New Year, Here We Go

 I hate change.  I really really hate it.  Life is all "change change change change and change some more."  2024 was the great "you will do nothing but deal with ridding yourself of piles of crap" but the piles of crap just kept growing.  I decided my life started going downhill when the Clarinda house was sold and just never got back on an uphill trajectory.  We gave away so much of the furniture from that house and stored the rest in our downtown building, and then out of nowhere, someone wants to buy the building.  I give away more stuff,  I rent a storage locker and still there is too much left--a pile of furniture has been sitting in my sister's tractor shed for almost a year now, thank goodness she doesn't care.  Then there was the father-in-law motorcycle and car part nightmare to deal with because I had to sell it all to settle the estate.  In the end, we just bought the motorcycles that were complete to be able to close the estate, so I still have those to deal with.  There are still assorted radios and piles of speakers and 78 records piled up on my porch.  Oh, and there is a stack of unsold parts sitting in my music room, along with 2 cupboards that we put there "temporarily" two years ago.  Hoping 2025 will see the final clear out, but old change has to get in the way again.  Husband should really be retired, but not only is he still working, but he agreed to help the hospital start a new clinic in a town a bit closer to us than his current clinic.  New patients mean stress, and more stress.  A joyous change, but also a stressful one is that my daughter Anna is expecting a baby girl!  Yay!  Stressful part is she can't afford to not work, and I have volunteered to care for the baby while she is teaching.  I did raise my two girls and did it well, but they were a year old when i met them, and I don't have too much of a clue on what to do with a newborn.  I am also no help at all when Anna has questions about being pregnant and have to refer her to my sisters for advice.  There is a possibility that she and her husband and new baby may move back in with us, as their apartment is so tiny and lease up right when baby is arriving.  Finding a larger yet affordable home has been daunting.  In some ways it would be so much easier to have them here, baby wouldn't have to be driven back and forth, but it would be hard on them to lose their autonomy.  Starting a family is hard enough without having to move back in with your parents.

In the meantime, I must work madly to get all my projects done before baby becomes my job.