80 days that changed everything

• It has been 80 days since Mom went into the nursing home.




• January 25, 2011 was the day my Mom was transferred to the Convalescent wing (we used to call them Nursing homes) of Newark Health care. It is a great place and the staff does a wonderful job taking care of her. Mom is progressing very slowly, but some day, God willing, she will walk out out there on her own.


• January 26, 2011 I lost my job


• January 27, 2011 was the day, I started preparing my parents house to sell, so Dad could move closer to Mom and into a place that is all on the same floor, no steps.


• I had these 3 goals in mind: First, end up with no clutter. Second, the objective is not to make a lot of money from selling things (Dad thought everything was worth $1,000's). Third, the goal is to make Dad feel good at the end of the day.

During the last 80 days here is my life (some numbers are estimates):

• Took 25 bags of clothes to the Amvets donation boxes


• Donated 2 bedrooms of furniture to a half way house for alcoholic women in New Albany


• Explaining the difference between "what you need" versus "what you want" to Dad = 25+ times.


• Asking Dad why he needs to take 22 different coffee cups to his new home = 6 times


• Arranged for Appleetree Auctions to come and take the contents from Dad's house to sell


• Spent 4 hours and 4 stores finding Dad a new phone charger that got thrown out by mistake


• Called Goodwill, Salvation Army and Got Junk to take the stuff out of the basement


• Spent 1 week cleaning the basement walls so Corey could spend 2 days repainting them


• Found new carpet for the TV room, went back to the carpet place to add more rooms that needed replaced


• Got the rest of carpets cleaned by Bauman's Carpets, got fans to put in the house to help dry since it rained all day today.


• Answered around 200+ calls from Dad wanting ask me a question. Average length of the call was 30 sec.


• Went to Lowes once per week for something


• Took Aunt Rhoda's upper plate to Dentist today (extra credit)


• Convinced Dad that the $38 for a 12 piece cookware set was not a good deal when only need 1 pot and 1 pan that at Walmart would be $10


• Cleaning out mom's drawers I found: 10,000 straight pins, 15 note books all with writing on the 1st 5 pages only, 19 packages of dental floss, 53 scarves, 23 turtlenecks, 1 whole drawer full of panty hose, and name badges from every place she ever worked.


• Still have not ventured into Dad's room, but that is next.


• New carpet tomorrow, final cleaning of bathrooms and kitchen by professionals is Wednesday, and new windows arrive on Friday.


• Realtor comes on Monday, so if you are looking for a new house on the west side of Newark, let me know!!!

So you get the idea. I believe God had me losing my job during this time to get everything cleaned and ready. Now the house is ready, I can go back to work, right God??