Well we finally arrived back in Atlanta. I put Eric's ashes in his blue globe urn and set him upon his shelf. He's all settled here in Atlanta. Now the rest of the house, it's a mess. There's so much to do. I decided to do some interior painting that we wanted to do anyway. Not the entire house, just some rooms downstairs. Then I went through the closets to purge some books, old furniture, linens. The furniture and linens were donated to the Furniture Bank Atlanta: www.furniturebankatlanta.org
So, it's re-painting the downstairs, finally getting the new mattress, that's a whole other blog, cleaning the carpets and then putting it all back to together again. I want this all done before Eric's celebration of life, which is scheduled for November 14, 2021, a day before his Birthday. The Celebration of Life is also a Birthday celebration. I will blog on that later. Now our home is a hot mess, stuff everywhere until it's all cleaned up. But we had/have a vision which I will execute before we head back to Amsterdam on January 9th. '2022. And so the purge continues. I haven't removed any of my husband's things at all. It's way too soon for that. What I've done is gotten rid of some old things we were planning on removing from the home anyway, when we returned in November for the holidays.
I have old paper work to shred, old pieces to throw out and painting, as I stated earlier. Then I'll do some rearranging. We will be re-painting the living, dinning, office, family, kitchen and the catwalk upstairs. Then we will update the office, new desks, bookcases and paintings that Eric wanted to get framed and mounted. The dinning room will get a new rug and 2 new chairs. I'll rearrange some paintings within the house and that will be iteration 1. When we return in the spring there will be some outdoor work we'll do. That will be iteration 2 and another blog
You know, I didn't realize that there is so much to do when someone you love transitions; from calling every creditor, IRS, banks, etc, to going back and forth to the post office. It's a lot but with the help from family and friends, it's a bit easier. I think I'm almost done with everything, but we shall see. I want to be completed before the Celebration of Life on November 14th, so here I go making a roadmap. I can't help it. It's in my DNA. Eric would always tell me,"Don't program manage me." But I always have to have a spreadsheet, or a project plan or a roadmap; sometimes all three.
What I've learned from this process is no matter how prepared you are, there are still many things you have to do. I would say that having an attorney has helped so much. It makes the process much easier, better than doing it alone. And it keeps the emotions down as well. I'm going to have to redo my Will and Trust since I left everything to Eric. I'm going to have to change my beneficiaries, since Eric was the sole beneficiary of everything, again too much to do and think about.
So now the shredding begins and the painting and the removal of stuff and.....it goes on and on. But my goal is to be done by 11/15, Happy Birthday Baby!