16 days

I haven't watched the Olympics much in the past 10 years or longer, the last ones I can recall paying much attention to were the winter games of 1992. When the Beijing games started I was still traveling on the road, and if I hadn't seen part of the opening ceremonies on a TV in a Flagstaff, Arizona bar, I wouldn't have even known. But after I got back to my mom's place I started watching it because she was. I followed the men's 10 meter platform diving the last two nights, and didn't care that the US didn't medal, because I watched Australian Matthew Mitcham upset seemingly unbeatable Chinese diver Zhou Luxin on the last round of dives, giving Australia it's first men's diving gold medal since 1924 and kept China from sweeping the diving events. Tonight I watched the closing ceremonies while continuing to sort the new stack of papers I found around the house today. A couple days ago I did find the last important document: the deed to the house, not in the safe but in a pile of papers that had been sitting on the floor next to mom's bed... sigh, she had moved papers everywhere, and just when I think I've found them all...

I finally moved into the spare bedroom last night, off the couch I've been on since I got here. The garage sale went OK yesterday, even with my sister here. She insisted on coming over the night before to help out, but I kept an eye on her, and there was only one issue that came up with my giving one of mom's caretakers a piece of crystal that she wanted. Then my sister proceeded to fill up a suitcase with stuff to take back to her place, and when I started to look at what she had packed up, she said well you're being rather nosy, aren't you. I said nope, just want to know what's going out the door.

Last night I had unexpected phone calls from two special women that brightened my evening. Bobbie called and we talked for an hour and a half (didn't seem that long!). Talked about all kinds of stuff, and more that I was surprised to hear about. Then less than 5 minutes after hanging up with her, I get a call from Kimba, concerned about how "our" dog had just ripped a patch of his paw near his dew claw while playing and was bleeding all over the dog park. Poor Taz, I think he may have to get those dew claws removed...
And speaking of last night I was chuckling over this photo Ms.Kitty put up of their night out, it made me smile. Oh, and Drama texted just to check up on me the other day, thanks sweetie! I'm getting my bearings back now, concentrating on getting organised and the house sorted.

So like I said, I was watching the closing of the games tonight, and I was thinking about how much has changed since they started, more than just the obvious. Now that mom has died, her passing has set into play a whole series of events I never saw coming 16 days ago. Even having lived through this twice before in less than two years, it still has caught me off guard. I don't have that life is running me feeling this time though, and I think that's because I have a better idea of what I'm doing now, and what my plans are.

But I'm going to be busy these next 5 weeks, as the plan is to be out of this house by the end of September. Tomorrow I'm meeting with the non denominational minister, getting the music ready, and buying dress clothes for the service. The memorial will be Thursday at 2pm, with a reception following here at the house. I will post updates when I can, and try to get around to everyone's blogs a few times. But regular blogging is going to be out of the question for a while.
To be honest though, I've had a feeling for a while now that my blogging days are waning, even more so now that I'll be busy working on my business and fixing up my house in Idaho so I can rent it out before I move to Arizona. Or maybe my blog will just take a little different form instead. Time will tell...