End of Life Planning . . . Lessons Learned

On February 12, my hubby's dad (aka Papa Doc) passed away suddenly and very unexpectedly. This meant that my husband flew to Oklahoma for the funeral and to see what needed to be done. Little did we know what was in store for us . . . . Let's just say we have learned A LOT, both good and bad, regarding end of life planning. Before I begin to list some of those things, let me explain a little about the family dynamics:

Jim's mother, "C", was married to another man before she married Papa Doc. The marriage was short lived and she was divorced while she was pregnant with their only child, who was a girl that was named big "K". C later married Papa Doc and they had three children together, my hubby, J, and a baby boy that died shortly after birth. Papa Doc adopted Big K (who later changed her last name and legally had the adoption cancelled so that she was no longer legally Papa Doc's daughter). C then passed away and Papa Doc re-married a lady by the name of "Oma". She brought with her two kids, named "Little K" and S, from a previous marriage. Need a recap? That means that for my hubby there is a half-sister, a biological sister, a step-sister, and a step-brother. Confused yet? Hold on.

Oma had a heart attack/stroke about a year and a half ago that completely incapacitated her. She now lives in a nursing home full-time and is unable to feed herself, walk, sit up on her own and has very limited communication skills.

Now that you have the background, you can see how confusing things can be and how messy a will and other such paperwork and be complicated. Luckily, Papa Doc did his best to keep the will and such paper work up to date and had in fact updated the will in September of 2011. Unfortunately, he did not tell anyone what it contained or who was in charge of what, which everyone has been finding out more and more time has progressed. Consequently, here are some of the things we have learned both good and bad:

1. Communication is key! While end of life planning and discussions are definitely not pleasant, they are important so that at least the parties who will be in charge will know that they are and be prepared if the time comes. For example, we just recently found out that not only is my hubby a co-executor of the will with his sister, J, but also has power of attorney over Oma. We now have to scramble to get paperwork and are dealing with the ugliness of jealousy and sense of entitlement of others. It would have been nice to have known this was coming and to have a copy of the paperwork, especially since we don't live anywhere close to where everything is.

2. Any anger, frustration, jealousy, ill feelings, etc. of any kind that were there before the death of the parent will be intensified 100x, especially if money is involved. The things that have been said or actions that have been taken have been not only shocking, but saddening. Ultimately, it is the deceased person's money and wishes and that is it. Taking it out on each other changes nothing. However, if people think that they may get more money or things by threatening legal action, they will especially if they are in financial need.

3. Including a "no contest" clause is also vital! Luckily, Papa Doc did include a clause that if anyone contested anything in the will, there would be consequences. While it is still yet to be seen if this will be tested, we are glad it is put in there.

4. Include someone else on your bank account(s). This can be a scary decision to make since they could easily wipe you out. (Found that out through my divorce.) However, if you have someone you can trust, this makes things so much easier. Otherwise, once the bank finds out you are deceased, if there is no other person listed, they will freeze all accounts until the death certificate and execution of the will occurs. This can take a loooooooooooooooooooooooong time and in the meantime bills still have to be paid and settled and some people are not willing to work with those left to deal with all of this. Luckily, this was all taken care of.

5. Funeral/burial planning makes things so much easier for those left behind. Surprisingly enough Papa Doc had done this just weeks before he passed away. Now it is just a matter of writing a check, which can be done since J is on the accounts and there is money in there for this expense.

6. Do NOT put off the planning, putting it all in writing, and making it legal! You just never know. In no way did any of us expect that Papa Doc would be the first of our parents to go. Between my parents' bouts of cancer and Oma's health condition, we were sure that one of them would be first. Papa Doc was the only one that did not have any health problems and he did have regular check ups. We are so thankful that he had updated things. Things would be so much more messy and complicated otherwise. In fact my hubby and I are putting are things together and will be meeting with an attorney ourselves in the next month to finalize our things. While we hope we or others will never have to use them, we have seen firsthand how important it is to have them in place, especially when you have minor children and/or estranged family members that could potentially hurt other heirs.

You just never know, so be prepared. Those left behind will thank you! (At least those who are nice will.)

Busy! Busy! Busy!

Okay, so I am a slacker blogger, but I have a legitimate excuse. I have been B-U-S-Y! Since I am definitely not one of those girls who feels "the best I have ever felt when I was pregnant", I know where my limits are and try to plan accordingly since I swell up more and more as the pregnancy progresses and my eyesight goes further south as well. Not to mention that this time my SI joint is giving me fits thanks to one of my car wrecks from years ago. (Hopefully, everything goes back to "normal" after the baby is born.) Anywhoo . . . I, consequently, I have been in the crafting mode since I don't know how much longer I can sit at a sewing machine, let alone see well enough to sew. I also wanted to get all of my cards done that we know the themes for through May so that I had one less thing off my plate. (Okay, I'll confess! I am avoiding doing anymore organizing and rearranging of rooms for awhile. Frankly, it is just a boring, tiresome, and annoying task. Plus it helps get my mind off of my hubby's work nonsense and family drama.)

So here are my latest projects:

March's Card:

Half of us were assigned baby girl and the other baby boy. Again, I used a Silhouette pre-design for parts of it, but added the embellishments myself. It is kind of hard to see, but I have made the hangers myself that the onsie is hanging on. They were surprisingly easier and I definitely got better as I went along.

April's Card:

For this month, half of us are assigned birthday cards and the other half birthday tags. Luckily, I got tags. These were so easy to put together!

May's Card:

This month we are assigned to do wedding cards. In my head, this design was so simple. However, I literally spent 2 1/2 - 3 hours on each one. I am so glad they are done and will NEVER do them again. Although, I really liked how they turned out. I used a punch for the flowers but then folded each one by hand, glued each one on by hand, and glued the pearls on the bigger flowers, each one by hand.

Since the only car seat cover I had was one that was for winter, because Little Man was born in November and this one is due the end of April/beginning of May, I knew I needed one that would be more appropriate for warmer weather. After a little research, I was able to find instructions online how to make one. Here is what I came up with:

I really wanted the accent fabric to be a navy blue with light blue polka dots, but you would be surprised that that type of fabric CANNOT be found easily or economically. Consequently, I went with what I could find which is more of a cobalt blue with navy polka dots. However, I could find that pattern in ribbon, so to "girl" up the cover I made the bows that are attached. (My husband is freaking out. He is so NOT a "bow" person.)


Not too bad, for my first boutique bow if I say so myself.

I also made a bow holder board for our little girl's room. Thanks to some fabric, quilt batting, ribbon, and a staple gun this went together pretty easy.


For the embellishments, I used leftover fabric and covered jumbo quilt thumb tacks.
Of course, now I have bows to make, which I know I am going to need because of my refusal to have pink and I don't want her to be mistaken to be a boy. (I am seriously contemplating making a onsie for her that says "Real girls wear blue." A tongue-in cheek to the "Real men wear pink" shirts that I have seen men wear.) So I have been buying ribbon, lace, and other accessories much to my husband's dismay. Those are next on the list so stay tuned! Okay, and maybe I will begrudgingly work on the office/craft room/I don't know where to put it room downstairs. Ugggghhh!

February Card

The theme this month is Mother's Day and Father's Day cards. I was assigned Father's Day and as I soon as I saw this design in Sillhouette's design studio, I knew it was what I was going to use:

I added buttons and the ribbon to the pocket, because I thought they were cuter than the paper cut outs. Overall, it was pretty easy and fun to make. I have March's and April's done. May, however . . . . . That is a whole other story. They are taking me FOREVER! Hopefully, I will have them done by this weekend and then I can focus on Elie's stuff.

Am I Ready For This?

Needless to say, I am a little freaked out about all this. In fact I went to look at dresses the other night at the mall and after going to two different stores walked out empty handed and almost bolted to the car. Bows, tights, dresses, shoes, etc. . . . . It is all so overwhelming! Boys are so much easier to dress.

It is making me crazy that when a lot of people find out we are having a girl, they immediately begin regaling me with stories of how I need to dress her up like a doll and have all of these "accessories". It truly freaks me out and overwhelms me more than I already am. Not to mention, trying to find non-pink baby girl things that are somewhat cute and girly is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Someone really needs to get a designer on board with non-pink items. They would make a killing from all of us non-pink loving mommas.

January Card

I know that January is almost over, but I have been crazy busy trying to switch around rooms and other projects that I'll show you later. Here is the card for January:

Pretty simplistic, but I liked the idea of flowers since that is something people sometimes give when they want to let someone know they care.

Frustration, Disgust, Exhaustion, Annoyance, Anxious, Etc.

Right now we are in the throws of rearranging rooms to create a nursery and starting to get ready to stage our home. At first the momentum I had was going strong! I made small goals for myself each day and worked really hard to meet each one. Then came time to move . . . . . . THE DESK! I'm not going to lie. This thing is a beast and honestly is way too big for our home, but to buy something that meets our needs currently is just not financially possible right now and wouldn't be the best idea since we are hoping to move. Yet, we still needed to move this monstrosity to clear out what used to be the office. Which meant I needed to move things around in the now former craft room to make room for the desk. In doing so, I moved my sewing table and promptly popped one of the legs off, and almost another. (Pretty impressive since it is a solid pine.) This has slowed things way down since I am not able to fix it myself because I am not quite sure where all the tools are. Now we are in a sort of Catch 22, because 1. We don't know how long we will be here, which puts us in a total quandary as to what we should keep or get rid of since we are hoping to get a house that better fits our needs and I don't want to get rid of stuff to just later re-buy it if we are able to get the house we are hoping for. 2. I am not really keen on getting a storage until we are really serious about staging and putting the house on the market. Our budget is shrinking rapidly due to higher prices on everything, a new baby, a growing boy, and having to fill up hubby's car at least twice a week thanks to the "lovely" working location he now has and we are stuck funding the gas on our own. Consequently, I don't want to add another monthly expense until we really, really have to.

The good thing that has occurred is that there has been a lot of clutter and junk that has been leaving our home. I won't tell just how much since we are still not done and it is embarrassing, but let's just say that when we were married five years ago and combined two full households and never consolidated or dejunked prior to moving in: there is a lot that has needed to go bye-bye. The other good thing is that I am finding places for things and may now actually be able to find them when I need them. Plus literally hundreds of pages of notes, copies of lectures, printed articles from hubby's schooling has all gone away! That alone has freed up a lot of space in the desk and bookcase. YEAH!

Between all of this and not knowing if we are truly moving and if we are then where to, that status of my husband's job and all of that stuff that is going on, not to mention I am rapidly reaching that point of pregnancy uncomfortableness, I am really starting to feel overwhelmed, frustrated, discouraged, anxious, etc. This is not where my strength lies . . . dealing with the unknowns. In fact, I hate it. It is very unsettling and makes me very anxious, especially when I am so strongly indirectly impacted by another person's decisions that truly are life changing. So for now I will head to bed and try to lay my worries aside until tomorrow. Until then a lot of prayers will once again be floated upwards and hopefully answers and resolutions will be found soon.

The Year In Review

I know. I know. I need to post pictures, and trust me I have some. However, right now I don't know where the cord is for the camera since we are in the process of moving things all around the house in hopes to eventually create the nursery. (Boy, this has become such a much bigger project than anticipated!) However, in the meantime as the old year leaves us and a new year begins I can't help but think back on this past year.

"We make plans and God laughs."
I know I have used that phrase a lot, but honestly that is truly how this past year has gone. At the beginning of the year, we had a lot of plans. We knew there were a lot of endings coming in the year which would also lead to a lot of new beginnings. We just did not realize just what type of results each one would truly bring nor had any way of anticipating what they would bring.

2011:

1. Child support FINALLY ended! Unfortunately, it did not end as smoothly as we had hoped. Instead, it ended as we had feared. Jim's daughter legally changed her last name on her 18th birthday without telling us and his ex-wife attempted to have child support reinstated after his daughter had graduated from high school and the child support had ended. Consequently, a lot of bad feelings have intensified not only with his daughter and ex-wife, but my husband's family as well. This has led to several relationships being severed that I do not know will ever be repaired. I hope with time that they can. However, it is truly nice not having a court order hanging over us and making all of us have contact with one another when that is not in the best interest of anyone at this time with emotions running so high.

2. A new contractor was named on the project that Jim works on. Out of the three contractors that were in the final decision, this was the one company we hoped would not get the contract because we knew what it would mean for the employees and the community. While we did survive a pretty hefty layoff that occurred, my husband now has to commute out to the actual nuclear site which has resulted in a hour to hour and a half drive each way. He is unable to ride on the site buses because he is a subcontractor and is also unable to ride in the van provided by his actual company he is an employee for due to his work schedule that he is required to work by the contractor management. Instead he gets $7.50/day in gas reimbursement and that is it. Since I am unable to divulge a lot of details for various reasons, the work conditions have also been compromised so we are currently trying to decide what is best for our family at this time.

3. After several failed infertility treatments, being told there is nothing more that medically could be done, and suffering a miscarriage, we discovered that I actually was pregnant in August of 2011. So far the pregnancy has been "normal" including horrible "morning" sickness that has decided to once again to rear its ugly head. The plus side: we know the baby is alive and kicking. Also, we just had the "big" ultrasound and everything is looking completely normal. Truly a blessing!

4. Jim graduated from with his master's degree in December and even with a 4.0 gpa! How is that possible when he previously had two Bs? They were from ISU and transferred to U of I as just passing with not impact on his overall gpa. He has taken the PhD entrance exam and we are still waiting to hear the results of that, but regardless he is taking the spring semester off! This is not only due to the extra help I need with Tre as the pregnancy progesses and after the baby is born, but his present work situation does not allow him to attend school. In fact one class this last semester he was unable to attend at all after September and luckily was able to still get an A with the lecture notes the professor posted and the professor's understanding. What a blessing! He is now studying for his professional engineer credential exam, since it is required for a lot of different jobs that he has looked at.

5. Some remodeling has been done on our home, including: replacing the surround in the master bath with tile, adding railing to the deck, repainting the main room and hallway in the basement, adding a sprinkler system to the front yard, replacing the counter tops in the kitchen with granite and adding a tile back splash. Now that Jim is out of school, we plan to hit the remodeling again. This will include replacing all the flooring in the upstairs, completing the laundry room, replacing the trim and repainting the two bedrooms in the basement, fixing cracks in the wall, touch up painting upstairs, and STAGING! Our goal is to have the house on the market by the end of March. (Fingers crossed.)

6. After a year of several misdiagnoses of arthritis and other things, we finally had Jim see an orthopedic surgeon for his shoulder and found out that he had bone spur, bursitis, and two tears within his rotator cuff that all required surgery to clean it up. While others were celebrating their graduation, we were spending his graduation day in the hospital. Amazingly enough he has been healing rather quickly and was able to go back to work within a week. We feel truly blessed, especially when we know what could have been the outcome and are reminded of this every time he goes to physical therapy and we see all the other people there who have had shoulder surgery and have long recoveries ahead of them. He is not 100%, but will be with time.

7. Cancer has once again reared its ugly head in the Boyd family. My father is currently battling colon cancer and one my nephews is battling some type of cancer in his brain. I don't want to/can't go into a lot of details. Let's just say cancer sucks and it's time for our family's turn to end. If nothing else, remember to hug your loved ones a little tighter. You just never know.

With all of this in mind, we have a long year ahead of us with lots of changes and uncertainty. The biggest one of uncertainty for our own little family is where we will be living by this time next year. The only thing I know for sure is that it will not be at our present location. Should be interesting with a toddler and a newborn, but somehow we will make it work. We always do.