Tag Archives: family

Project 2025: What’s All the Fuss About?

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What is Project 2025? Project 2025 is a blueprint for actions the Trump administration should take once it regains power. It was sponsored and paid for by the Heritage Foundation, and an extreme right-wing think-tank.

Trump has tried to distance himself from Project 2025, but he can’t. The name “Trump” is mentioned approximately 201 times in the text, not counting footnotes or author bios. The people who wrote Project 2025 are all Trump adherents and colleagues. More than 140 people who formerly worked for him are involved, including former chief of staff Mark Meadows and advisor Stephen Miller. J.D. Vance wrote the forward. Six of his former Cabinet secretaries were also involved. (https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-claims-not-to-know-who-is-behind-project-2025-a-cnn-review-found-at-least-140-people-who-worked-for-him-are-involved/ar-BB1pN666?ocid=feedsansarticle) If you go to the full text of Project 2025 that I posted at https://theobsidianmirror.net/project-2025-in-its-entirety/ , you will see a lot of names from the Trump Administration. So I think we can lay to rest the notion that Trump doesn’t know the people behind Project 2025 or anything about it, as he claims.

The following is just a smattering of the extreme and dangerous measures Project 2025 advocates. I had to cherry-pick or this post would be as long as the Project document. The interpretation of what is being proposed is mine. If you disagree with my take, please go read Project 2025 for yourself at https://theobsidianmirror.net/project-2025-in-its-entirety/

What actions does Project 2025 advocate? Project 2025 is nearly 900 pages long, and the language is not always as direct as its meaning. For example, it says, “”For the sake of child well-being, programs should affirm that children require and deserve both the love and nurturing of a mother and the play and protection of a father.” This does not baldly state that Republicans want one man with one woman to be the only legitimate form of marriage–but it clearly means that the Republicans want one man/one woman to be the only form of acceptable marriage.

If you want to take solid action against Project 2025, I recommend filing a formal complaint against the foundation with the IRS for violating the injunction against political activity or expression for 501c3 non-profits. If you read Project 2025 or have a good understanding of it, it is clearly in violation of the foundation’s non-profit status. I have created a page on this blog called “Filing a Complaint Against the Heritage Foundation (https://theobsidianmirror.net/file-a-complaint-against-the-heritage-foundation/), and it contains a copy of the complaint form and accompanying letter that I filed with the IRS–so I’ve done the work for you. Start by downloading Form 13909 from irs.gov.

Family and Marriage: Project 2025 is clear that the only legitimate marriage is between one man and one women. A quote from the Project: “Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations and maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family.” When they say “Biblical,” they are specifically leaving out all but the Christian and (maybe) Jewish religions. Of course, anyone familiar with the Bible knows that there are many different versions of marriage on offer in the Bible, but the authors of Project 2025 are oblivious to this.

From Project 2025: “Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.” Obviously, by “nuclear families,” they do not mean “same-sex families,” and they are making that clear.

“Additionally, Congress should pass the Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act62 to ensure that providers and organizations cannot be subjected to discrimination for providing adoption and foster care services based on their beliefs about marriage.” In other words, religious-based adoption agencies will be free to discriminate against LGBTQ+ couples and anyone who doesn’t fit the Republican definition of marriage.

“The HMRE program should receive a fair and realistic assessment. Additionally, the positive role of faith-based programs should be protected— 481 —Department of Health and Human Services and prioritized so that these programs do not receive undue scrutiny or pressure to conform to nonreligious definitions of marriage and family as put forward by the recently enacted Respect for Marriage Act.” In other words, discrimination against anyone who does not conform to the ReThuglikkkon idea of marriage is fine.

“Protect faith-based grant recipients from religious liberty violations and maintain a biblically based, social science–reinforced definition of marriage and family. Social science reports that assess the objective outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages); financial stress or poverty; and poor behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes.” This references a study performed by The New Family Structures Study (abbreviated NFSS), a sociological study of LGBT parenting conducted by sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas at Austin. The study surveyed over 15,000 Americans of ages 18 to 39. The first research article based on data from the study was published in July 2012 in Social Science Research, and concluded that people who had had a parent who had been in a same-gender relationship were at a greater risk of several adverse outcomes, including “being on public assistance, being unemployed, and having poorer educational attainment.” From Wikipedia: “The study was met with considerable criticism from many academics and scholarly organizations. Of note, only two children in the study had actually lived with homosexually partnered parents for their entire childhoods, because many of the same-sex partnered parents were in previous heterosexual marriages. Thus, negative outcomes or events cannot be attributed to having same-sex parents, because many of these children also spent their childhoods with opposite-sex parents, and experienced family disruption and parental divorce. A 2015 reanalysis raised serious questions about the validity of the study, finding misclassification of families, inconsistency in answers suggesting mischief, and evidence that many respondents did not live with their non-heterosexual parents. When these cases were excluded, differences in outcome between children raised by parents in opposite-sex and same-sex relationships largely vanished.”

“For the sake of child well-being, programs should affirm that children require and deserve both the love and nurturing of a mother and the play and protection of a father.” This clearly states that the Republicans want one man/one woman to be the only form of acceptable marriage.

Health: “…the project recommends withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market and stopping the drug from being mailed, eliminating mandated insurance coverage for the week-after pill, prohibit funding for patients traveling across state lines for reproductive health care and prohibit funding for health care centers that provide abortions.” (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/project-2025-conservative-presidential-list/story?id=111952315)

Quote from Project 2025: “The Office of the Secretary should eliminate the HHS Reproductive Healthcare Access Task Force and install a pro-life task force to ensure that all of the department’s divisions seek to use their authority to promote the life and health of women and their unborn children.” Additionally, HIPAA law will be revised to assure that all fetuses are regarded as fully human beings.

 The Office of Science and Medicine will withdraw all recommendations for gender-affirming care. “…the project proposes eliminating several terms from “every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists” including: “sexual orientation,” “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender awareness,” “gender-sensitive” “abortion,” “reproductive health,” “reproductive rights,” “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and more.” (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/project-2025-conservative-presidential-list/story?id=111952315)

Immigration: The border will be sealed. ICE will be given full reign to arrest immigrants anywhere in the United States, as there will be no sanctuary zones. Immigrants will be evaluated for legal entry based on their skills and not on their need–“…gang violence and domestic violence are not grounds for asylum.”

The border wall will be completed. We all know how effective that will be. For one thing, most immigrants aren’t coming into this country across the border. They come in airplanes. (https://www.npr.org/2019/01/10/683662691/where-does-illegal-immigration-mostly-occur-heres-what-the-data-tell-us)

Foreign policy: End our economic relationship with China. (I hope I need not point out how economically disruptive this would be.)

All ambassadors who have liberal views or have expressed negative opinions about Trump will be fired and replaced with Trump loyalists.

Bear in mind that much of Project 2025 is based on misinformation. In the area of foreign policy, Project 2025 states, “…the Obama Administration threw the brutal regime an economic lifeline by giving hundreds of billions of dollars to the Iranian government and providing other sanctions relief.” The facts of the matter are that Obama made $1.7 billion dollar payment in non-US currency as the resolution of an arbitration case that had gone on for years. (https://apnews.com/united-states-government-fd4113419276444eba1d2a46d5c29752) Obama used the payment as leverage to free US hostages.

From Project 2025: “Shift strategic focus from assistance to growth. Reorient the focus of U.S. overseas development assistance away from stand-alone humanitarian development aid and toward fostering free market systems in African countries by incentivizing and facilitating U.S. private sector engagement in these countries.” In other words, exploit African resources to the fullest extent to the benefit of U.S. corporations and abandon humanitarian and financial aid. A return to 19th-Century-style economic colonialism.

Withdraw support from international organizations unless they directly serve U.S. interests. “.For example, the Trump Administration withdrew from, or terminated funding for, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and the WHO. The results were redeployment of taxpayer dollars to better uses—and other organizations “getting the message” that the United States will not allow itself and its money to be used to undermine its own interests.” A selfish and self-serving policy that typifies Project 2025 throughout.

Governance: We all are aware that Republicans want “smaller government,” even if that means destroying the value that we have built over the years. Project 2025 refers to federal employees as “…largely underworked, overcompensated, and unaccountable federal civilian workforce.” It states that federal employees are “ideologically aligned, not with the American
people—but with one another, posing a profound problem for Republican government, a government “of, by, and for” the people.” This is just untrue. Statistics show that the American people in general are “unaligned” with Republican values. For example, 62% of Americans believe abortion should be legal in most cases (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/07/15/key-facts-about-the-abortion-debate-in-america/) A majority (57%) of adults say the U.S. hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men. (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/08/13/key-takeaways-on-americans-views-on-gender-equality-a-century-after-u-s-women-gained-the-right-to-vote/) This is in direct opposition to Republicans, who have taken the right to abortion away from women, and are clearly working on other means of controlling and suppressing women.

Social Services: “…according to the American Main Street Initiative’s analysis of official federal tallies—Medicare and Medicaid combined cost $17.8 trillion, while our combined federal deficits over that same span were $17.9 trillion. In essence, our deficit problem is a Medicare and Medicaid problem.” This is just a baldfaced lie. Medicare is not funded through taxes, but by individual contributions and investment. Medicare has NOTHING to do with the deficit, and Republicans are well aware of this. Medicaid is funded through a joint partnership of the states and the Federal government. Medicaid and CHIP combined are only 13% of the nation’s spending on healthcare, so it is not an obvious villain in this piece. The largest spending is 70% on something labeled “Other Federal Outlays.” (https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/faqs-on-health-spending-the-federal-budget-and-budget-enforcement-tools/) Maybe someone should be looking into “Other Federal Outlays.”

And yet, the stated intention is to end Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. There are no plans to replace these services.

Taxes: Republicans have been unable to wean themselves from the idea that giving more money to already obscenely wealthy people will result in general prosperity. Trump gave billionaires a tax break and sent the National Debt into the stratosphere. FromProPublica: “The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office. That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.”(https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump)

And they want to do it again under a new Trump administration. This approach is completely false, has never worked, never will work, and will create more economic chaos. Ordinary citizens will wind up paying more than billionaires (which they already do in many cases). (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/project-2025-wants-radically-change-230008655.html)

Education: “Bureaucrats at the Department of Education inject racist, anti-American, ahistorical propaganda into America’s classrooms.” No substantiation for this is provided, and I believe it just means they don’t like historical facts–like the way slaves were treated in the United States.

“Through the CCP’s Confucius Institutes, Beijing has been just as successful at compromising and coopting our higher education system as they have at compromising and coopting corporate America.” Again, no substantiation is offered, and my basic response is, “Huh?”

The Department of Education will be “shuttered,” returning 100% of responsibility for education to the states. I think we know what the result of that will be: red-state children will be thoroughly indoctrinated in extreme right-wing ideologies, while children in blue states will get an actual education.

Unions: Re unions of public employees: “Congress should also consider whether public-sector unions are appropriate in the first place. The bipartisan consensus up until the middle of the 20th century held that these unions were not compatible with constitutional government.” Spoiler alert: they are not in favor of public employees having unions.

All unions in the Department of Homeland Security would be removed “for national security purposes.” It never states how unions would be a national security threat.

“The next Administration should make new options available to workers and push Congress to pass labor reforms that create non-union ’employee involvement organizations’ as well as a mechanism for worker representation on corporate boards.” Translation: we will replace unions with pro forma organizations within corporations composed of both workers and management. I think we all know how that one goes.

This is just a sampling of the ill-conceived, thoughtless, radical changes that Trump will be making if he is re-elected. If he is not re-elected, don’t think Project 2025 goes away. They’ll just pursue it a lot more quietly. Vote blue.

Nana’s 13 Tips for Living a Happy Life

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I am a grandmother. Two little girls, aged six years and 20 months respectively, have become the center of my little universe. I live with them, so I get to watch as each goes through the process of becoming who she is meant to be. It’s like watching two wondrous and completely different flowers unfurl their petals to the sun.

Naturally, I wonder how long I will be in their lives. I might live another 40 years, or I might buy the farm tomorrow. I have wondered what I can leave with them that will be of the greatest value to them on their journey through life.

I do feel I have something of value to offer, above and beyond my unconditional love. My childhood was no bed of roses, though many others have had worse. Somehow I found my way through to adulthood with minimal damage. I have been examining how I managed to achieve a life so full of joy, love, warmth and happiness, because I want to share it with these little girls.

Some of this advice may not be “true” in the sense of being an absolute, universal truth. Sometimes, you have to choose what is true to achieve your goals. (I am not talking about scientific truth here, but inner truth, which adheres to its own laws.) For instance, I choose to believe that if someone is nasty to me, karma will take care of them. I don’t have to do a thing for that person to receive their comeuppance. This may or may not be true, but it works for me because I don’t harbor a lot of anger or resentment against those who have wronged me. Negative feelings destroy happiness. Besides, I’ve lived long enough to see karma come into play more than once!

bullying

I want to acknowledge that I had a lot of help in finding my way to living a happy life. I got good advice from many people, and I firmly believe that if your life isn’t working well, you should seek help. Too many people suffer their entire lives because they couldn’t reach out and ask.

So here’s my first draft of my recipe for happiness. The girls won’t understand it now, but they will someday. It’s not original with me. I think if you asked any truly happy person how they achieved happiness, you would hear the same thing.

1. Love yourself. Yes, you are imperfect, but so is everything and everyone else. Love who you are, warts included. You must love yourself before you can truly love another. And you must love yourself before another person can truly love you. I don’t know why that is so, but it is. Love without self-love will turn sour. On the other hand, self-love alone is just that: alone.

2. Don’t compare yourself to others. Someone else will always be smarter, prettier, richer, luckier, or more talented than you. Someone else will always be less intelligent, less attractive, poorer, less fortunate or less talented than you. Your value does not depend on another person’s imperfections, and another’s assets do not cast a shadow on your own.

tutu

When you compare yourself unfavorably with another person, it will make you feel badly about yourself—for no reason. If someone else is better looking—well, that’s a matter of opinion. You’re never going to look like that person, so learn to love the way you look. Be who you are, and be the best you possible.

3. Don’t worry. It’s a waste of time and stomach lining. When there’s something troubling that’s outside our control—let’s say layoff rumors or climate change—we worry because it makes us feel like we’re doing something about it, even though there’s nothing we can do. I think it’s valuable to formulate an action plan if it makes sense: “I’ll freshen up my resume, make a list of places I’d like to work, start researching open jobs.” But worrying about things you cannot change or influence is just running the old hamster wheel—a lot of repetitive fuss that gets you nowhere. Worrying raises the level of stress hormones in your blood—cortisol, etc.—which cause inflammation, raise blood pressure, and in general aren’t good for you. Stress hormones play a valuable role if you are being chased by a saber-toothed tiger, but they don’t do much to combat climate change.

Dont-Worry-Be-Happy

4. Don’t worry about what other people say or think about you. Okay, obviously, if the school principal says you have to change your behavior or she’ll kick you out, you have to pay attention. I’m talking about the “Cheryl says that I eat worms” kind of stuff. Or Sid thinks you’re too fat or too thin. Or Annette doesn’t like you because whatever.

First of all, it’s helpful to know that other people hardly ever think about you. They’re way too busy thinking about themselves. Second, people view other people through the filter of their own lives and experiences. Many times when you hear something negative about yourself from someone else, they are merely reflecting their feelings about themselves.

Let’s take bullies as an example. Bullies terrify other kids in school, who tend to think that the bully is hugely self-confident and powerful. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Bullies are insecure people who deeply dislike themselves and have so little inner strength that they have to prove how strong they are by beating on others. Making other people unhappy makes the bully feel good. For a while. Then they have to do it again, because they are so miserable inside.

Just realizing why they behave in this way gives you power because you know it’s not about you; it’s about them. If you don’t give in to their manipulations, they have no power over you. Just remember that what you get from other people is mostly about them, not about you.

If you’re still in elementary school, middle school or high school when you read this and you are being bullied by someone, tell your parents. They will NOT allow it to continue.

Who called you bad dog

5. You are fully responsible for everything in your life. This is one of those things that may not be true, but works nonetheless. Oddly, if you accept full responsibility for who you are, what you do, and where you are in life, you will be a free person (even though you might think it would be the opposite). This is because if you are the moving force in your life, you have the power to change what you are doing. You can even change who you are.

On the other hand, if you view yourself as a victim of another person or of circumstances, you have no power over your life. Someone else is responsible for the bad stuff, or something happened to you and you are the hapless victim. This makes it really tough to get up and change things if you’re unhappy, because—“It’s not my fault! What can I do about it?” Thinking of yourself as a victim is the most dismal trap of all because you are the jailer.

The next time you find yourself in a situation you don’t like, instead of blaming someone or something else, ask yourself what it was that you did or didn’t do to get yourself there. This can be an uncomfortable exercise, but it will save you a ton of trouble later.

6. Don’t give negative people real estate in your soul. This kind of harks back to not worrying about what other people think, but it’s a bit of a different angle. Most of us at one time or another have found ourselves angrily or bitterly chewing over what someone else said or did that hurt us. That actually gives power to that person, or as I put it, gives them “real estate in my soul.”

negative people

 

So if you have a friend who said something mean, or a coworker who started a rumor about you, evict them. Don’t give them power over you. Don’t think about them, don’t react to them, don’t behave any differently. Your soul is your own.

7. Choose to be kind. All people are struggling with something. If you have a choice between being kind or unkind, be kind. Not everyone deserves it, but you’ll feel better about yourself. But don’t continue to be kind to people who are unkind or ungrateful to you. Just get them out of your life.

kindness

8. Adolescence is confusing to everyone. If you are reading this as a teenager, you have probably had some doubts about who you are, if you “fit in,” what you’re going to do with your life, why your parents are such jerks (they aren’t, but no doubt you have had some thoughts along these lines), your sexuality, your sanity, your attractiveness (How attractive am I?), and so on. You know that super-confident, super-good-looking, super-talented, super-popular person in your school? He or she is thinking all these things, too, because nobody escapes.

Fry

The pain and confusion does not last. It will go away, You will figure it all out. Stay busy—it’s the best cure for the blues.

9. I know from experience that it isn’t easy or comfortable to follow your own road when everyone else is going in another direction. But it’s more important to follow your own preferences and instincts than it is to be trendy (in terms of basic happiness, anyway). The cool clothes today won’t look wonderful on every body type. The cool dudes in high school often wind up mediocre losers in adulthood (not all of them, of course). It’s hard to stick to your own path because being considered weird and different hurts, especially when you are young. I guarantee you that you won’t care much when you are older.

its-hard-being-different

If the current trends are where you’re comfortable and happy, great. But if the latest thing in dresses makes you look like a giraffe with a thyroid problem, don’t wear them—wear something that makes YOU look good. If everyone is listening to Evil Skink headbanger music but you prefer Baroque chamber music, go with what gives you pleasure. If you like romantic comedies but everyone else thinks they’re “stupid,” why should you care? Go with what your heart and soul desire.

10. Have lots of love in your life. Love yourself. Love your family, Love your friends. Love your pets. Love your passions. You can’t ever run out of love, so spend it freely. Yes, you will get hurt. People and pets die. A person you love and trust may betray you. Some beloved endeavors will not work out. But you will always be the richer for having loved.

kitties

And then there’s romantic love. Young love is mostly agonizing. There’s all the insecurity of “Does he/she love me?” “What did he/she mean by that?” “Why is he/she talking to him/her?”

All I can say is, fall in love with a good person. There are lots of damaged people out there, and some of them are incredibly attractive and enticing. You can’t help being attracted, but you can help becoming emotionally entrapped by someone who does not have your best interests at heart. Find someone who shares at least some of your interests and is willing to put up with the rest. Find someone who wants the best for you and is willing to help you get it. Find someone who is kind. Find someone with integrity who is honest about their feelings. Find someone who loves you for your imperfections as well as your strengths. And then be that person for them in return.

love

If by some misfortune you choose someone who does not have those characteristics, free yourself as quickly as possible. Nothing can bring you down faster than a lover who doesn’t really love you. And you deserve to be loved!

11. Stuff is just stuff. So many people spend their lives acquiring stuff—houses, cars, jewelry, clothing—and then they spend their time and money upgrading their stuff. When they die, other people take some of their stuff and throw the rest away. Possessions alone never made anyone happy or fulfilled, but people keep trying. There’s nothing wrong with having nice things. There’s nothing wrong with having money. But acquisition for acquisition’s sake or for the sake of status never once resulted in real happiness.

Spend your time pursuing activities that make you happy, being with people who make you happy, developing talents that make you happy.

12. Negative emotions are destructive. Jealousy will destroy a relationship even when there is no cause. Anger drives people further apart. Resentment poisons love. We all feel negative emotions from time to time, but giving them houseroom will mess you up.

GIFSec.com

GIFSec.com

If you’re furious with someone, try not to engage until you’ve calmed down; you’ll get better results. If you’re jealous because your boy/girl friend is talking to someone else, let it go. If you find out that you have a reason to be jealous, don’t be jealous—either work it out with your lover or end the relationship, but don’t let jealousy eat away at your sense of self worth. View negative emotions as red flags: they are trying to tell you something, but don’t get carried away by them.

13. Think of your life as a work of art. Yes, you will make mistakes—all great artists make mistakes, and part of their greatness is how they incorporate mistakes into the work, thereby creating something even more amazing. Pursue your interests. Give generously of yourself, because that energy will return to you many times over. Love deeply. Create a path for your life and follow it—taking interesting side trips as they arise, of course. At the end, I hope you will look back on your life with satisfaction as a life that wasn’t perfect, but was well lived.

Your Nana loves you always.

I-Will-Always-Love-You

 

An Experiment in Intergenerational Living: Part 1

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Read the instructions on the bottom box!

Nuthin’ happenin’ on the book publishing front right now, but there’s a lot going on in my life, which is why I haven’t posted anything for nearly a month.

We moved. But it wasn’t the usual sort of move. My husband and I moved to begin an experiment in intergenerational living—not a new concept, but not one that has been popular in American life for many decades. It has become a stigma for kids to move back in with your parents—even a sign of failure.

My husband and I grew up in a nuclear family: Dad, Mom, and kids. Grandparents lived elsewhere. We were lucky in that our grandparents lived more or less in the same towns that we did, so we got to know them fairly well. Our own kids grew up remotely from their grandparents—my husband’s family lived 3,000 miles away and my family lived about 500 miles away. The kids never got to know their grandparents well.

Then our daughter and son-in-law had a baby. We wanted to be more involved than our grandparents had been with us, and certainly more involved than our own parents had been as grandparents. (We didn’t blame them for their lack of involvement. It’s hard to be involved with someone who lives so far away from you. They did their best.)

Right after our granddaughter was born, her parents purchased a house. They moved in with us temporarily while the new house was rehabilitated from the squatter’s den it was to the cute family home it became. Coincidentally, at the same time, our son and his future wife needed a place to stay for a while (turned out to be two years), and our daughter-in-law’s mother came to stay for a while as well, so it was a very full house.

And we loved it. It was a lot of fun having young folks and a baby around. My husband and I wondered if it made sense to talk to the kids about doing it full-time, seriously.

As it happened, our daughter suggested it first. She and her husband did not need financial help; it was matter of wanting to be closer as a family. In particular, she wanted us to be close to her children. This triggered a number of discussions between all parties. Our son and daughter-in-law opted out with no hurt feelings on any side, but our daughter and son-in-law became quite committed to the concept, as did we.

Nothing happened but talk until the housing market resurrected. Our first plan was to renovate our guest cottage and make it a bit larger. This would be where my husband and I would live, sharing the downstairs common areas of the main house with our daughter’s family. The county planning commission said no. We could build an entirely new structure, but we couldn’t make the existing structure larger. Then we came up with a renovation plan for the house that would allow for separate living quarters, feeling that we all needed some private space.

Then we went looking for funding for the remodel. The banks wouldn’t lend us money. We had assets that the banks wouldn’t consider, but we hadn’t had paychecks for a while as we were working for a high-tech startup for equity. (That’s another story, and no regrets.) The only remaining options were to forget the whole thing, or for us to sell our house. The proceeds from our house would enable us to purchase another house on a cash basis. We would then allow our daughter and son-in-law to invest in the new house and become co-owners. I don’t know about you, but the words “mortgage-free” ring in my ears like celestial music. We don’t need no stinkin’ banks!

Once we decided to go for it, it happened so fast it took our breath away. We sold our house “as-is,” before it officially went on the market. We moved in with a good friend, intending to take as long as a year to look around or build a new house. But the first time we went out to look at neighborhoods in the seaside town where we all wanted to live, we found the perfect house. We made a lowball offer that was accepted without a counter, and within two months of making the decision to sell our house, we were moving to a new town.

Trying to cram two households’ worth of personal possessions into one house has been and continues to be a challenge. I said the house was perfect; well, it could use a few more rooms, I suppose. The three-car garage is full to bursting, and we have no idea what we are going to do with all these BOOKS!

But the intergenerational thing is going well. We are making cooperative decisions where called for, and butting out of things that don’t concern us. The young marrieds have built-in babysitting for date nights, and we have built-in pet sitting for trips. Our economic situation on all sides is improved (although the younger parents still need to sell their house). All the pets have settled in sufficiently to start making trouble. The cabbage-rose wallpaper in our bathroom and bedroom is gone. The kitchen is set up and working and we are all glorying in the wonder of double ovens, a gas stove and many, many cupboards and drawers. (Did I mention how much I hate putting shelf paper in? I spent five days doing nothing else.)

Through it all, we have been buoyed by the sweeping view of the ocean, the clean air, the breezy, light-filled rooms, the hot tub and the happiness of being a close-knit family. I think it’s gonna be good.