﻿{"id":41,"date":"2008-09-17T23:47:00","date_gmt":"2008-09-18T04:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gahooletree.userblogs.ganoksin.coms\/2008\/09\/17\/on-getting-settled-emptynesters-downsizing\/"},"modified":"2008-09-17T23:47:00","modified_gmt":"2008-09-18T04:47:00","slug":"on-getting-settled-emptynesters-downsizing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/2008\/09\/17\/on-getting-settled-emptynesters-downsizing\/","title":{"rendered":"On getting settled, emptynesters &amp; downsizing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHwmP3ZxUI\/AAAAAAAAAgc\/5Y7kFh25GbY\/s1600-h\/IMG_3793.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHwmP3ZxUI\/AAAAAAAAAgc\/5Y7kFh25GbY\/s400\/IMG_3793.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div>My life has been in total disarray for at least a month now, but we&#8217;re beginning to feel slightly settled in to our new home. This move meant even more downsizing, so we still haven&#8217;t found places for all our &#8220;stuff&#8221;! But at least we&#8217;ve recognized that we can&#8217;t keep everything and we&#8217;re slowing working on fixing the problem.<\/p>\n<p>We sorted through our mountains of belongings and I actually agreed to part with some things. At our last house we threw away and put out at the curb tons of things &#8211; all of my handpainted birdhouses, the older handmade decorated birdfeeders, older garden tools and plenty of decorated terracotta pots &#8211; that sort of stuff disappeared quickly.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHwB1FmXBI\/AAAAAAAAAgU\/nOhn95lKKG4\/s1600-h\/IMG_3794.jpg\"><img alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHwB1FmXBI\/AAAAAAAAAgU\/nOhn95lKKG4\/s400\/IMG_3794.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve culled 10 boxes of household and kitchen items that we keep telling ourselves we&#8217;ll try to sell at a garage sale. We&#8217;ve been saying that for three years and still haven&#8217;t made firm plans to follow through with it. If it isn&#8217;t raining on weekends, we&#8217;re too busy.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a local reduce, reuse, recycle site that sprung up recently where you can post things that you&#8217;d like to give away. Maybe I&#8217;ll give that a try. And we&#8217;ve yet to go through the clothing. There must be boxes of things we could take to Goodwill.<\/p>\n<p>One problem I&#8217;m having is emotional attachment with all of my daughter&#8217;s things. Kate is now comfy and cozy in her private room at one of Durham Region&#8217;s finest long term care facilities. It&#8217;s been a long rough go for Kate, but after a 2 year wait and some mighty cramped lodgings, she finally was granted a spot in ThorntonView&#8217;s brand new young people&#8217;s wing and I must say, that she&#8217;s never been happier!<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re just delighted that Kate now has this wonderful handicap accessible spot that&#8217;s all nicely decorated with her familiar things and some of my artsy favorites. But even there, we&#8217;re quickly running out of room. Since the below pic was taken, we&#8217;ve installed CD racks, shelves for Kate&#8217;s video archive, and more memorabilia&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHqolOyq2I\/AAAAAAAAAgM\/Vz3NpK2qiy8\/s1600-h\/DSC00076.JPG\"><img alt=\"Kate and Amy in Kate's room\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNHqolOyq2I\/AAAAAAAAAgM\/Vz3NpK2qiy8\/s320\/DSC00076.JPG\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>I just found five more boxes of Kate&#8217;s stuffed toys and games in the basement &#8211; these items have such significance for me that I can hardly force myself to part with them. But we must sell or give away the majority and take a few over to Kate&#8217;s residence [due to her disabilities and high needs, Kate likely won&#8217;t spend another night under our roof and we aren&#8217;t setting up a formal bedroom for her here].<\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH9Z-bB_XI\/AAAAAAAAAgs\/EL9diudDVg0\/s1600-h\/kates+scrapbook.jpg\"><img alt=\"with mom 1981\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH9Z-bB_XI\/AAAAAAAAAgs\/EL9diudDVg0\/s200\/kates+scrapbook.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH9w5T5XRI\/AAAAAAAAAg0\/uQMv_Ld9r8s\/s1600-h\/kates+scrapbook+020_edited-1.jpg\"><img alt=\"with Daddy 1985\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH9w5T5XRI\/AAAAAAAAAg0\/uQMv_Ld9r8s\/s200\/kates+scrapbook+020_edited-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div>We also need to sell her adjustable bed, transfer pole, three walkers, one barely used motorized scooter, a $12K electric wheelchair (like new), two transfer wheelchairs, etc. and all her clothes that no longer fit. Right now, all these items and more are in the garage!<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH-otDkKdI\/AAAAAAAAAg8\/6qsDnB8Xjkw\/s1600-h\/triketrails+065-copy_edited-1.jpg\"><img alt=\"grade eight grad 1995\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH-otDkKdI\/AAAAAAAAAg8\/6qsDnB8Xjkw\/s200\/triketrails+065-copy_edited-1.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH_8w6ayaI\/AAAAAAAAAhE\/XLVCvjZBXO0\/s1600-h\/kates+scrapbook+001-copy.jpg\"><img alt=\"high school grad 2000\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_68JSx4Ztahg\/SNH_8w6ayaI\/AAAAAAAAAhE\/XLVCvjZBXO0\/s200\/kates+scrapbook+001-copy.jpg\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div>Adapting to our emptynester status will take some time and effort. We&#8217;ve been in the throws of this grieving process for a few years now, and with counselling and the right meds, we&#8217;re managing to get on with life. So yes it&#8217;s slowly getting easier to confront and accept, but we still have a way to go.<\/div>\n<div>Back to the move&#8230; I&#8217;m still finding boxes of things that were put into storage when we sold the big house three years ago &#8211; things like partylight decorative candle displays. Someone should have stopped me when I had that addiction. These kinds of items (that I now have absolutely no room for) aren&#8217;t exactly junk either. They&#8217;re expensive collectables, all of which should be photographed and listed for sale on eBay. But who has time for that? Geez, I barely have time to pee.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My life has been in total disarray for at least a month now, but we&#8217;re beginning to feel slightly settled in to our new home. This move meant even more downsizing, so we still haven&#8217;t found places for all our &#8220;stuff&#8221;! But at least we&#8217;ve recognized that we can&#8217;t keep everything and we&#8217;re slowing working [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[61,109,117,141,182,187,188,189,190],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/gahooletree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}