My Dad is moving in with Theresa. I am very happy for the two of them. In all honesty, I was a little thrown back when the topic came up. It is just not something a 29 year old has to think about when it comes to her parents. Kind of makes you giggle at the silliness of the way new love looks from the outside.
Giggles aside, we are now in the process of going through "20 years living in the same house" of stuff.
It seems like a daunting task.....certain rooms in particular.
Also a scary task.....certain rooms in particular. Wait wait....the whole house is scary.
My sister J, informed me Saturday morning that she saw a ghost Friday night in the middle of the night.
I had gotten up to go to the bathroom. She said while I was up the ghost walked past the bedroom she was staying in looked over it's shoulder at her, shrugged and walked down to the room I was staying in...........moments before I walked past her room heading back to my room. I did not see this apparition ,thank goodness, because if I had I probably would have freaked out because the ghost walked into the room where Carter was sound sleep. (Picture me wriggling in my chair right now with the heeby geebies just thinking about it.)
I believe in ghosts, spirits with unfinished business, spirit guides, angels and the like. I have had my own encounters with the strange and unusual. While I have never had an encounter at my Dad's house before, I have always thought there was something there.
Anyway back to the packing.
Bright and early at 0630 Carter woke up, so I was up and so was sister J. We figured we may as well get started. Several texts and phone calls later Dad showed up with breakfast pizza at 0930.....uh yeah it was delicious!
I wouldn't so much say that my Dad (and Laura) is a pack rat.......but sometimes if the shoe fits you gotta wear it, if you know what I mean. There are just some things that to make no sense to me to keep, but make perfect sense to my Dad. In example a coffee can full of old light switches. Maybe he has a use for them, maybe he just like the way they look. Who knows?
There was a show called Clean Sweep on TLC for a while. They would come to your home and pick 2 rooms to clear out and redecorate those rooms. During the process one of the main dudes makes three piles keep, sell, and toss in which the homeowners must distribute the items taken from the rooms of choice. We attempted to take the shows sorting approach with Dad's house. I think we did OK.......but we still have a long way to go.
Carter played with the Sammy the cat......Philburt hides when there are people around. Sam takes this playing pretty well because he loves attention. Sammy did hide from Carter a couple times....prompting Carter to walk around going "ere ahr eww?" (Meaning "where are you?")
Yes it fascinates me that Carter at 19 months attempts and sometimes can form sentences and use them in the correct context. Examples include... "Ic ee eww." for "I see you" when he is looking through toy binocculars and "der eww doo" for "There you go." when he hands you something.
Carter and sister J......this picture looks like Carter is biting J but, he is actually trying to give her a zerbet.
My Dad reads Mother Earth News. This basket is full of old ones.
Brother I was there helping pack stuff up. We tried to get our regular picture of him with Carter, but Carter was not into it. Quite frankly brother I was not either. Ha!
I am 98% sure that the small orb of light in the hallway in this photo is a ghost. The rest of the house was dark when I took this picture. Now I want to go back through old pictures taken in the house and see if there are any floating orbs in them.
Or maybe not it may just creep me out.
The sorting and packing went well, with the occasional "What is this?" followed by "Nevermind I don't want to know." conversation, as the item is hastily put in a box or back into the drawer it was extracted from. I did have some trepidation about sister J throwing out old school day memorabilia, fearing that one day when she has kids she will regret not having some of these things to show them, but she said she did not want it and I respect her decision. She said she had no emotional attachment to it, so there was no point in keeping it. Love you sister J so I wish you to have no regrets.
Maybe there is a little bit of pack rat in me as well. I had the same trepidations when my Mom and Gordon moved about things that I let go of.
Sister J does have a point. When it comes down to it, it is just "stuff". What we will take from the house is not the "20 years of living in the same house of stuff". It is the memories we made in that house. The laughter, the tears, the "there is a ghost standing next to me" fear.
