Friday Progress

The cavalry arrived today. My sister and her husband returned from a respite in Door County. Add to that a repeat visit from my cousin Sue and we had a fairly good team assembled. For a moment it felt like we were going about as fast as we possibly could without missing something.

I think we have a plan. I'm not sure how well we'll stick to it, but at least I can look at a calendar and have some idea what city I will be in. The first day of class is looming pretty large on the horizon and what with all that's going on it sure would be nice to find a few days on a beach or a pool before that happens.

There was a comment about my "to do" lists. Really these are more like "to-did" lists. That's been the toughest part from a project management standpoint, I don't really have a to-do list. I mean, the house is like a giant 3-D to do list but beyond that... organization is not the strong suit of this project.

And yet, progress happens.

Like today:

1. Went to the self storage and bought some boxes. I am still trying to come up with recycled boxes for giveaways, but we've finally gotten to the point where it makes sense to start packing some of what we're keeping.
2. Assembled said boxes.
3. Called two estate liquidator people. I'm having trouble figuring out how to deal with some of the flotsam. There's this class of stuff that doesn't fit into "take" or "trash" or "give away." I think the column it goes under is "sell," but I'm not sure how that works.
4. With the whole group powered through a bunch of sorting, sending another carload out with my cousin. This was pretty much the last of the clothes, the bulk of the stuff we cleared from the office yesterday, and even some of the backlog my sister created clearing bedrooms last week.
5. Signed with the realtor. (does anyone know why that word always wants to be capitalized?)
6. Talked to the GC. Every time I pick up the phone his bid goes up $500, but I had thought his first pass was low; so so far I'm not too cross.
7. Reviewed the state of the paperwork with my sister, she'd done some work in that area while I was away.
8. Made a run to Goodwill. There were some bulkier items that helped justify my driving here in my truck.
9. Bought an external hard drive for the purpose of offloading the files on my Dad's computers. I bought one that isn't native for Macs. Might have to return it and try again.
   
10. Spoke to the first of the estate people. She's going to come by and check out the situation, but from the call I am fairly sure we won't be working together. She does "Estate Sales" and I don't think that's really what we need - but we'll see.
11. Wrote to the attorney. We're again creeping forward.
12. Wrote to the investment manager.
13. Reviewed the GC's bid. He dropped one item, but otherwise it looks like what he last told me (you know, the third time).

When I was doing some of that correspondence I finally opened my folder and found two things I should have done already, so maybe that's the start of the to do list.

We'll be here all weekend. If you're around and would like to stop by and say hello I'm sure we could come up with some kind of parting gift for you.