This Year is Our Year for Success!
Replies
-
I’ve slept on the couch for the past 3 nights with mixed results. He has still managed to get up or almost out of his chair before I wake up. He’s very quiet when he’s doing this. I think in some part of his brain he’s thinking he needs to be quiet so I can sleep and doesn’t realize that I’m there because I want him to wake me. His dementia is much worse at night which means he doesn’t make rational decisions and can’t explain what he was thinking at the time. He’s also experiencing a lot of anxiety, mostly at night. We have appointments next week with his new neurologist and follow up with his surgeon.
Tonight we are going to try to get him comfortable in our bed, which I think we would be much safer for him. At least he could get out of the bed without having to climb over anything. We’ve added suction grab bars in the showers and an elevated toilet seat with arms to make bathroom trips easier for him.
We also have started making definite steps toward downsizing and moving to a smaller, 1-story home. Our next door neighbor is a very successful realtor in our area and she has started searching for potential homes for us. She’s coming over Monday to help us develop a plan for selling our home and make recommendations for needed updates and repairs before listing it. I’ve asked SIL to come and help us purge unneeded items and she has agreed to come for 2 weeks, starting the last week of this month. DH has finally agreed to part with his beloved camper and 1 vehicle, as well as his gun collection and some of his larger tools that take up a lot of space in the garage. He’s finally realizing that he’s no longer physically able to use these items and they need to go in order to simplify our search for a new home.0 -
It’s good DH is realizing on his own that he needs to downsize his tools and other collections. He could try selling them. If he has tools left over, he might be able to donate them to Hanitat for Humanity. Such a donation would probably give you a taxable deductible donation.0
-
Pam - wow, you've certainly got your hands full. I hope you can get the therapy going better and make sure there aren't any unknown medical issues.
He's so lucky to have you.0 -
The couple across the street from us is not married, to the best of my knowledge, but they've both been living there for some years. We don't know them well as DH can't stand the guy. We do know he's been diagnosed with early stage dementia. DH is concerned that he's still driving. I don't know enough to have any opinion. I did keep checking online until I saw he'd added her name to the house. At least she's protected on that front.0
-
DH had his first post-op checkup today and he is healing well. We will be discontinuing the home health services as of Tuesday of next week, which will be very nice. They have kept us busy with someone coming almost every day since he got home. He still has a lot of restrictions, but is becoming a little less dependent and needy and that is helping me a lot. Our biggest struggle remains sleeping since he is still sleeping in his recliner. I'm sleeping on the couch next to him to keep him from doing anything that might cause an injury when he awakens in the night because he is disoriented. He did manage a couple of hours last night in our bed, so I am hopeful that we will soon be able to sleep there all night.
We are also proceeding with our house hunt and getting our home ready to sell. Our neighbor and realtor has been a huge help in this effort. We’ve seen a few houses so far, but nothing we really liked. At this point I think we are going to focus on getting our house ready to list, then start looking more seriously for our new home. We have a long list of projects, including renovating our master bathroom, that need to be done before we will list the house. Again, our realtor has been hugely helpful there in telling us what it will pay off to do and what not to do and providing a list of contractors she personally uses and recommends. If we do the things she suggested, we should realize at least $50,000 more than if we don’t do the work, at an estimated cost of around $15-20,000. So we will be very busy for the next few weeks. Our goal is to be ready to list the house by the end of March.0 -
We have graduated back to sleeping in our bed, which is a vast improvement for me! DH still wakes up 2-3 times per night and is disoriented, but it is easier for me to get back to sleep after getting him resettled afterward.
We are proceeding with our house plans. We’ve interviewed 3 contractors and are getting ready to choose who we want to do the work. I’ve already ordered all of the lighting that our realtor recommended we replace, as well as a new bathtub for the master bathroom and lighting and plumbing fixtures for the bathroom. Yesterday I picked up carpet samples for the bedroom. The 31 year old carpet in that room definitely needs to be replaced! Surprisingly, the carpet in the rest of the house is the same age, but has held up quite well.
DH’s sister is coming to stay for 2 weeks to help purge and pack, and her son is coming for 4 days at the end of her stay to provide some muscle for projects we can’t do ourselves. He will also help us get 1 car sold. Then he and SIL will drive back together with the items they are taking that we kept from their mom’s home that we no longer want.
I’m scouring Facebook Marketplace and the Nextdoor app for moving boxes that people are getting rid of. Last night DH and I drove over and picked up a large load of free moving boxes from a very nice lady. I’m sure we will need more, but it’s a good start. DH is not able to do much to help, but he’s also not interfering so that’s helpful in itself. In the past, he’s had definite opinions about any redecorating efforts I’ve undertaken, but he doesn’t seem to care now. I assume this is due to his Parkinson’s and some associated depression.0 -
Pam - wow, you have your hands full. Good luck with the renovations and the house hunt!
0 -
Finding a new home is a lot of work but also exciting. I’m sure the renovations you’re doing will help sell the house and get you top dollar. It’s nice SIL and her son will give you a hand with the packing. I hope you can get out to see friends while she’s visiting. It will be an opportunity for brother and sister to spend some alone time with each other.0
-
We are continuing to make progress, but it has been challenging. We had contractor drama this week when one of the contractors we were planning to hire for our bathroom remodel refused to work with another contractor we had already hired to do work in other parts of our home. He wanted the whole project awarded to his crew but as I explained to him, we had already hired the other contractor and I didn’t feel it would be fair to him to back out at this point. I offered to work around their schedules so they weren’t working in the house at the same time, but he refused to negotiate at all. My realtor had recommended him to us and she was really angry that he was being so difficult. I think she had a pretty strongly worded conversation with him because he did finally agree to make a couple of his employees available for some smaller parts of the job that they specialize in. She also provided us with another referral who seems like a good fit, but we are still waiting to receive his bid. We’ve also hired someone to do the landscaping work that is needed and he will start on Monday.
In the meantime, I’ve been working on cleaning out our master closet, which was crammed full of clothes, shoes, and purses and miscellaneous other things that we needed to get rid of. So far we have filled 9 large trash bags with clothes, shoes, and purses that we’ve donated to a local charity. And there were several bags of trash where the clothes or shoes were too worn to be donated. I had no idea we were such packrats! I still have a couple of shelves in the closet to go through, but it looks 1,000 times better. After I finish this closet, the rest will be much easier. Besides a coat closet, none of the other closets in the house contain clothing. I hope to start on the kitchen next week and at least make some headway on a few of the cabinets there.
Today we have a representative from a flooring store coming out to show us some carpet samples and take measurements for replacing carpet in our master bedroom and closet. I’ve ordered and received all of the new lighting fixtures. Today I should receive the tub filler (faucet) and I’ve scheduled the new bathtub to be delivered on March 4th. It’s been a whirlwind, trying to keep up with everything!
DH has been very little help with all of this, but he’s been very cooperative with the decisions I’ve made. I’ve consulted him on most of them, but for the most part he just doesn’t really seem to care about it. We both have tried to adopt the attitude that we aren’t doing this to appeal to our taste, but to appeal to the potential buyer of our house, which makes it a little easier.0 -
Appealing to buyers is the way to go when working on and staging a house. It must have been a shock to see just how much you had in the master closet. I once read we only wear 20% of the clothes we have. I’m sure some lucky people will be glad to add your items to their own closets.
That contractor sounds like a big baby. I hope the realtor never recommends him to any clients ever again.0 -
Appealing to buyers is the way to go when working on and staging a house. It must have been a shock to see just how much you had in the master closet. I once read we only wear 20% of the clothes we have. I’m sure some lucky people will be glad to add your items to their own closets.
That contractor sounds like a big baby. I hope the realtor never recommends him to any clients ever again.0 -
Pam - wow, you really have your hands full!
I've decided that I have the first half of 2025 to find some "spare time" to declutter "my room" and the second half to declutter my side of the basement. Those are the two biggest areas of mine that need work. Unfortunately DH's areas are many many times worse but I can't seem to interest him in doing anything about it.
I've made a lot of progress - shredding, donating, putting stuff in boxes to sell at the cat show, etc.
0 -
Looks like we all have declutterring issues. We’ve spent a small fortune on plumbing and electrical works on the FL house this season. The plumbing work was connected to a pipe break out in the yard. It allowed sand and bits of shells to be carried into the house pipes. We arrived to problems with the faucets, toilets and washing machine. The retiring was because of some safety issues in outlets. We discovered the problem last season and stopped using those outlets. When we got back, we had the electrician rewire the garage level and replace the sub panel and circuit breakers inside the house replaced. He also replaced the 40 year old hard wired smoke detectors and added additional battery units to bring us up to code. We’re waiting for the inspector’s visit this week.
Since I’m not getting a new kitchen this year, I should empty the kitchen cabinets and donate excess items to charity shops. My knees are not great so doing the base cabinets will be a chore.0 -
This has been a busy week. The painter we hired has been phenomenal and I’m so glad we hired him! He’s a very hard worker and is extremely polite and respectful of us and our property. He worked until 8 PM yesterday in order to finish our upstairs bathroom because I had mentioned that my SIL was arriving today to help us with packing and that she would be in the room adjacent to the bathroom.
Today we have an electrician coming to hang all of the new light fixtures, and the contractor who is doing the master bathroom is also coming to go into our attic and bring down the extra floor tiles we kept after having new tile laid in our bathrooms and other areas of the house. He didn’t want me or DH trying to carry the tiles down the stairs.
We also had a landscaper who came and spent 2 full days and part of a 3rd cleaning up all of our flower beds, trimming trees and shrubs, and digging up a very large overgrown shrub that blocked the view from our bedroom windows. Then he spread mulch in all of the beds and made everything look really good. Yesterday I invited one of my friends from grad school and her husband over for wine and snacks on our patio while her husband gave us some recommendations for plants we can add to give some color in a few strategic places. Their yard always looks like a showplace, so we really appreciated his advice.
And while we were chatting with them, I got a request from a neighbor, asking if she and her husband could come over and look at the house because they think their youngest son might be interested. She had inquired earlier in the week about the number of bedrooms, size and asking price. I was really torn over whether to let them come over and ultimately asked her to give us a week because currently the house resembles a war zone with all of the rooms being full of half-packed boxes, bags f trash, packing materials, etc. I’m sure they could have seen past all of that because he is a contractor himself. He builds multi-million dollar homes in our area, so he’s definitely used to seeing the construction mess, but I just didn’t feel good about having them see the house this way. I hope it was the right decision. She said she understood. I’m hoping with SIL’s help we can get some of the clutter out of the way and get some of the boxes and smaller items moved to the storage unit I’ve rented, then I’ll let them come and have a look.
So that’s how my week went. How about you two?0 -
Pam - WOW! Sounds like a lot but also progress!
I'm as usual drowning in work and CROM and also getting ready for the biggest cat show of the year next weekend.
We've had some really warm days but it's supposed to be over tomorrow.0 -
Pam, it looks like you’re making great progress on getting the house ready to go on the market. Have you started looking at houses for yourself yet? I think it’s a sellers market right now. Houses are moving slower than they have the past few years. And I think they’re more choices out there now.
0 -
We aren’t looking for our next home yet. We decided we needed to focus on getting ours ready to list first, because as a contingent buyer, we needed to focus on getting our house listed before any offer we might make would be taken seriously. Once we complete the renovations and our house is listed, we will start looking.
Progress is being made! Our kitchen has been repainted, new lighting is up, the old jacuzzi bath tub is gone and the new one should arrive tomorrow. The painters have been busy but still have quite a bit of work to do. The bathroom contractor is so impressed with him they are taking his contact info because they would like to work with him again.
We have made a lot of progress in the decluttering fight as well. DH is rather resistant to getting rid of things, but his sister has been able to talk him into parting with a lot of things I had no luck with. We still have work to do, but it is looking better every day.
0 -
It makes sense to hold off house hunting until your present house is listed. Years ago my brother purchased a house in another state while trying to sell his condo. The condo took months to sell and he found himself carrying to mortgages. We sisters tried to slow him down but he marches to his own drum. It worked out in the end but he caused himself extra stress.
How’s DH’s recovery going?
0 -
Pam - I feel for you on the decluttering fight. I'm having NO luck at all so I'm concentrating on my areas of the house.
0 -
I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We have a Habitat for Humanity coming tomorrow to pick up a large load of donations from us, including furniture and household items. Once those are out of the way, we will have a much better idea of what we have left to do. The bathroom remodel is on track and coming along well. I have carpet installation scheduled on the 21st, deep clean for the whole house on the 25th, stager coming on the 26th, and pictures of the house after that. I still need to find someone who can stretch carpet for us in a few areas, and I need to get the carpet cleaned before picture day.
SIL has been a huge help. A little annoying at times, but on the whole, not bad. I’m sure we’ve annoyed her plenty with unwillingness to part with things she thinks we should give up. While she doesn’t push me on most things, she’s been a little more insistent with DH and it has worked well.
I got some sad news about a friend this morning. She is a friend and later a co-worker who has had various health challenges over the last few years. Her husband left me a voicemail to let me know she had been placed on hospice care yesterday. I spoke with him and didn’t get a lot of detail from him, but later spoke with her daughter and learned that basically her lungs have given out due to years of untreated COPD. She was a long-time smoker who didn’t break the habit for good until about 20 years ago, but the damage to her lungs was already done. According to her daughter, she will likely pass within a week. With all I have going on, there’s no way I can travel to see her or even attend a service, if there is one.0 -
Pam - that's great news that you're making so much progress and that SIL is helping (mostly).
I didn't get much done last weekend because we had a cat show AND my van died coming back Friday night So Saturday was renting a car and getting mine towed, etc. Always fun.
0 -
I have been completely MIA this week. We made huge progress on our house and are in the final stages of having it ready to list. This morning started out as a fire drill though. I thought I had all morning to finish clearing everything from the floor of my bedroom and off all the surfaces so the carpet installers could install new carpeting in our master bedroom and closet. But I got a call about 8:30 saying they were 10 minutes away! DH and I began frantically moving everything we could until they got there and were mostly done at that point. Thank goodness I cleared the closet last night!
We are putting an offer on the new home we found last week, hoping they will accept a contingency sale. So fingers crossed and say a prayer or two for us because that house is really the perfect one for us.
SIL and nephew left yesterday for a very long day’s drive home in a large SUV loaded to the top with things they were taking home that we either no longer need or want and/or some things that had belonged to MIL that we still had and didn’t want to keep. They were and continue to be an enormous help in this process. They’ve helped us sell items we wouldn’t have known where to start to find a market, like DH’s beloved camper trailer, and hopefully soon his red Mazda Miata convertible. We’ve sold and/or given away other furniture pieces on Facebook and Nextdoor and made many runs to Goodwill. Habitat for Humanity received a large truckload of things as well. After 31 years, we had definitely become hoarders! I told the realtor yesterday that the house no longer feels like our home with all the changes, but I’m not sad about it because I don’t really want it to be my home anymore. I’m already picturing living in a new home, hopefully the one we are putting an offer on today.
This has been hard for me physically, but for DH it’s been emotionally very draining. All the chaos has definitely exacerbated his dementia symptoms, but I’m hoping that will settle down some as the chaos recedes. Dementia patients don’t do well with change, and we’ve thrown a huge amount of change at him these past 3 weeks, plus forced him to really take stock of his limitations now and how that affects whether to keep or get rid of things. It’s hard to watch him struggle with these decisions, but my nephew and surprisingly his sister were very good about helping him work through his feelings and come to decisions.
0 -
Pam - sounds like you've accomplished a ton!!!! I bet it would be both physically and emotionally draining. I'm glad you had help and hope you get good news about the house you're looking at. What makes it so good for the next stage of your lives?
0 -
What a blessing the SIL and nephew were such a big help. I know your relationship with her hasn’t always been easy so it’s wonderful she came through when you needed her. Sending prayers that you get the house you want and that the current house sells quickly. I can only imagine how confusing all this must be to your husband. You have a great attitude about moving forward with a new house.
0 -
The house is in a 55 and older community, but with manageable HOA fees, unlike most of the others around here. The house is built to be handicap accessible, so there will be no need to modify bathrooms, etc. The HOA will take care of all the exterior maintenance and lawn care. It’s in a great area, not very far from our current abode and a short jump down the road from friends as well as most of our doctors. It’s near DH’s church, and not far from all of our favorite restaurants and shopping. It’s the right size for us, but it’s very modern and updated. We both are really hoping our offer is accepted, but if not, we will keep looking.
0 -
I don’t know how I did it, but the house is ready for the stager to come today. I need to do a little cleaning first, but otherwise it is about 99% ready. I need to hide a few more items that DH keeps bringing back out and take a few more things to Goodwill, then I’m done!
I stepped on the scale for the first time in at least 3 weeks and was surprised to learn I’ve lost 10 pounds! I’ve been eating anything I wanted for these weeks while we’ve been working so hard without much regard to calories, so I was expecting the opposite result! Who knew clearing out 31 years worth of stuff was a weight loss plan?0 -
It was a weight loss plan in more ways than one. Getting rid of stuff you no longer need, deciding it was time to move on and finding the perfect house lifted so much pressur(weight) off your shoulders. The house sound perfectly matched to your needs and still close to people and things you love. I’m praying they accept your offer.
0 -
well, our listing went live yesterday afternoon and we had our first showing this morning. Our realtor is doing an open house tomorrow afternoon, and I just got another request for a showing.
We also have found another house we are interested in seeing and have an appointment for this afternoon for that. It is in a great neighborhood and is more than $100,000 less than the other one we loved. There are a few things I already know I’d want to change, but for that price difference, I’d have plenty of money to work with and still be able to put away a large sum for DH’s future care, if needed.
We also are taking DH’s Miata over to a friend’s house to get more pictures of it for the auction site where we are planning to try to sell it. Our friend is into photography and offered to do it for us. Then I have to go to a neighboring town to pick up a small desk I’m buying off Facebook marketplace. After I get back from that trip we will see this other house. So a busy day for us here!
0
