July 26, 2014

My mom and I met my sister over at my grandma's house this morning so my mom could look at stuff. I figured she might recognize stuff that my sister and I wouldn't. We looked at stuff for awhile, talking about memories attached to different things, family history stuff, and all that. My sister found the weights for the grandfather clock and I put them back inside the base of the clock while my sister called my dad to tell him.

While on the phone with him he told her that he had heard from my grandma and there have been more developments in the taking of her stuff. I guess she is feeling out of the loop and that things will spin out of control and people will get upset. I feel safe in saying this is my aunt's fault. We were taking her at her word when she said we should take anything we wanted (assuming everything we don't take is going to be sold), figuring that her and grandma had come to that decision because they live together now. I guess not. Going with what my aunt said, it didn't seem like anyone was going to get upset. My uncle already said he wasn't interested in anything and my aunt has been up several times in the process of moving my grandma down to her house and they took stuff with them. The family here (mainly my dad, brother, sister, and myself) weren't going to fight each other for anything, we just wanted to make sure all the things that hold sentimental value were safe.

The only thing we were getting upset about was the chance that things were going to be sold or that things that should rightfully go to someone weren't going to go to that person. My dad already kind of got screwed years ago when my uncle got a player piano (which he is now thinking of getting rid of) and a phonograph (which my dad was in the middle of refinishing with the understanding that he could have it when he was done). There was the scare about the grandfather clock and now I guess my grandma mentioned that my aunt implied some interest in an old hall tree. A piece of furniture that my dad helped my grandma salvage years ago, fixing it up and refinishing it together, and it has been common knowledge and a bit of a family joke for over three decades that it was going to my dad. My aunt was supposed to get the silver and my dad the clock and the hall tree. My grandma said years ago that my aunt hasn't liked my dad since they brought him home from the hospital. This is becoming more and more evident. The family here are going to meet again tomorrow afternoon to discuss what my grandma has said and figure out the next plan of action. I just want this to be over. I want all the stuff my grandparents made over the years to be safe and I want everyone to have what they rightfully should have, and I want to be done with it.

So today I took a few more books (because those are the only things I was expressly told by my grandma that I could have) but we left everything else, until we can actually figure out what is supposed to be happening. After we left there we stopped by the new house so we could measure the windows for blinds and curtains. On the way we saw a mom turkey followed by several baby turkeys. Super cute.

When I got home I scanned the book my grandma filled out answering questions about her life. Just in case. I also figured this way I could make it a PDF and multiple people could have it. I scanned in all the pages but I still need to play with the images a little bit and make them look better before I make the PDF.

I also looked through the woodworking books I brought home from my grandma's. They each contained at least one thing that my grandpa made over the years. The one with toys and things really made me want to borrow the scroll saw from my dad and attempt some of the patterns. Maybe that bug will stick and I'll actually give it a shot.

The scanning and the reading took quite awhile and I didn't really do much with the rest of my afternoon and night. I caught up on YouTube videos, so that's something. For some reason it is already one o'clock in the morning and I probably should have gone to sleep awhile ago. I'm going to go do that now.