My mom's favorite winter hat and gloves....

As cost keep going up, we are trying to figure out how to pay for my mom's care - those little $100 plus things keep popping up unexpectedly.. The house will likely have to be sold sooner than I wanted to but mom's care comes first.  We are very grateful for the place she is at and that they will take care of her till the end but...

After work this morning I did the first extensive clean out of the kitchen - finding olive oil in a back cabinet that expired a few years ago, an unopened can of coffee that I will take to her care place, an appliance that was used just a few times, dishes that haven't been used since my dad passed away, things my sister and I will have no idea what to do with and... Grateful I know what is there now and so we can start going through one cabinet at a time.

I also opened up my moms bedroom. I straightened her closet, found 15 pairs of matching shoes - some nearly new that will be given to charity, straitened out her clothes dresser - she has clothes going back decades - some will have to be tossed but the rest to charity. Then I opened up her personal drawers to go through for the first time - endless cards that I just straightened to be gone through later, trinkets of here and there, a diary of a trip she had taken, her grandson's hand print, a plate I gave my parents 38 years ago on a wedding anniversary, and then...  documents of what to do in case of her death.. at this point I stopped... nearly lost it and..  

 The photo above is a hat we tried very hard to find last winter. It was in her closet in a "go bag". Time to play with Tiger a bit and then bedtime...