set of Island keys. By the time mom retired from the university she was living two […]
Gave Notice
I had a brief meeting with the mainland tenants yesterday to go over things in and about the house that they could do to help ready it for sale. And then I gave them just over 2-months notice. He was circumspect, and she asked if I could put the house sale off until spring. I […]
Card Catalog
Many moons ago, when I was very small, my dad used to find treasures at university auctions. One of these was an expanse of oak library card catalog drawers, with toppers and slide-out shelves, that he turned into a tool/hardware/mysterious bit & pieces emporium. There are 148 drawers. We moved this from mom’s mainland garage […]
Permission to Let Go – A Sentimentalist’s Perspective
I received the best piece (peace) of advice on Thursday. Some things of your parents are meant, and meaningful, in the moment, and some are meant for posterity. My question, though I knew the answer, was, “Is it OK to toss cards given to my parents from people I don’t know, or that were signed […]
Progress
I reclaimed a room today. Not to say I am in any way done going through correspondence, reaching out to people, sorting documents (not the same thing as correspondence!), organizing photos (they keep coming!), finding places for the treasures, attending to estate details, or sorting books, but I was able to clear a room. Dusted, […]
Dementia Dance - Travels with Mom 