A Weekend of Blessings

Soooooooooo busy!  It is that busy time of year.  Eh?

Thursday, I drove 20 miles north to have lunch with the Old School Gal Pals.  The 3 annoying ones stayed home, so it was a lovely lunch with conversations back and forth.  Lovely.  I drove up the access road--the one that runs along the Expressway, but on the way home, decided to take the Expressway.  It has been a long time.  I nearly had a panic attack!  I used to drive 75-80 on the Expressway, now I was barely going 65 and felt like I was flying and not in control.  So I got behind a semi, who was going 65 and got off at the first exit (4 miles) and relaxed and drove home the rest of the way on the side road.  EGAD!!

Friday, I spent a lot of time on the genealogy, then weeded my small garden in front.  I had grass in there taller than the Iris and Lilies.  I can't dig with the shovel anymore.  It seems when I step up on the shovel to push it into the dirt, it feels like my hip socket is going to pop out.  EGAD!!

Saturday, I drove 20 miles south to see Madeleine dance in a recital.  All Interpretive dance, choreographed by the dancers.  The dance company is Christian based, so a lot of the music was praise music.  One girl, a few years older than Maddie, had recently had her fiance' call off the wedding.  She came out and danced a solo to, I'm Only Human.  Well, I wept through the whole thing.  The words spoke to some of my experiences.  

Madeleine is by far the best of the Academy--everyone says so, including her instructors.  She has a certain way.  The older girls are all beautiful dancers, but when they stand posed, with their chins up and arms extended and hands in a pose, Maddie's chin is just a teeny bit higher, her arms and hands, just a bit more expressive and...the look on her face when she dances---she looks like she is transformed to another place.  She once told me that when she gets on stage, she is not aware of the audience, only the music and feels she is dancing in praise of God.  More weeping from Grandma.

Then we traveled back to Karen & Mark's house for hamburgers and hot dogs grilled and a nice supper on the deck.  My grandsons were there and my oldest grand daughter Helene and her fiance' Michael Benjamin.  They are getting quietly married in June, by a judge, with only parents and siblings present.   Then they will move into their new little house and we will have a baby shower in late August.  It's all good.

Sunday--I went up to The Farm and stopped in at the cemetery on the way.  My sister decorates the graves now.  It used to be my job, for 30 years, and then when she moved back, she took over.  YAY!  The flowers look nice in the urns.  I talked with Fred for awhile and then admired my own headstone waiting for me.  It is a really nice marker, if I do say so myself.

Then I drove the two miles over to The Farm and helped Susan and her hubs Chuck, pack stuff away that hadn't sold--mostly dishes and that sort of thing.  My sister and I have never discussed it, but she remembers in our father's Will, it states: "It is my desire that my said named daughters, meet privately at my home for the division of my personal property.  My daughter, Susan----supervise and divide of said personal property equally between my said named living daughter's."

So--as I was leaving my sister said, "I will get you an itemized list of all that was sold and write you a check for half the net profit." 

I have no idea how much that will be and it really doesn't matter to me.  My sister and her husband were the ones that had to store it, and keep it clean and help get it placed for the sale.  The Estate Sale Planners take 20% of the gross sales.

What really matters to me?  My sister is an honest, lovely person who is going to share with me.  I FINALLY will receive something from our Father's estate!

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I have told the story before of how my kids got two of the farms, my sister the other one, my two other kids and Susan's son got $10,000.00 cash each.  Susan and I were supposed to share the GM stock our Dad had inherited from his mother--which in 2008 was worthless.  There was also an investment put into trust, 1/3 for his wife, 1/3 for Susan, 1/3 for me--around $125K each.

However, because the markets were so bad at the time, our step-mother said we should just leave it and not cash it out.  She would give it to us when the market improved or when she died.  There were many witnesses in the house who heard what she told us.  Then she died.  No trust in our names to be found.

In the last few years, since her demise, we have found out that when she moved into her $4,500.00 a month Senior complex and all the trips she took, she used the money from that trust.  She left HER investments, retirement, etc. alone, in her girls names.  Everything was in trust so there was no Probate.

So--Susan and I have the final laugh on this one.  At least the bitch step-mother didn't steal quite all of itll!

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Today, I am again weeding gardens.  Not too bad in the shady gardens, but at 2:00 when I was working in the full sun, I got dizzy and shaky and had to come in.

Tomorrow I go on an expedition to buy a few annuals for my porch pots!!!

Life is so good and filled with so many blessings!