AW: It's been raining some, which is really unusual for this time of year -- but no doubt good for the plant life. Was only a little misty when daughter and I went to the zoo yesterday. Had not been in ages! It is good to see animals (and small humans).
Q: Anybody have advice about disposing of my SIL's fabulous "estate," consisting of a stuffed storage unit and a bunch of stuff in my house? Craigslist seems like the way to go for her expensive furniture and the appliances. She has all these electronics that she hardly used -- maybe craigslist, maybe yard sale with household items and other miscellany? The clothing is confounding me -- there is so darned much of it (hundreds of excess items), and many still have price tags. Do dealers buy "lots" of clothes? What do you do with golf clubs?
W: We must try to recover some money to catch up on her recent expenses -- but no way can we spend the time to sell all this stuff individually and for the best prices. Managing an eb@y store is not my current career goal. (Plus, I hate eb@y.) W: It is almost physically painful, seeing how much she spent on stuff stuff fancy stuff horrible stuff. AW: I'm thinking this placement in the dementia unit is to the good, knock wood.
Wildlife report: a wild turkey is strolling down our street!
What's cooking in your world?
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I vote that you ask two appraisers to come in, get quotes, let them deal with it.
This way you are protected from accusations of wasting her stuff, and you're more likely to get good prices for it.
Ask lawyer friends who deal with wills and estates for the names of appraisers. Ask them also for the names of dealers who will take it all off your hands in one swell foop.
What Liz said.....there are good appraisers and dealers who know exactly how to deal with all the stuff.
Yay for zoo trips!
AW: I had a simply wonderful meeting in Little Town on the Prairie on the weekend. bonus - no migraine!
Gave me some food for thought, Liz -- think we made a strategic mistake by stuffing most of it in a locker, since that means the locker must be unloaded to see anything. (It was an emergency move on short notice, not ideal, no photos even.) But, found a couple of local resale/consignment places that might relieve us of some of the clothing excess!
This is probably going to take some months, dealing with the stuff. It's good to at least be at a quieter place, where we can even start thinking through that set of details.
Yay, Sue, for the great weekend! And double yay for no migraine!!
AW: Had a great meeting with public school for Sweet this morning. They are willing to provide all kinds of services to help her with kindergarten.
W: which makes our decision harder. We had pretty much decided to wait a year, but don't have an ideal (or even a decent) alternative. They made kindergarten sound manageable.
AW: niece graduated
W: I didn't get to see any of it, because I was outside with an irritable and overwhelmed Sweet and a not-far-behind-her Mini. Sigh. Screaming "I want to be nice" does not convince me to take you back inside, little one.
Esperanza, I missed most of my niece's wedding for the exact same reason, but the reception and side-things worked out better. Hope it was so for you and the baboos.
And, about K -- this does give you something to work with! xoxo
So many hugs for Esperanza. I really understand.
PSA Whine: Folks, even though white pants are sartorially appropriate after Memorial Day, they are a very bad idea on a six-month-old baby. You are pretty much daring the baby to reach new heights in creative disgustingness. Those pants will never be the same again.
Selfish Whine: The girl downstairs is back, after being away for three weeks. Have to share the house again, and am bracing myself for new levels of ridiculousness. And so much noise. (Only a few more months...)
Anti-Whine: Li'l E had made so much progress in the past few weeks, that we don't have to the see the physical therapist again until August. The PT said "It's nice to work with a normal baby" (she's in the Children's Program at the rehab hospital). It's nice having health professionals not be concerned about her, and call her "normal."
Esperanza, I vote you do K with the public school. Remember, even if you make that decision, if it doesn't work you can always pull her out and try again next year.
(Am I spam again?)
--QWP
Yay for Lil'E! (Spam rescue success -- no idea why it's doing that.)
And yay for a "simply wonderful" church meeting, Sue. I don't think I've ever said that before.
I second the consignment idea. Or the call one estate person and be done with it idea.
I do not own white pants.
Liz, the trouble with that idea is that we will lose her spot with the preschool. We could pull her out of K but then not have anything to do with her. Ugh.
QWP, I misread that and thought it was your white pants, not the baby's! I still don't own any, though.
The side events mostly worked out better. There was some spontaneous skinny dipping (other kids started it) which was fun. She mostly did fine with the cousin, with just the normal sharing issues. She did great at an unfamiliar Sunday school. So, overall, there were some bright spots. The actual ceremony was the worst. And the no sleeping part. We are still dealing with the aftereffects of not enough sleep.
Yeah, it was her explosive white pants. Like, it got on the OUTSIDE of her pants. All over it. And all over her arm. WHY DO BABIES DO THAT STUFF?
(I didn't purchase said white pants. We got them as a hand-me-down, and I thought they'd be cute under a dress. And now, they'll only be okay under a dress, multiple washings and special cleaners later.
Ah, the poop-splosion. The consolation is, it didn't happen on an airplane, with a lap-baby. :) But white pants are a bad idea, anyway, because something incompatible with white is going to happen.
I vote for the K as well Esperanza - especially with all of the help they have offered.
QWP - the poop-losion. Been there, done that. I'm with kathy in that it would have been much worse on an airlplane. Ew.
As for the white pants, I don't own any either.
On another White Pant matter, I have a Whine of Pet Peevery: wearing white undergarments under white clothes.
Aaaaaack!
It's like wearing a neon sign that says "Here are my panties!"
Nude, beige, skin tone people! Anything but white.
End of whine/rant.
Reason #265 that I don't own white pants.
But you did make me laugh, Sue.
Almost anything involving a baby is worse on an airplane, I believe.
I avoid white shirts, too, because my personal super-power -- don't be jealous! -- is spilling whatever on the front of a garment that won't recover with a quick swipe.
I remember one 'splosion that went up the 4th of July onesie and out the neck and armholes. He had goop in his HAIR.
IN HIS HAIR.
And yay for Lil E!
Gross gross gross. I reassured Mr. Q (who had been the one to pick her up out of her Bumbo chair, and realise that she, he and the chair were covered) that this could have happened in an airplane! Now he wants to avoid airplanes pretty much forever.
You guys, we're having an absolutely lovely day here. After days of rain, the sun is shining, and a whole row of Canada geese and goslings just strolled past. I hope you all are having a good day where you are.
Hooray for excellent days and baby goslings!! Sweet!
We're having a sunny day here as well. I walked over to timmy's for a coffee - wait for it - without a jacket!!!!
Nice! (And I hadn't noticed that you were also a Canadian!)
Potential W: So, I just sent the girl downstairs a polite text, asking that, next time she adds her recycling to our bin (which we pay for), that she please separate her recycling into the appropriate bins, collapse her cardboard, and not add garbage. (I just had to run out and do that for her, before the truck arrives and we get in trouble from the recycling company.)
I'm taking wagers: what will her response be?
a.) Something polite and apologetic, promising to remember next time (this has never happened before);
b.) A quasi-nonpology with a weird excuse (Her greatest hits include, "Sorry I left my car in front of your driveway for hours! I had a boost my buddy's truck, and then I was in a rush and so I left my car there." and "Sorry I left my TV blaring at 3am! I started watching a movie at full volume at 1am and fell asleep." We also get a lot of "I didn't know!" excuses about common sense things.)
c.) An aggressive response about how I showered when she wanted to shower, which meant she had reduced water pressure;
d.) She ignores the text and does the same thing next time. When I ask her about it, she says she forgot.
We had a few weeks of her away, and it was nice having respite from her brand of nonsense. Well, we all have to move out at some point in the next few months, because this old house is being sold, overhauled, or demolished. So: only a few more months.
(I'm spam again!)
-QWP
YOu're back out. I'm going to add you as an author to the blog and see if that keeps you out of spam.
QWP, please email me at (liz) (@) (miller)(house)(hold)(.)(com) removing the spaces and the parens.
Thanks!
And we have a miracle: the response was "Ok". A million times better than a nonpology.
QWP, our Sweet Baboo (age 5) is learning to use "because" correctly. Tip off that she didn't quite get it: excuses like your neighbor's. "I can't go to Sunday School because my feet are too big." So maybe your neighbor needs speech therapy!
W: peeling sunburns itch. Ding-a-ling that I am, I forgot to sunscreen the backs of my shoulders at the impromptu-kid-skinny dipping over the weekend. I also saved a kid out of the hot tub, so I'm hoping that evens things out.
Yay, Esperanza, for the hot tub save! Boo on sunburn.
QWP -- an OK sounds good! As the mom of young adults, there are practical things that they just do not think about, so the reminders are good training. Ignore the aggressive junk. It helps to mix in compliments and thank-you's whenever possible, so they know you are not just seeing them as giant mess-ups.
Thanks, Liz, for the spam salvage.
W: It's almost June, and it's still cold and windy and pouring down rain here.
AW: It's almost June, and I'm in the second trimester.
W: Ahhh! How is this going so fast? Feeling a little bit panicky.
Old-school whine: the ta-tas, they are SO sore. I don't remember them hurting this much pre-post-birth engorgement ever before.
QOWP: Ah, the blowouts. Thank you for reminding me that I have those to look forward to. :)
Kathy A, I'll bet the estate people are probably used to dealing with things like stuffed storage containers that the family isn't sure what exactly is in them.
Congrats, PK!
Kathy A, thanks for the advice. It's so hard to forget that she's young, and just to get frustrated with her.
PK with the Remembering What It's All About! (I, as always, am bringing the bodily fluids.)
I'll bring bodily fluids too. Either the morning sickness is back or I have some type of food poisoning or stomach virus.
PK, don't you love when everyone assumes that all nausea ends with the end of the first trimester? I pretty much threw my pregnancy when it was all "Congratulations! Now you should be feeling well."
Hugs and soda crackers.
oh, that's awful, PK. Either way, I hope it passes quickly.
I guess I have another week and a half before first trimester is over and I can ( knock on wood) expect to feel better. I had to look up how many weeks is the divider between trimesters.
QWP - yep, Canadian all the way.
PK for Remembering What It's All About. Sorry about the soreness - I hear ya.
Hope you are feeling better soon, PK! Yes, the saltines.
QWP -- found another comment in spam! Weird.
Daughter's had paying work 2 days this week, too! Just temp jobs, doesn't sound like much, but she's had a very discouraging dry spell after college graduation.
Folks, I'm getting irritated by blogger. In the wordpress world, you can specifically tell the software to always allow comments by a particular person unless they have more than a certain number of links in the text.
In blogger, I'm not seeing any way to keep QWP out of spam.
QWP, I made you an admin on the blog. If your comments get put into spam, you now have the power to rescue them.
Thanks, Liz. I have no idea why Blogger is so determined that I'm spam.
QWP - yes, you have definitely been Spamalot. Snicker. I hope it's sorted out now.
PK - passing the saltines or rice crackers, as need be.
W: Oh teething. Always the teething. Never any actual teeth. Just teething. Li'l E's back at the point where teething rings and cold stuff isn't enough, and so I had to give her Tylenol, after a nap where she just kept waking up screaming.
AW: Well, she's stayed asleep for more than ten minutes now. Thankful for the existence of Tylenol, on days like this.
True story: daughter went back to her temp job, returning to the project that wasn't finished yesterday, but was a little freaked because the other 3 temps weren't there. They eventually were located in the building's lobby, apparently waiting for someone to go get them.
QWP, sounds like the actual teeth may be appearing soon!
To totally change the subject:
over on Teh Book of Faces, just got a friend request from Mr. E's "stepmother." Looong story, which is really quite juicy, but she is my age, lives in another country with father-in-law. Most of the time I forget her existence entirely. I am Creeped Out.
PSA: it is ok to just ignore "friend" requests from creepy relatives. If the subject ever comes up, feign ignorance.
Absolutely feign ignorance. "Oh! You sent me a friend request?"
Likelihood I will ever meet this person: zero. Ignore it is.
Also, as far as I know, said person does not speak English, nor any other language I speak. I'm suspicious that one of her sons (Mr E's little brothers) has set up the account, now that I think about it. It's mostly the profile photo that's creepy. Clicked ignore. Done.
No judgments here about peculiar family/in-law situations. Out of the country sounds like a good distance.
ha! Yes, out of the country is good for everyone! Let's just say that on first glance the photo looked like one of those h0t chix spam accounts. Like I said, creepy when it's your pseudo mother-in-law.
Oy, Esperanza.
There's a problem with the BART tube between the east bay and S.F. -- so everything else is jammed (freeways, bridges, buses). Daughter is driving to the north bay and taking a ferry to the city, which is roundabout but totally the coolest way to commute on a nice sunny day. Sadly, it will take at least twice as long and cost three times as much as the usual commute, but it counts as entertainment, right?
... aaaaand, she missed the ferry boat "by like 30 seconds" because "traffic was really bad." No problem; only 45 minutes until the next one. She's calling her boss.
Guess she had to learn the hard way that if one major commute option goes bad, the entire rest of the transportation infrastructure looks like ants pouring chaotically out of a flooded colony. (Also, I am requested not to say "told you so.")
esperanza - ew. creepy.
kathy, if you need to whisper an "I told you so" here, we understand.
W: Spent a lot of time yesterday working on a draft social media policy for our congregation.
Discovered that what we actually need at this stage is a *process* for developing a social media policy and more people to work on it.
On the way home I realized that my entire day had been a cliche - all the jokes we make about committees, sub committees, ad hoc committees set up to organize other ad hoc committees - ya....that was my day.
~sigh~
Ha, Sue! But a "team" with some goals and a deadline is a fine thing -- you definitely want a lot of perspectives on something like a "social media policy." There are too many questions that a single person might not even think of.
Exactly. Who has the right to post for the congregation on what platform when? What about your user group or facebook group? Who is in charge of approving posts, who is in charge of approving members? What about the congregation's website? Blog?
Exactly.
The good news is that I've outlined a good process for the Team once established.
May as well get it right the first time around, yes?
Amen to that.
Ooh! Another point is about posting photos, getting permission from parents for their children's images to be used, etc.
Life circumstances causing marriage issues; trying to negotiate those challenges.
((( Anonymous ))) Sorry about the life circumstances and the marital woes.
This is a safe place to elaborate a bit, if you wish. But can you choose an identifier of some kind? xoxo
(((Anonymous)))
So, I just found out that my great-aunt died of complications from surgery today. I'm still in shock; she was in her early 70s (wife of my grandma's little brother), but always seemed younger. So, yeah. Processing that information.
((( QWP )))
((Anonymous))
((QWP))
new W: summer cold.
((((Anon)))
(((QWP)))
This is the same anonymous who posted earlier . . . I'm a regular participant here, just wanted to be anonymous for that one because it's sort of unbloggable. Did have a very productive and helpful conversation with spouse.
I can't remember what moniker I used for anonymous unbloggable whining here in the past.
Might have been Flutterbye. We'll go with that, if that works?
((QOWP))
Big hugs from me.
Flutterbye
Well, I start New Job in two weeks. I will let you know in 4 weeks if that is a whine or anti-whine.
AW: It is good to be wanted, right?
Ex signed the divorce papers and now I need a court date. The Object of My Affection, whom I shall refer to as Mr. Darcy, appears to appreciate my presence and personality but given that he shows it in peculiar ways and exacerbates my general neurosis with his fear of relationships, I decided to join one of those dating sites.
I am so overwhelmed with the (casual) attention. But I figure dating is a numbers game and one can't find a friend without figuring out who is a frog. Or something like that.
I want to pass along the wonderful vegan carrot cake we ate at my friend's birthday party last night. It was amazing.
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