Making Progress

My mom and I have been cleaning out some of KJ's stuff, dropping clothes off at thrift stores and selling  some of her DVDs and books. This is not going to be a short process - KJ had a lot of stuff, and I'll keep some of it. I'll be finding more things to sell for months if not years.

We're primarily focusing on cleaning up her bedroom in case I decide to get a roommate sometime later. KJ hoarded craft supplies, so I'm looking into local resources. I'd like to get them into the hands of other avid crafters.

The cats are starting to adjust. One of them - Quinn - has been pretty much in hiding since KJ passed. Quinn was "KJ's cat" more than the others, and spent a lot of time climbing on KJ and sleeping in her lap. But for the past week, Quinn has stayed out of sight, sleeping on my bed during the day, or staying in the cat room. But last night she came up to me and insisted I pet her for 20 minutes.

KJ's obituary appeared in the 4/25/2025 edition of the "Beloit Daily News." However, you'll need a subscription to read it, and I've found it's hard as hell to purchase a copy. Her dad had someone pick up a copy for me, but everyone else will have to settle for reading it on Facebook or here:

You'll notice it doesn't mention me. That was an accident; the website writes it for you, and has you put in keywords and fill in blanks like "hobbies" and "relatives." It didn't have a blank for spouse, but I assumed it would put me in there somewhere since I was the one filling out the form. I guess I was supposed to add myself as a relative.

But that's ok. I'm not a traditionalist. I didn't really want to do an obituary anyway, but too many people were asking about it. Mostly the older relatives who don't use Facebook and such, which is why I put it in that particular newspaper. That's where she was born, and her oldest relatives would be more likely to see it there.

We have her ashes now. I didn't buy an urn; there are too many creative people in my family for me to waste money on an expensive knick-knack that wouldn't match her tastes anyway. I'm still thinking about how she'd want to be stored, and I'm leaning towards a giant Coca-Cola can.

There's still paperwork to do, and a lot of it has to be done in a particular order. The car insurance won't let me take her name off until I get new titles in the mail, and the DMV wouldn't process those new titles until I had her death certificate, and the death certificate took a while in itself. It's a lot to deal with when you're already mourning.

All I'm saying is, never die if you can avoid it.