Sharlee, I just made a new post with this poem. Wanted to make sure you saw it. It's helped myself, friends, and family for MANY a year now! TNLady When I Am Gone Rose Standish Kellogg When I am Gone, think tenderly Of me, but do not mourn, for I, In new found immortality, Move onward through the spirit zone From time into Eternity A mortal, I was confident That to my soul when leaving earth Would open a new life: rebirth, Expanding, ever-widening spheres Beyond the dreams in earth-bound years So do not sing a requiem For me. I live. I have gone home. Sing me a glad, triumphant song

Hi fraternal member of the zoo, I'm sure that you'll be able to arrange an alternative, or successor, or "fall-back" Power of Attorney, and it'll be necessary to have each of the various alternatives (who gets incapacitated, dies, etc. first) provided for ... though with your Mom being deeply into Alzheimers, there's no way that she can be POA for Dad. You need both the financial situation, and the medical issues dealt with. I like the idea of having all/most of you have a meeting with lawyer and Dad. In fact, if Dad's lawyer isn't pretty well aware of the various ramifications at the moment, it might be a good idea for some of you to meet with him/her prior to your and her/his meeting with Dad, to get him/her up to speed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he'll likely be able to convince your Dad of some stuff that you can't/haven't been able to, up till now. A while ago one of the posters around here, in the finance forum, told of talking till she was blue in the face with her husband about some financial situations that she, who is fairly literate financially, thought that they should do, to be met with world-class foot-dragging. When the financial planner, that they've been with for years and respect deeply, suggested pretty well the same thing(s), he agreed to pretty well everything like a little lamb. Well, not exactly that docile, I guess ... but sort of close. Whether her grinding had worn him down somewhat and the meeting with the planner pretty well was the tipping point, or whether he'd have gone along meekly if he hadn't heard such proposals earlier, I can't say, of course. But quite a few of us will go along with something proposed by a professional, when we wouldn't hear of it from someone else ... even a spouse (especially a spouse, perhaps?). I rather like the idea of them going into a facility in the place where two of the siblings live, if they can be together, would welcome/accept that idea and you feel that the siblings are willing and able to provide a great deal of the care that he needs (and will need increasingly, no doubt). And would actually come through, if that arrangement were to be set up. Has your Dad enjoyed a substantial amount of direct interaction with the folks who were his buddies through the years of his life, especially in recent years? Would he be able to phone them were he to move to the other city? Would he find that satisfactory? That seems to be about all that I have to suggest, at the moment. Good wishes to you all as you go about making the necessary decisions and putting them into effect. I send some good thoughts and hopes to you, with a prayer that you all may choose well and all be pleased with those choices after a period has elapsed. ole joyful

Mary, I agree that we have been sold a bill of goods in thinking that we have an investment when we buy a home. It never really should be seen that way. The problem is, for the vast majority of us, it is the largest investment we have. I think it has been only in recent years that the home was seen as a way to make money, though. The run-up in prices in the last 20 years has led us to think it should always be that way. I know when I bought my first house, in 1985 in New Jersey, it was a fast-paced market. I know that home prices were accelerating at a few percentage points a month. We felt we had to get into the market as quickly as possible because of the fast rise in prices. We bought the house for $96,600. Then DH got transferred and we sold it for $124,000 nine months later! You know my story - remodeled the kitchen to meet my every need, including huge pantry space for my vegetarian husband and a dog paw-washing station at the back door. We never expected to sell. Then I got a better-paying job and Dad moved in with us, and my knee went kaplooie! The steps in the home were a problem for Dad and me, and we were just too tightly packed in. We went to an open house and ended up putting a contract on a house within three weeks. Then we needed to get the old house ready to sell. We tried FSBO, for six months, then got a realtor. We are now selling it with a two-year rent-to-own contract with a closing in August 2009. Our pricing probably had a lot to do with the long time to sell (17 months). We started at the price a comparable house sold for two months earlier. The market had not started going down, yet. We had an appraisal done because the comps were really not that comparable - brick 1300 sq ft plus a finished basement with a 2 car garage on a smaller lot with no updates to the house vs a frame house with decorative brick on the front with 1450 sq ft and a 1.5 car garage, completely updated, custom kitchen with over 20 cabs and a pantry, unfinished basement, larger lot. So we paid for a professional appraisal and then upped the price to $165k when that was what it said. We didn't know it then, but that was a mistake, because the market was starting to go down. Pre-appraisal, we had no MLS, no advertising, so it was only known to the open house attendees from the month of March that we had upped the price, so it was not too obvious. We lowered the price in June, and again in August, when we listed it with a realtor at $159k. We got our only other offer besides the rent-to-own last Christmas time. It was for $119k, and we had to pay $6000 toward her closing costs! It turned out that she could only qualify for a house up to $140k, so she chose her offer price where $140k would be halfway between our asking and her offer. We lowered the price to $149k this spring and it seemed to generate a lot of interest, but no offers! I found the buyer at work - she is a nurse at one of the nursing homes I visit. She knew she could not buy right away, so we spent about a month going back and forth about how long she could rent before buying. Once I did the math and found that our cost basis exceeded $145k before adding the costs to sell the home, we told her to make an offer. We have now spent a month getting the price agreed on. Now we are going to get a lease application from her, and if that is acceptable, then she will move in in a few weeks. Our mistake through all of this was FOLLOWING the market's prices down, I think. That and a single bathroom, which we could not change. We were on the top two or three of several buyers' lists, but never made #1. Our misconception of what our house was worth was also buoyed by the neighbor's house across the street. It sold for $160k last September and had only 1000 sq ft. But the huge, high mechanic's garage is what sold that house, and the against-code urinal and furnace in the garage helped. This sale led us to keep our price higher too long. That is the trouble with comps. Our house is identical to that 1000 sq ft house except for our $30k kitchen, our extra room off the kitchen, and our extra 12 x 23 room above the garage. He didn't have these things, but he had that garage. Why shouldn't we get a price similar to his? We has 445 more sq ft - almost a third larger home. The moral of our story is that comps can lead you astray in a declining market. You follow the prices as they plummet, and you lose. We have put $145 into a house that is selling for $139 - two years from now! Did we lose money on the deal? Sure we did. We also rescued a house that was on the verge of having structural dry rot problems and turned it into one of the nicest in the neighborhood. There is some spiritual value in that. We added value and lifespan into that home. The buyer is coming off a bad time in her life, and the nice home she will live in will give her some comfort as she rebuilds. There is certainly value in that. I guess you could say we lost monetarily in this home, but gained a lot in knowledge and karma. We learned not to do that again with our money, and to never say "never" (as in, "we are never going to move from this house.") when it come to plans for the future.

Just to clarify - I don't think my kids as individuals are overscheduled. BUT, we have three kids who are active. My kids aren't old enough to be left home alone, so we all go to every event. We try to do homework at the practice of siblings to save time, but a typical week looks like this: Home from school around 4PM M - dinner, homework, DS1 practice 5:30 - 7, showers, fun time with dad (since he was at work all day), bed around 8:30 T - dinner, homework, DS2 practice 5:30 - 7, showers, fun time with dad, bed around 8:30 W - DS1, DS2 catechism 4:30 - 6, dinner, homework, fun time with dad, bed around 8:30 R - dinner, homework, DS2 practice 5:30 - 7, showers, fun time with dad, bed around 8:30 F - dinner, homework, usually a game in the evening and we try to go out to dinner as a family either before or after (depending on game time). S - DS3 sports (also family commitments - visiting grandparents who are an hour away, etc.). Add into that the schedules of the families we are friends with, and finding time after school is nearly impossible. I'm sure to include the "fun time with dad" because it really is a highlight for my kids. We try to have everything done before he gets home from work (homework, showers, etc) so we can just enjoy time together everyday (a house of boys.... usually they are wrestling or throwing a football, but sometimes its a board game or UNO.)