Things begin, things end, but life goes on.
Things begin and things end. But life goes on.
2005 and into 2006 has been a huge year for me. I retired from teaching in 2004, and looked forward to doing nothing for a while. So I immediately started to look for a job. I found one--tutoring in the No Child Left Behind program at Gale School in Chicago. I also started to volunteer at the Chicago Botanic Garden--working with kids, of course. I took the Master Gardeners course and passed it. I am now an official University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener.
This is what I thought retirement was going to be--a part time job, going out to lunch, volunteering.
My mother sold her house in Sept of 2005. That was a job that was almost impossible. First of all, she didn't want to sell at all. The house was too big and too expensive for her, but she didn't want to leave it. We had to clean out 50 years of stuff. I hired a shredding service to shred 50 years of canceled checks--30 boxes of various papers that couldn't be put into the trash. I had a garage sale. We put over 300 books on consignment on e-bay. We still had huge piles of stuff on garbage day.
Mom sold the house in July, much to her dismay. On the day of the realtors open house, people were lined up in front. There was an offer tendered before the open house was over. She recieved 8 offers and sold the house for $40 thousand over asking.
We found her a nice apartment in a continuing care community. She was scheduled to move on Sept 15. On the 11th, I took her to the emergency room since she wasn't feeling well. She had surgery for apendicidis, which turned out to be colon cancer. Her furniture moved, she didn't. She moved into her apartment late in Sept. She has made a remarkable recovery.
In November, my dad passed away from Parkinson's disease. In the Jewish faith, it is believed that peoples names are written in the book of life on Yom Kipper. Some will live, some will die. It was my dad's time. He was in a nursing home for 3 years, fighting the disease all the way. As the pastor told us, he is in a better place now.
Things begin, things end, but life goes on.
2005 and into 2006 has been a huge year for me. I retired from teaching in 2004, and looked forward to doing nothing for a while. So I immediately started to look for a job. I found one--tutoring in the No Child Left Behind program at Gale School in Chicago. I also started to volunteer at the Chicago Botanic Garden--working with kids, of course. I took the Master Gardeners course and passed it. I am now an official University of Illinois Extension Master Gardener.
This is what I thought retirement was going to be--a part time job, going out to lunch, volunteering.
My mother sold her house in Sept of 2005. That was a job that was almost impossible. First of all, she didn't want to sell at all. The house was too big and too expensive for her, but she didn't want to leave it. We had to clean out 50 years of stuff. I hired a shredding service to shred 50 years of canceled checks--30 boxes of various papers that couldn't be put into the trash. I had a garage sale. We put over 300 books on consignment on e-bay. We still had huge piles of stuff on garbage day.
Mom sold the house in July, much to her dismay. On the day of the realtors open house, people were lined up in front. There was an offer tendered before the open house was over. She recieved 8 offers and sold the house for $40 thousand over asking.
We found her a nice apartment in a continuing care community. She was scheduled to move on Sept 15. On the 11th, I took her to the emergency room since she wasn't feeling well. She had surgery for apendicidis, which turned out to be colon cancer. Her furniture moved, she didn't. She moved into her apartment late in Sept. She has made a remarkable recovery.
In November, my dad passed away from Parkinson's disease. In the Jewish faith, it is believed that peoples names are written in the book of life on Yom Kipper. Some will live, some will die. It was my dad's time. He was in a nursing home for 3 years, fighting the disease all the way. As the pastor told us, he is in a better place now.
Things begin, things end, but life goes on.
posted by eeroots at 10:27 AM
1 Comments:
THINGS BEGIN: Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined you as a blogger.
Happy belated birthday greetings. Mind you the wishes were sent atmospherically on the day, it's just a matter of whether your antenna picked up the signal which would have traversed the Pacific, crossed the Rockies and honed in on the shores of the great lake. There's quite some distance between the South Pacific and Chicago and who knows what gremlins are flitting around there out in space.
THINGS END: Like the flowers I've been beheading in the garden. Now you're a certified Master Gardener I expect the latest tips to improve my endeavours. Like, what is it that feasts on the petals of Shasta daisies?
BUT LIFE GOES ON: OOBLA DI OOBLA DA!
Oh she who is a baby boomer where are your travels taking you to?
South West across the the Great Ocean of Kiwa into the realms of pohutukawa that drip into turquoise waters where dolphins play?
Yellow Brick Road
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