Damn, more than a month since I updated!?!?
OK, it has been busy. Here's the short version - I thought we were going to have to sell our house. The decision had been made, we were talking to real estate agents and looking at places up in VT.
Then my grandmother got sick - well, sort of. She's almost 93, and although in really good health for her age, not really able to take care of herself as well as she used to be. She lived in a two family home and my brother lived upstairs. But my brother moved out in June, and we had been trying to talk her into moving in with me for a while so she wouldn't be on her own. The second weekend after my brother moved out I was in VT. While I was away she had an anxiety attack - the realization finally hit her that she was home alone, probably for the first time in her life that there wasn't family of some form in the same building.
Well, the family had a pow-wow. My grandmother knew she couldn't stay on her own, and conceded to moving in with one of us. My mother talked with her, and in the end we decided she would move in with me. I would take responsibility for all of her bills and such and the bulk of her SS checks would go to me (she gets a small pension as well) and we would rent both apartments in the Chelsea home. I would take charge of managing the rental stuff and could draw a little off that income as well. All in all enough extra cashflow to get our budget balanced.
I'd still like to move to VT with the rest of the family someday soon. But this works well for the next year or three, and we live close to my grandmothers old home, so she can still see her friends and go to the same church and stuff, which should help ease her transition.
Meanwhile, I've fallen way behind at work. Maybe by winter things will have settled down for a bit!
OK, it has been busy. Here's the short version - I thought we were going to have to sell our house. The decision had been made, we were talking to real estate agents and looking at places up in VT.
Then my grandmother got sick - well, sort of. She's almost 93, and although in really good health for her age, not really able to take care of herself as well as she used to be. She lived in a two family home and my brother lived upstairs. But my brother moved out in June, and we had been trying to talk her into moving in with me for a while so she wouldn't be on her own. The second weekend after my brother moved out I was in VT. While I was away she had an anxiety attack - the realization finally hit her that she was home alone, probably for the first time in her life that there wasn't family of some form in the same building.
Well, the family had a pow-wow. My grandmother knew she couldn't stay on her own, and conceded to moving in with one of us. My mother talked with her, and in the end we decided she would move in with me. I would take responsibility for all of her bills and such and the bulk of her SS checks would go to me (she gets a small pension as well) and we would rent both apartments in the Chelsea home. I would take charge of managing the rental stuff and could draw a little off that income as well. All in all enough extra cashflow to get our budget balanced.
I'd still like to move to VT with the rest of the family someday soon. But this works well for the next year or three, and we live close to my grandmothers old home, so she can still see her friends and go to the same church and stuff, which should help ease her transition.
Meanwhile, I've fallen way behind at work. Maybe by winter things will have settled down for a bit!