I've made the move, the big one. The one many of us make when all the kids have flown the coop, the house you raised them in has become too big, and you are itching to live in the house you are going to grow old in. I left my home of 21 years, got all my possessions into the three vehicles necessary to make the 300 mile move, and picked up my life to live it elsewhere.
The house I had already bought had been set up like a cozy AirBnB. The place was spotless. The bathrooms had fluffy towels, fancy soaps, and cleaning supplies. All level surfaces were carefully strewn with knick knacks, some of them valuable. There was lovely furniture arranged in all the rooms but one. A couple of beds were made for us, and made more beautifully than I have ever made a bed. Had we shown up with a couple of people and a couple of overnight bags, we would have been deliriously happy. What is better than a whole house, stuffed with lovely and comfortable items, to spend a night or two in?
Problem was, we arrived completely exhausted, having just packed up a five bedroom house the hard way, and a moving truck packed to the gills was due to unload at this lovely abode, 12 hours after our arrival.
There would be nowhere to put my stuff unless we got right to work moving the previous owner's stuff. No rest for the weary on this night.
My daughter and I spent that night, and most of the next day, frantically making room for the movers to plop an item down, often while they were carrying that very item through the door. We slid, we stacked, we piled, and we crammed as much as we could into one room, so that the other rooms had space. When there simply was nowhere else to put stuff in the house, but the truck was still half full, I started saying “Put it in the garage” to everything. Somehow, we found space for it all, tipped those movers, and shooed them off the property so we could sit a spell. All things would have gone smoothly from then on, if not for the dog.
I knew my dog was very sick. The vet at my last home was insisting that I first put my dog through expensive and invasive testing, and then put him through expensive and invasive treatment that may or may not work, or they would do nothing at all for him. I fervently hoped the dog would not croak on the trip here, and that a vet in this town would be more reasonable about treatment.
I was right on both counts. The dog survived the trip, but became much sicker right away, leaving the most horrible mess you can think of a dying dog leaving, and all over the house, my bed and the yard. All day and all night. The wonderful vet in this town discovered my dog had terminal cancer, and would be dead in a few days.
I compulsively move furniture around when I am depressed. This characteristic of mine has come in very handy. Ten days after our arrival, the dog is dead, the basement is stuffed, the garage is stuffed, and the dining room is stuffed. All these rooms are barely navigable. But I have managed to make a living room, five bedrooms, and the kitchen usable.
What next? I headed down to the basement.
Here’s a picture of the basement before I started trying to organize it, to figure out what, if any, of this stuff I wanted to keep.
Here’s a shot of the basement after I had spent several hours sorting and reorganizing:
Here are those two shots side by side so that you can fully understand the impact of my three hours of work in the basement:
Nothing has changed! It's still stuffed with stuff!
I did find some interesting things, such as a whole lot of rubber duckies; see my thumbnail image.
I hope you find my travails amusing. I sure do. Thank you for reading about them. I appreciate you all.
All the images are mine.
Oh my dear, this started so nice and just seemed to all get shot to h e double hockey sticks. The story of losing your dog was so sad and I feel it. Sending pet owners love over. I get huge anxiety from this type of change and I'm still dealing with it to a degree after we married and Jeff is moving stuff in here. There's limited space and apparently I'm 4very territorial lol (who knew)? Enjoy your new place once things calm down.
I just saw in a comment to @carolkean that you are a newlywed! Congrats! And I thought I made a big move!
I didn't realize just how tuned into that dog I was, until there was nothing to tune into. It's very strange. I miss him.
I understand. I had to put Sasha down in 2014 after 14 1/2 years and I still miss her so. Hugs.
Nothing changed indeed its still stuffed.
But good work in the basement.
Now that you retired just keep doing what you love to do.
You are such a charming writer. I loved reading this. And it was funny because I kept going back and forth between the two basement pictures and was like, umm...I don't see much of a difference! LOL.
Sorry for your doggy, sorry also for the horrible dying mess he left at such an already difficult and busy time. But I'm impressed with your determination to have a lovely experience and make this into a beautiful new home. I'm annoyed at the last vet who was going to make you pay for all those tests and treatments, when it was really just the end of his days and one simple test that needed to be done and some comforts provided.
The experiences with both vets shows that western med doctors of all kinds are really just guessing as to what is wrong, and then they guess about what will help. But now, they tend to guess that the illness is one that requires toxic and expensive treatments. Western med has become, for the most part, a racket. We would all do better to just stay away from them whenever possible. Preventive treatment is a joke.
Thanks for enjoying my post! I chuckled while writing it. It's nice to know someone else did too.
Lots of chuckles here.
And yes, western medicine is a complete and total pharmaceutical racket. To be avoided whenever possible. However, they're great at surgery, when needed. Such as with my dad at the end of the month, on his mitral valve. Can't say I am not grateful for THAT kind of medicine.
If we could pick and choose what treatments we accepted, western med would be much more valuable. But we are fast losing that right. Now, doctors are expected to prescribe what they are told to prescribe, and if they deviate, they risk losing their licenses or being sued. Parents of children with special needs lost all those rights decades ago. We've been so stupid.
Well, we still have the option to say yes or no...to MOST treatments offered. The real problem is less about our ability to decline what it provided, but the ability to choose from a variety of options available. The options are limited, and as advanced as medicine is pharmaceutically, mechanically, and academically, it is apalling to me how little we still know about how the human body capably mends itself under more natural conditions.
I am not saying I don't trust doctors in general, per se, but anyone who subscribes to a "theology" of medicine, without looking into the inner workings of one's own philosophies of healing and immunity, and just accepting the western text and the current insurance model as the final model, is truly, truly ignorant. I cannot trust a doctor who works for a system that is entirely corrupt and built on pharmaceutical and annuity racketeering. I just can't. And it's not even their fault. It's just where the money is and how the checks are cut for them to run a "proper" business.
Finding a holistic MD is almost unheard of anymore.
Any parent of a special needs or chronically ill child knows that refusal to follow medical advice is no longer safe. This is not new. Nearly twenty years ago, I was threatened with losing one of mine if I did not comply with western medical advice for his Crohn's disease. Today, after years and years of unsuccessful and increasingly toxic "treatments", he is severely disabled. It wasn't until he became an adult that he (and I) could step away from poisoning him regularly. But don't think for a second that we are spared from being forced to comply.
Whenever he does need medical attention, we have to battle with the doctors to get adequate and acceptable care. First, he is required to undergo several expensive, invasive, traumatic and downright sadistic tests, before they will even discuss what to do for him. This part of the process is a joke, because the GI's, one and all, are getting kickbacks to prescribe the new, and extremely expensive ($20,000 a dose expensive) biologics that are all over TV ads now, and they know what they are going to prescribe before the first test is even done. It is nearly impossible to get a GI to prescribe anything besides the biologic du jour, which is currently Stellara for Crohn's disease.
This biologic is, as I said, ridiculously expensive. It is very difficult to get the insurance company (insurance "premiums" are protection fees paid to a mob) to approve it. In my son's case, it took six months to get the paperwork done, and they gave it six months to see if it helped at all, which it did not. We lost A YEAR dicking around with their favorite pharmaceutical. For that entire year I asked the doctors to please prescribe a drug that had helped him earlier in his life and none of them would do it. When I finally got one to do it, he said "I haven't prescribed that in ten years." When I asked why not, he said "I don't know."
During the years of forced medicalization, my son's health was very unstable. He regularly developed new symptoms that sent us to specialist after specialist. At one point, he had a GI, a rheumatologist, an endocrinologist, an orthopedist, a psychiatrist and a neurologist treating him. The last five of those were treating him for symptoms that were results of the medications given to him for Crohn's.
We finally have escaped the tyranny of medicine, simply by staying away. I can't say we have undone 20 years of poisoning, but he no longer experiences illness that is so extreme he has no choice but hospitalization.
Stay away from doctors. Something is very very wrong there. And if your child has any kind of illness or difference, do not tell the schools.
#familyprotection
No kidding. I'm sorry to hear about your torture. I could not imagine. Glad you have been able to find some more holistic alternatives to alleviate the symptoms.
I do heyoka healing if you're interested. Don't know if you're into that. But I know I can help, if you are still on the lookout for a solution.
#Love it - the beautifully appointed house, but, oops, no space to put your own stuff. It would be a great "I Love Lucy" (or I love Stacey!) episode, "frantically making room for the movers to plop an item down, often while they were carrying that very item through the door. We slid, we stacked, we piled, and we crammed as much as we could into one room" - and then - the dog. Oh, the wearying mess of a dying dog. I can hardly imagine.
LOVE the before and after photo, then side by by side. I can spend half a day clearing out clutter from a room and have the same result. NO SIGN ANYONE WAS AT WORK here decluttering.
Alas, poor Jimmy, and his humans, but hooray for the new home!!
Thought of you when I saw this meme:
hahahahahaha! So true! That's me with photographs too.
Hey my friend, catching up on your posts here. Sorry I get behind sometimes, it's tough to keep up with everyone and take care of stuff at home.
So sorry what you went through with your dog, and thank you for giving us a bit of clarity on exactly what happened with him. I think you absolutely made the right decision. You loved your dog and knew he was dying, so testing would have only served to put more financial strain on you during a time when your life is experiencing major change, with little chance of saving him. Sounds more like it would have been prolonging suffering in this case.
I like how you dealt with the movers just telling them to throw everything in the garage lol, I'm sure they didn't mind either ;D
Great post, I hope you're settling in nicely :)