WAW and me in 11th hour!!!!

[Ken62]

Here is the latest e-mail from my W about the furniture issue. I am working on my reply and will post it here before sending to her.

Dear Ken,

As I try to figure out where to start with this discussion about how to divide things up, I wonder if you agree that the easiest scenario to begin with would be(since everything was purchased for the house), that you just keep all the furniture that fit in the house a year ago (minus the dumpster-bound old bed and Gordon desk and the wooden rocking chair from my mom) and we discuss and agree on an amount of money to compensate me for my share? Of course I have many favorite items, but I can walk away from all the furniture, lamps and rugs, electronics if I feel that a fair offer is made for seed money to furnish a home for myself someday. I don't really feel comfortable coming up with a dollar amount yet until I get better feel for how you think we should approach this.

MIL, niece, SIL are coming on the 3rd to help me move and could help move back in: the family room furniture (hide-a-bed, the matching swivel rocker, the marble topped coffee table, the gold upholstered chair, the other lamp and end table), office cabinet, the rolling computer desk, filing cabinet, swing, some VHS tapes, the Sharp TV, both video cameras (the ebay one is really falling apart, you may be able to fix it?) the lazer jet printer and yellow tool box, as well as the items belonging to the kids; I expect that S24 would want his dresser, nightstand and desk lamp, and blue glasses back in the house and that D20 would like her boom box and cereal dispenser back and D19 may want her electric keyboard.

If you would rather actually go through and try to physically split everything up, we can go through a list of all items in the house and go through it, try to give them a value and negotiate/trade items until it become equitable.

OR, we could go with the above model and just make exceptions and give them credit on the other side of the column, so to speak.

I expect that we would divide Christmas ornaments and decorations, all the collectibles, travel souvenirs, Campaign memorabilia, ), the photo albums/videos and possibly sell the Pfaltzgraf dishes or save them to offer them to kids later.

We would also need to go through the under-bed storage containing the memorabilia collected over the years.

Photo Albums, video tape: what do you think of the idea of looking into having all our video tapes transferred to digital and our photo albums scanned and saved? We could split the costs of having five copies made and then give them to the kids as a gift (Christmas?) I would be willing to begin work on that in June when I get to Illinois and then ship them all back by mid month, book rate, or, if D20 will have the time, we could ask her to do it there with our scanner, and pay her to do it? I have not done anything about dividing up the kids Senior pictures. I believe we already have all the images digitally. Should we just print out a second copy of each photo and make a copy of the portfolios? I was going to divide them up and can still do that if you’d rather?

Well, please let me know what you think. I wouldn't be surprised if I have forgotten items that may need to be entered into the mix. I know it took me awhile to get to this and I hope that I am presenting it to you at a time that it is convenient for you to respond. I will have a lot more free time after Crimes of the Heart closes tomorrow.
Sincerely,
W