Well, 2019 was a busy year. I guess that can be said every year though. However, given all the stuff that has happened, I decided to take one of those Stress Level quizzes. The result was interesting. The biggest of this year’s events are:
– My husband got laid off from his job.
– My husband and his siblings decided to sell their family home as their mother was in memory care and would not be able to live on her own again. Lots of sorting, cleaning, etc. It’s the etc. that always causes problems.
– My mother-in-law died in the middle of the house sale. This made it go from a guardianship situation to an executorship. Those are two different legal entities that require different court paperwork, or they do in Michigan anyway.
– Since my husband’s job and mother were the only things keeping us in Michigan, and we had talked of moving south for a number of years, we did it. We moved to Knoxville. I had been planning to move in a few years and had slowly been sorting through things. It suddenly sped up exponentially when we found a home in Knoxville on the first house hunting visit we made.
Lest this seem overly spontaneous, all four of my grandparents were born in and grew up in Tennessee. They all moved to Michigan to work at the auto plants. One set moved back to East Tennessee after retiring from GM. We had discussed moving to Tennessee after retirement a number of times. Once the moving decision was on the table, the ‘where’ only had to be narrowed down, as in where in East Tennessee.
– Not only did we move the household, I had to figure out how to move my business. That included closing it down in Michigan, opening it Tennessee and moving my home studio. Considering each wall, ceiling and floor weighs over 200 lbs, this was not a trivial task. Neither was taking everything out of it, including the foam on the walls, and then putting it all back up. Talk about a giant jigsaw puzzle!
– There was also moving 3 cats, one of which is nearly 20-years-old. Poor Crystal. This is her 2nd move with us. And, she HATES riding in cars. So we divided them up. Terry took the 3-year-olds, Heather and Abby. I took Crystal. She was a trooper and fell asleep right away and didn’t complain at all. Heather and Abby were more the problem.
– Right after we moved in, Terry left for a trip with the motorcycle club we were with in Michigan. His bike was about a month old – yea – was. He and the bike crashed into a tree in Colorado. Nothing like a phone call saying ‘Honey, I’ll be coming home early’ to make your heart sink. Terry was fine. The bike was totaled.
– Same day as the bike crash, we were having a security system installed and the installer slipped in the attic and broke through our bedroom ceiling. Loose pink insulation everywhere that needed to be cleaned up before the cats decided to play with or eat it. It was 3 trash bags worth of insulation – ugh!
So after all that, the stress-o-meter says I have an 80% chance of having a major health problem in the next 2 years due to this last year’s stress. Joy. The only reaction to that is bah, humbug! I’m back at my ballroom dance lessons, working on my business, setting up personal training again – all stress reducers. We are in the midst of some remodeling and decorating so take away some stress, add some! That’s life.
So is there a lesson or something here? Um, I guess it would be “Life Happens, so enjoy the journey.”
