PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: Jim Logajan on July 08, 2019, 08:48:17 PM
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Have not followed this forum since about mid-March - did I miss anything good?
TL;DR summary of next paragraphs: events have kept me busy.
I did keep up with some other less-demanding forums - this one was just one too many at the time. Around mid-March we became crazy busy with finding a new home in Rapid City SD (~1400 miles from Dexter OR,) along with packing up and preparing to move and selling the house. Things were even more hectic because we had already promised to help in May/June to settle the estate of my 90-year-old mother-in-law who died of a stroke last fall - this required driving to Washburn Illinois from Rapid City as soon as we had leased a rental home. In the end we did three back-and-forths between IL and SD interspersed with driving from OR to SD and unpacking (United Van Lines moved our junk.) "Settling" her estate included going through an incredible amount of stuff (she was into making and selling crafts, and each of her three kids and deceased husband had left decades of stuff at the old homestead.) Like home-made wine no one knew was under the basement stairs (too vinegary to keep, for those who are wondering.) Or the nitrogen tank in the basement room which was also full of photo development equipment. I spent several days shredding documents that even included other people's ID info (she had run a small store in the 70's and 80's that included selling fishing and hunting licenses and she was required to record names and other ID info. She had records of all sorts going back 40 years.) It was also physically exhausting tossing a lot of stuff and separating things to give away or sell.
Then a couple weeks ago my own 98-year-old mother suffered a stroke (number two for her in the last three years) and after a stay at the hospital, was able to communicate that she wanted to go home (to die.) So now she is in hospice care at home. And she still says she wants to go home. Since she is already at home, she has been asked if by "home" she means heaven? "Yes." Naturally we started driving to Minnesota the same day we were told she was in the hospital (one reason for choosing SD to move to in retirement was to be nearer family for just this sort of eventuality - in retrospect our timing rather sucked; should have moved a year earlier.) She has since stabilized, so we took the opportunity to return to SD to finish moving tasks - like getting SD car and driver licenses. I've also had a chance to do most of the paperwork to close our Oregon corporation (even though now retired (actually just plain tired at this point) I may open a South Dakota Corp - it could come in handy.)
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Welcome back Jim. You didn't miss much out of the ordinary, but you were missed. Sometimes, an echo chamber can get a little tedious.
Sorry to hear about all the difficulties, and also very sorry about your mother. I hope you get your things in order soon and that your life settles down to the normal level of chaos.
Hey, wasn't that a great Fourth of July extravaganza up in Trump land?
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Wow, your story is a preview of us. We’ve just moved for the third time in 3 years and we are executors for both our mothers who are ancient and will probably die or stroke just about the time we are trying to move yet again to our final retirement home in a couple of years. Having just gone through the buying and selling of houses (yet again) that alone is a full time job. We are pure dreading dealing with the old ladies’ stuff. My mother in law had a dark room and still has her equipment. My own husband has winemaking equipment he can’t use right now and we ourselves have way too much stuff. “Things” are turning out to be a curse.
I never imagined life would be so unstable at this age. I just want to settle down and rest.
Oh and condolences and welcome back.
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Welcome back Jim. Sorry to hear about your Mom, and moving is never fun, but Rapid City is a beautiful area. When I lived in Denver, I used to fly the Tiger up there, into Custer, KCUT, and go to the Black Hills, Rushmore. Really cool. You picked a great place.
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Of course you missed lots of great discussions here! Where’s your forum patriotism, people? Stop acting like PilotSpin is deeply flawed! ;)
I missed you, Jim. We knew you were moving but holy cow, what a stressful time you’ve had!
My mom is 91 and mom-in-law 93, both living in their own homes. My husband just made flight reservations for his mom to spend the winter in Mexico as usual. I really admire these ladies for their tenacity, determination, faith, and amazingly, the way they take care of themselves with diet, exercise and full lives.
My mom has made and continues to make a big push to Get Rid of Stuff and it’s very catching ... I’m sorting and discarding and Goodwilling rather rampantly. Very freeing.
I look forward to hearing more about South Dakota ... a place I know absolutely nothing about except that there’s an arrow-straight highway through it that threatened the marriage of one of my fave bicycle stories, “Miles from Nowhere.” Apparently the ride through SD is so boring the author couple started resenting each other’s presence from sheer boredom.
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My mom has made and continues to make a big push to Get Rid of Stuff and it’s very catching ... I’m sorting and discarding and Goodwilling rather rampantly. Very freeing.
This move has finally taught me my lesson. I need to dump at least 50% of my shit. It’s easy in theory but when you confront each item it gets emotional. Ever since my daughter got cancer I have found it very difficult to throw out anything of either of my children. I realized that if something happens to them, these items are all I have left of them. That’s no reason to keep thousands of pounds of their crap.
Then there is the theory the grandchildren would come and play with all these toys. The grandchild has come and played with them exactly once in his three years. Meanwhile I have hauled this stuff halfway across the country and two more times within Texas. (I’m counting the time the house flooded and we had to pack out as a move.)
And their stuff isn’t even the biggest problem. It’s my stuff, my husband’s stuff. We both have had multiple interests and hobbies throughout our lives and accumulated crap relating to each but you never admit that you’re not going to return to a past hobby so you can’t get rid of it. I own three sewing machines. I used to make all my clothes and all my kids clothes. I have some delusion that someday I will get back into sewing.
When you are finally old and demented it may be that these things are all you have to trigger your memories. Photos are one thing but items so much more powerful. I have a small lamp my parents bought for my nursery when I was born. I will NEVER get rid of that. My husband has similar things. But when we die this stuff will just be a horrific burden to our kids as they settle our estate. It’s easy to say “just have an estate auction” but you still must go through it and will want some mementos or items of quality that you cannot buy anymore.
But I’m resolved to toss half our stuff. This move was way too traumatizing and we are getting too old to deal with “stuff”. It’s made me hate the stuff I’m supposed to be sentimental about.
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This move has finally taught me my lesson. I need to dump at least 50% of my shit. It’s easy in theory but when you confront each item it gets emotional. Ever since my daughter got cancer I have found it very difficult to throw out anything of either of my children. I realized that if something happens to them, these items are all I have left of them. That’s no reason to keep thousands of pounds of their crap.
Then there is the theory the grandchildren would come and play with all these toys. The grandchild has come and played with them exactly once in his three years. Meanwhile I have hauled this stuff halfway across the country and two more times within Texas. (I’m counting the time the house flooded and we had to pack out as a move.)
And their stuff isn’t even the biggest problem. It’s my stuff, my husband’s stuff. We both have had multiple interests and hobbies throughout our lives and accumulated crap relating to each but you never admit that you’re not going to return to a past hobby so you can’t get rid of it. I own three sewing machines. I used to make all my clothes and all my kids clothes. I have some delusion that someday I will get back into sewing.
When you are finally old and demented it may be that these things are all you have to trigger your memories. Photos are one thing but items so much more powerful. I have a small lamp my parents bought for my nursery when I was born. I will NEVER get rid of that. My husband has similar things. But when we die this stuff will just be a horrific burden to our kids as they settle our estate. It’s easy to say “just have an estate auction” but you still must go through it and will want some mementos or items of quality that you cannot buy anymore.
But I’m resolved to toss half our stuff. This move was way too traumatizing and we are getting too old to deal with “stuff”. It’s made me hate the stuff I’m supposed to be sentimental about.
We are in a similar situation. But the one thing I only "sort of" understand is my wife's old 1960 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. She has the full set plus a dozen annual yearbooks. We have carted these encyclopedia's around the country numerous times. They are heavy, way out of date and rarely if ever used. But she loves books (has a million of them) and she cannot get rid of them (unless they are mine).
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Welcome back Jim! I hate when life happens. Sorry about all the problems and about your mom.
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Welcome back Jim! I hate when life happens. Sorry about all the problems and about your mom.
I hate when it stops happening (for me, that is). There are some people on the other hand . . .
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We are in a similar situation. But the one thing I only "sort of" understand is my wife's old 1960 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. She has the full set plus a dozen annual yearbooks. We have carted these encyclopedia's around the country numerous times. They are heavy, way out of date and rarely if ever used. But she loves books (has a million of them) and she cannot get rid of them (unless they are mine).
I feel that way about "The Story of Civilization" by Will and Ariel Durant. I've been carting that set around for 40 years now.
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I hate when it stops happening (for me, that is). There are some people on the other hand . . .
Good point. Not my best sampling of English rhetoric.
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Thanks all for the kind words. I was hesitant to even mention personal life stuff, but I knew some of you have (or will) go through similar. Good to see others musing and writing about their own travails.
We did two garage sales on my mother-in-law’s (mil’s) stuff. The first was really a craft sale - she had a lot of misc. material. I learned that it is strongly advised to put prices on everything, and that pricing should ideally be in multiples of 25 cents to minimize change on hand. It is tedious work individually pricing things (thanks to the internet one can get a rough idea of what to ask - the objective was to maximize things sold, not to maximize dollar income.) For example, if a piece of fabric was big enough, it was priced. Otherwise we had several bags of fabric scraps.
Garage sales still leave a lot of unsold stuff that needs to be given away or thrown in a dumpster. On the other hand, in our case, a neighboring family that was renting used the opportunity to check the house itself out and now they are in the process of buying the house. No real estate agents involved, just a lawyer.
Rush - funny you mention owning three sewing machines. Mil had three machines too - the newest one worked, the next one worked sort-of, and the last appeared dead. We labeled their issues and priced them as best we could, and all sold!
Mil also had a 45 year old encyclopedia and a bunch of year books. They did not sell, though people seem to manage to sell such things on eBay (more time and wider audience to find a buyer.) They were put with the things that would be donated to Salvation Army or Goodwill.
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I just finished settling my mother's estate - that is exhausting. After watching me go through that, my in-laws hired a lawyer to handle all the legal stuff for when they pass. But there will still be the task of going through their stuff at a later date.
Tiring stuff..
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My last garage sale was >25 years ago. After about 2 hours we got tired of dealing with people offering $0.25 for something we had labeled for $2.00 or more. So finally we just put it all by the curb and put up a "FREE" sign. Everything was gone in about an hour, but I kept expecting to be named in a lawsuit for one of the two accidents that occurred when someone slammed on their brakes and backed up. Fortunately for me, that didn't happen.
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The Durants’ epic work has been condensed (sort of) into one dense volume.
Stuff has psychic weight. I have two step kids but no biological offspring, nor does my brother. So our line dies out here. The paraphernalia of my family history will be meaningless to anyone else, so I’m being ruthless with it. My memories are what really matter. It’s really about what we all DO with our lives, not what we accumulate or the ephemera we leave behind.
When we toss stuff that used for what isn’t going to happen, like for hobbies and other things we are not going to engage in, it makes room for what IS going to happen ... travel, downsizing a home, some new interest that was all unbeknownst to us because it was being stifled by the junk of the old interests.
Here is probably the reason I’m a conservative. My parents. Two fresh faced kids facing the future in December 1946. Dad returned from Europe in July after serving as a gunnery sergeant and MP in Germany and France. Mechanical Engineering degree on GI Bill while Mom worked to pay living expenses. Retired from Hanford Site engineering to farm Concord grapes full time. Rich, full, happy lives, quietly caring for each other, family, friends and neighbors. My Dad died in 2010, and it was painful for him to even talk about O and the direction the country was headed. I think he’d be delighted with the Trump presidency.
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Good to see you here Jim. Sorry to hear about your mom. It's always heart wrenching dealing with aging parents. I went through that over a decade ago with my mom, who suffered from COPD and had more broken bones than I could count due to injuries from falls. When she finally passed it was a blessing. Then came dealing with the house, which was flooded before I could sell it due to a burst CW pipe. It sounds like at least you aren't alone and have a good support system. Be well.