I’m still here!

First of all I would like to express my condolences to all of my friends overseas and in Canada with the passing of  Queen Elizabeth II. She was a lovely and gracious woman who was deeply admired by most of the world. Our London family has been reaching out to us and sending us articles and photos since before she passed yesterday. I hope and pray that King Charles III is as compassionate a leader as his mother was. Rest in peace Dear qQueen Elizabeth. You have earned it.

Thank you all so much for checking on me. I know it’s been a while since I posted. We have been incredibly busy here. But first let me show you what I made while we were on our trip to Spokane. I can’t believe I haven’t even shown you those things yet.

First off are three crocheted baby blankets in the “Every Which-Way” pattern. They were very easy to work on as we drove across the western US and stayed in various campgrounds. No pattern to have to follow as this is so easily memorized.

I also made three chemo caps in different sizes for the hospital.

As to where I have been for the past few weeks, we have been busy packing up mom’s house. Four bedrooms, three bathrooms, living room, family room, dining room and kitchen. And this is without mentioning the myriad of closets and storage places this house has. Each closet was completely filled to the brim. 47 years of memories had to be cleaned out of the house in just a little over a week. A lot of tears were shed by several of us as we remembered various items throughout the house in closets and hidden nooks. Mom is completely thrilled in her apartment though. It’s like a huge albatross has been lifted off of her with moving out of this house. Dennis and I did most of the closet work and sifting through all of the papers and photos. I emptied the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. We moved much of the furniture ourselves, but had a lot of help in cleaning over last weekend. Several of the granddaughters and grandsons were there to help clean out the garage and do the actual cleaning of cupboards, floors and bathrooms. Oh, how we appreciated that! ( That’s our house, the white one on the right in the photo.)

I took the photo below of mom standing outside the door the last time she walked out of the house. Right after this, I drove her to her new apartment where Mandy and I had unpacked everything. We tried to put it the furniture and mementos in as close to the same spots as they were in at the house. We wanted it to be as familiar as possible for her. As I said before, she absolutely loves it there.

The house went on the market Wednesday and we had four offers presented to us at 3:00 today. An offer has been accepted and signed and will hopefully close in two weeks time. When they say the market is still hot, they are not kidding. There must have been 25 or 30 different groups of people go through the house. There were many more offers made, but our realtor picked out the best four to present to us. We still have a few things to get out of the house that are going to the grandkids. It had been planned to be done tomorrow, but there’s a 95% chance of rain all day tomorrow. Of course. It’s the first rain since the night I came home from Texas! 

Now, Dennis and I have a big decision to make. We had never intended to live in this neighborhood if we moved back to Omaha, but we needed to be close to mom. We may be listing our house soon or we may stay for another year or more. It depends on what we can find in the next week or so. The thought of moving again fills me with dread. Especially after just finishing up with mom’s house. We shall see. We could definitely use your prayers for wisdom in this decision. We are actually seriously thinking of moving into a manufactured home just a few blocks from where mom is. It’s also much closer to Mandy and Brad. It’s in a park setting with many other manufactured homes. It would mean considerable downsizing, so we’ll have to see what we decide. Living in tornado alley is also a concern. We would  like to buy a condo or something similar that we could just turn the key and walk away if we wanted to take a trip somewhere. If we stay in this house or buy another house will have yard care and snow removal to worry about which is also a concern as we get older. We are trying to make a wise move and have it be our last one. But unfortunately, the market is “slim pickens,” right now. Most of the condos either have a lot of stairs, which I don’t want, or they are way out of our price range or not in the part of town we want to live in.🤷‍♀️

Meanwhile we are really struggling with getting the homecare people to get mom‘s insulin injection to her at the same time every day. She has a long acting insulin, but it should be given within a half hour window at the same time every day. Today was the first day that we haven’t been there at night for her injection. Some nights the people show up and some nights they don’t, so Dennis or I have to give her the injection. Tonight I had her call me to tell me that they did show up which is great! I have driven out there twice today already and I just wasn’t ready for a third trip unless I had to! You wouldn’t believe how much gas I have used in the last week and a half. They seem to be in the same boat as everyone else is these days. They just can’t find anyone who wants to work. The people who are there are absolutely so nice and sweet, but they are considerably understaffed. She is in a lovely, lovely place. If it wasn’t so expensive I would move in there now too and just stay there for the next 30 years! The food is great and I wouldn’t mind not having to plan meals anymore! More time to play with yarn. 😍

If I’m not around much for the next few weeks you will know where I am. I’ll get back to posting as soon as I can. Not much craftiness being done anyway. I do appreciate those of you who reached out to me to make sure that we were OK. It’s lovely to think I have people who care about me all over the world. I am trying to keep up with commenting on everyone’s blogs I’m just a little late sometimes.

Blessings and love,

Betsy