Ahhhhhh :)! I am putting my feet up for a moment now! Visited Carol in Joshua this morning and enjoyed the visit SO much. Carol's gardens are so welcoming and pretty, she has put a ton of work into it. Thank you, Carol for all of the wonderful plants. It looks like everything made it home fine. Even the 4 foot tall Indigo Spires, lol! I have a perfect spot in mind for it at the project site. It will be beautiful. After seeing your gardens, my want list has increased considerably....but not for the project, LOL I mean for me :). Your place makes me impatient for some shade at my place. I love the high, high canopy of your trees. Anyhow, one of my projects for tomorrow is to organize all of the potted up stuff I have here for the project in order of height :). Then I'm going to take a pic and post it. You guys will not believe your own generosity! I feel like I have a mini-nursery :). I am so looking forward to getting it all in the ground. I have used potting soil with fert in it so everything is looking really nice and I have every pot mulched for that little bit of protection. They all get a good drink every morning and seem to be happy. I know the master gardeners are not going to believe their eyes when I deliver all of these plants :). I know I've said it before, but thank you again everyone for your incredible generosity and caring. This garden can't help but be a huge success. Kristi

I think one of the nicest gifts anj elderly parent can give a child is to have the funeral arrangements taken care of, if not paid for ('cause I know some can't afford) but to at least make their exact wishes known. I will never forget the day my grandmother showed up at our door and told my mom she wanted to talk. she then told mom she had been to the funeral home, made for and paid for all the arrangements. When grandmother went home to heaven it was so much easier on mom...........my grandmother even told her what dress to put her in! LOL! As I said earlier, we are all going for direct creamation, no funeral home visitation, just graveside when ashes are ready. I think the visistaion is a waste of time, why wait till the person is gone, why not visit them while they are living?

Been checking back in on this thread with interest and hope the original poster lets us know how it might all be resolved. I have a few random thoughts that I hope doesn't put me in the grinch category: 1. Even though the mother is housed comfortably elsewhere and not in need of funds, the possessions left behind are still, in effect, hers. If she wishes that someone benefit from the sale of the things left behind, that "someone" is the person who should be doing the lion's share of the work to dispose of them in a meaningful way. If the OP is the one expected to take care of things, she should have carte blanch to handle it how she sees fit - possibly not taking the niece or brother into account. 2. Again, read up on the possible IRS pitfalls of going over the $500 non-cash donation threshhold. 3. How much time does one wish to spend going through and pricing things right down to the last Flintstone jelly glass everyone seems to have in the far reaches of kitchen cabinets? How much is that beloved family dish really worth to someone not in your family? 4. What charity is going to send a truck to pick up everything that doesn't sell? How many trips do you want to make to the dump or how many months of storage fees at a U Rent It place would you agree to? How much time do you want to devote dragging things back and forth to flea markets? 5. You need a few people to help with garage sales - someone to watch the cash box, and one or two more to see that items don't simply walk away while you're distracted. I'm not heartless when it comes to the disposal of other's things; but I've never had to do it while the owner was still living so that sense of "violation" never came into play. But since the responsibility of having to do these things fell to me and my brother on a couple of occasions, doing what was easiest and most expedient for us was the most basic consideration.

I would think the main problems are getting the shoes where they need to be. Aside from shoes usable only for the remaining raw materials, I think I have a good idea of what is "wearable" vs. not. I don't think of kinda used, not-pristine shoes as not good enough or even that "they're good enough for poor people" Instead I agree with dilly dally that one would expect people need all sorts of shoes for all sorts of jobs and uses--right shoe, right job--just as here I wear pretty raunchy shoes to work in the garden and then another pair to go out, or if your shoes get soaking wet, it's great to have a spare pair. Plus, many people would be putting their shoes to hard use and need replacements often. I would hope that people in these other countries (or in the U.S., for that matter) don't think of usably-used shoes as being from fat-cat, ugly Americans but say, hey, these will be great in the rainy season, or for plowing the field, and these I can save to wear to school, or whatever. Maybe I am just naive! Of course it is important to give $$ for or give new or good-looking shoes and clothing as well so other people can have the joy and pride in wearing something nice when they want or need to. I grew up in the day when our moms were still having us "change" from school clothes to play clothes--the play clothes might be getting too short or a bit raggedy. Nowadays I don't know that kids do that as much, as they seem to have more "control" over their clothing.