moving + pictures

I’m supposed to be packing, but I fail at that. I’m really tired. It was a very long day.

We’re moving in a week and a half. I listed the condo for rent on Craigslist and we already have 2 people who want it. I initially listed it for the full amount of the mortgage and HOA fee ($867 at the moment) but got not responses. I didn’t think I would. It is a good location, but very small. With the housing market here no one in there right mind would rent this place for that much. Michael told me to list it for $700 and we’d take a hit on the $150 a month. We can afford the mortgage. And with the given housing market, we will be able to find a house for far less than our current mortgage so in the end we won’t be spending more than we are right now. I’m hoping to only rent it that low for 6 months to a year. I’m not holding my breath, but I do hope home values start to rise in a year or so and we can charge more. We’d really like to avoid foreclosure. I probably got 2 quick responses because I said that bad credit is ok and we would look past it. So many places are being stringent on credit right now because they’ve been burned. The way I see it, if someone tries to fuck us over, well, we were already ok with the other alternative of letting it be foreclosed.

The sooner we get out, the sooner someone else can pay this mortgage and we can start saving for a down payment on a bigger house. I we had more time than a week and a half, but we’ll survive I suppose.

Michael’s grandmother had a stroke on Sunday. I’m not sure how much longer she has to live. She has extensive brain damage. She can still walk with assistance and she even tries to talk, but a lot of what she says doesn’t make sense. She can sometimes form sentences, and other times it just comes out as a random words. The stroke has pretty much blinded her. When Michael walked up to her when we went to visit her in the hospital she asked him, "Are you Jesus?". It was so very sad. She isn’t even my grandmother and I had a hard time not crying. She kept begging to go home. She doesn’t want any more medical treatment, she just wants to die in peace at home. She has a heart condition and COPD. Because of the heart condition it is difficult for them to keep any more strokes from happening. They think shes been having small ones for the last 3 years (her vision had been rapidly deteriorating and they initially thought it was macular degeneration, they’re now pretty certain it was multiple small strokes).

I feel so bad for her. She’s 86 years old. I think she’s ready to go. She has lost 2 of her children to breast cancer (Michael’s mother a little over 2 years ago, and Michael’s Uncle 12 or so years ago I believe). No mother should have to see her child die, especially not 2 of her children. Her husband has been dead for 10 or so years. I could understand just wanting to be done. Because of the COPD she isn’t in good health. She is on oxygen most of the day and even then her O2 sats are low.

It is just so sad to see her confused and unable to communicate effectively. A couple months ago I sat there talking to her about childbirth and breastfeeding. Yesterday she couldn’t say my name and kept calling me Catherine (my sister-in-law). I think she knew who I was, but her brain just wasn’t letting her express the connection.

It makes me sad that Guinevere won’t get to know her. She is a sweet, wonderful woman. Even through her confusion she sat there loving on Gwennie and petting her leg. She was so happy to have the baby near her.

I can’t continue, it’s making me too sad. I need to write about something else…
 

I have some pictures of Gwennie from the past couple weeks. And some of Parker. The lighting in our house is so horrendous. In the middle of the day, with all the blinds open I still have to shoot at 1600 ISO. It is ridiculous. I get frustrated taking pictures because of the horrible lighting. That is at least one perk to moving in with Michael’s dad. I can take her in the backyard and take more pictures than I have been. Half of these were actually taken there lol.