ole joyful here again ... whose life insurance matured at 80 and he collected it. He celebrated his 96th birthday last week. It was my turn to take sweets to the old guys' coffee hour at church ... and the minister brought a layer cake for my birthday (second oldest member). Renting what was my step-uncle's farnhouse about 6+ miles from nearby village and 12+ - 15 or so miles from city, my car was broken beyond being repairable over 3 years ago and lost licence 2 years ago. Hitchhike to village, bus to town. More than half of people giving rides are older females, some gave me numbers, offer to drive me. Friends said move to town, I like it here but soon health may require it, so am uncluttering house aiming for an apt. and hugely thankful that I can afford 2 - 3 times the rent - for 10 - 15 years or so, and starting from 96, that seems a reasonable timeframe. Good wishes to all of you for the year ahead - hope we can add a bit to helping our world become a better place for coming generations - says he, with a male and female offspring, but lacking ggrgragrangrandgrandkgrandkigrandkidgrandkids grandkids. ole joyful p.s. trying to make amendmeamendments here can be a pain in the butt, when the editors get their additions put in! o j

My dad's living will has some rather generic information about what he would want done. Then there's the important stuff. It specifies that my stepmom is to make any decisions for him if he is unable to do so. It then specifies that I am to make the decisions if she is unavailable/unable to do so. If both of us are unavailable, my oldest brother gets to decide. In reality, any decisions would be family decisions, but in case of any conflict or disagreement, there is a legal piece of paper that clearly spells out who he wants having final say. Just assuming your spouse will be able to make decisions for you isn't very reliable. Although it's probably not the most common problem, remember Terri Schiavo had a husband the whole conflict was that the rest of her family disagreed and even though courts ultimately upheld the husband's right to decide on her behalf I'm sure the whole situation was pretty horrible for all. I don't know that having a living will naming her husband (assuming that's who she would have named) would actually have mattered in her case, but it couldn't have hurt. The more likely situation though is an accident that involves both spouses so the spouse is unavailable or incapable of making decisions. If you have one adult child, one parent, one sibling, etc down the line of legal next of kin in the order you'd like people making decisions for you, maybe you're ok, but if you have multiple people with equal rights under the law (or one in there somewhere who you wouldn't trust to be able to make the choices you'd prefer), it would probably be a good idea to decide ahead of time who gets the final say, who comes next, etc, make it legal in a living will, and let the family members know about it. Not only will that make sure you get the people you want making your health care decisions, it could make things easier on your family in a difficult time to have those decisions made ahead of time. Of course you can't predict what you want done in any imaginable situation, but you can predict who might be available and reliable to make those decisions on your behalf. I have no idea what's in their actual will. I'll probably be hobbling around a nursing home in a walker anyway by the time i might inherit anything (my parents were babies when they got married and had me, and my stepmom's a decade younger even than them), so I can't see why i should care.

While I do agree with the idea (really, it's a fact, and sometimes a very cold hard one for some folks) that no one should *expect* an inheritance from anyone and an individual can and does do what s/he wants with their own estate, I too often see this used in a hypocritical way, and/or in a way that ignores the realities of a situation. I agree that if the parent had not said anything to the child, then a child expecting an inheritance makes for an unwarranted expectation and an assumption out of thin air. (Although in many states, including where my Dad lives, the law ---default intestate--- does NOT presume spouse gets all but assumes spouse gets half, so it's not necessarily a totally outrageous idea that one's wife OR kids might "expect" something.) It becomes more thorny when one takes the *assumption of assumption* factor out of it and when one looks at what everyone's actual expectations are and compares those expectations for validity and reasonableness. How would you view this same situation if instead of *assuming* that the kids are *assuming* or *expecting* an inheritance based on thin air, deplorable greed, a sense of 'entitlement' or general spoiled-ness, it became known that for many years ---WITH CURRENT WIFE LONG IN THE PICTURE--- Dad has made his wishes very clear numerous times regarding how he wants to split his estate, and it's NOT ALL for wife but roughly split wife/kids? How would you then see it if wife decides to start a years-long, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners campaign to get him to change things to being ALL HER FAVOR because she *EXPECTS* and feels *ENTITLED* to every last dime, even if she basically has to take out his whole family and most of his friends to get it? This is what has happened in my Dad's case. My SM is the one who expects it ALL, against everything she's been told for years, who resorts to low & petulant tactics to strongarm him in various ways into changing what he has said many many times over many years about what he wants in terms of dividing his estate between she and I. She EXPECTS him to pay off all of HER debts, she EXPECTS him to pay all of her household bills, she EXPECTS him to pay for all kinds of house & garden improvements, she EXPECTS him to pay for her 60-year-old sister's vet bill for her Yorkie when said sister has a second house, a boat, a husband and a bad QVC habit (but heaven help my Dad if he tosses me a few bucks to help me with the costs of visiting him in his dying days), she EXPECTS that she will be given ALL after he dies, and she gets REAL PISSED OFF when he doesn't meet her EXPECTATIONS. Some may view this pathetic situation as she somehow has a right to do this, or has MORE of a right, or it's LESS awful, simply because she has a piece of paper saying she's his wife. Sorry, but I don't agree. Call me a cynic, a blasphemer or just a child of divorce, but I don't share the opinion that "wife" bestows magical power or carte blanche to muscle demanding inflated "expectations" which selfsame wife would condemn in stepkid: the one whose "expectations" have remained in line with actual conversations, reality, state law, and Dad's actual wishes. The last time my SM uttered (with much inflection, always) what has become her favorite and mindblowingly hypocritical line "you're only disappointed by your own EXPECTATIONS" ---never addressing the Elephant Issue of Money directly, always couching it behind these random & vaguely-relevant platitudes--- I promptly responded "I agree, ESPECIALLY when your expectations are against the grain, based on nothing, and outrageous".

Well, it is somewhat subjective, since one person's chaotic is another person's serene. That said, if pretty much everything else you are liking is gold/champagne/silver, then maybe the door hardware would look better in a silver tone. Spend some time looking at photos on Houzz and you will see every type of combination, some might appeal to you and others might not. Now think back to an acquaintance you visited at their home once ... do you remember the exact finishes of their door hardware and other fixtures? Probably not!