The past week has been spent getting to know my siblings (4 sisters and a brother) again as we cleaned up my Mom's house. Mom moved out a couple of years ago to convalesce from hip replacement surgery first with sister Nicki in Warrenton, Georgia, then with another sister Amy in Saline, Michigan. In her absence my brother and at least one sister had been living in the house. Lack of income and inclination to maintain it left it a mess, and a bunch of the 5 bedrooms were being used to store "treasures".
The basement had been Dad's shop, and in the 18 years since his death had become a purgatory for items nobody wanted to throw away. Nicki, Amy, her friend Randy, and I spent the best part of the week schlepping stuff out of that mold farm into the back yard and eventually into a 40 yard dumpster.
This:
Came from here:
...And it was a LOT of work.
Many thanks to my children Bob, Gretchen and Jonathan, my brother and sisters, Randy, niece Joanna, nephew Donald and friend Donald for all of the hard, (almost) volunteer work.
The plan is for Randy, who is a contractor, to return in a few weeks with my brother to get the house in shape to sell. Between Randy's expertise, my stash of tools, my brother's more-or-less free labor, and the help of whoever we can hire from the Home Depot parking lot, we should have about a month's worth of work to turn it back into a potential home.
In the interim, my sons and I will return to finish reclaiming the back yard from 20 years of wild growth, and falling pine limbs.
With a lot of hard work, and more volunteers, we should be able to give Mom a reasonable nest-egg.
Again thanks to all.
Stay well, and stay warm and dry. It's raining, again, here.
As you know I am a pretty good painter. I may not be the quickest but I get it done. Just let me know when. I even know how to hang sheetrock. Of course I really dont do a good job with it but hey I am free. If I know ahead of time when I may be able to get a couple days off work.
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