FD, IA - We Are Our Parents Own Children

I’ve sprinkled pictures of the rooms of Lug and Darlene’s home throughout this blog entry so you can see how nice it is. And, if you’d like to make an offer, the realtor is . . . Well, probably you don’t. We have lots of pictures but all of them show an empty house and, who wants to advertise on an MLS listing that the house is unoccupied. Might invite vandalism. So, the only pictures that the realtor could put online were 3 pictures of the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which still look like people live in the house. Very neat, prissy people but at least it looks occupied.

I’d love to see my brother in this house since I think it is much better than the one he’s living in. However, the distinction is ‘I think’ and it’s not what Jack thinks because he’s looking for something that is ‘perfect’ for him. Besides, buying a new house means CHANGE. Change is tough. Gary and I, as we drive throughout the USA in our motorhome, thrive on change: new campgrounds, new sights, new grocery stores new trails, etc. And, then we return to Iowa every spring and visit Jack and Lug who don’t want any change to mar their scheduled lives.

It is 8:00 pm and Gary is still working, though at this time, he’s just checking to see what tools and supplies he’ll need to buy at Menards tomorrow for his projects then. Actually, he planned to go to Menards tonight but just couldn’t face it at 7:00 pm when he will be searching for various parts and options and will be mulling them over. We wouldn’t have gotten home until 8:30 and then we’d barely get done with showers and have to drop into bed.

We awoke at the usual time this morning, had breakfast and then Cathy showed up to look at the house prior to the meeting with, Dwight, the Realtor, at 10:00. At this meeting, Dwight explained what he would do, what price he’d sell it at and how he would approach the sale. Gary and Cathy mulled this over and signed the paperwork. Lunch at Nettie's, a newer restaurant in Fort Dodge followed.

Oh, oh. Wait a minute here. Holy Toledo. The house is on the market and people might stop by to view it at any time. In fact, Dwight told us that he wouldn’t be surprised if someone showed up today and certainly over the weekend. Oh, my. We need to give this house a cleaning - NOW. We originally had a cleaning day scheduled and it was supposed to be this weekend. However, we postponed this to allow time for several things that need to be done prior to cleaning: painting and quarter round. Painting? We need to freshen up the walls since they haven’t been painted for years. Not only that but Lug and Darlene had loads of pictures and knick knacks on their walls - lots of nail holes. Not that painting will add value to the home, it’s just that it might speed the sale.

The quarter-round? Well, remember that carpet we took up? Lo and behold, now we need to put down some quarter-round to cover the oak floors. One things always leads to another, you know, unintended consequences. Thus we postponed the cleaning until these two things got done since they probably make a mess. The painter can’t come until the first week of April and Gary and Tom, Cathy’s husband, weren’t going to do the quarter-round until next weekend. So we postponed the cleaning until the second week of April. By that time, hopefully, it might be warm enough to wash the outside of the windows too.

However, the cleaning can’t be postponed now with the house already on the market. So Gary and I scurried around, beating down cobwebs in the basement, vacuuming carpets, cleaning windows (and now we can see our neighbors), and just doing lots of basic cleaning that hadn’t been done for a while. Gary and I completely cleaned the front entrance area since that is the way most prospective buyers will be coming in to the house. Gary cleaned the downstairs bathroom while I made the acquaintance of most of the windows and screens on the main floor. Luckily, I’ve been cleaning the main floor a little bit at a time every time we come up here. We are living here and I like it to be clean.

Originally, we had planned to go home tomorrow, Friday, but now think it will be on Saturday to give Gary enough time to finish some projects (like re-routing the sump pump hose and re-doing some gutters and window-well covers) and me time to finish some more cleaning.

Now, to the title of this blog which is a tautology. Of course we are our parents own children, that is the definition. However, I mean it in a larger sense. We have our parents values and faced with similar situations, often act as they would. In this case: Gary’s and my parents all grew up during the Depression when food was scarce and not to be wasted. Gary and I just can’t toss food. We eat everything in the refrigerator and sometimes I’ve bought things that we didn't like. We even eat my kitchen failures like the cheese soufflé which sank instead of rising. I could have used it as a disc in disc golf but we ate it. We called it jaw exercise.

Currently, there is the small matter of the two TV dinners which we found in the freezer when Lug died. I’ve planned to eat them several times but always conveniently found something else that ‘needed’ to be eaten right away. Shucks. Yesterday, I just planned to toss them. But, neither Gary nor I can do that - it just goes against the grain, against everything we’ve been taught. So, tonight, we’re going to steel ourselves and eat them. How bad can they actually be? And, here Gary is, at our ‘dining table’, eating our gourmet delights.

And, by the way, I also had prepared a salad to fill in the gaps - I thought we might want something else to eat. And, yes, we ate the salads. When you think that the potatoes were reconstituted, frozen, potato buds - well, that’s enough to say about that.