It's been a while since posting. Much of it has been just taking my own sweet time to adjust to both the gains and losses from traveling halfway across the continent. I'm been tired, grumpy, away from where my usual habits take over. I begin to suspect I'm getting old... or something. This former home no longer is home, just a place to try to settle into, which is pretty weird after 32 years in this house one way or another. Would it surprise you to know I haven't gotten out yet doing morning gardening? It surprises me.
I also haven't visited Crex yet, scheduled visits with family, dropped in on City Hall for a catch-up chat, or taken more than a very few pictures since the trip ended. I tried to blame Canadian smoke for the first couple weeks, but that's no longer around. It hasn't been hot and muggy except for a couple days.
I can pinpoint part of it on the bed. I hate the bed here. It's one Steve moved in, and it's both too high and too hard for me, and my shoulders in particular notice it. Once in it, I feel like I'm stuck because I don't have the leverage to roll over, get myself into a sleep position, and even when I do the worst of my shoulders wakes me. I start sleep later and finish it sooner. A nap in the recliner doesn't make up for that.
Then there's a change in meds. The cardiac ablation has decided not to be perfect after all these years. My pacemaker is showing PVCs and SVTs, and I haven't even gotten around to looking them up. But I can feel them happening. Just before we left town - less than 24 hours in fact, I wangled an emergency appointment with my cardiologist in AZ, got a medication change, and made an appointment with my former clinic in MN for shortly after arrival north. They were even more informative about what was happening, made an additional change in meds, and we're hopeful that will settle things down for a while. Speaking of meds, there's the usual hassle with shifting refills to a local pharmacy, which treats every request as if I were seeking opioids or something. AZ insists it's simple. Here, not so much. And I get to shift the next refill later today, as well as check on the new one from my northern cardiologist.
In addition to the fuss, meds on the move are much less simple than at home. There I have my own bathroom with my own medicine cabinet and its own shelves where the location of each bottle, shelf A or shelf B, tells me when its pills get taken. I get up, hit the bathroom, and take my thyroid pill before I leave, starting the day. Here, I have little baggies of pills, one each for each morning, another for each evening. Morning ones go in a clear ziploc bag, evening ones go in a blue one, which I have no idea how I came by so I have to be extra careful not to mess it up because blue = night is almost simple.
TV is different. It's not that we can't get the same shows, it's that they just aren't available. Of course the whole country is dealing with that because of the writers strike, but there's also the shift in a different remote from a different satellite company so the finger muscle memory for which button to push doesn't work and even if it did, the same functions are labeled with different words.
Are you getting the drift now that I'm just out of sorts and little nothings are getting annoying beyond their importance? Nice as it is to see Paul, Steve an I need our own space. We need to live in it, not just visit somebody else's. The messes should be our messes, and we should know how to fix them. It was already getting bad enough in Arizona with Rich taking over a large chunk of the house and yard where we at least had the freedom to set limits, however poorly they got enforced. It is time for us to have our own space and only ours. It's also time to settle into a single one. And that means it has to be up here in Minnesota.
When we return south in the fall, it will be to start emptying and simplifying what's in the house there. For example, I will have to go through my SW pottery collection and pick out the must-haves to move, then try to locate somebody to handle a proper auction of the rest which will take in their value. Both of us will go through the library and select our favorite authors, then empty the other shelves. We will be holding multiple garage and estate sales by spring. That process will have to be ruthless and encompass the whole house, not just because of the hassle of moving, but because we will be selling the house - hopefully before its value declines due to climate change concerns, and it will not, even at best, bring value to replace itself up here. So it will be a mobile home park for us, buying a home straight out and using the balance for lot rent.
We've picked out the park we wish to move into. It is well run, close to shopping, a library, even a YMCA, and one of Steve's fishing buddies lives close. Paul has agreed to let us stay with him next spring (one more warm winter!!!) once we sell the house until we can transfer our belongings from storage into the new location, however long that takes. It's not like we can do the 1800 mile switch in a single weekend or something. It's not just picking out a home, but a lot as well, out of the ones available at the time, and nobody is going to be flying back and forth on the weekends to make decisions and sign paperwork. We know what we can live with... and what we must have to live, aka accessibility.
That latter category points out the differences between here and there. Everything in Sun City is single level, with the occasional half step here and there. No upstairs, no basements. But mobile homes are above ground by several feet so they come with stairs. One of the best features about the park we picked is that it is pretty standard to have a sizeable deck outside the door, raised to the same living level, and where needed, long ramps to the ground. The decks are wide enough to screen in a gazeebo on, even the temporary kind like one takes camping. We do have mosquitoes here, after all, whereas I haven't gotten bitten by one in AZ for two years at least. Getting a ramp will be both necessary for Steve, and reasonable, and most of the lots are spaced for it. The usual ones come in all metal with something like a super hardware-cloth base that is both non-slip and passes water and ice through. We will be far from the only residents who need to make use of a ramp in that park.
As to a new home or a gently used one, that will depend on what is available at the time. Lower prices allow for more budget for alterations. The day we visited, 5 spaces were opening, of which two had the old homes removed and the others were sold on site as is. We want 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and wide enough hallways to get through with wheels if necessary. That third bedroom will become pantry, office, and space for a freezer. The regular ones will have smaller beds than we use now since we don't need queens, though of course that means all new linens, which in turn, new or not, reminds us we need - not just want - in-house laundry facilities. The bathrooms will both have showers, not tubs, again fully accessible and reinforced with hand bars, and taller toilets with bidets.
There will be none of this under-tall-cabinet hanging microwave nonsense in the kitchen. Sure, more counter space that way, but no, my shoulders will not tolerate lifting hot food in and out of high places. A bonus would be if the lower cabinets are pull out drawers, much in use in our senior communities, but I hold little hope that appreciation for those has spread up here. Wall ovens are nice too, working at standing height rather than bending way over for the in and out. I want electricity instead of gas, my nod to the climate crisis. Over recent years I have come to appreciate both that need, and accessible designs.
My personal requirement for a site is a fairly sunny location for two raised flower beds. Two will mean each is smaller with access on 3 sides and raised means less weeding required (I'm sick of invasive grass and tree seedlings), especially as I grow older. I want enough sun also to feed solar panels. The grass can be hired out to have mowing done, also common in that park. Deck top railings will be great for those clamp-on hangers which can hold small bird feeders and suet cakes... outside a good window of course. Speaking of windows, the newest homes come with special glass which helps to maintain the interior climate with less active energy.
There will be losses, in transitioning back to Minnesota. We both love Arizona, the mild winters, no ice to fall on, the community centers with a huge variety of activities and friends. But we both have all our family here in Minnesota now, the last of which on Steve's side just returned back here to live. As we get older, seeing them becomes increasingly important, along with watching the grands and great-grands grow. Two more great-grands are on their way, and we still haven't met one who's already three. We have decided the time to move back is now, while there is still life in the housing market down there, and while there is still life in us to appreciate and tolerate the move. We have decided that the dog will not make the northern trip with us next spring. It will be a cruelty to her to expect her to tolerate a real winter, even in a doggie sweater, when she has so little hair, none on her belly, and spends her life either on a lap, under a blanket, or both at the same time. Even summers in Minnesota are hard for her. A true desert dog, she abhors wet grass. We'll have most of a year to find that solution, along with all the others we need. Rich will have to find his own as well. I wish him luck but whatever his choices, they will be his alone. Not with us. If he chooses to relocate up north, we will provide transportation. Not housing. It's time to rid ourselves of stress where possible, just enjoy each other and support each other.
Having thought all this out, after many discussions with Steve, you might think I'm sleeping better now. If I were as cranky as last week I'd be tempted to ask, "Are you shitting me?" It is the same uncomfortable bed after all. The shoulders remain unimproved. And the loss of the club/rec center system is hitting hard. There will be shopping to locate decent winter clothing, especially for outdoors. We no longer have boots, hats, mittens, or coats. We haven't needed them for ten years. We'll have to reconnect into the medical system, get new insurance, licenses, voting locations, library cards, etc. We'll have to plan ahead enough that there is no demand to emerge under icy conditions, hence the extra freezer and pantry space. We'll have to figure out where to make new friends with similar interests. Can I find a place to work on jewelry and glass?
Meanwhile I managed to get out in one of the gardens to do a couple hours work this morning. I found my limit and quit when needed. But it felt, finally, like I'm adjusting to MN again. About damn time!
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