Tuesday Tuning

[Dove]

Adding a hello to Mystery & Lady M, too, who were here earlier but not in my topic review. *Poof*

[Harmony]

Lucylee, another question: is there a rental agreement between you and your tenants? There should be one in place and if your DSon is taking over that lease needs to be changed to between him and them. I do sorta agree and see lots of potential problems.

Twins and I were doing the same today. I was in dentist chair at 10:00 getting teeth cleaned. I go back to get my cavity and the little chip fixed Feb 1. DH goes the week after that. They want me back 3 months from now to have another cleaning. I missed some appointments the last year of Covid and now I'm playing catch up. DH will be too. I wish dentists weren't so expensive.

I have never timed anything I did in the house. I have noticed that morning routines go quickly and even evening routines aren't long, depending on what things I add on to them. Tonight I will put all my laundry away, I just brought it all in from the porch. So tonight's is longer.

After the dentist, I drove by and got gas. The lines were so long it took a while to even get to the pumps. Then I drove by supermarket. DH needed 1 thing. I got a few bags of stuff, walked outside and realized I didn't get that one thing. Loaded the car and walked back in and with difficulty found what I was looking for. I got a lot of steps doing that as I was parked way at the back of the lot.

It is gradually warming up a bit here. Each day not as chilly as the last. Tomorrow I will have to catch up a few things since I was out most of the day.

[lucylee]

I realize what y'all are saying is totally correct, but there is no way dh is going to get dbil (the lawyer) involved in this. DH will have a fit if he knows I've even been discussing this with y'all. IF we involved dbil, then we will have to go through a several-year long process to transfer the house to ds/ddil -- can't just "GIVE" that size gift in one tax year. It took five years to get dinlaws' house totally in their names. Every year, back to dbil to change deed (they were 1/5 owners, then 2/5, etc.). And that meant a bill from dbil every year.

If any legal issues come up, we won't mind dealing with it as the owners -- these people have been there over 20 years (right, with no written lease, etc.) and they are in their 80s. The $3600 we get in rent each year from them is just not worth any additional expense right now. And it certainly isn't providing a tax write off for us! I mentioned to ds that we would still get credit for it on our income taxes and dh said, "It's not credit! It's a liability." This past year, we have spent approx $1000 on it, plus the property tax. So at $300/month rent, we certainly have not made any profit.
And I'm not worried about ds shirking his responsibilities -- my goodness, after he puts a roof on it, if he does shirk his responsibility, we'll not be out anything too much till the heat pump goes out.
As far as estate goes, it will go to ds at our deaths anyway, so as long as ds and we can get along, I think it will be okay and if we DON'T get along, we can still sell the house since it's in our names. In fact, I told ds -- if we see that we really do need that $50,000 (or whatever the house is worth) eventually -- then we'll sell it then (and he can buy it outright if he wants to.)

Basically, what this amounts to is we are just paying ds to manage this property for us because it has become to much for us to deal with. To paraphrase dgd when she threw her fit at the ballgame: "We didn't want this in the first place and we are 'EVER (never) going to buy anything else (real estate related) again!"

I know there's no way we can foretell the future, but if we really had to have some cash -- long term care expenses, etc, Medicare wanting to get all our property before they'd pay, that sort of thing -- well, we'd sell about 80 acres of land before we sold our house or that one, because it's so important to ds that we hold on to it.

[lucylee]

I haven't had time to really cuop yet -- except for seeing the concern about our real estate dealings...
but I am exhausted!
I had my teacher group today -- and it was so nice! Our speaker was a lady who lives in a neighboring county, retired teacher, who has published some children's books. She read a couple books to us and I bet people were begging to have their children placed in her class! She was so expressive and interesting, and just fun to talk to.

Then dh went to get his blood work, and his potassium is STILL high. They changed his bp medicine and gave him some powder to mix with water and drink once a day. The powder is supposed to lower the potassium. He has to go back to the doctor a week from Friday.
As always, when he changes medicine, he gets really nervous because he doesn't react well to some medications.
* He has switched from Lisinopril to Norvasc. Anyone have any experience with Norvasc? I thought he had taken it before, but I may be thinking of dmom. I know she has taken it.

Then we went out to eat.
Came home, doctor called, went to drug store to pick up that rx.

Bug lady is coming tomorrow. She may just have to see the Christmas tree in this half-decorated state that we are in right now.


Talked to dmom... she is so out of sorts re: the NP at the new gastroenterologist office and said she may just tell them never mind about the colonoscopy, etc. Her former gastro-doctor, whom she loved, gave her the all-clear at her last colonoscopy and said at her age she didn't have to do any more ever again. Of course, yes, this was before the blockages -- but OTOH, two different surgeons have corrected blockages and done exploratory surgery and said they could find nothing else to cause future problems. The camera might show more, but it's a lot to put yourself through when you are so weak you can barely walk anyway.
OT other OH, the colonoscopy is not scheduled till Feb. 27. Who knows WHAT dmom will be thinking by then or WHAT her situation will be???

I told her I really didn't blame her, after all she has been through, I might just wait it out and see what happens. If she ends up in the hospital again, perhaps the other gastro-doctor (whom ddil likes) will be on call, she can see her, and go from there. I told her I don't want to influence her in the wrong direction, but while things are going good, and considering how weak she is right now, I would be reluctant to do ANYTHING except home health PT and work on getting myself stronger. At the risk of sounding like dh, I am beginning to think dmom should follow the adage of "Never trouble trouble, till trouble troubles you." She might never have another blockage again in her life.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Lucylee: While I hate the idea of colonoscopy prep, think about a very weak Mr. Dee having to go through all that prep while in a hospital room. I'd be telling your mom about that story and say it might be better to go through it all at home with the comfort of one's own bathroom (and choice of clear liquids to drink) than to have to go through it at the hospital next time she ends up at the ER with pain again.

Dinner was fine and dh and I did up the dishes by hand rather than use the dishwasher.

Ds and TG have shift changes so I get dgs on my 'off week' this month. And it will be an overnight so she can do a 12 - 8 shift and then a 7 - 3 shift the following day.

I'm tacking the table now. Slowly. Veeerrrryyyyy slowly.

[Lady Maverick]

I'm sitting in waiting room at counselor office while Ds14 has his appt. Today has not been our best homeschool day. DS14 did the wrong Math assignment and had an attitude. Nothing major but just not our normal. His earth science lesson was about tree rings so we did count the rings on several of the logs that came from trees in our yard. #Interesting

Dd11 fever has stayed down all day so if it doesn't go up during the night then she will have 24 hours of normal temp so she can go to school tomorrow.

I have decided to give up having a second cup of coffee. I want to observe if the reduced caffeine makes a difference in my sleep pattern.

[lucylee]

Well, that IS true, Kathryn. Like I said, this isn't even actually scheduled yet -- but the doctor's office requested Feb. 27; surgery center will call to finalize and pre-register in the week before that, I guess. So right now, we have a month and 10 days basically to think about this. As I said, who knows what on earth might happen with dmom's health in the meantime? Judging from the past month or so, we could have a couple more ER visits.
*** I don't mean to sound so negative, but the past six months have just NOT been good to her! ***
Mainly, I told her to do like dh and just pray about it and trust God to help her make the right decisions.

(((LadyM))) 14-year-old boys -- even the absolute BEST, WELL-BEHAVED, WELL-RAISED, MOST-MATURE-EVER 14-year-old boys -- can certainly try one's patience. After 30 years with 9th graders, I've certainly seen a large sampling of the species.
(((HUGS))) for dd11.

DH has decided he has not tried Norvasc before; I am probably thinking about dmom, who does take it. This makes dh feel better, because he was thinking if he HAD taken it before, there was a REASON he stopped, and that was probably that it "made me (him) crazy." Some medications just make him really jittery and nervous. He is very sensitive to medications.

I think I may have a small cavity. Waiting for more certainty before calling the dentist. Definitely the pain in the wallet is as much as in the mouth!

RE: today's conversation -- I actually have timed a lot of my tasks on the 3x5s. I know it takes less than 5 minutes to s/s toilet, another 5 min or so to s/s dh's shower stall. I can vacuum all the hard floors in less than 30 minutes and the carpet in the rooms we use in another 30 minutes. And I have noticed that even when it seems to be a big pile of dishes, I can handwash whatever is in the sink in less than 10-15 minutes.
This knowledge does not ALWAYS serve to motivate me, but sometimes it helps.

[Harriet]

lucylee, hmmm... .., your puzzles (advising your dmother on colonoscopy and deciding whether rental property now requires a lawyer's input) are toughies and I'm on the fence for both. I say this just because I wanted credit for writing a long paragraph, disagreeing with myself, and then writing more, only to delete for the reason of "wishy-washiness".

I am amazed that washiness is recognized as a word by whatever corrects me here. Who knew. I shall make a sentence:

"I should have been cleaning with more intensive washiness today."

Oh, yes. I think I'll have a lot of opportunities to use that.

Even though the above sentence is true, I have been working on the Focus room of bathrooms today, to the point that my fingers smell of the Seventh Generation wipes, which I find to be tenaciously smelly, although safe and probably better for me than harsh things. Didn't get to any of that or declutter in office yesterday because we had company twice then, so Tuesday Tuning starts the week, in a way.

HRH and I went out for main grocery shopping today, watching the weather for our break. That worked well.

Hoping blessed's visit with dh is a good one - two hours is a lot, really, since you were so recently quite sick, and he is surely tired out quickly right now.

Thinking of Mr. DeeClutter and recovery.

[lucylee]

Well, Harriet, if you are wishy-washy on my puzzles, I feel better, LOL -- because of course I can see both/all sides of each situation.
I am just thinking

(1) paying ds to "manage" our property is not a lot different than paying him to mow the lawn -- he didn't even expect or ask us to give him the full rent payment each month -- LOL, which obviously is so low it is laughable. All ds wanted was that we keep this property, so when the day comes that we do change renters, we WILL have it and be able to charge a reasonable rent. None of us want to change anything for this couple; they have been to good to our family, going back to the help they provided for dinlaws.

(2) dmom's situation certainly gives us time to wait this out and see how she feels in a few weeks

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I was going to shut off the computer but will leave it on just in case Dee posts.

No progress since the last post.

I'll go down and pick up the mail. Not that I've opened the last batch but at least I'll have all of it.

Tomorrow I have to go to the bank except we are having freezing rain right now and it might continue into tomorrow. Dh was nearly slid into on the way home from his outing by a car rounding a curve as he approached from the other side and overcorrected so her fish-tailing nearly brought her into our car. Dh had stopped as far over as he could get and she came to stop alongside him, with her door right 3' from dh's door.

Edited to add:

I'm glad I went down for the mail. There was a padded envelope addressed to NanaK and Buppa that made me smile. Dfs made ornaments this year (again, he made a different style last year) and it finally arrived along with their family photo for my fridge. The ornament is lovely and will stay on the ficus until next Christmas when I'll put it on the Christmas tree. (If my tree was still up like Lucylee's I could have packed it away when the tree gets put away!)

I'm off to bed now, since I just want to keep this happy glow I got from seeing the address.