It's hard to believe it hasn't even been a month since I moved my mother into an assisted living community. (It will be a month this Friday.)

Here's what I've done (in between working full-time):

1. Nearly single handedly emptied out my mother's condo. My sister came 2 or 3 times and then seemed to have lost interest. I had my handyman/carpenter come twice with his truck to move furniture. My friend Ron came once but didn't really help, to be honest.

I can't tell you how many trips I made with either a car full or my dad's pick-up full of donations for Good Will. My own home is upside down with my mother's artwork all over, not to mention her clothes and things too valuable to donate.

Can't tell you how much I simply trashed, dragging stuff to the dumpster at the condo.

I mean, I can't even begin to tell you how exhausting just this part of the process has been. I am DOG TIRED. And I lost 5 lbs, after not being able to shed a single pound since I passed age 50. Amazing, but that's what a double flight of interior stairs will do to you. That's a big part of what's made this so tiring, the stairs.

Most of the rooms are mostly emptied out except for what will remain for staging purposes, except for the 2 studio rooms.

2. Sold my mother's 96 Subaru for $750.

3. Terminated the cable TV and returned their stupid little box, cancelled the phone and Internet service, cancelled a few credit cards.

4. Interviewed 3 realtors and then picked one. With the help of a friend of mine who used to run a brokerage, we established the list price and a strategy to sell it quickly (hopefully). I negotiated a 5% commission with my agent and then will pay an additional 1% bonus commission to any agent who gets the condo under contract in 2 months time. If I still have this condo by back-to-school time, I'll have lost my window of opportunity and will likely have it thru the winter til next spring, and I'll be paying the taxes and common charges every month, which I REALLY don't want to get stuck doing. So it needs to sell quickly.

I already wrote the listing description (i used to do a lot of that as a freelance real estate writer) and the agent is using it.

My agent's agency will get a sneak preview of the condo later this week so they have an opportunity to make more money on it before it goes on MLS the following week.

5. I met with a carpet place and it's scheduled to get new wall to wall carpet this Wednesday. What's there is shot, looks terrible and makes the whole place look dirty.

6. The only other improvement I'm planning on doing is replacing the fogged up glass in the sliding glass doors in finished walk-out basement. I'm meeting the glass company guy there tomorrow for an estimate, but expect it will be $300 or $400.

7. Also tomorrow Make a Home Foundation is coming with 2 guys and a truck to take all my furniture donations, which includes dozens of book shelves, cabinets, desks, file cabinets etc. I HOPE they will take it all and not turn their nose up at anything.

8. In between all this, lots of visits with my mother to try to make her feel comfortable. Today, for instance, I spent a few hours in the a.m. scrambling to clean out the upper studio as my sister failed to clean out this one room as I'd asked her to. My concern is they won't be able to do replace the wall to wall carpeting in there if there's too much stuff to move. Then I drove over to my mother's to take her to a matinee and when i got home around 5:30 p.m., I sank into a lounge chair, exhausted.

Still to do: Find an attorney to represent me at closing.

Find buyers for both looms; I may have to donate the larger one to a nonprofit group in Hartford area that teaches blind people a skill (weaving). The smaller one should sell...I have a possible buyer coming tomorrow to look at it.

Next week an estate liquidator guy and his art expert are coming to my home to look at my mother's art and ideally buy it all as one lot to sell to dealers or whatever.

Later down the road I will want to sell my mother's 2 diamond rings, and 2 antique Koran holders my mother bought in Morocco that I believe are worth something.

There's also a large Moroccan rug that could be worth something.

I may also hire a cleaning company to deep clean just the kitchen and 2 bathrooms.

I need to find a place to donate a zillion photo frames, picture frames and mats and miscellaneous art supplies. I'll throw in yarn supplies to whoever buys the looms. May call a Montessori school about the frames tomorrow.

Have been in touch with mom's accountant; concerns about taxes. There's just so much to think about. My only consolation is that for most people, this kind of thing happens when their loved one passes, so then they have to do all this stuff while they're still in mourning. At least for me, my mom's still alive so it's not quite as emotional, though it is still difficult and I do feel very guilty at times becus i feel I'm dismantling her life and leaving her with very little.

From the surface, if you spoke to her, the only thing amiss would be that she can't remember anything, and even has trouble finishing a sentence. Otherwise, she's not overweight, she walks quite well and looks pretty well put together.