I will attempt to catch people up on what's been happening on our end. I had been having a really good roll on organizing last fall, until I got extremely sick on Sept 29, and stayed that way for 6 weeks. My progress stopped, and I was only able to do the minimum for Bob, and crash again.

I sat in front of my computer, wondering how I was going to be able to buy the groceries.. I could barely function! Then I saw this add on the side of the page about Walmart having grocery pickup now. ? I discovered that I could go online at my local site for Walmart and order groceries, drive over there to a side door, and they'd hall them out and sling them into my car, and I'd sign their phone thing and leave! Now I don't know if YOUR Walmart is doing it yet, but in some areas, different grocery stores are doing it, so call around. This saved me so much time and energy, it literaly made it possible for me to go on!

At 6 weeks I went to the doctor, with no symptoms, except I felt like I was dying, and we talked about the ins and outs of it, and decided to try anti-biotics. Within a few hours, I began to feel them working! They did get rid of whatever bug was hiding inside me, and around the beginning of Dec, I was able to get the living room ready for Christmas. I got the tree up and all the decorations & pictures changed. I was thinking that I could STILL accomplish a lot of the organizing of the mess going on here before son & wife came for Christmas visit. Then the call came that stopped all my progress again. Rather than give a blow by blow description of it all, I will share this facebook post I made that summed it up nicely, after it was over:

Let it be known, that as of 4pm, Tues, Dec 27, Sanderella washed the last cinders of fire smoke from her person, and threw in the towel on the burned lockers. I got the call about the locker fire (two 10 x 30 units, Dec 14, and worked Wed, Thurs Fri, Sat & Sun alone, pulling away burnt frozen boxes off the contents(wet from fire hose) and re-boxing into fresh boxes, what weren't burned to a crisp or melted. On Monday, son & wife arrived for Christmas(ha, ha) and worked like robots Mon, Tues, Wed, & Thurs, while I worked at old lady speed, sometimes reaching regular human speed. I can not believe the energy they had in moving and organizing things into the new locker. They went home early Friday and Bob's friend Fred (thanks again, Fred) helped me move more on Fri 23 and Mon 26, taking Sat & Sun off for the holidays, and collapse recovery(!) So, as I said, Fred & I were there yesterday, and today I went back alone for 2 more hours of sorting thru the things being left, and, after 13 days of being covered with suet from charred, wet boxes/things, it is finally a DONE DEAL - no more trips needed at the burnt out location - PRAISE GOD!!

~~~end of quote~~~~

It's funny that I had bought the locker on Dec 2, thinking to try to move the 2 10x30 unit contents into, so much closer to home, where I'd actuallly be able to pick up a box and work on it. I now realize that it was complete insanity to think that I could have EVER gotten it moved, and what seemed like the worst possible time to happen (Christmas) was actually the only time that I would have had their help. It was a wonderful blessing and a sad loss - not the lockers... but that we don't get to see them but usually once a year, and while us 3 were working so hard, Bob was totally discluded from seeing them and having shared memories to collect. It broke my heart to think of him being so discluded from their visit, home in his wheelchair alone, but he said, "no, this has to get done, and they are here to help you get it finished!" Since the new locker is close, everytime we brought another load, I was able to swing by and check on him.

My tree is still up. Another year, not the first, that I felt like I basically missed Christmas... so the tree is still up. We are usually in the tv room, but the tree is in the living room. Tonight I turned on the tree, and made a fire, and read to Bob. He has this complete set of the Civil War. He told me to go ahead and get rid of them a couple of years ago, and I thought about it. But one night I pulled one off the shelf "A Soldier's Story" and read a little. I thought that even though he can't read all these many words himself, he knows the history, so he won't have to hold on to every word by scratch, I can read the words for him and he will know most of the history already, just some new input from this soldiers point of view. As I read, I kept glancing at him, and when I'd say a battle or a military person, he'd say, 'yea, yea' - he confirmed he knew it. He keenly listened to the the man's story of joining when he was 18. I felt so blessed, that it was possible that I could sit here in such a cozy atmosphere, and give my husband back those stories he had never had time to read, and now couldn't.