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Title: Catchup
Date: August 21, 2025

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  So, where do I begin? I haven't been updating things on
my gopherhole because my blog has been a little more usable
with my limited time and energy right now. I'm doing this
because I do miss updating things here, but like with the
web, I've been offline far more than online.

  Back on June 27th, my uncle passed away peacefully, out
of everyone's view, as he wanted. He left me with a crapton
of things to go through here at home, and even more in one
last big order that he gave to me to keep me going until we
could get back on our feet. Food, a bit of clothing, some
equipment to help us until we can get proper vehicles...
All stuff we needed, and which has indeed kept us going.

  It hurt, losing the last of the four people who raised me
from birth. He left me a lot. The house was put in my name
with survivorship rights back in 2007, my van (still down)
was always in my name since my grandfather sold it to me,
and his life insurance couldn't be touched by anyone but me
since I was the beneficiary.

  Now, I'm sitting in the master bedroom, with the bed
frame my grandfather left, and the medical mattress that
was supposed to go to my uncle. I have a new recliner that
was meant for my uncle, but now it's the "family memorial
recliner." My writing desk got moved in, I kept my uncle's
massive wooden drawers, and have a small cube organizer for
holding books and more drawers. I have a gaming chair to
write in while I'm at my desk. I've got a walk-in closet.
I bought a TOSLINK cable for my MacBook Pro, and set up my
grandfather's old BOSE Media Center 1-2-3 for my music. 
Hell, I got to decorate my room for the first time in over
a year.

  It's been rough work digging through everything, putting
old paperwork with personal info through the shredder, and
picking what to keep and what to sell/donate. We can only
have a single yard sale every 6 months, and it requires me
to fill out paperwork to do so with a set date, so we're
hesitant to make it happen too early.

  A /lot/ has gone to other family members, though. The old
collectible dolls my mom had went to my little cousin, and
my grandmother's figurines are going to another cousin who
wants them. My last remaining uncle got all of the family
photos and genealogy stuff, and I gave his wife some of my
grandmother's jewelry to help remember everyone through her
dementia (she likely doesn't have long herself). We still
have more to go through as well.

  It's not been all fun and games, though. My mate's job is
made of dumb and uses AI to fill in schedules in what is a
very inappropriate mismanagement of resources, among a lot
more. Our water heater broke down about a week ago, but it
isn't leaking, thankfully. We're getting estimates for work
on that, but money is rather tight. I'd love to switch from
gas to a solar water heater, but not sure how much that'd
cost right now, and we have other issues that need to be
taken care of as well. /I/ can deal without flowing hot
water, but my mate is having a hard time coping with it.

  Speaking of, one of my other partners is moving back here
to live with us. It's still a while away from happening,
but it'll happen. Maybe we can hold out until then and work
things out together.

  Regardless, the roller coaster isn't stopping any time
soon, and I need to get back to my work with writing, even
with everything taking my focus away from it. Not gonna
open my mouth and jinx myself this time, though. Last time,
it caused the water heater to break.

  Instead, I'll sign off with this: Earthships need to be
more widely accepted, and widely available as an option
for people to build, dammit!

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