The weekend trip

I made it back home around 8pm last night. The roads here are a bit bad, but not terrible. It was a good weekend and I feel like I got a lot "accomplished".

My boss picked me up at the airport around 7:15am and it's a quick drive over to the office. Since I don't have a desk there (and my computer I log into from home is in the server room) I couldn't actually work until our lunch and meeting. First I got coffee, LOL. Then my boss introduced me to a few people who have started since my last visit. I caught up with others I have worked with for years. Lots of hugs from everyone :)  My boss and I sat in her office and discussed a few different things we are working on, so that took up some time too. We also have a little satellite sales office and the lady that works there I had not met yet, but we email quite often, so she showed up for the lunch/meeting so it was nice to finally meet her in person. We sat by each other for lunch and visited. The actual meeting was much shorter than usual, only 45 minutes. DD had driven down from her office (she took off early) and was just sitting out in her car waiting for me, so after the meeting everyone was just snacking and drinking, so I brought her in for a bit and then we left to go to my moms.

Ugly Friday afternoon traffic, so it took us at least an hour and a half to her place. We checked into the hotel first, which was less than a mile from my mom's place. It was a Best Western Plus. Seemed like a decent hotel and nice room. We got to mom's and visited in her apartment awhile before we went downstairs for dinner. We were both impressed that she had filled up her pill box and was good to go for a week! She still had wanted to keep her "before breakfast" omeprazole in a bottle by her bedside, so who knows if she was remembering that? Before we left for the evening I counted how many were left so we would know if she took it the next morning.

We stayed with mom until about 7:30pm. I was wiped out! I had been up since 2:30am their time zone. DD was tired too, as she was at work at like 5am. We were in bed by 8:30. Around 10pm the room next to us decided to have a party. Sounded like a bunch of young guys. I put up with it for about a half hour and then decided to call down to the front desk. Only neither phone in our room would work. So, I called with my cell phone. She said they would take care of it and within a couple minutes all was quiet and we didn't hear a peep out of them the rest of the night. We didn't have to get up until like 7 so got a decent amount of sleep. On the way to mom's we stopped at a drug store and picked out a multivitamin for over 65 years old. Then we went through the coffee stand and got us each a mocha. We were going to meet my uncle about an hours drive to have a late breakfast. Honestly, we were wondering if my mom would remember to be up and ready, as we told her we'd be there at 8:30 and leave about 9. We were walking into her lobby area at 8:30 and there she was - ready to go! LOL. We sat in the lobby and drank our coffees and then hit the road. We drove mom's car so it could get the battery (Prius) ran since she hardly drives now.

Breakfast with uncle was nice. He's a hoot, so always lots of laughs with him. While we were looking at the menus mom said "where's the senior menu?" and dd said it's on the back. I don't know why I turned it over, I think just because mom was still trying to figure out what she wanted to eat. I flipped it over and suddenly went "OH!! Oh my God. I just realized I can order off this menu now!!" LOL. 55 and over. Holy cow! LOL. After we left the restaurant my uncle had been in his car behind us pulling out. He texted me to check mom's license plate tabs...looks to be expired. We looked when we got back to her place - sure enough- expired in 2018!! oh Lord.

DD looked through her glove box, thinking maybe she had renewed her registration and just forgot to put on the tabs, but nope. We got online, but since it was over a year expired she has to go to the vehicle licensing office to take care of it. We looked up where it's at and thankfully it's right next door to the grocery store/bank that she goes to a mile from her place. DD put a big yellow sticky note on her old registration with a note to go get new tabs at office next door to Safeway.

On the way back from the restaurant we were stopping where her BF is being cared for, so she could see him. No wonder she got lost! We had the map on our phone and still got lost. BF is not doing well at all. He's definitely now in the final stages of life. Both his daughter and son were there. Mostly he sleeps but he did wake up and my mom was able to talk to him a bit. They have him on morphine now and I imagine it will be any time now. The place he is at seems nice. It's one of those homes made into an adult family home. Some guy owns it and the main lady just lives/works there to care for the residents (I think they have 2 or 3 now). We were chatting with her, while my mom was in BF's room, and the owner guy came in and was talking to BF's kids. The lady told us that when he comes over here he will try to talk you into having your mom move here...just warning you, LOL. Sure enough that's what he did. Finally, DD just said well we're going to get her moved closer to us. Later DD told me "I'm not putting my grandma there! She's not dying!"  It was hard for her and sad to see BF like that, but she was really glad she got to see him again and she totally understands he's not got much longer. His DD said she has turned his cell phone off, since he can't really use it now, so if mom wants to try to call, just call her number.

Once back at mom's we got her to take her "morning" pills....by then it was like 1:30pm. Since she had met us in the lobby that morning, we didn't get to see if she had taken them earlier. So, that was a good time to figure out a new plan. She actually brought up maybe just taking all her morning pills at the same time when she gets out of bed and takes her before breakfast pill. She said she remembers that pill because the bottle is right by her bed with a glass of water. So, we added her before breakfast pills to the morning slot in the pill box and she decided to just leave the box right next to her bedside. then she just has to remember to take all the morning pills one time, when she gets up and then her evening pill when she goes to bed. That way, when I call her around 10:30 am she should already have taken them all for the morning, rather than having to remember two different times. She also really liked that we got the one multivitamin to replace the 4 vitamins. Plus, she'll get all the other vitamins in that one vitamin and not have to deal with putting 4 in her pill box every week. DD and I just took the old bottles of vitamins with us.....didn't need them in her cupboard, confusing her. She really didn't want to use the alarm on the digital calendar, so we are going to just trying this twice a day/bedside method and see how that goes for a couple of weeks.

We went back to our hotel room about same time Saturday night. Just watched tv until about 9pm and went to sleep. Again, around 10pm the same next door group started up. UGH! I should have thought to ask the front desk earlier that day if they were still going to be next to us Saturday night and I would have had them get us a different room. By 10:30 there were even louder than the night before and sounded like more of them in the room. We could also hear girls laughing this time. I called down and thankfully they took care of it right away. Our only other complaint was the pillows were just AWFUL! Basically square pillows and very hard. Saturday, we saw mom had a couple of extra pillows in her closet so we borrowed them, haha. We both slept much better with those.

When we got there Sunday morning I went and looked at her box and yay! she had remembered to take her pill the night before at bedtime and she had taken all her morning pills when she got up. We are hoping this will work, at least for the time being.

Mom is very open to the idea of moving to an assisted living place by me. DD and uncle also really like the idea. I showed her a couple of the places here, online, but the 3rd one's website wasn't working. DD took her over to Goodwill to get rid of some things and I went through her papers and filed and shredded a bunch of stuff she really didn't need cluttering her desk and mind. I also went through her various paperclipped little stacks of notes to herself on little slips of paper and got rid of most of them. Some were notes from months ago to remind herself something.

It also sounds like mom will come over for a few days at for Christmas with DD/SIL. She was having a hard time remembering about it, but I think after we talked about it several times, she started to remember. She would say "oh that sounds really nice, I don't know why I wouldn't want to go". We'll see, she's the type that will change her mind at the last minute and say "oh, I just decided to stay home".