Getting Granny Out Of The Attic

Welcome to my new blogger site! I am just getting started in doing this, although it's been a dream of mine ever since I started running out of room for all the little "darlings" I have collected over the years. With Mom having moved in with me a year and a half ago up north, well, things just really got to be too much. We spent last year packing, selling away and just plain giving away lots of stuff we thought we would never be able to part with. Surprise surprise....we could, we did! And now looking back, we can't even remember the stuff we were so sure we'd be sorry about. Now, in the "new" old place we have moved into, we have found even the most precious things we just had to bring with us, can't, won't or don't fit. Not wanting to start up old bad habits, we are just biting the bullet and selling off our "precious darlings". Don't worry, we are just finding new homes for the things we treasured so much. Now someone else can make them their "little darlings" and enjoy them as much or maybe even more than we did. Still, as I photograph and set up the peices for their "adoption process" (aka Ebay), I find myself getting nostalgic for some of the "old dears". More than once I have found myself just not ready to part with it just yet. So back in the box it goes for a few more weeks. But now, renovations are in full swing, and my nostalgia is not really what I am focused on. No, now its which french door do I want, what color for the siding, do you want the stairs for the deck here, or here? Yes, a multitude of choices. Thats always been the thing for me, I want them all! I know what I want for the kitchen, I just haven't found it yet. I know its all going to cost way more than I have, but I feel its important to have one home in your life that is what you wanted, is the color you picked and filled with the things you treasure. Its all about living and loving for me. Family visits with food (we all live for food, just look at us!), so the kitchen is the focus, the rest is just window dressing for what goes with it. A deck to dine on, connected to the kitchen of course. Dining el fresco in spring, summer and fall with the beautiful creek and mountain views to look at. A laundry room tucked into a large pantry. A kitchen that saw its last update in 1950 and has enough cabinet space to satisfy a small hamster, and no modern anything. We are cooking on a stove left behind that has to have the door propped closed with a broom handle, and a fridge that will only hold 2 lbs of anything on its shelves. I could buy new, but we are limping along with "works good enough" till the renovations are complete. The siding and gutter guy has been waiting ever so patiently to start working on the outside of the house, but lots of cold (has to be above 40 degrees to cut the stuff) and rain, snow and ice has kept him from coming to work. Didn't hold the guy from doing the deck, if he had an afternoon of warm weather, didn't matter it was raining. Poor guy, freezing rain, dark of night (I found him out there the 1st few days after 10 pm, after all his guys had left for the night) working. Gotta love a man who works so hard to earn your money, just gotta respect that! Just trying to get it done before it was too cold to work, as everything else could be done that he needed to do, even if it was snowing. Still, more than once, he's had me shaking my head in disbelief at his dedication. He's new at this, and if it weren't for my Mom having so much faith in him, I probably wouldn't have given him a chance. But Mom has mostly had a way about knowing who is good and who isn't. There have been some spectacular failures with that, but rare. Thank goodness huh? Anyways, he said he had a few other jobs, but he let me know, what he didn't know he'd sub and only to those he personally had used and knew to be good. He'd done his own place and is going to school to be a full fledged contractor. So now I have the top of the line siding and gutter guy for only a little more then some guy working out of the back of his pinto, licensed, insured and covered for falling off the side of my house. And a fledgling contractor who is knocking himself out to make me a happy camper. Anyways, we'll see how long the honeymoon lasts. I feel he is really trying to make it not only look good, but actually to show how good he really is. Bless his heart, he's got ambition with a capital A. Ok, so now, back to Grandmas Attic. So now here we are, wallowing in all our "babies", and Mom has now found a home close by and will be moving next month to her own place (thank you Jesus!) and she realized, she too, is suffering from not enough editing before we left. She saw I was boxing and photographing my stuff and getting it ready to be shipped and decided I should put her "precious darlings" in a new home where they'd be appreciated. So that was the beginning of Grandmas Attic Treasures. As if we don't have enough on our plate, my Grandmother, Mom's mom, is still in Dearborn in a rest home, and is now rehabbed (stroke at 87) and ready for coming out, if someone can help care for her. Which we can, with the new rehab and having thought through the buying of Mom's "new" old place, we can take her and have her live with either one of us. Now all her things have been sitting, waiting, at her home that can't accomodate her (door openings too small for walkers, wheel chairs and assistance). Again, with the packing, the giving away, the selling and just plain tossing. Sheesh.....I feel like its a strange time in my life, like getting ready for some next big step to happen, but not until all this is done. Because its really a lot of doing here. I mean, 1st we sold Mom's house, then my rental, then my house, then moved here, then found a place for Mom, now making the spaces we have accomodate Grams. And you know what? My Sister in Law (2 towns over) just called to say her Mother had called to say she was putting her house up for sale and moving here too! YEAH! Isn't that just a wonderful, happy thing? Its a weird feeling, like we're all being brought here for something big to happen, but it won't happen till we are all where we are supposed to be. I'll keep you posted on that and how that pans out. Probably just one of those weird thoughts you get when stuff just seems too coincidental. Tell me what you think.....have you ever just picked up and moved somewhere, not knowing where you would work or what you were doing there, but just because you felt this was it for you? I'm curious how others have done it and if it worked out for them, or you. If nothing else, would be curious on your thoughts of my convuluted tale of getting from there to here. Take care and God Bless you.