Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

As I mentioned in my meme, Monday morning very early I took off for my Dad’s home, arriving before 8am, and it is almost a 4hr drive. Do the math and you’ll quickly see that I got up and out of here at an ungodly, and very cold hour.

Once to my Dad’s home I started in on the cleaning-out of closets, drawers, cabinets,…30 yrs of stuff is what we’ve had to go through. It wasn’t my first day of going through this stuff and really we were on the home stretch but there were several more days of work ahead of us.

My sister walked in, found me working and did just a quick—‘oh, you’re here.’ in a tone that conveyed she was far from pleasantly surprised to see me……. Soon the doorbell rang and sis went to answer it.

“Good morning S*****” I heard my sis say in her sweet, friendly, tone, the one she always uses with her friends.

“Carole’s here? Is that a…. pleasant surprise?” Her friend replied. I couldn’t hear my sis’ response or see her face but I definitely heard the question and read between the lines.

Yea, right back to ya. And as my mom always told us; if you can’t say anything nice don’t say anything at all. I went back to work………

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This afternoon I got back home, finally. My Dad’s house is all cleaned out and that part of the process is completed. WHEW!!! No, we didn’t just start this cleaning-out process this past Monday and if I added up all my hours of working on the house, just the cleaning it out bit would easily be over 100hrs for just me. What a task this has been. There’s still quite a bit of paperwork to complete, taxes to file and stuff like that but the physical job of cleaning out 30+ years of ’stuff’ is completed and it is time to get back to the important things in life; being a mom and being a part of my kid’s education!

On my drive home ScienceKid and I were chatting. He asked if I would be upset if the kitchen looked like an M14 had gone off in it when I walked in. I replied;

“It would be pleasing to see a clean kitchen but I am past the point where I will throw a tizzie-fit if the kitchen is a mess. What I care about when I walk in is to be able to just give you and MilitaryKid a great big hug. That is what is important to me.”

And that is what going through this ordeal with my Dad’s estate has really taught me. I’m through with getting upset if the house is a mess, or the kitchen has some things out of place. I want to be with my kids, doing school, having fun with them, having adventures with them, and being here to talk with them. To too soon they will be gone and THEN I can keep the kitchen clean, the bathrooms spotless, and the place tidy. Until then I want to be here with them, doing school with them, reading what they have written, talking directly with them about what they are reading, and not directing them from some remote location.

Oh, and when SK heard my response to his question, I heard a big sigh of relief through the phone before he read me his Biology essay over the cell phone to me. And as for the kitchen, it wasn’t that bad or messy. Nothing that can’t wait for another day. YEA, this is a new chapter in our lives.