In the garden, and RAIN!!! (2)

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, September 7, 2026 11:50
VIEWED: 338648
PAGE 801 of 834

Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
I think it looks fine being a lighter colour. But that is just me.

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Appreciate ya. I still like it a lot too. I just wish I knew what I should have done different to get the result that I was aiming for is all. There's enough "hue" to the piece that it will match her existing furniture, but it will stand out quite a bit too. Maybe that's not such a bad thing?

Quote:

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Yeah, I've heard those figures even for today.

Never understood the need for frills when no one is going to being looking at it regular.

That's terrible what they charged for grandmother and uncle's urns and for crappy ones no less.

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Right? I was mad about how much it cost to bury her, especially the insane additional cost they added to the whole thing to throw my uncle's urn from over 10 years prior in the same plot, when it was nothing but two tiny urns in a gigantic plastic resin box that cost $2,000. The Urn was $900!!! Cremation a couple thousand. $1,200 for the headstone. An additional $1,800 just to put my uncle in the same plot for no good reason.

And I go back with my aunt to clean the headstones on her birthday and I've seen other graves that were caved in, likely due to the crappy $2,000 plastic resin boxes caving in under the 6 feet of dirt.

I think the whole thing was like $9,000. And my aunt would not relent and nobody else wanted to fight about it. I didn't push, even though I knew my grandma was turning in that urn knowing all that money being spent. None of that money was ever going to go to me, so they were just burning a good deal of the inheritance on bullshit. The housing market was so insane at the time they got more than twice what I'd ever think they'd get for it, so nobody was freaking out about losing a few thousand on the funeral.

Quote:

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I found the bill that was sent to the Veteran's Affairs up here. Years after my dad died. Think I found it just after my mum had died. Anyways don't remember the price of the coffin but the VA was charged $500 for digging a hole. Now, mind this was in the late 70s. But I was shocked at the price. Would have cost next to nothing to do it the way our ancestors did it.

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Yeah. And if you saw them dig that hole with the Bobcat in about 5 minutes you'd be even more shocked about the price. They weren't paying two guys to dig that up with spades. Well... I dunno... Maybe back in the 70's they were. Not at my grandma's site though. That was over $2,000 to dig the hole and fill it in.

Quote:

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Myself, I am so not ready to think about that. I got almost another 30 or 40years left on this planet.

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Good for you, Brenda.

I'm going to make my will soon though, just in case. I think pretty much everything will go to my brother. If I do go before my dad does, I'm sure my dad could help him get set up pretty good here. He'd just need somebody guiding the cash for him to pay for things like getting the lawn mowed and other maintenance. He'd be better off selling it and getting a condo or something though, honestly.

But I want to make it CRYSTAL clear that any money from my estate being spent on funeral costs is to be done at the bare bones minimum cheapest prices. If I lived about 50 miles south and/or east of where I do, I'd tell them to bury me in the back yard for free.

Nothing but cremation, a Folgers coffee can and a trip to the forest preserves for my funeral. My aunt and Dad can reenact the scene from The Big Lebowski.

Quote:

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Oh yes. You do develop a system for eating and drinking. Coffee for me is usually using two hands if I want it and they are shaking, other wise I wait until they stop and I think it is safe. Also for grocery shopping. Same thing when physically writing something. I either wait or try to slow down a bit so my signature doesn't go screwy.

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It's funny, but as I was reading this I can see Barb holding that coffee cu

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Quote:

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Originally posted by Brenda:
All done for today. Hands are so-so. Bringing heavy things back and doing heavy things when in. *sigh* Oh, well. One I had to do and other I just wanted to do.


SIX, you talk about neighbours finally cutting down that tree. I would love to put up a sign that says, "NO SLAMMING YOUR APARTMENT DOOR!!!" I just had someone do that about three times now.

I try not to do that as these are security doors and heavy, so when you let them go they bang some thing fierce.

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Somebody in an argument, or is this a frequent thing? If it happens all the time you could let management know. They could at least try to put up some signs about it. Some people need to have it pointed out to them that they're being unintentional assholes.



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Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Trying to figure out what I want to do for the rest of the day right now...

If I actually do have to do another coat on the front, I'm going to want to turn it on its back first so I have the full lights on it while I finish it off, and I can't do that until tomorrow night when the back has cured enough to be resting on something. So either way the work on that box is done until tomorrow.

I think I probably waited too long for spackle again, and I don't really feel like doing that right now anyhow. House is clean except some dishes, so if my Dad does come by before the weekend I don't need to be doing that. Cleaned up all the tools and threw out all the junk from all the finished jobs and only have out what I still need to finish that box.

Oh... and I actually have a nice full-length mirror now to use when I do my clothes dehoarding. I dug out the antique mirror that belongs with the really nice bedroom set I got from my lawyer uncle. I never attached it to the dresser like it should have been and it's been in a closet behind some paintings I had. Now it's set up in my small bedroom closet and all I have to do is uncover it and I don't have to guess what everything looks like.

But I don't feel like going through clothes today either.

I kind of want to just screw off the rest of the day since I can't do anything else with that box until tomorrow, but I'm having a hard time sitting still and doing nothing for very long.


I might bring that monitor down and start going through boxes of the old tech and get a picture of what still works, what doesn't, and what if anything can be cannibalized to make as much of it work as possible.

Grrrrrrr....

Losing patience with drying time, and I've still got 26 days until the bookcase is cured and we haven't even begun that clock on my aunt's hope chest yet.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Dammit...

Looks like everything is good except for the face of the body. There's a little smudge just in the center of the damn thing and I'm not going to leave it like that. The cover is fine though, so I don't need to do that and can flip it completely over to work on the lip tomorrow evening. So that's what I'll do.. Just fix the face of the body tomorrow while I've got the thing on its back, and 2 hours later when that's dry to the touch I'll set it upright so I can do all the lips at the same time and not lose another day. I'll sand out the inside good one time first and clean it up good so it's ready for the final coat of poly after I've gotten several on the lips.

Could be done with it before I go to bed tomorrow if things work out right.

Finger's crossed.





Got the start of my tech setup ready to go in the small bedroom. I just found out that I had the forsight to wrap all of that stuff up real good in black trash bags super tight around everything and tape holding it together. I don't remember doing that, so maybe I get a little lucky with some of them.

The first two work, but don't have all my stuff on them. That's kind of a problem since they need to be hard wired into the network in order to get it, and I don't want to be bringing any of this back down into my clean and organized living room.

I think I'm going to get some use out of a spare router my old man gave me afterall. I'm pretty sure I can use one of my backup PCs with that router to connect the two and use an external hard drive to get what I need on these things that need it.

Whether I get all this stuff working or not, almost all of it is going out of my house. Out of 5 boxes, only 1 will remain. But since this looks like it's probably going to be some real work, I might not do much more than stage everything for now.

I really had these things protected not only with the plastic but in boxes that had stuff like empty binders and old bed linens for protection. I want to get everything like that out too and get a real inventory of everything I've got.

And now that the tree is down, I knew I was going to need to do something to cover that window up since it already was bad in the afternoon with the sun but it will likely be brutal going forward, especially in the winter when the sun is lower.

I was originally thinking of a way to use some velcro pads to do it, but I think I have a better idea...

I'm pretty sure that I can get two hard drive magnets on either sides of the top corners of the upper window and they should sandwich together between the thick glass with how powerful they are. Then I could sew some magnets into the top of one of the white bedsheets I just found and I should be able to put that up and take it down fairly easily without doing any lasting damage to the window frame or wall. I would just have to make sure there was enough padding on the sheet between the magnets so that it didn't pull the magnet with it and make the one outside the window fall to the ground when I took it down.

--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Yup.

Staging stuff as well as removing as much of my old tech from the boxes is the right move now, for sure.

Unless I'm missing something still up in the attic, I've got 7 that work, 4 that are busted and 5 that will need a lot of setup to get doing what it is supposed to be doing. One is a bad hard drive, but I don't know about the other 3 yet until I dive deep into it. I kept 12 of those hard drives that I tested were still working just for this purpose. Nice to know I won't need most of them, but they're ready whenever I get to it now.

Tons of old towels and bed linens protecting things in those boxes and they're all going through a wash cycle now. Got rid of anything that was ratty and any mattress covers that were in there because those make horrible covers for anything else and horrible drop cloths. The towels will go out with all my rags in the garage, adn all the bedding will be folded and put into a box in the basement where I've been putting others.

Got another bag of trash out, as well as two super-gross cardboard boxes that have seen better days. I won't be keeping any of these boxes ultimately because of the nicotene, so I'll be trying to get some more good boxes to replace those once I know what I'm keeping. I'm hoping that I keep so little that I've already got enough totes and clean boxes to hold everything by the end, so I won't be looking too hard.

Going to get all of that out to the trash and recycle bin while I'm taking out another 2 or 3 boxes to the garage for processing when I get to it.

Down to 18 boxes left in the attic right now. Wonder how many will be left when I'm all set for the night? I know those 2 or 3 boxes for my stereo and surround sound are going out there to be installed when it cools off a bit. And I've now made plenty of room in the small bedroom and have like things staged in rows to be gone through. If I'm doing things right, I should be able to put just about everything in the small bedroom from the attic other than a few spare flat screen monitors and a backup microwave.

May I never bring another thing upstairs again.



--------------------------------------------------

Those who dance always seem crazy to those who can't hear the music.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Brenda:
I think it looks fine being a lighter colour. But that is just me.

---

Appreciate ya. I still like it a lot too. I just wish I knew what I should have done different to get the result that I was aiming for is all. There's enough "hue" to the piece that it will match her existing furniture, but it will stand out quite a bit too. Maybe that's not such a bad thing?

Quote:

---

Yeah, I've heard those figures even for today.

Never understood the need for frills when no one is going to being looking at it regular.

That's terrible what they charged for grandmother and uncle's urns and for crappy ones no less.

---

Right? I was mad about how much it cost to bury her, especially the insane additional cost they added to the whole thing to throw my uncle's urn from over 10 years prior in the same plot, when it was nothing but two tiny urns in a gigantic plastic resin box that cost $2,000. The Urn was $900!!! Cremation a couple thousand. $1,200 for the headstone. An additional $1,800 just to put my uncle in the same plot for no good reason.

And I go back with my aunt to clean the headstones on her birthday and I've seen other graves that were caved in, likely due to the crappy $2,000 plastic resin boxes caving in under the 6 feet of dirt.

I think the whole thing was like $9,000. And my aunt would not relent and nobody else wanted to fight about it. I didn't push, even though I knew my grandma was turning in that urn knowing all that money being spent. None of that money was ever going to go to me, so they were just burning a good deal of the inheritance on bullshit. The housing market was so insane at the time they got more than twice what I'd ever think they'd get for it, so nobody was freaking out about losing a few thousand on the funeral.

Quote:

---

I found the bill that was sent to the Veteran's Affairs up here. Years after my dad died. Think I found it just after my mum had died. Anyways don't remember the price of the coffin but the VA was charged $500 for digging a hole. Now, mind this was in the late 70s. But I was shocked at the price. Would have cost next to nothing to do it the way our ancestors did it.

---

Yeah. And if you saw them dig that hole with the Bobcat in about 5 minutes you'd be even more shocked about the price. They weren't paying two guys to dig that up with spades. Well... I dunno... Maybe back in the 70's they were. Not at my grandma's site though. That was over $2,000 to dig the hole and fill it in.

Quote:

---

Myself, I am so not ready to think about that. I got almost another 30 or 40years left on this planet.

---

Good for you, Brenda.

I'm going to make my will soon though, just in case. I think pretty much everything will go to my brother. If I do go before my dad does, I'm sure my dad could help him get set up pretty good here. He'd just need somebody guiding the cash for him to pay for things like getting the lawn mowed and other maintenance. He'd be better off selling it and getting a condo or something though, honestly.

But I want to make it CRYSTAL clear that any money from my estate being spent on funeral costs is to be done at the bare bones minimum cheapest prices. If I lived about 50 miles south and/or east of where I do, I'd tell them to bury me in the back yard for free.

Nothing but cremation, a Folgers coffee can and a trip to the forest preserves for my funeral. My aunt and Dad can reenact the scene from The Big Lebowski.

Quote:

---

Oh yes. You do develop a system for eating and drinking. Coffee for me is usually using two hands if I want it and they are shaking, other wise I wait until they stop and I think it is safe. Also for grocery shopping. Same thing when physically writing something. I either wait or try to slow down a bit so my signature doesn't go screwy.

---

It's funny, but as I was rea

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