Random 5 for March 22, 2026 – Weather, taxes, facilities, clutter, old people

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She did it again – We were predicted to have a “warm” (relatively speaking) weekend and Mother Nature disappointed us. Yesterday was not warm. It wasn’t even average temperatures. Today is supposed to be the “jewel” of the week hitting the 70s. It’s cloudy. The kind of cloudy with no sun peeking through so I’m not convinced we’ll see it. We won’t see warmer weather after today (if indeed it gets out of the 50s) until April. March is a tough month. Although it’s warmer than January or February, I’m so sick of the cold that I want to sleep through it.

On another whiny note – I received a notice in early February that one of the 1099s for my income taxes is wrong. They are making a correction. I haven’t seen it yet. It’s been six weeks. These forms are computer generated. Slip in the new number and update. Easy peasy except they still haven’t made it available. It’s not a matter of slow postal service. I will download it from their website and it’s not there yet. I feel a cranky call coming this week. Taxes are due April 15th. I don’t like to spend any beautiful April days pouring over numbers. There is always a quagmire or two when I do them. I hate taxes.

The highlight of the week – We visited another continuous care facility this week. We looked at four independent care apartments. One was too small for both of us (we would kill each other) and may even be too small for me alone. Another was ok for me but not for both of us. There was at least one that was “just right.” Moving to a place like this involves a lot of compromise and adjustments. In exchange for guaranteed care for the rest of your life, you give up comfort things like a garage or carport for your car. If you happen to make an early morning coffee run, you need to scrap the frost off your windshield in the winter. Mail is in another part of the building and not at the end of your driveway (which you don’t have). There are a lot of positives and as you age the idea is that the positives become more important than the negatives. The question is always, when is the right age.

Another take-away from that – The apartments we saw are occupied. Residents volunteered to open their homes for potential clients. They were beautifully furnished. Furniture fit and was appropriately sized. Something I’ve seen in my travels in these communities is that people don’t downsize enough. They take too much stuff to the new place and have lots of unattractive clutter. Sometimes the furniture is too big for the space. Having downsized once, I know how hard it is to make decisions. What will you need? What is special to you? Mostly nothing! (Except for the cats! Always take the cats!)

Just one more thing – As we waited for our group to gather, I said to the beloved husband, “These are all old people!” There were no canes, walkers or wheelchairs. Lots of gray heads and if there were health challenges, they weren’t visible. They were people like us. It was like looking in a mirror except my mirror shows me as a younger person.

So how was your week?

Editor’s note: WordPress has been giving me issues lately. Today it said my domain has been canceled (despite being on autopay). My account is being suspended so today may be my last day. When I started blogging in 2011, WordPress was a wonderful platform to just write. I wasn’t looking to monetize, promote or sell. It seems they are expanding to allow broader usage but also leaving us hobby writers in the dust. This may get resolved or may not. Just in case you can’t find me, that’s the story.

Editor’s Update: WordPress was able to enable whatever was disabled over night so everything should be good. NOTE TO MUSE: You must come home from that tiki bar in the islands! Vacation is over!

60 thoughts on “Random 5 for March 22, 2026 – Weather, taxes, facilities, clutter, old people”

  1. I couldn’t get in to your site yesterday, but today is just fine.

    I could have used more sunny weather this week. My daughter and son-in-law are visiting. We’ve only had a bit of rain, though, so I shouldn’t complain.

    I hate to move. It’s so much work, and I like the space I have here. On the other hand, I know I shouldn’t wait too long to start looking at the assisted living places.

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    • There was a domain glitch yesterday that shut it down. It was resolved overnight. I’m not sure what happened but it’s working. We don’t get a lot of sunny weather until end of April or May. It’s cloudy most of this week and cool. Today we didn’t get out of the 40s but hopefully it will be a little warmer tomorrow.

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  2. There are senior facilities that actually have separate homes. Some duplexes some single family, but they are part of the actual continuous care facility. Still get the dining hall and cleaning services and such. They even have garages. But I imagine those are highly expensive.

    The weather in March is Bipolar. At least it is here. One day it’s 70, the next day chance of flurries, the next day, 70 again. 🤷🏻‍♀️

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  3. Glad WP didn’t kick you under the bus (or wherever it is where they kick us “hobbyists” as they search for bigger bucks from business ventures. We are their first borns. They should treat us better!!

    Good for you and your guy to at least start looking ‘for the future’ whether near or far. I met a friend a few weeks ago when I visited my CA town and she shocked me by saying she’s moving to a ‘senior community’ this coming spring. She’s six years older than me – has lived in the same house for 40 years – and is in excellent health. But she wants to be proactive. This independent community also has assisted living and memory care if needed. Really gave me a big pause to think…

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  4. I tried to read your blog yesterday (Sunday) and was blocked. Sooo glad you are back on line!

    My brother and his wife are moving into a graduated care facility. They put their names on a list over a year ago and are only now at the top. They are trying to downsize ahead of time, but it is hard. A lot of full closets!

    I wish you well on your journey of discovery. Good to start early. ❤

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    • It’s not usually an immediate move. Most places locally have waiting lists especially if you want something special. Yesterday was the pits for the blog. I was notified that my domain had expired (I’m on autopay) and it took overnight until someone at WP could clear out whatever glitch was glitching. Thank you for coming back!

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  6. Noooooooooooooooooo! This can’t be your last post! I know where to find you. Just this last week I wanted to get back to blogging and for the 2nd time I tried blogger… nope. WP is not so friendly either. I guess I will stick with Instagram but it is so not the same as blogging. 1099s are just another PIA to deal with. Thank the heavens for TurboTax. I better go before Jerry because I have no idea about taxes and I flunked math in high school. We are filed and done. I can’t think about a continuous care facility because there is one across from us and the nonstop ambulance pick ups there are more than unsettling. I want to die in my home with hospice and a glass of wine.

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  7. I just put my tax docs and chart on a flash drive to take tomorrow to the CPA. I did everything several weeks ago, but RBC is famous for issuing a statement in March, so now I wait until the first day of Spring and figure I’m good to go. Once, I came home from picking up my stuff and signing off on the e-filing to find an RBC statement and we had to amend the return. Now everything is online – much easier to check one last time.

    My friend Ann Marie and her husband moved from their apartment to assisted living last year – they were tossing items for months and they had already downsized from their home several years before when they moved to an apartment as her husband has COPD and can’t do stairs. She likes this assisted living place, but the rent is very high and they charge one fee for her and another for her husband. He is seven years older – perhaps that’s why. Ann Marie is like the people you saw – very energetic and spry for an 82-year old, her hubby not so much.

    Well, I have no pets, so I guess I’d take along all the items I already put away for “my golden years” like puzzles and paperbacks, plus current hobby stuff like cameras and art stuff.

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      • She is very tiny, probably 90 pounds soaking wet and she got a hernia from lifting him a few years ago when he fell in the apartment. He is heavyset. After the hernia surgery she called for an ambulance to lift him up when he fell and was afraid to leave him alone, even to run to the store, so this was best. That is annoying! They say we might have light snow tomorrow, so I will wait ’til Tuesday.

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        • My friend’s daughter’s husband had a progressive fatal disease (I think it was Huntington’s). He was large because he was wheelchair bound and all he could do was watch TV and eat. She had a winch installed in the ceiling to help him get out of bed. She also had to call EMS whenever he fell. He refused to move to a nursing home (where he really belonged) wanting to die at home. He passed away about two years ago at home. I thought about her often. Life was hard for her for many, many years.

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          • That is rough. You remember my “cat friend” Carol that I mentioned to you when she had her three cats – now she just has ferals she takes care of all year around. Her husband was the same, he no longer could walk with a walker and would constantly fall. He ended up in a nursing home as he was a big guy and he could not get up from a fall on his own. I feel for people who end up like this – he had only retired a couple of years before and ended up in a nursing home in his early 70s.

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  9. Oh I hope it’s not your last day and you get this figured out. The weather has been crazy this month and makes me wonder what April will bring. It snowed Friday night and yesterday morning. Today it’s sunny, warmer temps and the snow has melted fast.

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  10. I’m following your next/last move journey with interest. Like you, we aren’t quite ready but it seems like a good idea to scope out options.

    We’ve had some interesting weather here. The last several days were much hotter than usual and today it’s comfortable again. We just pulled some ripe cherry tomatoes off our volunteer bush… yum! Tastes like summer!

    Sorry about your troubles with WP. I don’t get why they keep making changes… for the worse, in most cases. Just leave us hobby bloggers alone!

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    • Too bad there isn’t a site for hobby bloggers who don’t make money from their site. WP has been crazy for about 3 months. I don’t understand what’s going on in general. Sometimes I’m on my blog and I have to sign in again while I’m in it. Makes no sense to me.

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  12. I hope you aren’t dealing with a scam. I have a free account at WordPress. For a couple of months I’ve gotten notices that my credit card is not working, and I will soon be thrown out. They’ve never had my credit card!!

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  15. The weather here is glorious. My taxes are DONE & DUSTED. Yippee!

    Life is good . . . or was . . . until I heard that you are being cancelled by WP.

    Hope you can get that sorted and get your revised 1099 and get some spring-like temps soon. Give Sasha & Gus a treat from me.

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  17. NOOOOO – don’t go away! I heard one other WordPress-er say they’d had blog problems this past week…..years ago when I looked for a place to start a FREE blog I chose WordPress….. didn’t pay for a domain – I’m a cheapie – everything is free…..I don’t know if they’re gonna mess with me or not. If they do, I may just retire. Heaven knows I’m old enough to! As for your visits to continuous care facilities – I’m trying to talk my guy into that – sadly there are NO places in our town or our nearby area and we love it here. (insert heavy sigh here). Getting old isn’t easy is it. Keep us posted and hope you get the blog issues worked out!

    Hugs, Pam

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    • The WP issues I don’t understand. I haven’t heard back from them yet but it’s Sunday. Don’t know if they staff CS on Sundays. Making living decisions isn’t easy. If we had unlimited funds and could get help when we can no longer do things ourselves, I don’t know what decision we would make.

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  19. I agree, Kate! We hobbyists ARE being left in the dust. Some people are migrating to Substack but I fear it’s only a matter of time before the same thing happens there. Anyways, good on you for looking into potential next accommodations in your life NOW before it could become a necessity and urgent. That is very wise.

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  20. Gah…we certainly hope you continue to be found. You’re right WP has been a bit of a pill lately. It’s exhausting. The Block editor was bad enough but some of the other little things are starting to add up.

    With me and my siblings moving my dad into a senior independent care facility, I know what you mean about decisions needing to be made. It’s different with each person and you just have to take the good with the not so good outcomes. Hopefully you won’t be making that final decision for a while and that spring finally arrives and stays. We were jettisoned into summer this week. Was. not. ready. (or happy) about. that!

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    • I could use a touch of summer just about now! Still cool here. I never migrated to block editor. I had too much trouble with photos so I bookmarked the classic. So far they’ve let me use it. I don’t know why WP has become so complicated lately.

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  21. I think about how old people look too, and forget I’m 70. My body knows I’m 70, but my mind does not. It always surprises me when I think others are old, and realize I’m getting up there too,

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  23. I don’t understand why the blogging entities feel compelled to make it hard for bloggers. But they do. I only know Blogger and WP. Both have sold me down the river…especially WP.

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