stlukesguild
Well-known member
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I haven't been online for some time now due to some real chaos in my life. After moving out of my studio of some 12 or 15 years a year and a half ago, I fixed up a bedroom in the house as a small studio. Over this past Summer, I did a good deal of painting and fixing up around the home. This past July our back porch collapsed. Rather than fix it our landlady decided with the boom in house prices that she would sell. We were in the home as a "rent to own" but the original owner placed a number of his homes in the names of various family members to spread out the tax liability. Our home was placed in the name of his brother's wife. She started an affair with a doctor and was awarded the home when she divorced her husband. We found out about her intention to sell back in July. The intended buyer informed us that he was going to fix up the home and our rent would increase (to be expected) but we'd be able to stay on after living here 13 years. On October 1st, however, we were informed that the original buyer backed out and a new buyer had bought the home and given us 30 days to vacate! We were stuck trying to box up 13 years of accumulated crap in less than 30 days... while I was working full time. 4000 books! 3500 CDs! Art Work & Art Supplies! Furniture, etc...
We began running loads of books, CDs, and Artwork over to my wife's mother's home: a huge 8 bedroom ranch about a 45-minute drive away. In the midst of this, we were also looking for a new home in the middle of COVID and in this crappy market for buyers/renters. We also needed to line up help for the move. By mid-October, we had yet to find a new place to live. My wife's mother offered us the use of her basement with 4 bedrooms. She could no longer access the basement herself due to problems with her legs and spine (She was 80+). However, she didn't want our dogs. There's no way I'd get rid of the dogs, so my brother, who lived with us, lined up a friend with an upstairs where he and the dogs could stay while we continued to look for a "dog friendly" home.
Two weeks before the end of the month my wife's mother fell. She needed to be rushed to the hospital and then to a nursing rehab facility. My wife's Sister was the Mother's executor and her husband... a real asshole... decided that Mom really didn't want us living with her and so he rescinded her offer. My Wife's Mother's health then rapidly declined and by the last 3 days prior to our move, she was back home with Hospice care with my wife staying with her. Then the movers announced they couldn't move us until November 10 (10 days too late) due to a shortage of employees thanks to COVID. At the same time, the family members who were supposed to help with the move also reneged... and my brother and I were stuck having to load everything into a truck and move it to a temporary storage site. Of course, it had to start raining in the midst of the move. When we completed moving all the essentials... and leaving a lot behind
... we moved into a long-term "dog-friendly" hotel completely exhausted. And it couldn't end there. Just as we settled in and ordered out for pizza, a neighbor in the hotel burned their dinner, setting off the fire alarm. We had to take the dogs out on a leash and stand in the rain for some 15 minutes until the firemen did a complete walk-through.
The next day... Halloween... we returned the rental truck and pulled out the last items we could take in my SUV and that of my Mother-in-Law. I then had to run our older daughter to the airport. She had flown in from New Jersey to see her grandmother and need to be back at work Monday. On Tuesday my Wife's Mother passed... on my birthday! With much of our crap boxed away in storage, we had to rush out and buy some clothes for the funeral and then organize the showing, funeral, and post-funeral dinner. I've spent nearly the last 2 weeks absolutely exhausted. Every muscle in my body aches... especially my back. While the hotel is expensive and cramped I've decided not to move until after the worst of Winter passes. I just cannot imagine moving again any time soon... and certainly not facing carrying heavy boxes and appliances down a snow-covered ramp from the moving truck.
It looks like no Art-making in the foreseeable future. And now the school year is getting overwhelming as the holidays approach.
We began running loads of books, CDs, and Artwork over to my wife's mother's home: a huge 8 bedroom ranch about a 45-minute drive away. In the midst of this, we were also looking for a new home in the middle of COVID and in this crappy market for buyers/renters. We also needed to line up help for the move. By mid-October, we had yet to find a new place to live. My wife's mother offered us the use of her basement with 4 bedrooms. She could no longer access the basement herself due to problems with her legs and spine (She was 80+). However, she didn't want our dogs. There's no way I'd get rid of the dogs, so my brother, who lived with us, lined up a friend with an upstairs where he and the dogs could stay while we continued to look for a "dog friendly" home.
Two weeks before the end of the month my wife's mother fell. She needed to be rushed to the hospital and then to a nursing rehab facility. My wife's Sister was the Mother's executor and her husband... a real asshole... decided that Mom really didn't want us living with her and so he rescinded her offer. My Wife's Mother's health then rapidly declined and by the last 3 days prior to our move, she was back home with Hospice care with my wife staying with her. Then the movers announced they couldn't move us until November 10 (10 days too late) due to a shortage of employees thanks to COVID. At the same time, the family members who were supposed to help with the move also reneged... and my brother and I were stuck having to load everything into a truck and move it to a temporary storage site. Of course, it had to start raining in the midst of the move. When we completed moving all the essentials... and leaving a lot behind
... we moved into a long-term "dog-friendly" hotel completely exhausted. And it couldn't end there. Just as we settled in and ordered out for pizza, a neighbor in the hotel burned their dinner, setting off the fire alarm. We had to take the dogs out on a leash and stand in the rain for some 15 minutes until the firemen did a complete walk-through.The next day... Halloween... we returned the rental truck and pulled out the last items we could take in my SUV and that of my Mother-in-Law. I then had to run our older daughter to the airport. She had flown in from New Jersey to see her grandmother and need to be back at work Monday. On Tuesday my Wife's Mother passed... on my birthday! With much of our crap boxed away in storage, we had to rush out and buy some clothes for the funeral and then organize the showing, funeral, and post-funeral dinner. I've spent nearly the last 2 weeks absolutely exhausted. Every muscle in my body aches... especially my back. While the hotel is expensive and cramped I've decided not to move until after the worst of Winter passes. I just cannot imagine moving again any time soon... and certainly not facing carrying heavy boxes and appliances down a snow-covered ramp from the moving truck.
It looks like no Art-making in the foreseeable future. And now the school year is getting overwhelming as the holidays approach.
