First bouquet of the (almost spring) season
Although most of our bouquets are placed where Hunky Husband can enjoy them from "the master's chair", this particular bouquet should be dedicated to Elder Brother (EB) whose 85th birthday is today. Nineteen thirty-six was a banner year. Not only was EB born in 1936, but each of us three siblings (who survived infancy) married a spouse who was born in 1936. I'm remembering, though, that EB's wife succumbed to pancreatic cancer eight years ago. We miss her. She would have turned 85 in mid-February.
My birthday present to EB was foregoing singing "Happy Birthday" to him when we called him. He had two feet of snow on the ground. We had received heavy blobs of snow for several hours, yesterday; but, only a smattering had stuck (to bare ground areas) when we retired last night and nothing was left this morning. We have received about 2.2" of liquid moisture in the past 48 hours.
Spring cleaning our safety deposit box
About a week ago, I removed nearly everything from the safety deposit box that we keep at a local financial institution, bringing it home to sort out and update our inventory listing. Oh, my! We are pretty good about stuffing papers & items into the box; but, we're not good at shredding old papers and keeping the inventory listing updated. The biggest mess was our accordion file labeled "Isurance" (well...Hunky Husband was having a bad day with the labeler, I guess.) That file contained insurance papers dating back to 2007. I culled out more than half of the papers before throwing the rest into a bag to take to our agent's office. Our agent, Ron, wasn't in the office; but, in response to my crying and begging, his right hand assistant Monica replied, "You know we love you!" She would sort through to see if she agreed with me that most of the papers could be shredded.
An hour later, when we stopped by again, Ron showed us the large bunch of papers that were ready to shred and gave me the bag. It now contained four pristine envelopes - each labeled with the insurance policy and date in Monica's handwriting. Monica had also found an envelope containing the title to HH's car which I had noted as missing from the accordion file labeled "Car & Home Papers". Ron & Monica give service well above and beyond duty. Ron even offered to shred the unneeded papers for me.
Now, I need to take a fistful of EE bonds, that I had purchased through paycheck withholding before retirement, to the credit union for cashing in. According to the treasury website, the bonds haven't drawn interest in several years, despite my note that EEs didn't stop drawing interest until they were at least 30 years old and these had not yet reached that limit. Laws/policies must have changed in the meantime.
It's a good thing to get the excess paper out of the box to make room for the new. I am putting into the box the originals of the legal documents that our lawyer drew up for us in May 2020 - general and healthcare durable powers of attorney for each of us, plus a power of attorney for both of us on our house and lots - a total of about 80 sheets of 8.5"x11" paper.
I have a hard time getting rid of old documents - and that has come in handy a couple of times when I needed a document to prove things. For example; bought a water softener that had a lifetime guarantee and when it failed after 10+ years, the company didn't have records of us buying their product, but I did :)
At the same time, it is good to clean out the outdated stuff every once in a while.
Posted by: bogie | March 21, 2021 at 03:25 AM
Good for you, Bogie! Well done! HH & I've lived so long that our accumulation of paperwork has gotten entirely out of hand. Your dad had no idea what he had done with his car title - until Monica found it.
Unless I'm dealing with a known, reliable dealer, any "lifetime" guarantee is suspect - I don't believe 'em - take it as hyperbole. That's what makes it so nice if one is able to deal with a reliable dealer for years-on-end. For instance: Hupp's Hardware store (you and I browsed) came through. A few years ago I was trying to get a replacement shovel handle for one that we broke in digging up a couple of trees for the girls. The salesman said that, as I had assumed, the composite handle could not be replaced; but, he looked at the label on the original shovel (a few years old) and deducted its price from the price of the new shovel. Similarly, I always knew that Sears would take care of any Craftsman tool that failed to provide satisfactory service during my lifetime. Sears got a lot of business from me because I trusted them. The other day, when the plumber installed your dad's new commode, he asked if I wanted the guarantee/paperwork that went with it. Nope. Fahnestock is trustworthy. They will hassle with the supplier for me. (Besides, the supplier - The Tap - is reliable, too.)
Posted by: Cop Car | March 21, 2021 at 09:33 AM
That is well-organised. I find we tend to stick all the important papers in the filing cabinet but also we put in the [ages of advertising blurb that tend to come with them. It does accumulate so quickly.
When I worked as an administrator my boss was very insistent of keeping everything for years and years.
Posted by: Liz Hinds | March 22, 2021 at 10:34 AM
Oh and glad you're fully inoculated. Husband gets his second tomorrow but I'm still waiting.
Posted by: Liz Hinds | March 22, 2021 at 10:35 AM
Happy for your husband, Liz, and thank you. We have reached the point, in Kansas, where the supply of vaccine is greater than the demand, as I understand it. There seem to be a lot of available appointment slots, anyway - not the case when I was trying to get HH in line for his first shot.
There is only so much stuff that one can place in a box that is about 16" long and 10"x10" frontal area. HH and I are trying to get rid of excess papers that our heirs would have to wrestle with on our demise. You aren't to that point in life, yet, so you have time to get serious.
In every company for which I worked, we had to annually check over our paperwork and computer files, getting rid of anything that wasn't necessary for conducting our engineering business. That was at the behest of our attorneys. The less that is left lying about for discovery by other people's attorneys, the happier were our attorneys. In addition, whenever we promulgated a security classified document/piece of paper/computer file, we had to put a destroy date on it - set by government guidelines on the particular project - none of which I now recall.
Posted by: Cop Car | March 23, 2021 at 08:41 AM