So today I picked up Vik ( @Vik-Thor / Lirleni Hankeshe ) from St Louis Crematorium, 4 weeks and a day since his passing. It took a while as there was a problem with his death certificate which I think I mentioned

Not sure what I feel, now I have his ashes and his death certificates, I guess it seems a little more real? Before I was just cleaning the house, sure, somewhat intrusively and making decisions on stuff that he'd usually decide on, but some how it still hadn't sunk in I guess?

I'll need to get some help with making financial decisions, definitely want to speak to someone what works for me rather than a rep at Fidelity or Morgan Stanley with regards to investments and 401K, and then there's chasing down bank accounts. And of course taxes will be rather interesting I'm sure.

Beyond that, mostly just continuing to sort, sort and sort some more, and figure out who wants what, who buys what, etc. I've got help on the comics and fountain pens, prolly give a lot of the stickers and stationary to the local journalling group. Need to donate some bags and basic stationary items to someone, and for the rest... No idea yet.

#Life #death #family

Three weeks since my husband passed. I took this week off in a number of ways, I went back to work, I needed to get some normal back in my life.

Bit of a rough week, little work for me Wednesday and Thursday, so I worked yesterday, and still fell short of goal. Wednesday wasn't a surprise, my main #gig RXD doesn't have much on Wednesday, and most of what they have is garbage, but Thursday was a surprise, I couldn't get a route for the life of me. Also I wasn't available Monday as I was taking care of things at his office.

This week I've got a Better Trucks shift lined up for Wednesday, and depending on how the week goes, I might start signing up for more shifts. Pay wise its better than RXD, however I actually have to work, so... Might go back to my old zone if'n I do, my husband was a good part of why I dropped it, at least until winter, that zone has an 1140 load time and takes 6 to 8 hours, so I'd be getting home after him by an hour or two, no more dinner together. Now though? Yeah, my night vision sucks, so when it starts getting dark at 1700, I'll have to drop it again if'n they don't shift the load time earlier by then.

Any how, as I said, going for a normal week, not dealing with his passing in any way this week, being a little lazy, I do have some proofread work that I should've been doing, I'll just have to make time this coming week to get that done.

Friday brought an interesting phone call from the crematorium, I had been wondering what the delay is. Apparently they're having problems getting his death certificate signed, for some reason his GP was listed, and he refused to sign it for obvious reasons, he works out of SSM DePaul, Vik died at SSM SLU, so no real surprise that he's refusing to sign when he wasn't there. Not sure if'n that was a mistake, or its standard practice out here for his GP to sign off on a nature cause death. I've emailed them about the mistake, and I think they were contacting the city Medical Examiner for some help, so hopefully this'll be sorted soon, and things can get moving, I kinda need the death certificate to close accounts, collect life insurance, and so on. Might also need to grab a few copies of my marriage license as well, might be necessary to prove our marriage.

Got his car cleaned out today, though the interior will definitely need cleaning. Also have a link for sorting out the title as he didn't put down a TOD for whatever reason. Trying to avoid probate court if all possible, I mean my relationship with his family is fine, they expect that I inherit everything, so there's no real reason to get the courts involved, the only thing is on Apple, but if'n I'm reading that right, that'll just get me access to his iCloud, and I'm not sure I need anything there.

So, that's about all the news.

#family #Life #death

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm supposed to feel about losing my husband, my reaction is certainly not what you're told you're supposed to have, at least as society says, but then I've always had a problem with society and relationships, is it me or is there no grey in it? Its either love or friendship, that's what's expected, nothing in between. But really there is a lot of grey, isn't there?

Did I love him? Honestly I'm not sure, I mean what is love (feel free to insert Haddoway)? I'm sure some of my problems come from my autism, maybe a lot. Me, I'm a hermit, I leave the house for work, grocery shopping and Sunday brunch, and that's about it. I avoid people like the plague.

He always said he was introvert, something that seems so weird, I mean he was well loved at work and involved in some many parts of it. He was active in the fountain pen community and Ingress community, active in local government, and genealogy.

Certainly hard to imagine him as an introvert, right?
But introverts need to recharge mentally, right?

I suppose that's where I fit in, I provided that, a place where he didn't need to be anything but who he was. I kept the house clean more or less, took care of finances, had last word, sometimes only word on big things, it was me who decided we should stop paying rent and buy a house Here he could come home, touch base with me, then crawl into a computer for the rest of the night, food would be taken care of, home was where he could relax.

I suppose I'm angry at him, the obvious would be for leaving me, the less obvious, I've been nudging him to take serious the fact that he would get out of breath on stairs. Lately when grocery shopping, at the second store, and sometimes the first, he'd have to use one of those powered carts. And then there were another minor problem, at least that one he went to the doctor, but that was just a couple weeks ago. Then there's the problems here, from the fear over money, I don't make much with what I do, and I had no idea what he had in place as he'd never told me. Frustration, since we never really planned, so I have no access to his computers or devices, which has me operating somewhat blind. I'm pretty creative, so I've got some idea of what I need to deal with, but still. Sad? That comes and goes, it has to be rather strong loss for me to be sad, that's been rare in my life, and this is definitely a strong loss. A stew of emotions and confusion.

My greatest strength is organizing things, putting together a plan, its just a matter of figuring out where to start. I'm lucky that help is available, as I told his father this morning, I'm kinda drowning in help, plenty of family, co-worker and friend support, but its hard for me to ask for help, harder still when I don't know what I need. I think funeral and memorial is the biggest area where I need help, I have an idea of what cemetery I think would be appropriate, but not just for him, but for his mom and his cat, assuming all three would be allowed, but the details are something that I'm uncertain about.

Beyond that, its a very simple though annoying process of reporting his death to various banks, insurance, etc, providing proof, settling debts and closing accounts. Honestly that's mostly easy, its my comfort zone, while I hate desk work, I do enjoy any task that amounts to fill in the blank. Interspersed with that will be returning to work, and trying to clean this place, a task that I'm estimating at taking months.

Surprise sympathy flowers sent to me by Chewies after settling my husband's account The image features a bouquet of flowers arranged on a marble surface. The bouquet consists of white lilies with subtle purple speckles and yellow carnations, complemented by green foliage and small white flowers. A white ribbon is tied around the bouquet, adding a touch of elegance. Two cards are attached to the bouquet: one is a business card for "Bloomers Florist" The other card is a handwritten note that reads, "Sorry for your loss. I am so sorry to hear about your loss. All my love and prayers are with you. Love, Andrew and your Chewy Family." The background is a simple, light-colored marble surface.

I think I'm going to have a lay down, hopefully this was understandable, it certainly was draining.

#love #Life #death #feelings

As I mentioned on Monday, my husband passed away suddenly. This is bad enough, but he neither left a will that I'm aware of nor access to any of his computers or devices, a rather large problem as his life is mostly stored online.

So, I've been dealing with minor loose ends while things got sorted with the morgue, cancelled the cat food subscription, and the toilet paper subscription, got a computer trade in he was in the middle of wrapped up. Got instructions from Patreon on how to close his accounts, and scared up a site that helps me find out what bank accounts he had, though its accuracy is somewhat iffy.

I'm hoping to avoid having anything to do with the courts, anyone know if they need to be involved? I'm his spouse, we're legally married, and his family has accepted that, so there's no challenge to me inheriting everything, I see no reason to get the court involved unless its required. There is however one thing that might need to involve them, and that's his Apple account, the only way I can access it is with his death certificate and a court order. There may be other less pleasant ways to get access to at least his computer, but I'd kinda not do that, though it might be necessary. Does anyone know what you get in a case like this? Just what's on his iCloud, or can we unlock his devices? I'm not sure if'n he exclusively stored to his iCloud, backed up to it, or had a mixture of backed up and not backed up files on his computer.

Beyond that, I think its just sorting his belongings and deciding what to keep, if'n you're local, I may have some food to give, some of the stuff he liked not only wasn't stuff I like, but stuff I don't think the food bank'll have much interest in, especially the perishables.

#Life #today #STL #stlouis #missouri #Mo #death #help #family #Apple #advice

And what is there to say, I'm still here. Really, it's not been a really notable one, which I suppose is a blessing in itself, I mean I've lost my father a couple years back, and it's inevitable that I'll lose more in the future, but this year wasn't one of those.

Work, still the perfect job for me, I'm almost undeniably autistic, and have found the perfect place for me. Of course the tariff threats worry me as my job is delivery, which is of course import driven, heavily Chinese imports driven. But what can I do but wait and see? On the work side, we have streamlined things, shut down my LLC, everything I was doing had fallen under the sole proprietor envelope, so no point in wasting money on that and making things more complicated.

Money, we survived, but our backup account is in rough shape, down around $1K maybe. Checking is always depleted, but that's how our finances are set up. Property saving account is going strong, I was originally going to put it into a short term CD, but I'm leaning towards using it for home improvements instead. We will be reducing how much we put into property by $50 every two weeks as well as potentially increasing my pay and lowering the phone bill, so if'n things don't change too much we'll end 2025 better, but time will tell.

And me? I work, read, occasionally proofread fan fics, and that's about it, assuming I even have energy for that, something that's been a problem lately, not sure if'n it's winter issues, or something else. I don't really go anywhere, the world is too peopley for me. Seriously, I mean my job requires about 1 minute of interaction with people, otherwise interaction is option or accidental. I want to retire somewhere rural, maybe southern IL, where there's less people.

I'd post a year end selfie, but I need to shave rather badly.
Whelp, onwards, it's 2025 (time not year) as I type this, that seems appropriate. Bedtime will prolly be within an hour, sleep when I get to it, unless something interesting pops up on one of my apps.

#2024recap #life

Yeah, just not feeling it this year. I supposed compared to many my year has been pretty good, and it has, but the tail end, woo, chaotic, but that was mostly my fault.

Nov was spent mostly not working as my truck spent nearly three weeks in the shop trying to find a problem. Three weeks and nearly a thousand dollars by the time all was said and done. I had the money, but that took a bite out of company finances. And of course that means not contributing to the house, no work equals no paycheck after all, so the house is a bit strained right now including back up funds. And there were some bumps with the room mate's share of things, he switched banks and is now in the same credit union as us, however they don't have an easy way to transfer funds between members, it's through a third party, it's manual, and it's slow, like three days assuming you don't hit a holiday or weekend. Once again, nothing big, just disruptive.
Oh, and did I mention getting a new car? Yeah, been meaning to do that for like a year, but the three weeks of repair hell led to it finally happening, and luckily only $2500 out of pocket and no payments. Yes, the company was doing really good.
Heck, and then there was dissolving my LLC, it hasn't been doing anything in a year, but it was the holder of my domain name, so that meant dissolving the company, changing insurance, getting rid of the bank account, changing email, and on. Yeah, that's been chaotic, and it's still going on, though it's at least down to a trickle.

Dec is fine, work's going great, I'm settling into the car, capacity and range, especially winter range was a big concern. Despite having electric cars in the household for three years and being gung ho on electric vehicles, the transition wasn't quite as smooth as it could be because I was still a bit nervous about what the limits would be and how they'd effect the job. Frankly, no real change. Sure, the lack of seat and steering wheel heaters means I have to charge more than I'd planned, and my fuel savings will likely be smaller than expected, but that's basically it, no changes needed, Chevy Bolts are surprisingly roomy inside.
Outside of that, all that's kept me from Christmas shopping and decoration, I mean all the chaos I mentioned, plus work, plus story proofreading equals little spare time, and no real motivation. Wed I finally got the inflatables set up after getting the lights on the garage, but the wind picked up and I didn't feel real safe going up on the roof, so the main string of lights hasn't gone up. And today its 36°F and raining, so that's not happening, ditto for tomorrow. Wed is my last day off, so maybe then if'n the weather is good, otherwise no Christmas lights this year. I think I also have a car costume 'round here, but no radiator grill means how do I put the nose on? And then there's the tree, going to have to figure out how to make some room in the living room, between the record player on the folding chair, the unfinished computer project on the couch and a dismantled desk that no one wants to buy taking up the spare living room space... Ummm, where to I put it?

Any how, that's about where things are here, bit more than a month, and then we'll see how the new admin messes up my life, my livelihood is very much in danger, but no use worrying about something I can't change.

#life #christmas2024 #electriccar

Frankly, I'm just moving ahead as planned, and waiting to see whether things'll get derailed, there are just too many variables.

I've already said that the pride, humanity and pagan flags out front aren't going anywhere, or at least not unless they get replaced with something better, metal signs I can attach to the house would be good, something that can't be torn or burnt. While I don't have the skills to do it, I've suggested starting a liberal party to do what the Democrats won't, and while I can neither start it nor manage it, I'll be happy to loan my help whether an unskilled person can. Oh, and did I forget to mention that I bought an electric car to replace the SUV I was using for delivery?

What else is on the agenda? Well, assuming things don't get real bad, in the next few years, solar panels, wind power maybe, some work on the house... win the lottery and I'll expand it. Maybe get more property, dunno. Ideally I'd retire to rural southern IL, get a few acres, put an off-grid or mostly off-grid shed home together, and start selling plots to others that want a safe place to go, heck, maybe even create a tiny town to go with the tiny home, who knows. Prolly a pipe dream, but I'm certainly not giving up dreaming.

But what about Trump and the Repuglicans?
What about them? Trump's a loud mouth idiot who's nothing without his supporters and yes men. Sure, some of the Reps will definitely kiss his ring, Johnson was no surprise, if he didn't he likely wouldn't be speaker much more, he only got the job as he was the least bad choice. And Cruz will of course, he's a squealer, I can always recognize the squealers... I mean, he's a sell out. I'm wondering all of those that don't have an election coming up any time are going to do, the threat of a challenger, the threat of losing their job I think is what keeps most Repugs in line, but when that threat is gone? It's not going to be good, that's for sure, but it might wind up not being that bad, if'n Trump meets any resistance. And then there's all the faithful who are going to find out just how bad they screwed up voting for him, they're going to be out for blood, so a lot of politicians are going to have to decide who's scarier, the voters or Trump.

In the eighties we all were scared that they were going to drop the bomb, but after a while, we just got on with life, if it happened, we'd deal with it then, best we could do was just go on living until we knew what was coming.

#uspol #life

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