Swedish Death Cleaning in the Empty Nest - E54

Rick Denton  0:00  
We're inspired by what we did this weekend, and what we did this weekend is work that we had to do, because what we're going to talk about wasn't done before, and that is this concept of Swedish death cleaning.

Clancy Denton  0:15  
This is the loud quiet living the empty nest. Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the loud, quiet. This is episode 54 we are recording on a not typical day today, because we were gone this weekend and just couldn't do it on Sunday, couldn't get it together. And we will tell you why

Rick Denton  0:38  
was it? Just because we were lazy. No, I guess it depends on your perspective, but I didn't feel lazy.

Clancy Denton  0:43  
So for those of you who have seen the title before, you're probably saying I don't know what that is, or maybe some of you have heard of it. So yeah, I want to talk about what we're

Rick Denton  0:54  
we're inspired by what we did this weekend, and what we did this weekend is work that we had to do, because what we're going to talk about wasn't done before, and that is this concept of Swedish death cleaning, which is such a What did I put on Facebook today? I said, you know, it's not a thrash metal band or anything like that, but it's a dark sounding title.

Clancy Denton  1:21  
And I wonder if did it get interpreted differently, or is that just, is that really what I mean you Yeah, so I did a reading about it, yeah. And I'm

Rick Denton  1:32  
glad you used the word reading, not research, because I will say I have scratched the surface. There's so much out there. It's a quick, easy Google, Swedish death cleaning to find a lot, but it's based at least in the US, where we first became aware of it was in 2017 where Martha no Margareta See, I'm gonna have to pretend like I can speak Scandinavian languages. Magnuson wrote the gentle art of Swedish death, cleaning, how to make your loved ones lives easier and your own life more pleasant.

Clancy Denton  2:03  
So I have a question for you, because I'd never heard of this and you had brought it up a few weeks ago, months ago, where did it come back into your or how did you hear about it? Or do you know, I

Rick Denton  2:16  
really wish I knew where it was brought to my awareness in the near term, I certainly I can't imagine 2017, no, there. Oh, yes, I do. It was either BBC or the guardian. Okay, so it was one of those news websites that was talking about it and be. And it was earlier this year. It probably it was either as my mom was sick, or it was after my mom had passed. And so of course, those are the headlines that are going to catch my eyes. What is that? And so as I was reading about it, it is a fascinating concept. It is not Well, exactly how to make your loved ones lives easier and also your own life easier? And around we're talking about a serious topic here, and the cat is going nuts, and we apologize for our distraction. He's

Clancy Denton  3:04  
showing off. I don't know what he's Yeah, but he's showing off off camera.

Rick Denton  3:08  
He's actually a mischievous little turd, because he wants to distract us rather than show off on the camera and be cute. So, but the whole concept at the highest level, this is not me even looking at it. It's basically, how do you clean your house and all your stuff out so that after you pass, others are not taking that task on, others are not having to put the effort in and the exhaustion in into cleaning up thing and making decisions that can be hard to make when the person whose stuff it is isn't around to provide context, to provide an emotional guide towards it, or even just simply an explanation.

Clancy Denton  3:50  
And I think one thing to be brought up is us as empty nesters and you that are viewing many of us still have our parents, and they are aging. Many of us have lost our parents, but, you know, we are now in our 50s and trying to do this stuff because people are living longer. You know, it could be you're into your 60s or 70s when you're trying to do this stuff. No, thank you, right? I mean, we were exhausted just after this short weekend, and we're

Rick Denton  4:24  
talking about my mom passing away in her 70s. Realize her husband, Jerry is that same age. So yes, we're talking about the kids. But imagine the surviving spouse of an aged person at that point too, having to do similar things like this. So it really does. It is the point of making your love lives easier and helping your own and

Clancy Denton  4:45  
if you don't have a good relationship with your family, what? Then there may be no one to do this for you. You know, as

Rick Denton  4:55  
the show we started watching last night, how it's either how not.

Clancy Denton  4:59  
How to die alone. And

Rick Denton  5:02  
the first episode was a person who did die alone, and there's more to it than that, but that point, she had no family, and so what does that look like? I did like, why Swedish death cleaning could change her life? And there were three reasons that it put in this one article. It was actually from the Today Show in 2017 so this is dated. There's plenty of other articles that are

Clancy Denton  5:22  
more so is this before? I wonder, because, you know, there was the whole craze of that, and there was even that show. So

Rick Denton  5:27  
I deleted that. Well, it does, but I deleted it. This is that person that was the minimalist that me on. I

Clancy Denton  5:35  
don't know her name, and I wouldn't try to say it, yeah, probably don't know. So I'm just gonna make it crappy. People, know, cleaning and

Rick Denton  5:42  
living a minimalist life and that sort of thing. This is sort of beyond that, because this is going into not just organizing your living, but organizing your passing. And the three things that it talked about where it might make you happier is one, if you pare down, the argument is that you can better focus on the really important things in life. With that clutter that's there, your attention can be bouncing between the things that are in your house, and that is very much related to the second one, which is it might help you feel less stressed and overwhelmed and get more done. This quote from the author, when there is less chaos on the outside, we're likely to feel less chaos on the inside. Totally

Clancy Denton  6:26  
agree with that. I hate clutter. I hate clutter. I hate things on my countertops. I hate things just out on floors. I want things to have their place. So I'm a huge proponent of that, even, you know, we'll get into more.

Rick Denton  6:48  
And the last is a is a serious some might view it as dark. I don't, but it might help you cope with your own mortality. One of the things that folks, you and I are not in this category, there are people, though, that just don't want to really spend time acknowledging mortality, acknowledging a a reality of, well, life. And so this idea of getting rid of items can serve as a reminder that things don't last forever, including us, like all right, okay. And for me, it's not like that third item. I'm gonna go Letterman style here. You know, for that third item, that's less. I know that I'm gonna die. I've been around it. I've got both of my parents have passed away. It's really more about what's gonna do for us is the decluttering of the mind, the thinning and then the the gift that our kids won't realize that we're giving them, but the gift that they will get if and when we go through this exercise,

Clancy Denton  7:45  
I still remember at your mom's little get together that we had after she passed for close family and friends, one of her very close friends, talking About all because y'all had gone through all of the photo or some of the photo album, and this lady said, Well, I don't care, my kids will have to deal with it. And I was like, No, that's the wrong choice.

Rick Denton  8:16  
And her personality is exactly like that. That's she said the right thing,

Clancy Denton  8:20  
because we are in the age. We're in between. We have a few things that had to be printed because we were before digital cameras. Everything going to your computer. Our children will have very minimal unless I have printed pictures for them, they don't have prints. It's all on their phone. It's all on their photos that, you know, digital photo frames that just flip through. So

Rick Denton  8:53  
that is another category, the Swedish death clean though, that I didn't talk about there, that I read about. There's an entire digital component to this, because what our kids are going to have to suffer through photos can be a little easier. There's metadata. There's that sort of information, but all of the files that are saved on Google Drive, all of the documents that are out there, all of the the digital all

Clancy Denton  9:19  
of the loud, quiet episodes.

Rick Denton  9:23  
Which of these do we get rid of? Which they don't

Clancy Denton  9:25  
watch now, but they probably will, you know, later. So

Rick Denton  9:29  
that's that's a category in and of itself. And it is like, I think about our house, and there we could easily go through this exercise just starting in, like our closet, and starting there. We Thin from time to time, but I don't thin with the mindset of, right, but if I were to pass what needs to be here,

Clancy Denton  9:53  
so sure, but I don't know. I. Made this comment, I go through my closet all the time because I I've talked about buying, I don't buy a lot of high end, right? You know, fast hat, so I don't feel guilty if I'm like, oh, donate it. I've worn it a few times. So no, I I feel like I go. Now I have morphed into having to take over another closet now that one of the children is gone, but, but I feel like I go through and again. But I did say, you know, that was my goal when we got the guest or Tanner's room done and the guest room semi open, of course, then I decided I didn't like the bed in the other room, so I bought a new bed. So now the guest room, yeah, can

Rick Denton  10:47  
we can we stand? I know I'm

Clancy Denton  10:48  
gonna get but I do. It's really the closets that have all of their stuff from kinder to and now that has oozed out into the guest room because there's no more closet space to put stuff. And

Rick Denton  11:06  
I'm glad you said the Kinder part, because I think that's a key part of it. And we will talk about hang on to this, because we're going to talk about some tips on how and then we're going to talk about the actual experience that we had at my mom's house, because it wasn't Swedish death cleansed, and that, okay, we've got stuff from Kinder, and it's meaningful almost psychologically to us, because it's there. It's comforting to know that it's there. But if you were thinking not you Clancy the general, if you were, if you were thinking about it in the context of, but what about after I pass that changes your perspective on whether you retain that item or not.

Clancy Denton  11:42  
And that's I had already done one pass through all of their tubs, and I need to do another. And that is why, at one point I did, I took all of their T shirts that and uniforms. I saved certain ones. But I know a lot of people make the quilts, my kids wouldn't care about that. So I took photos of all of them to make into a book so that then they will have, oh, I remember that shirt. I remember that, you know, from that competition. I remember that from so I have done some of that, but yes, I need to do another pass. But

Rick Denton  12:17  
that's actually what you just said. There is something that's different about now versus, say, 1015, years ago, someone having to go through this. There's actually a couple things in that. One is, if I'm struggling with the retention of an item, but I know I just am tired of the item, but I don't want to forget the memory of the item. Snap a picture, I've got it, which then I then add to the digital clutter that someone else has to deal with, but at least I've got that memory retained. I think the other part of this too is the generation before us was a more stuff oriented generation, and so when we were going through, as we'll talk about, there's just more stuff. And I don't know how much stuff our generation has,

Clancy Denton  12:55  
I think because the style has changed, it's gone to a very modern, sleek and not everyone likes that I do. So I don't have a lot of knick knack tchotchkes kind of things out anywhere. So, you know, it's a

Rick Denton  13:13  
corner my eye. I'm looking at this show. Okay, look, that is a set. It's a design. I get it, but it's just funny that we don't have a lot of tchotchkes. Oh, there's a guest with X in

Clancy Denton  13:22  
it. Let's count how many things. There's nine cubes with one item in each thing, not 4000 jammed where

Rick Denton  13:30  
you can't even see

Clancy Denton  13:32  
it. But I did, when we were talking about this, I pulled these seven tips for Swedish death cleaning. One is remove excess, which, if you have 10 white shirts, you probably only need three, and if they have stuff on them, you probably should get rid of them. Go digital. We talked about that just you just said that discard with intention and without guilt. And that is something that is hard for some people and not so hard for others. So the

Rick Denton  14:07  
can, or do you want to go through? Or do you want to stop down on a couple because that one, I've got some thoughts of some things that I read, but go ahead. Yeah, so the discard without intention. There was one person that was talking about how I'm really struggling because someone gave this to me, and the the author is saying in the book, right? But the memory of the gift and the giving is what should be warming your heart. If the object itself no longer does discard the object, you still have the memory of the kindness of the gift, but the object can be discarded without guilt. You can intentionally choose, I am this category gone without guilt.

Clancy Denton  14:49  
Buy less well, that's that's hard, that's hard, that's hard for everyone. And you know, are in America, so maybe Swedes are better at that than. We are be gentle and considerate of others. This was one that we had to,

Rick Denton  15:08  
we to exercise this week in Boston, where we were ready to do something, and one of the other people that's involved with said, I need a minute. And it everyone said, okay, yeah, have your minute. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  15:20  
so take care of yourself. I don't know if we did such a great job of that this weekend, because we sure Allow yourself to feel and reflect and and I think that, you know, I mean, we laughed a ton. We, you know, this is not my mom's house, but our kid. I mean, this is the house that you moved into when you were in kindergarten. Yeah, and our kids have grown up going to this house. So some of the toys were like, oh, remember? And I was calling them and saying, Oh, do you remember the coke truck that had container? Was like, Oh yeah, with the little bottles and the so, you know, that was, that was fun. We had laughs about finding some of our wedding, our your ours, your sister's wedding gifts that were some that were comical, that were still in that house that because we didn't want to take them to our house. So, yeah, so it, you know these,

Rick Denton  16:26  
and this is, there are, there are very, I like this list because this gets into the emotions of it. Because there's a lot that's emotional about this. There are some very practical and tactical tips that are out there, around, start in your closets. Start with clothes. That's what a lot of things have said, is start with clothes. Start with closets. And then there's another, start with furniture, and just look at the biggest pieces first and start there. Why? Because the biggest pieces are the biggest pain in the fanny for your family to handle downstream. Well, then

Clancy Denton  16:56  
I'm proud of myself, because I actually had our i i saw my role as kind of the task oriented. Here is what I think we should do, and I wasn't going to overstep because, like I said, this isn't my my family's home, but I think my role as this is how I think we should break it down and going through that it, you know, I think it worked. And what was the first thing we did, we went through all the furniture and said, what's staying in the house? What's getting donated, what's getting sold, what do you want to keep? So, you know? And yes, that did. That took because those big pieces now we don't have to think about them until we need to move them out. But we knew we couldn't do that in the two days that we were going to be there

Rick Denton  17:52  
so and that is certainly one difference about what we did versus a death cleaning while you're alive, you're making a decision around okay, this needs to go now. I no longer have a need or a value or a sentiment or a thing associated with this

Clancy Denton  18:04  
object. And you know that it's interesting because, again, this is another generational change. Is that your mom, my mom, have lots of antique, big, bulky furniture pieces that, at some point had a ton of value. I don't know how much they do now, but the style has changed. Where, when we were growing up, you didn't go to Target to buy a bookshelf. You know, you bought a bookshelf at the furniture store that cost twice or three times as much and weighs three times as much, right? So it's easier, you know, we just took Tanner's old dusk that was all beat up. And, you know, because we didn't have any thoughts about taking it to the dump, I would have donated it, but it was in horrible, no, it was unsafe too, yeah, but we didn't have any Well, I didn't want people to be like, You should donate

Rick Denton  19:06  
that I know without guilt.

Clancy Denton  19:09  
That's not but I didn't have any guilt over but I don't want someone saying, Why didn't you donate it? Because it was not donatable. But we didn't have any qualms about taking it to the dump because I didn't pay $700 for that desk. So I think there's that generational that from now forward until that type of style comes back, it's not as hard to do the furniture think about. I mean, we've gotten rid I've sold so much of our furniture and donated because

Rick Denton  19:46  
there's not, yeah, there's not the Oh, the grandfather clock that needs to have some sort Yeah, it was brought overseas, right? Because those were brought overseas from Germany. And the stove decorative. Know

Clancy Denton  20:00  
that weighs probably 200 pounds.

Rick Denton  20:04  
Not my issue. Yeah. So

Clancy Denton  20:06  
anyway, so, yeah. So that is what we did this weekend. And so I just put a collage of just a smattering of photos. This is, this is not even it. You know, we were there for all day Friday, most of the day Saturday. And we worked all day Friday, except to stop to go eat lunch with Nana. And then we worked all day Saturday, until we left at, you know, three after three o'clock, you did four runs to the donation. And

Rick Denton  20:46  
this was packed. We rented a Nissan Rogue. This was not the tiny.

Clancy Denton  20:51  
I mean, I think we probably had 17 or 18 bags of just clothes. Yeah, probably

Rick Denton  20:56  
so. And that's what, that's why the clean before is so you do it yourself, you acquired it and you get rid of it. Most of what we were dealing with did not have sentiment. There were there were plenty of items that had sentiment. But when you're talking about your mom's, my mom's clothes, well, that's just more about is it of a quality that is still donatable. And that was really the only decision

Clancy Denton  21:25  
point that, well, that, and there were a few things, like her wedding dress to your dad, we kept that in the closet. She had a couple of high school or college formal dresses that I told Rachel, I said, Oh, keep those, because the girls may want. You know now that's the trend as to where your mother or grandmothers. So there were a few things.

Rick Denton  21:46  
That's a good example, though, of kind of almost a cop out, though, because if we had to clear out of this house, what would we do with that? And so

Clancy Denton  21:53  
you do well, someone would take it to their house. So, but it

Rick Denton  21:57  
shows that even as I said, it's easy, and yet it's not it. There will always be those end items, those edge items that are hard

Clancy Denton  22:05  
to choose from, and we only made it through. I'd say total. Let's call it a room and a half. Maybe two rooms.

Rick Denton  22:16  
I'd give us two and maybe two and a half. I think what happened as we refilled those rooms with other stuff?

Clancy Denton  22:23  
Yes, the closet that we completely cleared out is now filled with photo albums and photos which, again, like we talked about, you know, and, and this is where it'd be an interesting question to pose to people, because several of the photo albums that we kept were your mom's parents. Yeah, you know, I just don't know how much. Yeah, I don't know. It's just interesting, maybe, if maybe, keeping a few photos of but you know, you didn't even know your granddad because he had passed away before you weren't even born. So, you know those, those kind of things, are the things that you're like. E, you know, I want to get rid of them, but E, I don't know what. You

Rick Denton  23:15  
know, there's no, I have no emotion to those. But what I do wonder is, is there a historical element to it that is then lost by destroying it? Is there something that, and because we do a good job as a society of recording and understanding the big moments, but we don't necessarily, although now with everybody recording everything, but back then, what was life like? And if you think about archeology or anything, that a lot of a study that that of the the way back past the ancient a lot of the gaps are well, what was life actually really like? How did people go to the grocery store equivalent? How did they love? How did they marry? How did they raise kids? What did that look

Clancy Denton  24:00  
like? Well, and that's why I think you can pull some. But do we need five albums of that? You know that because, and again, that was before the time that you could see what you were taking a picture of. So some of them may not even be good anyways, and we didn't even touch we were like, Nope, just put those in the closet. That's a we're gonna have a different section. Yeah, suction on that. We

Rick Denton  24:24  
didn't even talk about slides, at least photos I can look at. But slides, slides are the bane of the cleanup existence, because you don't know what's on that little square unless you take the time to get some device or put it on a light table. And so what are you throwing away? We didn't

Clancy Denton  24:47  
throw any of them away,

Rick Denton  24:48  
I know, but all still there. If I could go back in time, there's a few things I would do in life, and one of those is smack, the inventor of the slide technology. And. Yeah, well, all together and

Clancy Denton  25:01  
that those were your dads. He was huge into slides. Yes,

Rick Denton  25:07  
no, there's ones that are before my dad's slides. I was shocked. Whose are they? I don't know, my

Clancy Denton  25:12  
goodness Well, and that's, you know, even your sister said, because we found a stack of VHS tapes. And someone said, well, have they been converted to DVDs? And Rachel said, Well, if we don't know what's on them, then who cares? I was like, Yes, but No, we kept them, because then we're like, well,

Rick Denton  25:32  
and you know what, when we talk about the how? Okay, so this was clean at my mom's house, but if you were doing this, because to clean out my mom's house is an example for us of what you would do when you're cleaning out your own house in this kind of Swedish death clean. And we did, I think we didn't get bogged down on the difficult things while we still had easy things to do exactly we put we think that's an important tip. Is if, if you get bogged and you still have plenty of easy create a category of bog. It's gonna suck when we go through it. It didn't stall us, though, no from feeling the accomplishment and the, well, the exhaustion of getting through the easy herb, yes,

Clancy Denton  26:15  
items and you know, like we've said, you know, your Jerry, your mom's husband, is staying in the house, right? So, you know, but if we were getting this house ready to sell in a couple, we know we would have had to have been down there for, I guarantee you probably two weeks after seeing what it So, please, please, do you had your expectations set up here?

Rick Denton  26:41  
No, no, that's not entirely fair. I actually had some of my expectations met. What I wanted to make sure we did is we didn't just pile everything up and know that we're going to do it later. No, the four trips to the donation were an incredibly satisfying the things that we chose to take back to the house limited, but we did take them are were part of that execution. Rachel, taking things at the house were part of it. So we, I may have thought we might have gotten through some more rooms. I just wanted to make sure that we did something with this.

Clancy Denton  27:08  
I mean, Rachel and I were working on something else while you were working in what we call the playroom closet. And I just like Rachel and all I walked back in there. You had already gone out to do something else. And she opened the door. She goes, Oh. She said, I thought he cleaned that. I was like, oh, no, he just got to the close. And then I opened I was like, oh,

Rick Denton  27:32  
some sort of scary monster. I know it

Clancy Denton  27:36  
reminded me of, I think it's friends when she has her

Rick Denton  27:42  
Monica's Sanford and sons, right? So,

Clancy Denton  27:44  
but, you know, we did find some stuff. Yeah, so let me get to that. So, yes, this is a picture of your prized possession.

Rick Denton  27:56  
I was excited about my and I yeah, this, this is an unknown possession of mine. It was something I was excited about having. And when I looked at the individual cars that were in there, it's It's Hot Wheels, you need to say, Oh, that's right, sorry if you're not listening, Hot Wheels. And this doesn't even show some of my favorites in there, but I have vivid memories of playing with that was like an American Airlines bus, and then there's the ambulance there. And I always thought that I'm sorry pointing, I know if you're not listening, but there was like a little street racer there that was so cool. And on the prior one, it showed a car carrier, yes, that I thought was just awesome.

Clancy Denton  28:36  
So yeah, so that's your Hot Wheels. And then lord

Rick Denton  28:41  
El Tizona del seed. This is a sword that I assume my dad, I'm assuming my dad, picked up at some tourist store in Spain, and when they used to live in Europe, what's a little there's the only reason this got carried back home is because he was with the military, and so there was the military transfer of goods back. But, yeah, we couldn't. I knew the sword exists in the house for a while, but this was when our first trips driving back from Austin. So I was finally able to drive back the sword. Yeah,

Clancy Denton  29:11  
but I, like Jerry, said, don't get pulled over. It is a long sword,

Rick Denton  29:16  
and it's not, there's nothing. There's nothing famous about anything, but it's a sword.

Clancy Denton  29:21  
Now, this one was exciting to unbox. This was a shocking which was also in a box with, was that your mom's gowns

Rick Denton  29:30  
or whatever in it? No, like stationery. That was okay.

Clancy Denton  29:33  
I don't even, I didn't even see until I saw you go, Oh, interspersing

Rick Denton  29:37  
of tips here. Go through pockets. And if you open a box and say, Oh yeah, that's just nope, every piece of the box because under this again, if you're not, if you're just listening, these are three almost unworn, pristine looking T shirts commemorating Duke's 1990 One championship, Dukes. How many was that? That was six Final Fours when they were in the 1991 championship. No, that was the 92 championship. Sorry, that's 92 up there. Well, yeah, I was going so all the Final Fours that they were in, and then the back to back, 1992 national championship. And these shirts are pristine, the ones that, like I gave to Tanner, that was the final 4t shirt. It is ratted. It's really yellow. I'm excited about that. These I'm gonna end up framing, put in some frame with the section of Cameron Indoor stadiums floor. And these are the kind of discoveries that are kind of fun. And I guess this is the counter argument to the Swedish death cleanse, because my mom would have said, Ah, well, that's in the past. Take a picture of it and move on. I guess one of the things that's involved others is, hey, I'm getting rid of this. Do you need it? Do you want it? Because these were amazing.

Clancy Denton  30:58  
So that's an interesting point, because I have gone through the kids T shirts and uniforms, and I made the decision, oh, I know you're you are further they were, but they were young. You're

Rick Denton  31:12  
just asking why you said? It's an interesting question, yeah, but,

Clancy Denton  31:16  
but something like this, I would know that that is special. And I did. I said that already before I did keep the special things that, you know, but that is an interesting you know, when they're because I did that first round, they were still here. It was when they were probably high school and middle school, so, but it was also because they didn't have any more space in their room. All

Rick Denton  31:43  
I'm saying is on the spectrum of discard without consideration for anyone to the extreme perspective of retain on the off chance that your third cousin might care about it, you skew closer towards the discard versus the

Clancy Denton  31:58  
when it's I don't agree with that, but you just said no, because I said I kept the things that I knew would be important to them. I think I know my children well enough, which is probably why these were still in a box somewhere and hadn't been No,

Rick Denton  32:15  
I think she just put it in a box and forgot about it. Sorry, that didn't work there. Oh,

Clancy Denton  32:20  
okay. Well, I like to think that I would not get rid of something that mattered, yes. So, I mean, there's lots of things that I would like to get rid of that Tegan owns and I can't because, and it's four boxes of stuffed animals. Okay. Anyway, moving on.

Rick Denton  32:45  
Yes, this was a, this is my dad's towel. I don't I kind of remember it, and if you're not seeing it, it's kind of an 80s block style graphic on the back with the Playboy Bunny and the towel says for playboys and playmates only.

Clancy Denton  33:04  
Oh, there are the clogs. I didn't see the clogs in that picture, All right, everybody just did Rachel take

Rick Denton  33:12  
those? Yeah, that's the Rachel, okay.

Clancy Denton  33:15  
Those clogs sat in the living room for ever.

Rick Denton  33:20  
Playboys and playmates. That one's funny. Now, this one I took back, and it was excited about. This is an Abba to Mama Mia, official book, and it's one of those thick picture books that I didn't actually know they have. No I've never seen it before, so it's fun to just flip through and see. This is more memory of my dad with certainly an extension into my

Clancy Denton  33:39  
mom. Yeah, but yeah, so that you know it was we were exhausted, oh yeah, for sure. That's why we didn't record on our normal day. We did choose to come back Saturday, which I'm so thankful we did, because I don't know that I could have done Monday, coming off of and

Rick Denton  33:56  
we drove and we had, we did that on purpose, because we didn't know when we'd come back. So we needed the flexibility, so we flew down there and then drove back, and until I actually went and got a Dr Pepper, I don't think I said any words, no. Caffeine hit me. I

Clancy Denton  34:11  
got in the car and started talking. Then I was like, okay, he doesn't want to talk. So then I stopped, and then when you got your caffeine, then you wanted to talk. I was like, No, I don't want to talk.

Rick Denton  34:21  
So yeah, that was, actually, it was to call it nice is wrong, but it was very head clearing to be able to do that drive back.

Clancy Denton  34:28  
And we did get, you know, we, we did take down, stop down, and take time to go visit Nana. We had, you know, a couple of dinners, one family dinner. And so that was that was good, but it was definitely good. I mean, on Saturday or No, Friday night, when I looked and I said, it's five, almost six o'clock, I haven't even showered yet. So if we're going to dinner, we have to stop. Yeah, so we

Rick Denton  34:58  
were physically i. Right? And mentally, just, yeah, spent,

Clancy Denton  35:02  
and that's what it's, you know, when you think of cleaning out that kind of thing, even moving, you think of the physical taxation that it's on. But it, this was mental, emotional, I mean, yeah, it covered all of the basis, yeah, when

Rick Denton  35:24  
you're making a decision on every item, and a certain point, categories get easier, but every item effectively has a decision associated with it. That's an electric, you know, electricity passing through a synapse in your brain. Yeah, your brain gets tired after that many decisions

Clancy Denton  35:40  
and and just having to try to think about the, how do you, how are you going to attack this? Because, you know, like we said the other again, when we got back, you know, on Sunday, we were talking about, because we're going back down next month. Okay, what are we going to do next? And we started and and I could see you were like, I can't, because there's still so much.

Rick Denton  36:06  
Well, it's the photos and the items to be decided on later. No, that's not, I'm not even talking about that, but that's what I'm talking about. That's the one that I'm having trouble dealing going through rooms I'm good. We just kind of do our wave through it, yes,

Clancy Denton  36:19  
but when we started talking about, oh, there's all the bookshelves. Oh yeah, both, both living areas, there's Yeah. So anyways, we were spent. You and I were tired. You know, you wanted to stop and eat somewhere. I said, I don't want to be around people noise. No. I said, let's just run into heb and pick up our sushi and cheese might not even talk to each other, yeah, so I just wanted to come home and watch some TV and eat. So we're in HEB, and we get a text from Tanner that says,

Rick Denton  36:52  
are y'all doing dinner at the house tonight?

I didn't respond, right?

Clancy Denton  37:00  
Yeah, because I was in one section of the store and I found you, and he said he just texted and wants to do dinner. And I was like, Okay, I love my child. I love my child. I love my child. And he had, he wasn't coming from his apartment. He had been in Frisco for a couple of events, and so of course, I want to see my child. But for those of you who know Tanner, he is high energy. Luckily, he just bopped in, ate dinner with us and then left because he had plans too, so, but yeah, it was

Rick Denton  37:32  
one of those. This was so Swedish death cleanse and then cleaning at your parents house. All that is very empty nest. This is very empty nest too. The we still love our kid. We still desperately want any time that our kids want to spend time with us. Of course, we're gonna say yes, but oh, man, I was so tired,

Clancy Denton  37:53  
and ended up being fine. It was a Donna

Rick Denton  37:55  
story, so and it was good, because he got to tell stories while we just sat there. Yes, basically, we watch TV. It was just a human TV

sitting there.

Clancy Denton  38:06  
Oh yeah, cuz I guess football was on so

Rick Denton  38:08  
well, yes, and I meant that we don't have to interact. We're just sitting there staring at listening to the stories. Yes, and football.

Clancy Denton  38:16  
So yeah. So a tip would be for that, those of us in this stage of life is do your own home for one. But if you still have parents that are living in their homes, maybe start helping them go through this process before it has to be done.

Rick Denton  38:39  
Send them to the link to this episode. Just plant the seed with them. Hey, mom, hey dad. Did y'all know about this thing? Just start planting seeds. Because that third point that I mentioned in there, there are certain there are plenty of people who are not comfortable with their own mortality, and a topic like this can be uncomfortable, yet it's so valuable.

Clancy Denton  38:59  
And I think too, like I said, you don't want to have to be we have the luxury of we can take our time to do this, because the house isn't going anywhere. Yeah, Jerry's staying in it for now. So you know, if you're under the situation that, oh my gosh, we have to move my parents out right now and sell this house. I just, I can't imagine trying to do all of this rushed.

Rick Denton  39:27  
You'll end up overpaying for storage units. Yeah, is what you'll end up doing. Yes,

Clancy Denton  39:30  
oh, the storage unit. We didn't even talk about that.

Rick Denton  39:36  
That's next trip. Hopefully, next trip. So Swedish death cleanse,

Clancy Denton  39:44  
we will get off the death kick, because our last two episodes have been about diet.

Rick Denton  39:50  
Oh, you know

when you got more more in the rear view river than you do in the headlights that,

oh, goodness. Well. Yeah,

another episode of the loud, quiet, living

Clancy Denton  40:02  
empty nest. I.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai