Here's a non-football update which I haven't done for a while. Nothing much to report on really, just slowly but surely getting affairs in order. Just the nitty gritty of things. I am left alone most of the time though my elder sister bugs me at times to check how i am doing. She did give me her old iPhone 4, she upgraded to an iPhone 5. I just have to get a sim card for it, the sim card from my current phone won't fit. It needs a micro-sim card, while the one I have is the more old fashioned larger sim card. But you can get them from Dick Smith's for $30 which includes the credits. I never had an iPhone, Sally didn't like them, she didn't care much for Apple products, she thinks they are over-rated and over-priced so we stuck to Android devices. Sally is probably right, but since the iPhone was offered to me for free, I thought why not try it out. Now I just have to make a trip to Dick Smith's for the sim card.
A new sim card will mean a new phone number, but I will keep the other phone so I will in effect have two phones, at least until I thoroughly checked out the iPhone anyway. So for the foreseeable future I am still reachable on my current cell phone number.
This brings me to another point, part of the ongoing saga of changing Sally's accounts over to mine. Much of our affairs are in Sally's name so to enable pensioner discounts. The Telstra account is one of them. I knew there was a bill due, but Sally had the account set to electronic bills only, not paper bills, and well I couldn't get into her account online as I didn't have the password. Obviously Sally wasn't planning on falling off the perch so soon!!! So I had to call Telstra, and after somewhat unsuccessfully navigating through their automated call direction service I finally got to a real person, well I think it was a real person anyway, though knowing Telstra it could have been a droid - or I been watching too many sci fi movies!! LOL!! Anyway yes indeed there was a bill due, so after arranging to pay that over the phone, she promised to have Sally's death recorded and to have help in getting the account transferred over to me. But Telstra being Telstra I am yet to hear back from them. But no panic yet. Though I don't have access to her online account I do have access to Sally's email accounts, and they send an email when there is a bill posted online. So if I haven't heard from them by then I will simply call them again.
When I get Telstra sorted out, next on the list is the car rego, that is also in her name, again for pensioner discount. Fortunately that bill comes in old fashioned snail mail, and indeed I have such a bill to pay this month. But I will need to eventually work on having it transferred to my name. Then our internet account, but once again I already have access to that account. Then various other minor things or things of much lesser importance, such as the loyalty programs - FlyBuys and Woollies Reward - and etc. And of course our joint bank account, of course it is no longer "joint" but am yet to let the bank know. Of course Centerlink already knows, that's the first thing I did so to stop her pension so to stop me from spending it as any pension that may have arrived after her death would have to be paid back. And I assume Medicare would already know as Sally died in hospital and so I am assuming Medicare would have been informed in due course, but I am not overly worried about that anyway. The big headache is Telstra cos I don't have access to her account and am yet to hear back from them......
Although Sally has been gone for over a month I am still paying the legacy of her high care needs. This week I have a large water bill to pay, partly as a consequence of the 4 loads of laundry that needed to be done each and every day due to towels, sheets, etc needing to be changed each day. That is also partly the reason for the large electric bill that also needs to be paid in a couple of weeks. Once I get those two bills paid then I can start getting back on my feet financially as all subsequent bills are expected to be much lower. I will still have the ambulance and funeral expenses but then the ambulance is letting me pay them back in small installments which has little impact on my fortnitely budget though I will increase the amounts once I get through with those two utility bills. My in-law paid for the funeral but he'll let me pay it back as I am able, just a little bit each fortnite.
Food-wise well I am still far from organised. I managed to bake one of mother's legendary casserole dishes from one of her recipes that I still have, but for the most part I am still living on convenience foods which I get on special at any of the supermarkets, and take-out foods using discount coupons. I got some discount coupons from KFC, so using the coupons I get one of the family meal packs then divide them up, freeze the chicken portions, and munch on them at work during meal breaks - it works out much cheaper with the coupons. But I know I will have to get "proper" foods soon such as fruit and veges, I just get them from the growers market, and start better planning my menus, bake more of mother's legendary dishes, and etc..... I am getting there but it all takes time.
In regards to the house..... well the first phase of the cleanup is about over and done with, slowly getting rid of the rubbish through our weekly bin collections, and the larger items set aside for the next "big junk day" when we leave them on the verge for the council to come pick up for recycling. I am now into phase 2, starting with the kitchen. Cleaning out the cupboards, removing items of Sally that I would never use.
I have dealt with all of the loose items of Sally's that were scattered through the house, keeping some such as her crafts, and removing others that is obviously junk. Sally is like a bower bird, she collects and hoard items all in various states of disrepair with the expectation that she would repair them - all this before she got sick!! So anyway I got all that dealt with. But there are still loads of items in cupboards and storage containers through the house and garage.
Then just recently her best friend called me. Since Sally went into hospital I could not get hold of her friend, I tried for over two weeks but could not reach her. So she didn't know of Sally's passing away nor the funeral. I figured she must have changed her number. Then just last week she tried to call Sally expecting her to still be there, and after several attempts over several days, she gotten on Sally's Facebook account and that was when she found out about her death. It was an utter shock to her.
So she got hold of me, and she said that when I was ready, she would come over and help me go through all of Sally's items, and whatever can be sold on ebay she will sell, and give me some of the proceeds. Anyway through our conversations something rather disturbing came up. About a week before Sally went into hospital she came over to see Sally, and actually helped change the towels and pads for Sally - I was at work at the time. Then after that, Sally told her these words - "please make sure Greg is OK"!!! That was a strange request cos I normally don't have much to do with her friend. I can only conclude that Sally somehow KNEW that she was about to fall off the perch and wanted her friend to take care of me!!! Sally never told me any of this while she was still alive, this was within the week of her fateful admission to the hospital. She never told me once that she expected to die. But it seems that she was expecting to die!!! And well her friend is taking care of me, she contacts me nearly every day to make sure all is OK, and she is wanting to come over to help with the cleaning - I am just not quite ready for it yet, but at least I will have help in going through Sally's endless amount of items that she has, mainly craft items and photography items.
Anyway I guess that is it for now...... football musings to come tomorrow :)
No comments:
Post a Comment