
In the movie, ‘Finding Nemo’, one of the most famous tag lines is ‘Just keep swimming.’ There are so many moments in the day where I want to stop, but I’d probably get eaten by a shark (fish are friends, people are not!). One of the persons who spoke at mom’s service said mom envisioned rocks in the road as stepping stones. That lady left me a significant number of stepping stones with which I could pave a nice path to hell and back.
Mom’s estate got a letter today from her insurance company. It stated that since the changes made earlier this month (I sent in her death certificate), my mom would no longer have me as her authorized representative and my access to information they may have will be denied. If mom would like to add someone else, she was given a number to call. Completely confused, I called the number and reached a woman who was just as confused as I was. She forwarded me to another helper with all my questions typed in, so I’d not have to repeat myself. The next person had me repeat myself and agreed with my mom’s name and information. But, she couldn’t tell me more than my power of attorney papers were void now mom was gone. When I asked her if that meant there was no more need to communicate with the company, she told me to follow the directions on the letter. I read her the letter (it was fairly short and said not very much). Her reply was more helpful. It appears since I sent the death certificate, I now need to send (not fax) a copy of the pages in her will stating I’m her executor. Then, I was given the address not included.
I’ve called 3 different people to dig up the septic line (it was discovered it is full of rocks, meaning a break somewhere.). Thankfully, the nice man who discovered this problem told me to be very careful and I could shower and only pee, being nominal with suds and don’t flush the TP. The messages I left have not been answered yet, but I’m not worried. I have two weeks. (OK, I’m worried, I just can’t let it get to me!) At least, I am clean and a friend did my laundry this last week. (NOTE: I need to return some coinage to SSC, I had used some of his quarters for washes when I was elfing. I just found the remnants of a bag of coins!) At least the leak in the stove pipe appears to be fixed. My ‘pretend’ brother, Pippin, came out while I was gone one day (in the pouring rain) to apply sticky goo and it looks to be mended. (He cracks me up. He contacts me every so often now. Not to see how I am, but to share silly things. He was supposed to be feeding a dog for someone while they were gone and sent this photo to me with the caption, I forgot a couple of days!)

I took Friday off. Literally. I got to drive to ANC and back with TnT. It was splendid fun and we ran into snow, almost had an accident, the car about ran out of gas, and we stopped to look at swans. I had to laugh because I was trying to focus on swans a bit away when there were some much closer. They were hidden behind the sign I was standing next to! I looked a bit for a cat carrier when I got back to town, but didn’t see what I might need. (She goes to the vet for shots I thought I had gotten her already, but since there isn’t a record, she gets them on Monday.)
Saturday was interesting. I ran trash to the dump and then decided to tidy in Dad’s shop since it was nice out. I’m glad I can shower, I got completely filthy! There were mice droppings all over the place, it was icky! I even found the trap that went missing a while back. It was under the wall heater and was complete with a dried and preserved mouse. (I tossed the whole trap away!) The oddest thing was the unsprung trap near dad’s model airplanes, wiring for the juke boxes, and small stuff. There was mouse sign everywhere, very few sunflower seed hulls, and nothing on the workbench with the bigger tools. It was very Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Only without the rats! I did notice they seemed to like the paper covers on the juke box records stacked on the shelf, so maybe a few were musically inclined.
The worst part of this week has been mom’s finances. It seems (from information gathered from the year I took over) things are not even close to good. I reckon I didn’t manage as well as I thought. Being a gal who squirrels away a single twenty in her bag as emergency cash and spends more than I imagined, I should not have tried to balance things for mom. I’m sure she is annoyed with me right now, because she could have managed better. (not that she could, but she always thought she could!). On the other hand, as I told my little sister, if mom’s investment legacy can pay for her mistakes, then the two of us will be just where we were when she died. And that isn’t a bad thing!
On the K front (not that kind, sheesh people!), I’ve been learning about being safe and self-aware and loving that person who makes mistakes and learns from them. I had about 40 carbs to eat today, I believe that is more than enough. Which is good, the breakfast bar, sugar free popsicle half, low fat mozzarella stick, and two chocolate kisses are about all I can handle today. Oh, I did have a bit more than 12 oz of Diet Pepsi! I might have half of a breakfast bar before bed, to make sure my glucose doesn’t go funny. Hoping to go down the inlet before the 31 and am thinking I will get a ticket to this year’s production of Rocky. I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I hate spending money, I don’t want to take it from the house account (It isn’t house stuff. I don’t like spending The Craftsman’s hard earned money for trivial things!), and the account I share with mom is dedicated to paying off bills and laying new lines.
I did get out on the lake this last week. It was in between rain drops, so I wasn’t out for very long, but it was lovely and I texted SE from the water. (she was jealous!)