An Explanation for my Blogging Absence…

I thought that since I haven’t had a chance to blog very much lately OR visit my friend’s blog much either, I should post a bit about what’s going on so everyone will know what’s up.

Many of you know that my husband’s Auntie passed away in March. There was a Will stating that she wanted my husband to be the Executor and sole heir of her estate. We thought that would take care of things, but apparently, at least in the state of California, “A Will is just a ‘suggestion’ to the court of the wishes of the deceased” as explained to us by our lawyer (which we had to get) THIS state has laws about exactly how much of an estate the lawyers are to get and the State is to get, and they want their share!

We had to find a lawyer, and they had to petition the court for a Court Date for a Judge to “appoint” Hubby as the Executor. THAT took until June 10th to get the Court Date, and then it took until mid- August to get the paperwork back from them so that Hubby had authorization to start getting things liquidated, etc. He’d already had her neighbors, which had wanted her house for 20+ years, asking and asking about it, but we couldn’t clean it out or do anything else with it until we could get some money to be able to get a c-train (large metal storage container—10 x 10 x 40 ft.) to store everything in.

Meanwhile, there were break-in after break-ins until almost every thing of any monetary value had been stolen. We finally got the c-train about 3 weeks ago, and since then, Robert and I have had to make the 2 hour round trip over to the town she lived in and work on cleaning up the mess the burglars made. They had dumped every closet, drawer, etc. onto the floor, overturned beds, etc. looking for places an elderly lady would hide stuff. There were 40 years of stuff all over that had to be gone through, to at least get the “treasures” like pictures of family members that were all that was left. Auntie was also a “hoarder.”

We found so many pictures with nothing on them that are very old. Some of the old pics had things written on the back and so we were able to figure out who some of the other pictures contained. For your kid’s sakes and family members sakes, please try to include names, dates, etc. on the backs of the pictures you take. We found pictures of Hubby’s grandfather that had passed before he was born and that he had never seen, as well as things in his precious Grandmother’s handwriting on family tree info, etc.

These things were all mixed in with newspapers and old cards, and junk because of the burglar’s sifting through the drawers. It has taken us quite a long time, and we have not been able to clean a lot of the things like many, many stuffed animals and clothes, etc. We have just had to pack them up and haul them out here to be put into the storage container. She collected stuffed animals as well as so many other things that were stolen. The burglars didn’t take the stuffies, and once washed, we will be selling them and donating proceeds to our local Animal Rescue as Auntie was all about saving dogs and animals.  Here are just a very few with Dott hiding in them...

The clothing, once clean, will be donated to the Thrift Shop for our local Battered Women’s Shelter. Those things as well as the furniture that wasn’t broken or stolen are all in the storage container and at least are now out here for me to work on. 

We have to wait another 4 months for any creditors to petition the State in case they feel she owed them money, and then another couple of months for the NEXT Court Date to finalize things.

Hubby and I have found out that the way to go, at least in THIS state, is a Revocable Living Trust because then you don’t have to go through the courts at all because your estate is handled like a company and the “CEO” and Successors to that post, just handle things according to what is written down. I’d suggest to everyone that doesn’t know about these things, to find out, because it’s a mess otherwise. At least she HAD a Will that stated “without bond” which helped a bit.

We finished the house yesterday, but still have several weeks/month(s) of stuff to go through and clean that is now stored out here. This is all on top of regular life and sick and injured corgis. Praise God I HAVE Him to lean on!

THIS is why I haven’t been on and the corgis haven’t gotten a chance to blog much either. I just wanted to let you all know that we love you all and really miss reading your posts, keeping up with your lives, and letting you in on ours. I hope that this will help you understand… It may still be a while before we are back regularly, but what’s got to be done, has got to be done. Grammy, from Corgi Country