BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

My New Couch, and By Couch I Mean Futon

Yesterday I upset my one cat.  She'll get over it.  She'll find other places to sleep her days away.

I took the futon from the room next to mine and moved it downstairs to the living room.  I now have a couch in the living room to lounge out on and watch Netflix.  By couch though I mean futon.  It's an Ikea Munkarp futon.  Or that's what it says on the tag.

It's waaaaay low to the ground.  I feel like maybe it's not together properly.  It works though.  The problem is I don't know where it came from or how it goes together, unfortunately.  It was just in the room next to mine when I moved back home, it wasn't here when I moved out.  So at some point during the years that I was living in my apartment... Someone at some point brought the thing over and it ended up in the room next to mine.

Of course the only one to ever use it was Fluff.  She basically claimed it as her bed.

I then took the old throw rug of about 10 feet or so in size and put that on the floor as to make the room into a creative space.

I'm starting to be a little more "ok" with making changes around the house.  It's slow going and it's hard. It's REALLY hard.  I keep imagining my mom coming in the room that I'm working in asking me what I'm doing or commenting how she likes this or doesn't like that.  Or how she would most likely say "Oh great Ken!  Now when you're done with that I have a whole list of things that you can do since you're moving furniture around".  She was big on... If I got the vacuum out to clean one small thing...  She ask me to clean the whole house.

It was a bit like the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie type of thing.  "Oh, while you're doing that..."

But that's why I moved home.  To do that stuff for her.

So here I am now with this house and I can just... Do things here or there or however.  Each little change makes it less her house and more mine I guess.  That makes it especially hard.  Because each little change is a little tiny bit of her that is lost... That fades, chips away... Little changes by little changes... my little changes.

The house exactly the way she left in in November... Slowly it becomes something new without her still here to put her little touch on it.

I'm also using the room next door to organize and sort things with estate papers and such in boxes.  I've worked my way mostly through the things that I could do.  It's a mix of things that I have control over and can work on versus things that are left to other people.  The two trusts are kind of out of my hands and involve others to work on.  Attorneys and financial people and bank trust officers and such.  So that's just a waiting game with those.

Estates take a while... As do trusts... Or maybe this is just situational and most other families it's all over and done in like a few days.  I don't really know or have anyone else to compare it to.

My theory is this... When someone passes away, the stronger their spirt is... The more gusto they had in life... The longer it takes to settle their affairs, because they don't want to be forgotten.  They want people to talk about them.  To think about them.  They still want to be around.  So their spirit throws wrenches in the mix to make things take longer.

My grandfather really didn't want to go... So that's why his stuff is still unsettled.  Although hopefully the next court hearing will be the last... Or one of the last.  Then that can just be moved to the successor trustee and we can get our first distribution from it followed by letting the rest of the money stay invested and earn a return so that when we do need it in the future it will continue to grow and there will be more.

I'm a big fan of saving and investing and growing your savings.  I'm not a big fan of oh look here's money.... SWEET LET'S TRAVEL AND BUY A LOT OF NEW STUFF AND BLOW IT ALL!

No thanks.  I want my money to not only last but to continue to build and build into the future so that I will have plenty to leave for my kids, and my grandkids and great grandkids and great great grandkids...

Etc. etc.  The key word here is budget.  Manage your money and keep and eye on it and keep to strict budgets.  Track your returns and track how much you spend on what and exactly where it goes.  Track all your bills and all your purchases.

I'm a huge fan of geeking out with Excel and making budget spreadsheets.

This is why instead of just going out and buying a new couch because there will eventually be estate and trust money and just slapping my credit card down and saying to myself, I'll worry about it later...

I just repurposed the futon and rug that I already had.

So anyways, I'm just kind of... Going with the flow.  Doing what I can between the whole moments when you just sit and cry.  It happens.  I'm not going to deny it.  It happens a lot still.

It's almost 4 months since my mom died.  I miss her every day.  As do her cats.  There are currently 3 of the 4 sitting on my bed sleeping.  Never mind, two sitting on the bed.  One just jumped off the bed and over to my lap.

So just remember any time something pops back up from a lost loved one... My theory is, it's just them saying hello...

Find a photo of them and say to them, "Don't worry... You will not be forgotten."

It will help to settle their restless spirit.