I had plans for tonight's post – but things come up and I almost forgot what I had planned to write about.
We were suppose to take mom back to her cancer surgeon today for a second follow up visit. I have spent part of the last two weeks getting the wellness center at mom's assisted living residence to do the blood tests requested by this and also by mom's oncologist and send the results to them. My sister who sees mom a lot more than we do as mom lives near her, had to go in and talk to the staff to get the results sent. I checked with this doctor and the blood work results were finally there – great, we could take her there today. Oh heck, I had not realized that today was Ash Wednesday when I made the appointment. Why does that matter? Well husband is Catholic and cannot eat meat today – so for lunch he had to have Wendys fish instead of his usual lunch. So? Well, often eating fried foods makes his stomach ill and we were concerned about eating lunch, then having to drive out, pick up mom, take her to the doctor, take her back to her residence and then drive home if his stomach was bad. But he figured he would be okay, but was not happy about taking mom to the doctor today.
Yesterday, the day before the appointment, I was called by the doctor's office - though they thought they were calling mom as we gave them my phone number instead – why? - you will see in a later paragraph. They wanted to move her appointment an hour earlier. Big problem. It takes, from the time we arrive at mom's residence, an hour and a half to get her to an appointment 15-30 minutes from there. We have to go up to up to her room, take the big wheels off her wheel chair (or it is terribly heavy and does not fit in the back of our car and she cannot deal with getting in out van). Stop at the wellness office for a list of her meds for the doctor (easier than trying to remember). Get her through the building to the front (only) entrance. (Mom's apartment is literally the furthest in the building – top floor, end of the hall.) We then have to sign her out of the building – and we have to sign in as we run through the lobby coming in and then again when we leave. We have found it easier to take mom to our parked car than try to get her in or out of the car in front of the building – curbs and sidewalk cuts are problems. So we have to push her – uphill – to the parking area – either together or me as too hard for husband to do. Then we have to get her into the car and stow her wheelchair. Then the drive. Then on the other end we have to park – where there is room for mom to get out into her wheelchair (we have to get her a handicapped permit so we can park in those spaces with her) and then get her into the building. This last can be very easy to do – or hard – one building was on a hill with the building at the bottom of the hill and we had trouble finding the doctor's office – out and down hill, then back up hill – with both of us pushing. Most of the doctors offices require one to sign in 15 minutes or 30 minutes before the appointment time or they cancel it. Mom's lunch is at 11:45 am. Her dinner at 4:45 pm. If I make the appointment for 2:30 - it allows us to each lunch, drive out there, pick her at 1 pm and get her to the doctor – after she has eaten lunch. Other than the “doctor with the office from h*ell” she will be back at her residence, with the big wheels back on her wheelchair and settled in, in time for her dinner. So 1:30 pm was a big problem. We compromised on 2 pm.
So now mom was going to have a problem with her lunch, husband was going to have a problem with his lunch – so I had a problem in general. Then I had a thought. I telephoned the doctor's office back and asked about moving the appointment to a different day. Doctor would have plenty of time to her surgery and not rush us, husband did not have to worry about his stomach after lunch, and mom would not miss lunch. First date offered was next Wednesday – my embroidery meeting and my only day out – no way. We settled on a date in mid March. Doctor's office happy. Husband happy. I had to call mom and let her know of the change. I had been texting my sister as I went along in case she spoke to mom before I did, she could let mom know. Mom is hard to reach, at least for me, by telephone. By the time that generally I can call her in the afternoon – she is at dinner. I figured that the best time to call was around 7:30 pm as that is when she calls me. First time I left a message – but knew she would never get it. I called another 4 times as time passed. I went down to cook dinner. Mom called, “Did you call me?” I explained. “No, I never hear that there are messages.” Huh, hear that there is a message, she has to look at the machine – and has being doing so for over 40 years. Okay, go on there from there. She remembered we suppose to go the next day and I explained about the change. Fine with her. We discussed it four times. I also told her that if my sister called and said it was to be earlier tomorrow – that was old news and changed. We did not get a call from her today asking where we were so apparently all went well with the change. Mom is 90 and a year ago I would not question that she understood and would remember the appointment and the change, but a year can make a big difference.
Next wonderfulness was our basement freezer. We have a small freezer that we bought probably 30 years ago or more (it has out lived at least 2 refrigerators, probably 3). We used to grow vegetables in our back yard in summer and would freeze the excess in this freezer. Have not done so in at least a decade and it was being used for backup frozen vegetables and meat since, until about 3 years ago when we somehow switched to buy the food for dinner that day. So it has mostly sat in the basement with some commercial frozen vegetables in it and a few other items. Last year we used it when our refrigerator died and we had some items in its freezer. It had about 4-5 inches of ice on the top coils. Husband will not let me put frozen items at the back of the freezer in the new refrigerator – he read an article that the back needs lots of space for air to circulate – so I have (somehow) a smaller freezer in this refrigerator than our old and I cannot use about 1/6-1/4 of the space in it. I figured I would melt the ice in the basement freezer so it could go back to being used – and since there was nothing in it as we used the last item stored in it about a month ago – this was the time to do it.
I knew it would take a long time and would be messy. I had a plan. I needed to remember to do this when we come home fairly early from running errands. Today was the day. We were home early and I would be making many trips to the basement at night to do laundry and could combine the trips down for both purposes. When we came home I went to the basement and shut off the freezer. I put in two large, deep baking pans – one on the right of one shelf and one on the left of the other shelf to catch the dripping water as I knew the bottom drip pan would not hold anywhere near enough and would be a mess to empty. I grabbed lots of old used for junk purposes towels and spread them in front of the freezer. I propped the door open, set an alarm for an hour and went upstairs to work. An hour later – nothing had started – reset the alarm and back upstairs. An hour later – still no melting, reset again and started to cook dinner. After dinner while watching TV in the kitchen the alarm went off again. I went back down – goody!! Two small puddles (dots) of water in one of the baking pans – it was working. I went back to the kitchen – husband asked what I was doing. I told him. He had to inspect the situation. He decided that what I was doing would never work. He was going to use his heat gun. Luckily he decided that was too hot. We sat there for a couple of hours as he melted the ice with his hairdryer. Dumping the baking pans and a couple of times the bottom drip pan into a bucket. (I have done this before – just with a lot less ice – and knew that I would not be able to carry the baking pans or the drip pan to the sink without spilling. Finally the last big piece of ice was loose and fell free. After dumping the last of the water and ice into the basement sink he went upstairs and I dried the inside of the freezer. It is sitting with the door ajar to dry out before being plugged back in.
Sooo, my post on doing your income taxes will be delayed until at least next week.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Plans are plans - until they go awry. Whether the appointment has to be changed for someone else's convenience or needs or what you plan to do in the house needs to be done differently than you think it will - and takes more of your time as a result, or have you plans to write something and other items come up which need to be written about first - they go awry.
One has to deal with the changes and see what can be done. If nothing else – the appointment change and the change in how we had to defrost the freezer gave me something to write about and you get out of hearing about income taxes for at least a week!
Thursday, February 27, 2020
Friday, February 21, 2020
REORGANIZING AND CLEARING OUT THE LINEN CLOSET - PART 2
Well the new layout on the towel shelf in the linen closet seems to be working. It lays out so evenly and well that I could even label the front of the shelf if I wanted to help husband figure out which are the towels he likes and which he hates. (He takes towels and after he starts using them he realizes that they are not the ones he likes.)
I am not sure if I have mentioned that among the other crafts that husband and I work at, husband does weaving. He had always wanted to do this and a few years ago we found a floor standing loom that was small enough to fit in our living room, but large enough for him to weave scarves, shawls, table runners and the like. This past September he bought a second one that is narrower and smaller to bring to events where he is selling his weaving to demonstrate. He also has a much smaller loom that is a reproduction of a type used in earlier centuries that makes fabric tape used in clothing in the period. (Remember Disney's “Snow White? The ties across the front of her clothing would have been this type of tape.) After a piece is woven it has to be washed to “set” it. If he uses the dryer to dry the pieces they end up with folds that we have to iron to try to get out. He uses large white towels to roll the pieces in to take down the wetness of them (similar to wringing something out so it is not dripping wet). He bought a towel to use for drying himself that he hates and it has been in the linen closet taking up space. I took it out when I redid the layout and brought it to the living room (which is the “loom room” mid January to mid December) for him to have it to use when drying pieces he has woven.
With the new layout working and the removal of the above towel and the two large ones mentioned last week – I decided to move the shelf below the one I worked on. The two larger towels had been on that shelf. Currently they are rolled up in a bag and will stored on the top shelf of the closet in a spot we cannot reach without a step ladder.
The shelf below had our bed sheets, our spare mattress pad, and the 2 large towels and was jammed. The sheets are still in a stack (we have 3 sets – one on the bed, one being washed, and the next ones to put on the bed, so the most in the stack in 2 sets of sheets. The pillowcases hang below the shelf in a wire hanging shelf, like those below the first shelf. There is a second wire shelf hanging with pillowcases from old sets of sheets - the sheets wore out, but the pillowcases are still good. In addition to still being usable for sleeping, they are also good for putting needlework or cloth dolls that we have made to protect them when going to an exhibition. The sheets have remained where they were. The mattress pad is folded in thirds the length of them and then rolled up - for some reason this is the best way to store it. Instead of putting it side to side on the shelf, I put it on the end of the shelf from front to back. Fit perfect – okay, it did take a bit of pushing to get it in place.
I then managed to fit a couple of spare shower towels between the sheets and the pad – they are still folded in quarters and are pushed to the back of the shelf. I put our spare bath mat on top of these spare towels. We have 3 “bar towels” that we use in the bathroom to wipe up things when we notice they are wet. Normally two of them are in use and I will rotate the three of them to laundry one while two are in use. I put the third one of same in front of the spare bath towels/bat mat.
Again, a shelf that seems to work great!
Next I have to go through things on the wire hanging shelves on the inside of the closet door to get rid of stuff. Husband tends to buy shampoos when he is not happy with the one he is using, not like them, and stick on these shelves – and they are not sample bottles. I will toss out about 4 or 5 bottles of shampoo. There are a variety of other items that have accumulated on these shelves that I will also get rid of. Anything of his, of course, I ask before I toss. I hope to have enough room on these shelves so boxes of bandaids do not have to be stacked on each other and fall down on our heads, as well as fit washcloths and guest hand towels on the shelves – or else they will have to be fit on one of the two shelves. I might even be able to put the box of “ear swabs” right side up on a shelf – right now it is sideways and sometimes swabs fall out.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Little by little this is being accomplished. If I tried to do it all at once it would not get done. Try doing small bits of organizing when you can.
This week I hope to defrost a small spare freezer in our basement – there is years of ice in it. We have not really used it in awhile, but the freezer in the new refrigerator seems smaller than the one in the old one – and I am not allowed to put anything against the back wall of it as, apparently, that stops the air from moving correctly.
I am not sure if I have mentioned that among the other crafts that husband and I work at, husband does weaving. He had always wanted to do this and a few years ago we found a floor standing loom that was small enough to fit in our living room, but large enough for him to weave scarves, shawls, table runners and the like. This past September he bought a second one that is narrower and smaller to bring to events where he is selling his weaving to demonstrate. He also has a much smaller loom that is a reproduction of a type used in earlier centuries that makes fabric tape used in clothing in the period. (Remember Disney's “Snow White? The ties across the front of her clothing would have been this type of tape.) After a piece is woven it has to be washed to “set” it. If he uses the dryer to dry the pieces they end up with folds that we have to iron to try to get out. He uses large white towels to roll the pieces in to take down the wetness of them (similar to wringing something out so it is not dripping wet). He bought a towel to use for drying himself that he hates and it has been in the linen closet taking up space. I took it out when I redid the layout and brought it to the living room (which is the “loom room” mid January to mid December) for him to have it to use when drying pieces he has woven.
With the new layout working and the removal of the above towel and the two large ones mentioned last week – I decided to move the shelf below the one I worked on. The two larger towels had been on that shelf. Currently they are rolled up in a bag and will stored on the top shelf of the closet in a spot we cannot reach without a step ladder.
The shelf below had our bed sheets, our spare mattress pad, and the 2 large towels and was jammed. The sheets are still in a stack (we have 3 sets – one on the bed, one being washed, and the next ones to put on the bed, so the most in the stack in 2 sets of sheets. The pillowcases hang below the shelf in a wire hanging shelf, like those below the first shelf. There is a second wire shelf hanging with pillowcases from old sets of sheets - the sheets wore out, but the pillowcases are still good. In addition to still being usable for sleeping, they are also good for putting needlework or cloth dolls that we have made to protect them when going to an exhibition. The sheets have remained where they were. The mattress pad is folded in thirds the length of them and then rolled up - for some reason this is the best way to store it. Instead of putting it side to side on the shelf, I put it on the end of the shelf from front to back. Fit perfect – okay, it did take a bit of pushing to get it in place.
I then managed to fit a couple of spare shower towels between the sheets and the pad – they are still folded in quarters and are pushed to the back of the shelf. I put our spare bath mat on top of these spare towels. We have 3 “bar towels” that we use in the bathroom to wipe up things when we notice they are wet. Normally two of them are in use and I will rotate the three of them to laundry one while two are in use. I put the third one of same in front of the spare bath towels/bat mat.
Again, a shelf that seems to work great!
Next I have to go through things on the wire hanging shelves on the inside of the closet door to get rid of stuff. Husband tends to buy shampoos when he is not happy with the one he is using, not like them, and stick on these shelves – and they are not sample bottles. I will toss out about 4 or 5 bottles of shampoo. There are a variety of other items that have accumulated on these shelves that I will also get rid of. Anything of his, of course, I ask before I toss. I hope to have enough room on these shelves so boxes of bandaids do not have to be stacked on each other and fall down on our heads, as well as fit washcloths and guest hand towels on the shelves – or else they will have to be fit on one of the two shelves. I might even be able to put the box of “ear swabs” right side up on a shelf – right now it is sideways and sometimes swabs fall out.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Little by little this is being accomplished. If I tried to do it all at once it would not get done. Try doing small bits of organizing when you can.
This week I hope to defrost a small spare freezer in our basement – there is years of ice in it. We have not really used it in awhile, but the freezer in the new refrigerator seems smaller than the one in the old one – and I am not allowed to put anything against the back wall of it as, apparently, that stops the air from moving correctly.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
REORGANIZING AND CLEARING OUT THE LINEN CLOSET
That was a short week!
I am starting a new project. We have a linen closet in our upstairs hall. We keep what I presume is normal stuff in it – towels, bed linens, cleaning supplies, band aids + related, spare shampoo, spare soap, spare Diabetic supplies, and the like. It had been fairly well organized, but suddenly it just doesn't work any longer. This is not a large closet – similar to our other closets – about 2 feet across and a little less in depth. It is one of our closets that has the roof line coming down through the ceiling so the ceiling is not flat.
Mostly the problem is in the towels – somehow they no longer seem to fit. I started looking through them to try to figure what the problem is. I remembered that we have 2 bath sheets with our name embroidered on them. When we were first married a local store was doing the embroidery and it was something that “everyone” was doing. The towels are also red (white embroidery) which is not my favorite color. These two towels are on the shelf below our other towels and behind the spare mattress cover. I pulled the towels out for now I will bag them (in clear bag so I know what it is in it) and store, if they fit, on the top shelf of the closet – in the back of same.
We have too many of our other bath sized towels also. I figure if I keep 4 of the bath size and 2 each of the size each of us uses for our hair plus 2 towels for the top of the cart in the bathroom (we have no counter and made the cart instead) where they can be reached and store the rest of the towels away – and one set of each will be in use and one set stored. In case you were wondering – husband likes a towel on top of the cart so if he drops anything – on them nothing will break – he tends to drop a lot of things lately.
I will refold the larger towels in thirds so I can get 4 rows of towels on the shelf. I have been rolling the hand towels and will continue to do so – I will keep all of them available as I change them twice a week and have 5 sets in each bathroom (downstairs half bathroom has its towels in the cabinet under the sink there).
We have set of wire small shelves that hangs inside the door of this closet to hold bottles and things. I am going to go through the assortment of started and upstarted shampoos and lotions on the shelves and get rid of them. That will allow us to store some of other things on the shelves more safely – we both get hit in the head by bandaid packages that are stacked on each other above the height of the front of the shelves and fall on us. I am sure that there a lot of other items on these shelves that can be tossed out.
I might even find a place to hang the roll paper towels which wanders around in this closet. I have gone through the top shelf (where the extra towels will go) before and gotten rid of excess items from up there but I am sure that there are more items to get rid.
Other than the top shelf, towel shelf, and bedding shelf I have a half depth shelf below them which holds cleaning supplies. The bottom of the closet is where our laundry hangs (off the half depth shelf above it) and where we keep spare toilet paper and boxes of tissues. I also have 4 wire hanging shelves. Two of them hang from the bedding shelf. One has our spare pillow cases and the other has older spare pillowcases – just in case they are needed. We do have a single bed in the spare bedroom and some of these spare pillow cases are for it (bed has sheets on it and spare blanket for it would be one of the twin bed blankets we use in the RV and in winter in our bed for extra warmth). The other two hanging shelves hold spare medical items and small items – which hopefully will fit in the shelves on the inside of the door.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Try to find a small area to work on – especially if it is one that you know has stuff you can get rid of.
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL OF YOU.
I am starting a new project. We have a linen closet in our upstairs hall. We keep what I presume is normal stuff in it – towels, bed linens, cleaning supplies, band aids + related, spare shampoo, spare soap, spare Diabetic supplies, and the like. It had been fairly well organized, but suddenly it just doesn't work any longer. This is not a large closet – similar to our other closets – about 2 feet across and a little less in depth. It is one of our closets that has the roof line coming down through the ceiling so the ceiling is not flat.
Mostly the problem is in the towels – somehow they no longer seem to fit. I started looking through them to try to figure what the problem is. I remembered that we have 2 bath sheets with our name embroidered on them. When we were first married a local store was doing the embroidery and it was something that “everyone” was doing. The towels are also red (white embroidery) which is not my favorite color. These two towels are on the shelf below our other towels and behind the spare mattress cover. I pulled the towels out for now I will bag them (in clear bag so I know what it is in it) and store, if they fit, on the top shelf of the closet – in the back of same.
We have too many of our other bath sized towels also. I figure if I keep 4 of the bath size and 2 each of the size each of us uses for our hair plus 2 towels for the top of the cart in the bathroom (we have no counter and made the cart instead) where they can be reached and store the rest of the towels away – and one set of each will be in use and one set stored. In case you were wondering – husband likes a towel on top of the cart so if he drops anything – on them nothing will break – he tends to drop a lot of things lately.
I will refold the larger towels in thirds so I can get 4 rows of towels on the shelf. I have been rolling the hand towels and will continue to do so – I will keep all of them available as I change them twice a week and have 5 sets in each bathroom (downstairs half bathroom has its towels in the cabinet under the sink there).
We have set of wire small shelves that hangs inside the door of this closet to hold bottles and things. I am going to go through the assortment of started and upstarted shampoos and lotions on the shelves and get rid of them. That will allow us to store some of other things on the shelves more safely – we both get hit in the head by bandaid packages that are stacked on each other above the height of the front of the shelves and fall on us. I am sure that there a lot of other items on these shelves that can be tossed out.
I might even find a place to hang the roll paper towels which wanders around in this closet. I have gone through the top shelf (where the extra towels will go) before and gotten rid of excess items from up there but I am sure that there are more items to get rid.
Other than the top shelf, towel shelf, and bedding shelf I have a half depth shelf below them which holds cleaning supplies. The bottom of the closet is where our laundry hangs (off the half depth shelf above it) and where we keep spare toilet paper and boxes of tissues. I also have 4 wire hanging shelves. Two of them hang from the bedding shelf. One has our spare pillow cases and the other has older spare pillowcases – just in case they are needed. We do have a single bed in the spare bedroom and some of these spare pillow cases are for it (bed has sheets on it and spare blanket for it would be one of the twin bed blankets we use in the RV and in winter in our bed for extra warmth). The other two hanging shelves hold spare medical items and small items – which hopefully will fit in the shelves on the inside of the door.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Try to find a small area to work on – especially if it is one that you know has stuff you can get rid of.
HAPPY VALENTINES DAY TO ALL OF YOU.
Thursday, February 6, 2020
Mom's house and doctors plus stored away Christmas
Mom is taking much of everyone's time again. Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch once said of his mother - “One mother can take care of 6 children, but 6 children cannot take care of one mother”. It is true. I have 2 sisters, we each have a husband, but there is a niece and nephew – that is 8 adults to divide up taking care of mom.
The family house is cleared out – mostly due to my sisters, brother-in-laws, and niblings. ( I had invented a genderless word for nieces and nephews combined as there should be one – niblings. When I posted this on some group that I am on, someone replied that someone before me had come up with a word for nieces and nephews combined – guess what it was – yes, they also came up with niblings. I am now spreading the word in hope that this long missing word becomes common. Now I need a common word for aunts and uncles – any ideas out there?) There is a broker showing the house now. So, new problems come up.
The family house is in the county and township as husband and I live in. The county (and included townships and a city) has had for decades ongoing problems with the local real estate taxes and how properly the houses are assessed for the value to be taxed, In attempting to fix one problem an entirely new one arose. One can “grieve” their assessment (value of the house to be used for the real estate tax calculations) which means that one files with the county and says that the amount they say the house is worth is wrong and it should be less. There is no downside to this – they cannot raise your assessment, only lower it if they agree with you. One can do this one's self or one can use one of several companies which do the paperwork and deal with the county for you. Husband and I have done this for a long time with a company and our house value has always been lowered. Mom has not done in the past until last year (which is for next year's taxes) as she was afraid of losing her senior partial exemption from part of the school tax (part of the real estate taxes), though I had assured her it would not.
Two problems arose with the sale of the house related to the real estate taxes. First one is that since mom has this senior exemption she amount she pays for real estate taxes is probably less than someone buying her house will pay (it based on income and being over 65 plus one cannot have children in school). The second is that the broker told my sister that mom's taxes are terribly high – higher than the neighbor next door with the same model house, with additions that mom does not have. So yesterday my sister emailed me for help with same – since I am in the same county/township and know the system. First thing I did was take the copies of mom's tax bills that my sister emailed to me and add up what the tax would be without the senior exemption – took a little time as I had to add up all the lines of taxes – once I had the total percentage of the taxes that are charged all I had to do was multiply the assessed value (a small percentage of the actual value of the property/house) by this total percent of taxes and there it was. Even with both the school and other real estate taxes added together it was much less than the broker said it was. Also I telephoned the company which is handling the appeal and they said that due to the county revaluing all the properties in an attempt to even off the assessments mom's assessment will go down as she had not appealed her taxes while other had. I emailed all this to my sister and mentioned that the broker should be able to figure out what the full real estate taxes on a property is.
Well, a thought occurred to me today - there is another house in the county, in a different township, which has the same address. We found this out one year a couple of decades ago when mom's check to pay her real estate taxes was returned to her marked that the taxes had already been paid by someone else. I was going to check on same, but found an email from my sister that she had already thought of this and the huge high taxes (the taxes on this house are so high compared to other houses on the street that it does not make sense at all and there will be problems selling the house) and checked – the taxes the broker has is about $6,000 a year more than per mom's bill or on line and is actually the real estate taxes for the other house with the same address. My sister will tell this to the broker, as well as pointing out that the value of the house for the next year's taxes (starts in September) will be lower as value of the house is lower and I will get a letter from a the company handling the grieving of the assessment saying that same is being done. (Based on mail I receive from them for our house this should not be hard and mom should actually have had this paperwork at home – but her records were lacking as well as the letters might be in the stacks of papers I still have here to go through.)
At the same time I was relaxing from taking mom to the various doctors and thinking “Good, we have time now and can get her to a plastic surgeon for the possible cancer growths on her face and get to Costco for hearing aids . Oh, well, It is about 3 months since we last took her to the oncologist, the surgeon for her cancer and the cardiologist who put in her replacement pacemaker. Guess what – they all either wanted her back in 3 months or wanted blood work done. So I have an appointment set up with her surgeon. I asked doctor's staff if mom needed blood work and they had to check with the doctor and get back to me – did so today and I have to call back and give them the info for the “wellness” office at her residence as they will do the blood work there. I already gave that info to her oncologist – I had given the wellness office two sets of paperwork for blood work in November, they did the first one and apparently lost the second one to be done now. Hopefully the two sets of tests will be done together so poor mom does not have to be stuck twice for blood. We have an appointment for to have her pacemaker battery tested at the doctor's office, but they were suppose to set up for when one of their staff goes to mom's residence (lots of heart patients there – not surprising) to do test the pacemaker there. Have not heard back so I have to make sure they are set up to do that and then cancel the appointment. So, we are back on the doctors-go-round, luckily the doctor from heck does not need to be seen for a couple of months.
And it is about to be my work busy season – income tax season!
I did manage to take down and store away our small Christmas tree and Christmas stuffed dolls, pillows, and stockings – a small assortment of what I normally put out. I switched out a set of bear figurines that I keep in the living room and change by month to keep it seasonal and went from Christmas – the bears for same were only half put out on display – to February (Valentine's Day and bear “dressed” as cherry pie for Geo Washington's birthday). The Christmas ones are all stored away in their boxes. My Teddy Bear Christmas village never actually was finished and will be partially taken down soon, with some bears added and others rearranged for Valentine's Day. One can only do what one can do – and this Christmas season was not one that had time to get everything done.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Mom's doctors, blood work and related comes first – health over all other things.
The family house is cleared out – mostly due to my sisters, brother-in-laws, and niblings. ( I had invented a genderless word for nieces and nephews combined as there should be one – niblings. When I posted this on some group that I am on, someone replied that someone before me had come up with a word for nieces and nephews combined – guess what it was – yes, they also came up with niblings. I am now spreading the word in hope that this long missing word becomes common. Now I need a common word for aunts and uncles – any ideas out there?) There is a broker showing the house now. So, new problems come up.
The family house is in the county and township as husband and I live in. The county (and included townships and a city) has had for decades ongoing problems with the local real estate taxes and how properly the houses are assessed for the value to be taxed, In attempting to fix one problem an entirely new one arose. One can “grieve” their assessment (value of the house to be used for the real estate tax calculations) which means that one files with the county and says that the amount they say the house is worth is wrong and it should be less. There is no downside to this – they cannot raise your assessment, only lower it if they agree with you. One can do this one's self or one can use one of several companies which do the paperwork and deal with the county for you. Husband and I have done this for a long time with a company and our house value has always been lowered. Mom has not done in the past until last year (which is for next year's taxes) as she was afraid of losing her senior partial exemption from part of the school tax (part of the real estate taxes), though I had assured her it would not.
Two problems arose with the sale of the house related to the real estate taxes. First one is that since mom has this senior exemption she amount she pays for real estate taxes is probably less than someone buying her house will pay (it based on income and being over 65 plus one cannot have children in school). The second is that the broker told my sister that mom's taxes are terribly high – higher than the neighbor next door with the same model house, with additions that mom does not have. So yesterday my sister emailed me for help with same – since I am in the same county/township and know the system. First thing I did was take the copies of mom's tax bills that my sister emailed to me and add up what the tax would be without the senior exemption – took a little time as I had to add up all the lines of taxes – once I had the total percentage of the taxes that are charged all I had to do was multiply the assessed value (a small percentage of the actual value of the property/house) by this total percent of taxes and there it was. Even with both the school and other real estate taxes added together it was much less than the broker said it was. Also I telephoned the company which is handling the appeal and they said that due to the county revaluing all the properties in an attempt to even off the assessments mom's assessment will go down as she had not appealed her taxes while other had. I emailed all this to my sister and mentioned that the broker should be able to figure out what the full real estate taxes on a property is.
Well, a thought occurred to me today - there is another house in the county, in a different township, which has the same address. We found this out one year a couple of decades ago when mom's check to pay her real estate taxes was returned to her marked that the taxes had already been paid by someone else. I was going to check on same, but found an email from my sister that she had already thought of this and the huge high taxes (the taxes on this house are so high compared to other houses on the street that it does not make sense at all and there will be problems selling the house) and checked – the taxes the broker has is about $6,000 a year more than per mom's bill or on line and is actually the real estate taxes for the other house with the same address. My sister will tell this to the broker, as well as pointing out that the value of the house for the next year's taxes (starts in September) will be lower as value of the house is lower and I will get a letter from a the company handling the grieving of the assessment saying that same is being done. (Based on mail I receive from them for our house this should not be hard and mom should actually have had this paperwork at home – but her records were lacking as well as the letters might be in the stacks of papers I still have here to go through.)
At the same time I was relaxing from taking mom to the various doctors and thinking “Good, we have time now and can get her to a plastic surgeon for the possible cancer growths on her face and get to Costco for hearing aids . Oh, well, It is about 3 months since we last took her to the oncologist, the surgeon for her cancer and the cardiologist who put in her replacement pacemaker. Guess what – they all either wanted her back in 3 months or wanted blood work done. So I have an appointment set up with her surgeon. I asked doctor's staff if mom needed blood work and they had to check with the doctor and get back to me – did so today and I have to call back and give them the info for the “wellness” office at her residence as they will do the blood work there. I already gave that info to her oncologist – I had given the wellness office two sets of paperwork for blood work in November, they did the first one and apparently lost the second one to be done now. Hopefully the two sets of tests will be done together so poor mom does not have to be stuck twice for blood. We have an appointment for to have her pacemaker battery tested at the doctor's office, but they were suppose to set up for when one of their staff goes to mom's residence (lots of heart patients there – not surprising) to do test the pacemaker there. Have not heard back so I have to make sure they are set up to do that and then cancel the appointment. So, we are back on the doctors-go-round, luckily the doctor from heck does not need to be seen for a couple of months.
And it is about to be my work busy season – income tax season!
I did manage to take down and store away our small Christmas tree and Christmas stuffed dolls, pillows, and stockings – a small assortment of what I normally put out. I switched out a set of bear figurines that I keep in the living room and change by month to keep it seasonal and went from Christmas – the bears for same were only half put out on display – to February (Valentine's Day and bear “dressed” as cherry pie for Geo Washington's birthday). The Christmas ones are all stored away in their boxes. My Teddy Bear Christmas village never actually was finished and will be partially taken down soon, with some bears added and others rearranged for Valentine's Day. One can only do what one can do – and this Christmas season was not one that had time to get everything done.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Mom's doctors, blood work and related comes first – health over all other things.
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