Reflections on 2019

I truly thought 2018 was tough but 2019 was even more so.

Still I can't say that all of 2019 was awful. I had some really life changing experiences  - most of them from small moments and not grand.

Healthwise 2019 had it's ups and downs. The colitis was actually not too bad. I think the new oral pills I started in the fall gave me a boost. I am less terrified when I go somewhere, but I am still always aware of food intake and bathroom potentials when I go. Physically I had that awful bout of tendinitis that hit me just a couple weeks into the fall school year and threw everything off balance. The 2 rounds of pneumonia with a tail end of bronchitis is what did me in at the end. 6 weeks of barely being able to move and think in November and December.

Mental Health wise it was tough. I lost the ability to think or focus or make decisions. Everything was overwhelming. I did a lot of go go go and then just crawled into bed after supper if I wasn't on dad duty before he passed. After, there really was no reason to be awake more than I had to. The stress over his healthcare and then the fallout after the will was just more than I could handle.

Moneywise I have held steady but that drive to pay pay pay down was not here. It really just was survival. And I am at peace with that.


2019 let me have all kinds of adventures with dad. Anytime he was strong enough he was wanting to go and do things and since I was with him the most, especially in the spring and early summer. While I sometimes grumbled to myself about having no free time, each of the experiences I had with him it was a blessing.

I was grateful that he was healthy enough to do so many of the things he loved and that he did not pass sick and weak and in the hospital.

I was able to go to France for the first time and visit DS and his girlfriend. It was absolutely gorgeous weather there when it was 40 below here at home. Different foods and sights and experiences were so appreciated .

I lost myself for a while last year and hope to find myself again.

Settling in

We have been here at the new house since Monday the 9th

We weren't really ready to move but we had to. DS2 had promised the Scouting Service Corps they could hold their winter meeting at our old house. We really should have been out by then but all this illness slowed the whole process down.

On Sunday the 8th we planned to move. I headed over to get a few grocery staples. It felt weird wandering, not really sure what I needed and not a lot of energy to do it.

 We loaded up a couple laundry baskets with some clothes and headed over to try to set a few things up. I was so sick and weak and coughing. I ended up going to the ER and after a 4 hour stay they said I had a second round of pneumonia. Viral, of course, so no meds would work.

I came home to the new house and told DH I just couldn't do it that night. I just needed to be 'home'. We had a supper here then went back to our old house for the night. I crawled into bed and crashed hard.

Monday I didn't end up working the whole day. Just constant coughing and so weak. I came home and spent the afternoon resting and doing a few things like cleaning out the fridge, and a few cupboards, taking what I know DS wouldn't eat.

I had a big panic attack around 4 when DH was due to come home and I knew I was leaving the house for good. Nothing like a big ole panic attack and some crying to make a positive start.

DS brought over the cats and I relaxed as I watched them run from room to room exploring what was almost all new to them furniture ( we are using a lot of what was mom and dad's until we can afford to replace them.

It felt very final to be moving in. The reality that mom and dad are both gone is hitting home.

There are lots of things to still do. It's more than unpacking  - it's a lot of 'this cupboard is where mom always kept the...…"

I have to do it in bits or it's just too overwhelming.

Reflections on 2019 money

To be honest, the intensive focus on debt reduction was much less for me in 2019. Just too many other things going on.  I probably could have done a lot better at attacking this if all this with dad and the new house hadn't been a part of the year. But it was and so I take it at what it is.... small progress.


Here is a peek at the past years' numbers that now, are just the mortgage:

December 2009 - $70 771.99
December 2010 - $52 410.25 (down $18 361.74)
December 2011 - $40 055.29 (down $12 354.96)
December 2012 - $35 921.04 (down $4 134.25)
December 2013 - $25 925.49 (down $9 995.55)
December 2014 - $22 494.06 (down $3431.43)
December 2015 - $18 837.12 (down $3656.94)
December 2016 - $15 009.96 (down $3827.16)
December 2017 - $11 055.48 (down $3954.48)
December 2018 - $6969.94 (down $4085.94)

The two debts, including the College LOC past were:

Debt 2016
Mortgage - $15 009.96
College LOC - $13 245.16

Total Debt - $28 255.12

Debt 2017
Mortgage - $11 055.48
College LOC - $21 343.00

Total Debt - $32 398.48 


Debt 2018 

Mortgage - $6969.94

College LOC - $14 700

Total Debt - $21 669.94

Debt 2019
Mortgage - $2756.00
College LOC - $6800.00

Total Debt - $9 556.00

My goal last year was to get the LOC down to between $7000 and 8000 so I consider that a win.

The mortgage should be paid off in 2020. I will have to remind my husband that we need to set aside $ for property tax as it has been included in the mortgage payment.

There is no mortgage on the new house. So if we end up selling the old house that money can be used to wipe out all debt and put money towards our retirement.


I don't want to get too happy about things as Murphy tends to hear those sorts of thoughts and starts his own plan.

A year of change

While my blogging has taken a hit this year, I did keep up with my change. I think it was a normalizing constant.

The banks are getting pickier about the prerolled $ though. Often they open up the roll of toonies and loonies as apparently people try to 'steal' by putting quarters in here and there. I don't care if they open it up. They also are pushing their money counting machine, which is all well and good. It is the actual gathering and rolling, though, that is the familiar appeal to me.

As I went through my blog to see when I had recorded it, I was surprised by how few entries I had. I feel like I deposited more than I actually have in the blog.



February - $100
June - $100
August - $100
September - $200
December - $100

For a total of $600

I could have left it alone, but I wanted to know if I only did it that often or if I had just neglected to write about it. The account I put it in has only a few movements each month so it would be easy to track.

I found 
January $100
April - $100

so I guess that brings the total to $800

I definitely need to keep better track, for my own mind

Here are my previous years' change amounts:



2012 -$549.50
2013 - $980
2014 - $512
2015 - $642
2016 - $825
2017 - $970
2018 - $840

I will continue to gather my change. I always put the first $500 towards back to school and the rest towards my TFSA.

Christmas

A quiet Christmas and I think that was ok. There were a lot of emotions to process.

Christmas eve it was just the two of us here at home. We put the Christmas tree downstairs and lit a fire in the fireplace (definitely a novelty) and watched a movie.

This morning instead of kids waking us up it was the cats, who were waiting for their breakfast.

It has snowed throughout the night and looked pretty with that new blanket covering everything. DH went and shoveled our driveway and the two neighbours (who were my neighbours growing up) then went back to the old house and shoveled there and our driveway neighbor.

He came home and we went downstairs to do our one gift exchange. Even better was watching the boys (the cats) open their first Christmas presents ever. It made me smile.

DH got me a new kitchen aide mixer, as both mine and my mom's were old generic ones who were tired from years of cookie making.

We had brunch here, just like we have had many times over the years, except that it was just the two of us. Good news though, the new smoke detector works and is ridiculously sensitive. Ahhh bacon.


We went to DH's sister's house for an early Christmas supper. Very quiet over there too. Just the two of them and my brother in law's brother from Calgary. It always bothered me how they just....sat for Christmas, even when the kids were young. Our family Christmas's were always busy doing things together. Her cats saved me though.

I did a quick stop at my oldest sister's house and visited with her grandkids for about 30 minutes and then headed home.

DH and I are curled up again downstairs to watch a movie. So very different from every Christmas we have spent.

Surfacing

I am writing to you from our new house - my childhood house.

Not gonna lie. It was a tough fall.

Going straight from dad's passing to the funeral to will issues to work to a severe case of tendonitis to hubby's torn ligaments to 5 weeks and 2 rounds of pneumonia for me - all the while trying to clean and paint and steam clean carpets at the new house....it's taken its toll.

I am still fighting depression. Still sick and coughing and weak. Money has gotten a bit out of hand.

I am appreciating this couple weeks of downtime to just breathe.

Half the new house is still unpacked and sorted. Most of our stuff is still at the old house where DS2 is holding down the fort.

I finished work Friday last week and came home and just sat. Sure there's lots to do but the hump and grind of the past 2 and a half years has eased and it was super odd to just...have...time.

I didn't quite know what to do with myself.

So for those of you still peeking to see if I am alive, thank you.

I am trying to get back to normal. or new normal. 

Where the money stands

wow I just realized I haven't done one of these since July. This life change has definitely affected me in more ways than I can count.

Debt

Mortgage - $3 461.92

College LOC - $9 000.00

Total Debt - $12 461.92

Planned Savings

TFSA - $9400

RRSP - $14 262

TFSA 2019 - $600

Back to School - $200 (used $300

Summer 2019 - $300

Christmas 2019 - $500

The mortgage will be done in a few months and by then we will be out of the house and probably know if we are keeping it  for the short term future or preparing to sell. If we keep it then we have to start saving monthly for the property tax, which we've never had to pay before as they were included in the mortgage.

The college line of credit is now below 10 000 so that is good. Hopefully there are no murphy events and I can work to eliminate this in the next 18 months

September change

well I guess a girl should clean out her vehicle more often. Between my change jar and my vehicle I had $200 in change. Mostly toonies and loonies. It all went towards my TFSA savings. Struggling to get it to that $1000

made it through September

First month of school done.

A milestone birthday done

and my first Health 'murphy'

My arm had been bugging me in mid September. Came home after school and it got worse. By midnight I couldn't move my arm and severe pain. Only would grow worse over the weekend.

Three hospital visits later including 2 pain shots, an Xray and a cortisone shot...… severe tendinitis in the shoulder. I missed a week of work. Couldn't do a thing without massive pain.

It took 14 days until I could lift my arm shoulder height  and that was probably only because of the cortisone shot.

I feel like I am starting all over again with a very tough class.

Physio 2x a week now until I have full mobility and zero pain.

painting

We are slowly making inroads on what needs to be done at the new house. At least in making a list.

What needs to be done and what needs to be bought and what we can afford are very different things.

The living room needed to be painted. There were marks on the walls from where things once were. I could not find the shade of grey-beige ( apparently called greige on pinterest blogs) to match what mom had so I had to start from scratch.

I am behind on fashion and style and I hear that grey is on it's way out but after years of a nutmeg brown at my current house, I needed something different. All those years of HGTV have to pay off somehow.

I googled south facing living rooms with lots of light and came up with a few possible shades. I got testers of four shades of grey at just under $11 each. I painted a chunk of two different walls with each of them so I could see how they look as the light changed in the room throughout the day.

One read a light grey. One read blue. One read green. The last was a darker grey that DH was sure we wanted but after seeing how it came out, it definitely would make too dark of a room.

We ended up choosing the one I had originally thought called Grey Owl by Benjamin Moore. It read well in the room and didn't clash with the carpet that I can't afford to change. We worked our way through mudding and sanding and washing the walls and part of the living room is done.

Paint is NOT cheap. Lordy. But this kind I bought covered well and we did the whole living room with one gallon so that is not bad at all.

We plan to steam clean the carpets in there. They have this huge 5 piece china cabinet set that also holds the TV. It's not something I will keep in the long run but the $ for replacing it is not top on our list. The units will have to stay pulled out until the TV provider can come in and do the wiring for it all.

 Most of the furniture they had there will stay as ours is staying here at the house for DS2. Ours is now from 2008 and quite worn. Eventually I will replace mom and dads but for now it's fine.

I plan to paint mom and dad's room next.  It is actually smaller than the one we have in our little house. And no ensuite, but then we didnt' have that here either.

There is a lot of guilt in painting over what mom did and I know she would be choked at the chaos of the house right now :-) 

August Change

I rolled and got the usual mix of $100 worth of change.

It went into the bank today and made another small movement towards my $1000 TFSA goal for the year.

Feels like everything is moving slow.

First week back

Ok not a full week but three days,

and only staff

I have not been able to spend ANY time in my room this summer.

Not only do I have to unpack everything as half the school were moved to new classrooms, I need to set up AND I need to plan.

There is often time during those first staff only days to get a few things done but not this year. Out of three days, all but 2 hours were in meetings. Super frustrating as there is so much to do. Hard to focus on yet another new initiative when your mind is whirling with all you have to do.

My butt is sore from sitting and I am feeling overwhelmed with all I have to go back and do this long weekend.

Work in progress

Last weekend before school starts back.

I am, as the title says, a work in progress.

Another summer gone. That's two in  a row now. But I would not trade my July with dad for anything, even if I did experience selfish moments of wanting time to myself.

I am grateful beyond all for the last couple months where we are able to do a lot of things, even if we had to pace and plan the energy for it.

I am grateful beyond all that he died peacefully at home and not in the hospital, languishing.

The aftermath of this has been tough. One of my sisters and I are coexecutors. The other two have legitimate health and mental health issues and that makes it hard, especially when their behavior is...…… greedy and selfish. Other family drama has happened too and it is very upsetting.

It has not been an easy two weeks as we start this process of paperwork and breaking apart all the things that made mom and dad's life.

I am grateful we did a lot of the land sale/transfer, as well as the house transfer last winter so it could fully meet dad's wishes. It also saved us from having to go through probate.

The house is a hot mess right now and I can feel mom twitching at that.

My husband and I will be moving in there after things are settled, so that also means saying goodbye to my little home of 23 years. A lot of memories here as well. My younger son will stay here at the house until at least next spring which gives us time to move in bits and pieces and not have to make rush decisions.

It also means 2 sets of home bills, though DS2 will be paying the utilities here once we are gone.

All this paperwork and details has once again pushed the grief part away and I dislike that.

Journey's end

I lost my dad yesterday.

I left him Thursday night watching Football. I went back yesterday morning to make jam with the raspberries he made and he was gone.

It just doesn't seem real.


just...…….gone

What I am reading

I have had this book over at dad's since early last winter. During my visits with him I have read through it.  I finished it this morning while sitting out by his pond, listening to the water.

All politics discussion aside, I really enjoyed the behind the scenes perspective about their journey to the White House and how it affected the people in that role.

I may have to read another book or two on this topic. I see a few other first ladies have written one as well.

What I am reading

In continuing my curiosity with the Astor family, this week I read The Astor Orphan. This is a biography by Alexandra Alrich.

This biography is about the branch of the Astor family who lived at the country home called Rokeby. While the city Astors continued to live in splendor (and sometimes excess), this branch lived on a former glorious estate that was slowly crumbling due to a lack of money. The father of Alexandra was educated as an Astor but lacked money (as did his siblings). They lived very poorly, wrapped in the memories of what life used to be like for their family.

Summer payday

Last September our pay period changed from monthly to twice a month. The 15th and the last day of the month.

A lot of people were excited about getting paid 'more often' but I was not thrilled about the switch, and 10 months later, I still don't love it.

For 25 years I had been getting paid on the 25th of each month.  Granted I didn't start to figure out the budget system until 1 years into it, but I still had that habit.

Once I got my jar system in place in 2008 things started to fall into place and it. felt. right.

I had divided it up into the payday and 3 'fake' paydays for my weekly jar money, so that I didn't overspend in the first couple weeks and then have to stretch it all out for the last 10 days.

It was a good rhythm.

With this change I had to sit down and figure out which bills came due when so I could create the bi weekly budget. Phone bill on check 1. LOC payment on check 2. That sort of thing. Some savings goals I had to split into two chunks just so that it would balance the budget.

I made a lot of errors at the start of which bills needed to go into which paydays, and had to keep switching things around.

I still do the fake payday every week so that I have a fresh reload on my jar money (groceries, gas, etc)

I know this is only short term. After all, I will be retired in the next 10 years and I will go back to once a month for my pension payment. Lord that feels weird saying. Pension payment.

What I am reading - Astors

So apparently I am on a 'Gilded Age' quest.  After reading about the Vanderbilts I headed to the library to look for books about this time period. Up came a boatload of books about the Astors. None of them were in our library current rotation so I clicked 'order' on a few of them.

Much to my surprise ALL of them came. I looked like I was writing an essay as I checked them out. The librarian said "oh we are into Non Fiction are we? Doing a research project?"  What could I say?

Apparently I am this week, I smiled sweetly.

I had no clue where to start or which one to read. Some of them definitely have that 'old library' smell to them and some are newer.

I decided to start with When the Astors Owned New York, by Justin Kaplan

It really goes back. Allllll the way back. There are  a lot of details. A lot of names. A lot of 'begats'.

But once I let go of that incessant need to really understand all of that, I started to be able to relax enough to start to enjoy it.

It really is incredible how much wealth was amassed in such a short period of time. A lot of foresight about the future of New York. A lot of excess. And not a lot of understanding of what truly makes people happy. As I read it, I never really got a sense of any of them truly being happy. 

I read as the first big hotel was built in New York City. The best, the biggest, the most excessive...and then torn down about 60 years later. 

I got this sense of  them never being satisfied.

I guess money doesn't really buy happiness.

What I am reading

I loved the Devil Wears Prada. Movie form. I did not love Weisberger's Everyone worth knowing, that I read in 2007. But when I saw this one at the library I wanted to give it a shot. Light fluffy beach reading to start off the summer.

When Life Gives You Lululemons focuses on Emily's path. It was alright, but I wonder if the movie they plan to make about it will be as good as Prada?

Sunday Funday

Today was a big day at dad's.

He has a row of pine/spruce trees along the fence line and they have needed tending for a long while. Scraggly, low hanging branches that make it tough to see the fence and tough to get to the bit of 'grass' between the trees and the fence.

DH and DS1 came over today to dad's and we cut and cut and cut. The yard has been neglected for two years now and there is a lot to be done. While they did that, I was baking in the house. Dad likes the smell of baking and misses the sounds of having people around the house so it was perfect for him.

He wasn't up to doing a lot but the supervisor chair definitely was well used as he guided the boys. We burned some of the branches while they were cutting to avoiding hauling them to the farm. We had to stop when the firepit was full of ashes.

A nice supper of BBQ burgers and then we headed home.

Slowly his yard is coming together.

Where the money stands

as of July 5th

Debt

Mortgage - $4 524.00

College LOC - $10 899.91

Total Debt - $15 423.91

Planned Savings

TFSA - $9350

RRSP - $14 262

TFSA 2019 - $200

Plates 2019 - $100 (used for jeep plates)

Back to School - $500

RRSP 2019 - $2000

Summer 2019 - $1000

Christmas 2019 - $0

I need to get cracking on my XMAS 2019. Even though I didn't use it for XMAS per se last year but channeled it towards my trip to France to see DS1, it is still essential to start savings.

Dad has signed his house over to me to avoid clawbacks when he passes away. The  property taxes are due in August and the house insurance is due in July so I need to find out how much these are and if he still plans to pay them or if that passes on to me. It's totally up to him but I am hoping he pays some of it. I have started tucking money away to help with this, but if I don't need to use it, then I will put it towards renovations and furniture when the move eventually happens as we don't plan to get rid of our little house right away.