The summer of 2025 will be known as the summer of change; some good, some difficult, and some that remind you to never get too comfortable in the current situation. I won’t rehash it, because more than likely if you’re reading this then you are probably a semi-regular patron of this page and I’m sure you don’t want me to go over it all again. But if you did stumble upon this site for the first time just now, hello. Here’s a Cliff Notes version of the summer of 2025:
On July 8th our 22-year old daughter went into the ER with severe stomach cramping and uncontrollable vomiting. She was administered pain meds, anti-nausea meds, and IV fluids. This was the beginning of two weeks of back and forth visits to the ER and being admitted for observation. This lasted from the 8th till the 19th, which was the last day she was sick. Since that day we decided that maybe this was a food thing, so we took gluten from her diet(as well as her usage of THC) and her health turned around 180 degrees. We also decided that it would be best for her if she moved back home for the foreseeable future in order to save money, relieve stress, and take care of the coming medical bills incurred from the hospital stays.
There. You’re all caught up.
The past weekend was spent moving the big items from her place to ours. Saturday was surprisingly easy, moving her bedroom to our place. My dad helped as he has a truck we could haul it all in. He’s 79, so I absolutely did not want him lifting things. I just needed him to drive for me. Between a two-wheel dolly and a four-wheel moving dolly nobody had to strain. No one was hurt and all was well. Sunday was a different story. We only had her sectional couch to move. This thing was a nightmare. I helped move it into her place and I didn’t remember it being that much of a pain. I guess when the situation isn’t on a time constraint it’s not as dire a situation I guess. We were in a crunch to get this stuff removed before this weekend when she officially had to be out.
After running through the geometric and physics aspects of the job at hand we finally got that hunk of junk out of the apartment. At one point I thought we’d jammed it into the downstairs doorway leading out, but we backed it out and somehow got it outside. We got it loaded and secured in the back of the truck and took it home. After my dad left I started looking at the couch and had the sinking feeling this thing wasn’t going to fit into the basement where we’d planned to set it up. I measured it and then went downstairs and that suspicion was correct. You’d barely have 4 inches to get around it.
It had to go.
Our neighborhood has a Facebook page, so I thought I’d throw it out there and say we had a free couch for anyone that wanted it. Not more than 10 minutes later someone messaged me, a new neighbor, and she said she was looking for a couch and asked if I’d send a pic. I went out and put the couch together so I could get an accurate shot of it. While putting it together I realized I was missing a cushion. What?? Huh?? I specifically remember pulling ALL the cushions off this thing. How did we lose one? I started thinking maybe it blew out of the back of the truck, but then I remembered we only put 4 cushions in the back, which is what I had. Maybe I left it at the apartment. So I messaged her and said I was missing a cushion and that I thought it was left behind at the apartment. I told her to let me make sure it was there before her husband came over to grab it.
My wife and I drove 30 minutes back to the apartment and found….nothing. It wasn’t there. What in the hell happened here? Did a wormhole open up and suck it back into some other dimension? I KNOW we had all the cushions. We went downstairs and checked the premises, and even checked both dumpsters in case it fell off the cart and we didn’t notice. Nothing. It was gone. There was some point where my dad had them on a wheel cart and it tipped over, but how would we not notice a couch cushion laying by itself?
So I had to message this woman back and tell her one of the cushions was lost somewhere between the apartment and our house. I felt like a schmuck. Thankfully the young are more willing to improvise when it comes to furniture, as she said they could find another cushion and that they wanted the couch anyways. So at 7:40pm her husband came over. We loaded the first piece into his Ford Explorer. Thankfully they literally only lived two houses away. We could have walked it to their house in two minutes. He made two trips and the couch was out of our lives and garage for good.
We are down to just a TV table and a kitchen table left as the big items. The kitchen table isn’t coming home. It was an old one of ours she was using and was never a favorite, so it’s going to be donated. Our daughter went over to her old place last night after work and grabbed the rest of the things that she wanted. I think there’s an ice maker and a Brita water cooler, but that’s it.
We’re making progress on getting her space set up downstairs. Still a little jumbled, but one of her best friends loves decorating and setting up spaces so she’s going to help her with that. And she wants to set up the bathroom as well; paint it, put up a cabinet thing behind the toilet for all of her makeup and hair stuff, new shower curtain. She’s planning on buying a new TV for her space as well, and I’ll mount it on the wall.
Despite the progress things are still kind of scattered everywhere, which doesn’t do much for anal retentive brain. I have a very specific set of cleaning standards. 5S for the home, if you will. Things need to have a place to live, and if they’re not being used then they must be in their place. Not scattered on the kitchen table or kitchen countertop. Dirty clothes don’t live on the bathroom floor, they live in the dirty clothes hamper. Bags of dog treats, medication, extra towels should be in spaces where they’re not in my eyesight unless being used. I don’t like clutter. I abhor it, actually. Growing up with a very clean-minded mom I got used to living clutter-free. I mean, I was a kid that looked forward to cleaning and rearranging my room on Friday nights. The smell of Pledge and Windex were exhilarating to my pre-teen brain.
This followed me into adulthood. This is why on Friday afternoons after work I need to clean the house before I can chill out with a beer and a movie. If things aren’t picked up and clean then my brain can’t relax. I’m sure this is more than just liking a clean house. A therapist or psychologist would have a heyday with my brain. It’s just how I’m wired, man. I need a sense of structure or I’m lost. Routine, routine, routine,…ritual, ritual, ritual…these are my mantras.
And now, having our daughter’s dog Celeste in the house is both wonderful and kind of insane as far as the cleaning goes. She’s a big dog, being part Staffordshire and something else big(Boxer, perhaps.) We’ve never had dogs that shed. We got a miniature schnauzer when I was in the 3rd grade because they didn’t shed and wouldn’t bug my allergies. This has stayed with me my whole life. No dogs that shed. When I’d go somewhere where a dog did shed it drove me nuts. Hair everywhere. Well now we’re that household, so I’m sweeping every other day now. I never saw myself agreeing to let our kiddo move back in while she had her dog because of a. allergies, and b. the cleanliness factor. Well sitting in the hospital with our daughter back in July I did an about face and told her she should move back. I felt that she wasn’t safe on her own right now. Between the health issues and financial responsibility issues I thought her being home, not having to worry about money and us not having to worry about whether she was sick or not taking care of herself was the best option. Clutter and dog hair be damned.
They have officially been back and living at home since Saturday, and things are going well. Celeste has adjusted well, and she was left home alone for a few hours both Monday and Tuesday and there were no accidents at all. She had a tendency to go in the apartment, but mainly because our kid wasn’t getting up early enough to walk her and let her go to the bathroom. That was one of the first rules we laid down, that she would be getting up early enough to walk Celeste so she could go to the bathroom. And wow, surprisingly that works.
It’ll take a little bit till everything is settled and put in its right place, but things seem to be going in the right direction. Which is great, since it seems the summer of 2025 was only going in one direction…down. It seems to be trending up, which is great since we’re seeing the beginnings of fall approaching. Cool temps and pleasant, blue skies so far this week. Some rain, but we could use that.
So that’s where we’re at. Getting better all the time, but if I’ve learned anything in life it’s that you need to stay frosty, folks. You never know what fresh Hell is just around the corner.
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