I am a 19-year, 3x cancer survivor. Last Sept I was taken to the ER with pain & they found another tumor (a mesenteric tumor), in the stomach. Then 2 weeks later my dad was diagnosed with metastatic cancer, I flew to Texas to spend time with mom & dad. He passed away on Oct 12th ... just 2 1/2 weeks after diagnosis. My elderly mom, who has a meningioma on her brain, and suffers from constant pain, is now living with us so we're caring for her.
2 years ago when the economy had its big downturn (and still is) we suffered great financial losses in our small mom/pop business. We have been involved in small home amenities in the new construction homes on the western slope for 17 years. Our home is now in foreclosure and will be auctioned off on March 2nd. A few years ago we decided to invest in another small piece of property for what we thought & hoped would be our retirement. We've never made enough money to really invest but property values were good, real estate was good, and we thought it would be something for our future. The property has a shop on it and a small 1600 square foot brick house that was built in 1948. So we bought it and rented the shop area out but kept the house as a separate potential rental place. Little did we know that there was a mold problem in the house and that we would be forced to live in this house when we lost our current home. Fortunately I was able to borrow just enough from mom to get the mold remediation done. We've been able to do a lot of the work ourselves, but we cannot afford to remodel the bathroom. We are now living in the house.
We watch KREX TV news every night at 10:00 and when I saw the Ugly Bathroom Contest I figured what the heck, I might as well enter it. I've never won anything before and thought I probably shouldn't waste my time but I'm trying to be an optimist here, even with everything that has gone on. Besides my hope is not in the here & now, nor in the material things of this earth, so I decided to give it a shot.
So here I am KREX TV and Tile Meister, awaiting your consideration of my application. What a great thing you are doing.
Thank you,
Brenda Tollefson
Montrose, CO 81403
