Brain only 90 degrees off

 Thought I'd check in.

My other brother arrived from Denver,  September 20th we finally got to walk into the house.

What a mess.  Big hole in the kitchen where the double island was, another cabinet missing where the oven and microwave were. 

The smell wasn't too bad but everything we touch is sticky from the deodorizing bomb.  A lot of it still is-sticky that is.

The living-dining room was full of boxes, some of which had been turn upside down.  It was hard to walk through it.

As Kermit the Frog said "There is nothing to it but to do it."  I began opening boxes in the living room. The boxes were all labeled but mostly the label had nothing to do with what was actually INSIDE the box.  My brother started in the garage.  For four days that's what it was like.  We had people in  on Saturday to repair the front door (where the cops kicked it in) put in new door knobs, locks and reconfigure the garage door opener.  The next day we arrived to find the garage door standing open and the motorcycle gone.  So that makes a car, a professional power wash trailer and a motorcycle plus and unknown number of tools that disappeared.  A thousand small things had to be dealt with, a lawyer consulted etc.  The Living room is now mostly presentable as is the garage.There is more to do.

I brought home boxes and boxes of "Stuff".  Mostly, photographs and memorabilia.  The house was my parents so all those photos, etc have made their way into my office--9 boxes and a stack of 14 trays of slides.  Everything has to be sorted, duplicates destroyed and checked against my photo files.  All the newspaper articles will be copied into my files and then destroyed.  (For all of us who keep newspaper articles--don't!  Take a photo copy of the article and destroy the newsprint.  Newsprint degrades very quickly and damages other documents .  That was learned working in the library at the Trails Museum!)

I guess I'll have things to do this winter.

 My brother has gone home to Denver (he'll be back.)  I have been going up and working a bit every other day slogging through the mess.  My local kids are coming to help this weekend.

We have the house under contract, although we can't settle until probate has begun.  That was a huge relief.  Neither of us wanted the job of putting the place back together.

I am exhausted and sore but that will pass.

I'm very much looking forward to Chris coming only 12 more get-ups!

My brain is upside down!

No pictures today.   I wouldn't know what to put up.

First, let me just say that I am suffering from a really bad case of burnout.  There isn't any part of my life that isn't affected.  Not sewing, not gardening, not cleaning the garage or anything else, Not reading, not blogging, not reading posts.  NADA.  My brain was fried already and then---

Last Friday my youngest brother's body was discovered in his house.  He was last seen 21 August so decomp  was advanced.  I mean it was hot as well.  

We've had Crime Scene Cleaners inside and they have finished the removal of whatever was left after the Medical Examiner claimed his bit. My other brother and I were reeling and then the cleaners called this morning to say the car and several other things where gone, so now we are dealing with the police as well.  I'm almost positive there will be no will so we have to go through probate--well even with a will we have to go through probate.  Tomorrow, we talk to a probate lawyer to learn about that.  There is SO much to do and we haven't been cleared to even go into the house.  The cleaners said today that the smell would be down to about 80% now that they are finished, there are a great number of boxes to sort though.  We'll take what we want, hire an estate company to sell the rest.  Then everything else will be tossed.  After that we have to decide whether to sell it as is or repair it.  My brain is so full I can't even think properly.  One of these days I'll probably break down and cry but so far I'm just doing the next thing.  

I hope to break out of the fog soon.  If we could just have one week without bad news.

I doubt I'll be regularly posting for a while. 

The good news is that Chris is coming next month!  Yay!

Time evaporates

Quinn has declared the air conditioning vent to be HERS! She's sleeping while completely covering it!

I really don't know where the last bit of time has gone.

The dog days of Summer maybe named for the Dog Star but to me it always means hot weather.

So we had another week with Hot followed by a few days of COOL.  Cool enough that I needed a jacket at times!  I took advantage of the cool to finish the white border, and weed every thing.

Outside chores are over until fall.  I'll keep the gardens weeded and watered as needed.  I might even move some dirt.  That said, even though I wore a mask I spent two days sleeping off the exposure to pollen and mold.  I haven't been back in the studio for days but that will change this weekend.  Without outside chores I plan to the spend my time sewing or crafting.  Well, I will spend an hour a day in the garage. UGH! It must be done.

I hope everyone is well and not suffering with the weather.

Stitch on!

 

How come it's already Monday?

 Montana 2016

No, I'm not there, I just wish I was!

Monday came today and it brought another Heat Advisory with it!

This one is here until Thursday evening.  UGH!

I really HATE hot weather.

I did get out this morning to pull a few weeds and water my new grass in the front yard.  We haven't had a decent rain in quite a while now and I went to a lot of work to get that new grass so I can't let it die.

 I began doing to the garage what I did to the studio.  It's a disaster. Worse than the studio was.

More pegs for the peg boards have been acquired and arrangement has been begun.  Mostly, I got all the Amazon boxes flattened for recycling!

I think I buy too much stuff on Amazon, :)  I see someone using a new ruler or saw or whatever and I think "Wow, that's cool. I wonder if Amazon has it?" Usually they do.  I hate to shop though, all the walking to different shops and not finding what you want drives me batty (er).  I do like to go to quilt shops though.  Hum, that reminds me I need some fabric, or do I?

 

Pollen and Mold take me out!

 Last Friday was another cool day so I trimmed the fence line, took out the rest of the Spruce tree and worked at this~

East Hosta Garden.  

Earlier in the year I had done the West Hosta Garden .

I love the look !  

It helps keep the grass from invading and weeding is easier.  I'm still adding dirt to level this one out, then I have peat moss to add as well.

I didn't have quite enough pieces of the border so I had to order more and wait for them to come in.  They arrived early on Saturday so I finished the Hosta garden and laid out the border pieces to continue to the fence.  

Then, Chooky announced a Zoom chat!  I just picked up my tools, left everything else where it sat intending to finish Monday. There it still sits.

Showered and took myself off to the studio to chat and sew.

Quilted some on the blue and white quilt-half quilted now,

cut strips for Brayden's quilt, and started a small cross-stitch piece while chatting.

After that I went to bed and not to sleep.  My legs had the jitter-bugs and about 2am I starting coughing and coughing. I was planning to drive to Columbia to watch Ryan perform but I couldn't walk across the room without coughing so, I stayed home, 

Took three naps.

Monday, I had a light bulb moment when I thought to check the pollen and mold counts.  Ah-Ha!  Pollen, especially grass was HIGH and Mold was VERY HIIGH!  

Since then I have stayed inside except for short trips out and I wore a mask for those, and I have gotten better every day. On Monday I only took 2 naps, Tuesday it was down to 1, Wednesday I stayed up all day!  Yesterday, I had to have a nap though.  Today, I carried up a load of laundry (cause very little has been done this week.) and coughed.  Besides sleeping I read 4 novels and watched a great deal of YouTube on my laptop!

I had this same problem in July of 2022 but never had the light bulb moment so it was worse.  I didn't do much gardening in 2023 since I was in Australia during the heavy gardening start up.  I might have stuck a couple of tomato plants in the ground but that's it so no allergy issues.

I guess the lesson here is to not spend too much time outside in July without a mask!

I have to water the front this morning and the East hostas in back-better finish getting dressed and find my mask!

`

When the temperature stays below 80F. . .

 I jump for joy!

Then I work outside for most of the day.  Cutting grass before it's long enough to have the city after me, then working at taking out a spruce tree.  It was too close to the house and causing the little wall in front to get wonky.  It was originally shaped into a round ball about a foot above the ground but over the years that I've been here it has grown out of its shape and I don't have the proper tools (or talent) to keep the shape.  If it had not been shaped it would be as tall as my front room windows and they are VERY tall.  I got all the branches off and moved back to the old garden where they will stay and lose all the needles before I burn branches this fall. Tomorrow, I will finish that job and hopefully a few others outside.

I spent a little time in the studio finishing a couple of small projects.

I found this frame at the op shop, it was pale brown and had the words " Say Yes to Adventure" on the glass and a rather dull photo on the back.  That would not do!  So I took it apart which was much harder than I expected, painted it black and put this photo of the Great Barrier Reef from an old calendar in it.  Naturally, the glass got all smudged from my handling of it so I cleaned it before I glued the photo back in.  All the Letters came OFF! Even though it would have been fun to have the writing I really like this photo of the Reef so I'm happy with the project.  The other thing I did was to stain the "hope" sign for the wall (hope was last year's word) I could only get horrible photos though.  Anyway, it's ready to add to the gallery wall.

Here's the current state of the bulletin boards~

This is the smallest one and is waiting for me to sew buttons on each of the ribbon crossovers.  That's what makes the ribbon taut enough to hold things in place.  This one goes in the craft area.

This is what the other two look like.  All covered in batting.  I used almost every scrap of batting in the 

drawer!  Each one has at least 4 layers of batting to get the "puffy" look.

Anyway, I think I will really like them when they are finished.

Here's to another cool, dry day tomorrow!

I know, I know I missed two days!

I did tell you not to hold your breath for the every day blog!

On Monday, Laundry Day!  A whole two loads!  I've found that if I stay in the studio (next door to the laundry room) I get the clothes moved around from the washer to the dryer and finished before 4pm.  Electric rates are higher between 4 and 8  (peak time) so mostly all I have on is the air conditioner and fans, and appliances that can't be shut off.  Well, I might nuke dinner.  While the laundry was sloshing and then whirring around I worked on the Bulletin boards.  Stapling down the last sheet of batting, until the stapler stopped working quarter way through the last one.  Then I sorted the threads for the cross stitch and counted spaces going up and across so that I know where to begin.  I'm not sure how it happened but after remaking the bed and folding clothes it was 11pm and I went to bed.  Unfortunately, not to sleep.  Then I did a really stupid thing-I was hot so I turned on the ceiling fan.  I really know better because I am always ill the next day.  And I was-headache, coughing, stopped up, and even had an ear ache!  I slept most of yesterday (without the ceiling fan) then went to bed at 9 and slept all night.   Jeez, how boring could this post be?

Today, was better though!   First off, it was MUCH cooler!  I got my kitchen and bathroom clean and mopped and feed the outside plants so I'll have pretty flowers.  Then I went down to work on the bulletin boards.  The stapler worked!  I have one with all the batting on, the fabric and ribbon on-just need to add the buttons and it will be ready to hang in the craft area.  The other two are ready for fabric, ribbon and buttons. 

Tomorrow, it's to be in the low 80's so I plan to MOW!  Before I can do that I have to change the blade and raise the bed to cut it long.  Still I should be able to get out and get it done before noon.

Will tomorrow be more exciting? I doubt it.