Pics of the Place

Found my camera and took some pics of our condo the other day. I've omitted the 2 bedrooms. One is still filled with junk in boxes that I am slowly but surely selling off. The other had unmade beds in it.

This is a view of our front door. Our chalkboard is a wonderful device. I add appts there,  have a spot to record random items we need to buy so I don't forget them when making a list, and our punch list of things to do around the house. For Thanksgiving, it was a big help tracking menu items and task lists.

When you come down the hall from the front door, this is the view to the left or our LR/DR/kitchen. You can see our 2 dachshunds relaxing along with my sister's Shih Tzu Dakini who is visiting us. She probably spends about half her time with us and half with my sister. She's much better behaved than our dogs, because my sister actually trained her, though she is prone to bouts of anxiety, especially when there's heavy weather outside.

Take a right past the chalkboard and you enter the large hallway leading to our bedroom. To the left is a little alcove that we've set up with bookshelves on one side and an immense Ikea wardrobe on the other.

The aforementioned wardrobe. This is where we store Skip's chair when she's in bed.

Turning back down the hallway, you can see our main room.

The view of the main room standing at the other end. 

Surehands Installation

My very first Caregiver Aids post was about the Surehands lift we had installed in our old home. It served us very well and proved a safe and convenient transfer method for the last 4 or 5 years. When we moved to our new home, I knew we'd want to get a new one installed as quickly as possible.

I set up a time for the salesperson from the Surehands distributor/installer to come to the condo even before we were fully moved in. He took measurements, reviewed options, discussed equipment we had that could be reused and/or traded in. Within a couple days, he sent us quotes for 3 different installation options. In one case, we could use our old motor and track and pay only for installation. In the other 2 options, we'd upgrade to the new motor. We decided to get a new motor since the one we were using we'd purchased used and was getting a bit old.

As it turned out, the ceiling in our bedroom is almost 12' high. A bit lower and they'd have installed the Surehands track directly onto the ceiling. At that height, though, they needed to install sturdy bars, like rebar, that hang down about 2' and then suspend the track from these bars.

We set up a 10am appointment for last Wednesday. The installers showed up right on schedule and got to work. It took the installer quite a while to find joists in the ceiling. His last ditch effort was to cut a hole in the ceiling to find them. If he hadn't been able to find them, we'd have had to go to Plan B - with a wall-installed motor or a bridge going up the walls and across the ceiling to hold the motor and track. Neither had appeal (certainly, the bridge is more expensive) and would have delayed the installation by quite a bit. Fortunately, he found what he needed after cutting the hole and they were finally underway.

Well, the whole thing took a long time -- 9 hours! They occasionally grumbled to the effect ... "they told us it was an easy job -- only 2 or 3 hours," but managed to soldier on and get the whole thing completely installed for us.

You can see in the ceiling where the hole was replaced and mudded, along with filling the many test holes drilled before the hole was cut. In reality, they hardly show and I don't see any point in repainting them.

If you look at the photo from our last home, Skip used a body support for lifting when it was first installed. She switched to a sling a few years ago. The spreader bar that hangs from the motor has 4 spots to hold the 4 straps for lifting the sling.

Here's a photo of a sling in action from the Surehands site. Skip does not smile like this when being transferred!

Soon after the installers left, we gave the lift its first run. Worked like a charm! All around, the system is working beautifully. I would prefer a wireless remote for operating the motor, but that would have added over $1000 to the system and I just couldn't rationalize the cost.

Happily, this was the only modification we needed to make to the condo due to Skip's disability.

Post Move Pics

We've been in our new home since 7/3. Lots of progress in the unpacking, but still far to go ...

Looking at the main room as you first see it when you enter from the front hall

On Wednesday, we got all the stereo components hooked up so we can now fill the shelves in the entertainment center. The glass front cabinet is new. We bought it at a teak place that's going out of business.

My office has become a box dumping ground. The office chair arm was a casualty of the move. Can't use a rolling chair, though, at my desk. The floor is sloped so the chair rolls away from the desk when you sit down!

This room was once the main entrance to the school. The gray wall covers the double doors that were once there. It's home to paintings for now. We're getting an IKEA wardrobe for the right-hand wall. I picked up that teak wall unit off of Craigs list just before we moved.

The Hoyer lift we used for transferring Skip until we had the lift installed on Wednesday (yay!).

Long, skinny storage room. We're going to put 2 more courses of shelves above these for things we hardly ever use.



Skip's spot in the living room. She can back her chair in. It's a great spot, at the intersection of the two a/c vents blowing air into the room from about 10' up. The dogs can get up on the bed on the table to the right. There's a ramp going up to it from behind.

There's Unpacking to Do!

The main room (LR/DR/Kitchen combo) from our new condo looked at it from 2 different perspectives. You can't tell much about it except we've got lots of windows and lots of boxes.

The move went very smoothly. It was beastly hot, but we had no rain, which is key for a successful move.

Our new washer and dryer is coming in the morning; cable guy arrives in the afternoon. Also, the Surehands representative is coming in the afternoon to assess the possibility of installing the lift in our bedroom ceiling. We should be able to use the equipment we have here in the bedroom today, which will save us mucho dinero, versus having to buy a new motor and track.

I'm hoping to get a fair amount of unpacking done tomorrow afternoon. I need to clear some space in the main room for Skip's wheelchair so she can get around.

And what the hell are we going to call the main room?

It's Really Here

In the morning, my brother, BW and 2 other strong guys are arriving at 9. Bro and BW are coming in a 24' UHaul truck. They're going to load up almost everything in the house, except for things we need to live here for 2 more days. After we load up, it's off to Worcester for the unloading and initial setup.

All the boxes going tomorrow are staged in the living room upstairs (shown here) and the playroom downstairs

This house has an incredible amount of storage. These built-in pine shelves are in the playroom. The paneling in the room was milled from trees we cut down to clear the lot for the house.

We better not forget the few wine bottles in the cellar. We bought those bottle on a trip to Northern California with my parents 10 years ago. We don't drink much!

Skip and I will sleep in our new home on Tuesday night, just in time to see the Worcester fireworks. Apparently, we'll be able to see them from our condo. We're using Monday to do more prep both in Worcester and here so the place is a bit more settled when Skip and the pups roll into town.

Let the moving begin!

The Home Stretch

Hard to believe this, but in less than a week, we'll be living in our condo.

As anyone who has ever worked with me knows, I'm a last minute kind of gal. Very deadline-driven. In the case of moving, though, I've been working at it steadily since the house sold. I've had my friend BW helping me. For a few weeks, he came once a week, then twice a week, and now he's here 5 days a week. I'm so lucky to have him. He's the hardest worker I've ever had the pleasure to do this kind of project with. He comes at 8 and stays until 4 and hardly ever stops. He's independent and full of great ideas. My biggest challenge working with him is keeping a few steps ahead in the sorting process so I can have things ready for him to pack.

Up until today, we focused our sorting and packing efforts on things that wouldn't impact Skip's and my day-to-day living. Since I only have BW until Friday and our first moving day is Sunday, I figured I couldn't postpone packing up the kitchen, master bath bedroom any longer.

Up until now, I haven't felt much emotion going through the endless array of stuff needing to be handled. Sheepish at the sheer volume of it all. Confidence as we've steadily worked through it all, knowing we'd be ready in time for the move. A tinge of sadness at all the things I'm saying goodbye to - books I'll never have time to read again, records I'll never listen to again, clothes that no longer fit since I've regained so much of the 100 lbs I lost 10 years ago. Now that I'm packing up dishes and spices and food, emptying out the kitchen, it's really hitting me: very soon, this house will no longer be ours. The home of my youth, the house my parents built, the place where I really became a responsible adult (after we moved back here 23 years ago) ... soon that home will belong to a young family that can't wait to send their kids off to the town's wonderful school system. Funny that packing floss and deodorant and bandaids can be such a sad exercise.

I'm sure the last time I see this house, when I close the door behind me, I'll feel a deep sadness. But I know this move is the right one for us, so that sadness will be tempered by the happiness of moving into our new home, settling in there, and beginning to take advantage of all that Worcester will offer us.

Expiration Dates

When I was a kid, back in the Paleolithic Era, milk didn't last for very long before it went sour. My mother went grocery shopping once a week and milk didn't last that long, so a milkman delivered it during the week, too. Everyone had the milkman deliver when I was a kid.

I can't believe how long milk lasts now. At least a couple of weeks. Cream even longer, well over a month.

When something I'm looking forward to is coming up, I am always glad when the expiration date of the cream I buy occurs on or after that event. This was especially true of vacations. I'd always be excited to know vacation was so soon our cream would still be good when we headed out.

Earlier this week, I bought cream that'll expire after we've moved. That means we're really, really close.

House Work

I'm getting all sorts of things in place to get the house ready for showing to prospective buyers. It's exciting to have a new and fun project to work on.

• Title V (septic) inspection is Monday morning. When I spoke with the guy who is doing the work he said they'd either be depressed or euphoric, depending upon what happened during the Superbowl. My kind of contractor!
• We have some closets downstairs that need rebuilding. Had a contractor recommended by our realtors. I called him last Wednesday and left a voicemail, figuring it would be a while before I heard back from him, if at all. He called back in 5 minutes. Said he had a job wrapping that afternoon and he could come over between 3 and 3:30 that day. He showed up right around 3. Gave me a quote on the spot and followed up with a written quote that evening. I'm not used to this kind of responsiveness from contractors. He starts on the 13th.
• My brother came over last Monday and we walked through my punch list of small, handyman type jobs I'm hoping he and a couple of his friends can help on. Also, his friends (who are both younger than us) will also do things just before listing the house like: power washing the house, washing windows inside and out, sweeping off the roof, cleaning out the gutters and cleaning up the yard. Since we're having such a mild winter this year, I think the outdoor handyman work can start up right away.
• I'm renting a large storage unit to store the extra stuff we need to get out of the house to make it show better. I'll wait to rent until we've accumulated a good number of packed boxes and furniture to move in there, probably in late February. The intrepid MW, Skip's companion and friend, is going to help us with the packing.

Let's hope the practically snow-free winter continues so we can get all the external projects and cleaning completed by early March so we can get this house listed for sale!