Extra pay

I was emailing with my side job boss, answering a question she had on how to handle something and if she could do it a certain way (accounting wise). I told her that's probably not the best practice and I would do it such and such way, especially to make sure they have everything recorded in case of an audit down the road. She replied back "ok, that's why you are paid the big bucks" LOL. I replied back, speaking of pay, now that I'm working less hours for them, I've just been keeping track of my hours for February (I have always been paid a flat monthly fee) and to just compensate me based on that or however they want to do it, is fine with me. She replied back that she wants to pay me my full month fee for February and then start the hourly pay in March. I said that works for me! Which is a nice surprise I was not expecting and had only put a much smaller amount in my budget for getting paid today. 

We've gotten a bunch of snow since early this morning. Dh thought it was slowing down, went out and shoveled, came back in for a bit and then it started dumping again, LOL, and almost as much as he just shoveled off. But, his new snow plow makes such a quick job of it. He's already done with our driveway and the street out in front. 

It looks like my regular job boss is getting close to posting the job for my assistant. Yay! She had me review the job posting yesterday, so I take it as she's getting close to posting it. I was kind of hoping maybe she would get our receptionist to take the job, but from what she has told me before, she's tried to get her to take other jobs as they've come up over the years, but she's always just happy to stay doing what she's doing. But, whoever gets the job, it will be so helpful to me.

It seems like it's taking me forever to get this post finished today.  I guess there's not too much going on, other than I am happy to have the extra income I was not expecting this month.

Emails, chair, and memory

And it's Monday again. It started out, once the west coast time zone was a more appropriate time, haha, texting my side job boss that my email isn't working anymore for them. With the winding down of their old company/transition, I wasn't sure if I would still contact their IT company, but yes, I was to do that. They figured it out pretty quickly that for some reason the license attached to my email had expired and was not renewed. The IT got that fixed and I'm up and running again. Basically, it shut down late Thursday afternoon, so only really Friday possibility of getting emails that I couldn't see, but there's weren't any.

The accent chair I ordered for dh's den finally arrived today. I do like it. It's about an "average" on the comfortable scale. Not great, not bad. I wanted to see how the chair was, because I was thinking of ordering 2 for the bonus room. I'm still on the fence. I think I'd want something more comfortable sitting up there, which will get used much more than a chair in dh's den. I'll think about it awhile. Most likely Amos will like it and it will be covered in orange cat hair soon, LOL. I don't have a lot of color in my house, it's mostly neutrals, so this dark blue is a nice little addition of color. Then dh promptly took a fleece blanket he has and put it on the seat for the cat to lay on, LOL. It looks stupid now. Oh well, I tried to make it look nice, haha.

As always, I try to share the good and bad of my journey with my mom's dementia. The bad yesterday was mostly me :( I was not a good daughter. I went to the bathroom and left my phone on the chair arm. Came back to a missed call and voicemail from my mom (this was around 2:30pm). It was a 90 second voicemail where she was pretty confused. At first she did seem to realize she was leaving a message but then didn't know what time to tell me she had called. Then she thought it was early morning and mentioned this a couple of times, that she was probably calling too early. She did seem pretty confused and even said that she was, but she didn't seem upset or anxious. Towards the end of the voicemail it sounded like she thought I had called her. I was tired, about to take a nap, and so did not feel like talking on the phone, especially with a conversation I knew was going to just go in circles and repeating. I decided not to call her. I wasn't going to help her confusion any and 5 minutes later she wouldn't remember she talked to me anyway. Cue the guilt, but once in awhile I just can't deal with it and I guess yesterday was it. I was planning to call her this morning around 10:30 and see if she was in her room, but then I was waiting on the IT guy to call me back, so I wasn't able to try. Now it's her lunch hour, so I'll have to try in a half hour or so. 

Earning Sunday

Yesterday was a good day. The cat started feeling better around noon and is fine now. I got the upstairs vacuumed. It takes more now that I have to vacuum the bonus room carpet too, haha! But it really didn't need it, since we've hardly been in there. I'm not going to do it every time I vacuum upstairs. It's a big room! I got our sheets and pillow cases washed and the bed remade. In between I managed to earn almost $7 on MTurks, not bad for a weekend day. I haven't earned anything yet this morning.

I took a short nap in the afternoon and then got up and made peanut butter cookies. At 4:30 dh said he wanted to go into town to get some food for dinner from the store deli, so we did that. This time I tried some chicken bites that had a honey garlic glaze/sauce on them. They were really good. Since we were at the store I also picked up a tub of margerine and a half gallon of ice cream. I haven't bought ice cream in a long time and keep forgetting to get some every time I grocery shop. I'd like to make a cake one of these weekends, but every time I think about it, I realize I have no ice cream and dh only likes cake with ice cream. Since I just made cookies, I'll probably wait and make a cake next weekend, but at least I have the ice cream now.

The neighbors DIL and kids went home finally, yesterday. I think they took their dogs with them, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

I was kind of hoping dh would have wanted to go into the lumber store to get some of the stuff he needs to start on his shop lofts. Maybe this week he will. I think he's overthinking it all on how best to build it.

As I've sat here typing this blog post out, I've managed to earn $2.10 in Mturks, almost to my halfway daily weekend goal. My brain is telling me, ok you earned almost $7 yesterday and it costs $7 to subscribe to a month of Apple+tv, that works good :)

My dd just texted me. She is at the airport, early this morning, going on a business trip for a few days. She is not happy that she's having to spend her whole day off/Sunday traveling, but apparently she kind of has to go along with how the purchasing agent half of her group plans it out, at least as far as when to be there. She can book her own flight though and for some reason the PA booked hers into an airport 1.5 hours drive from where they are staying/meeting with the supplier, when there is an airport in the city of destination. DD booked her flight to the small city. She said she's not spending half the day at the airport and flying halfway across the country to then spend 1.5 hours driving in a car......in North Dakota, LOL. Especially because it's like 10 degrees there and on Wednesday when she flies back out, it's supposed to be snowing. Nope, not driving 1.5 hours in the snow in a rental car. Just dumb. 

Last evening I got an email that an e-book I reserved through the library was now my turn, so now I have something to read this week. It's the latest in the Jack Reacher series.

And just like that I got another $1 Mturks study/survey to complete and I earned a $5 bonus from it! Now I'm up to $8.10 for today already. Yay!

Sick Saturday

The cat isn't feeling well, a reaction from the 3 vaccines, I'm sure. He threw up around 10pm last night. I did not hear him at all during the night or at his usual 5:30 or 6am activities. I got up at 7, and usually, wherever he is, as soon as he hears me up, he's right there. I thought well, maybe dh put him upstairs in my office last night, so I first went up there, but the door was open. Where is he??! I found him in my closet. He likes to sleep there sometimes. There are a couple of bins in the corner with some clothes and sweatshirts on top and it's comfy and dark in there. I gave him some pets, but he didn't want to get up and he's still there. Poor kitty.

I've got my MTurks on and trying to find hits. So far I've only gotten one, but it was $1.50 for just a few minutes of time. I'm going to try for $5 for a weekend day. I have the payments set up to transfer to my bank account every 3 days and this morning it just transferred $38.

I had gotten a free 90 day subscription to Walmart+ from about Nov through January. It was kind of nice to not have to meet the $35 minimum order for free shipping, but I did not renew it. And here I sit the past 2 days trying to get to a $35 order LOL. I started out needing to order dh's deodorant. So, I picked a 6 pack that will last quite awhile, then I added some toothpaste for me, then some pistachios. Then some stevia packets. And I'm still short a couple of dollars. This is when I usually find something, but then 2 days after I do that, something will come up that I realize we need and I have to start over again with trying to do $35. Dh has enough deodorant for awhile, so I'm just going to leave it all in the cart until I actually need whatever comes up next. But, it's annoying, LOL. But, it's not worth the $98 a year, to me. If I lived where they would deliver to me, I'd probably be all over it.

Since I saw mom yesterday I'm not driving into the city again this weekend. I need to do some bedding washing and mopping. It's a nice sunny day and the temps are back up to normal and supposed to be around 40 today.

Hopefully the cat feels better soon.

Another busy Friday

We did a quick trip to the city this morning. First to the vet appointment. Kitty is doing great and 12 pounds and about 1 1/2 years old now. He had to get 3 vaccines, but 2 of them are now good for 3 years, so I won't need to pay for them again for awhile. The whole visit came to $149. We were in and out of there in less than 30 minutes. 

Did you know orange kitties get freckles? She noticed his black whisker and I said ya, that's new...and she explained orange cats get black freckles on their pink areas, like edges of eyelids, nose and inside the mouth. He does have black freckles along his eyelids and she showed me one inside his lip.

Then we drove over to see my mom (like a mile or so from the vet) and she was in her room sitting in her recliner when we got there a little after 10:30am. She was really good and happy to see us. It's such a change with her from day to later afternoon/evening, when she starts sundowning. She even said "I like it here" and was happy the whole visit. We only stayed about 25 minutes. It was like 7 degrees out and the cat was in the carrier out in the truck and we didn't want him to get too cold. Her little latchhook rug was folded up on her closet shelf, so I took that with me. The only "odd" thing she said was "I told you I got rid of my car, didn't I?" I said yes, and she said ya, I probably don't need it anymore. LOL. I agreed and said the roads were snowy and icy to drive on ;)

Then we stopped at the feed store and picked up a curbside order. I stocked up on chicken feed, scratch and bedding, so I should be good with that for a few months now. We were back home by noon and I made a quick lunch and back at my desk to work the rest of the afternoon. Since I have 3 appointments in the next couple of weeks, I didn't want to take 3 full days off work, so I'm just taking the partial hours off and just going to use up one day of PTO for the 3 days of being gone 2-3 hours those days.

I wasn't going to do MTurks today, but decided to log in and see what I could get today. So far I'm a little over $5 for maybe 30 min or less. I'll take it. I still have about an hour and 15 minutes of sitting at my desk, so maybe I'll get a few more to do before the day is over. I always remember weekends were usually pretty slow, so I'm not expecting much this weekend and especially as I don't sit at my computer too much after my morning coffee and blog update time.

DD said she and her dh both got their annual raise and bonus's this week. Between the 2 of them they are now making over $200k a year. Pretty good for a 27 and 32 year old. They are on the ball with everything, that's for sure.

I saw online that the new season (and final, I think) of Ted Lasso airs on Apple +tv on March 16. I can't wait. It's such a great show and will be worth subscribing to the streaming service again for a couple of months to watch it. There is also another show on there that sounds really good called "Shrinking", so I'm going to watch that one too. I'm not sure when Severance returns to Apple tv, but that is another one on my list I'm waiting to return and watch.

Good and bad

I got a call after dinner last night from the nurse at mom's memory care place. She took a little fall in her room. One of the items we took with us to decorate her new room was a small latch hook rug (she made years ago). We just put it up next to her wall on the side of her recliner. Out of the way, but still visible (hoping to keep familiar stuff with her). Well, she must have moved it because the nurse said it was over by the door where she was after falling and must have tripped or slipped on it. 

She said mom was fine, not hurt or anything and doing well, but they do have to call and let me know and also send a report to her doctor. I said I will be in on Friday morning, so I will take that little rug out with me. She said for now they put it in her hamper, so that is good.

The "good" thing is now that she is in memory care and has a fall, there is a nurse on staff to check her out. She took her blood pressure, etc. When/if she had fallen at her other place there is no one to do that and no one to check in on her after, like there is now, so I feel much better about that. I did just try calling my mom to check in on her, but she's not in her room (as usual, LOL).  The other thing I like is they have me on an email list and that has been nice, so far for general info. They even just emailed out March's activity calendar, which her other place never did. I saved it to my desktop and now have it to look at for next month.

I decided to give doing MTurks surveys a try again to bring in a few extra dollars, since I am losing my side job for the most part. It's been 2 years since I did any. It took me a little bit to remember how it all works, but so far so good.  I didn't start until Tuesday afternoon and made $12 Tuesday and $17 yesterday. Today, so far, I am up to $9, though it's taking me longer to find ones to do, $9 is good to me for it only being noon.

Tomorrow is a partial work day. We have to take the cat into the vet for his annual visit, stop and see my mom for a quick visit before her lunch and then swing by the feed store to pick up chicken feed and supplies and then head home and back to work for the rest of the afternoon.

The antique/vintage mystery purchase

I don't know what made me remember the little stool my grandparents had, but I do remember it vividly. I just had no idea what it was called, to even try to find one! I don't know what happened to grandma's stool, but obviously my mom got rid of it when she moved my grandma into nursing care. At the time I was so busy with teenagers, working, etc, that I don't even remember thinking about taking the stool. 

When I was visiting dd last month and we were antique shopping, something triggered my memory of their old stool. I googled different names for the stool and finally got a hit and then started finding these stools for sale. At first I wanted to find one exactly like my grandparents stool. It had a black wood base with a white(ish) leather cushion. All the stools I found with the same exact base that matched my grandparents were all red leather cushions....and pretty worn....and like $300. I set aside the idea for a couple of weeks. Then started looking again. Again almost buying a red one that was very worn. Then I came across a bunch on ebay, and while they were priced great (under $100) the shipping on all of them was over $100. 

Then I came across this one. The base and cushion are different colors, but it's exactly the same stool and I think the colors go much better with my decor. It was a decent price and shipping was only $29. I love it! The leather is in really good shape. I don't know for sure where I am putting it, but for now it's in my foyer entrance.

Do you know what type of stool this is called?

House projects

My dinner of pork roast and veggies was good, but the bread machine bread was not. Too dense. I have had this bread machine for years and the only bread I ever made in it was from a box mix for bread machines I used to get at Walmart. I can't remember the brand, but it was for white bread and apparently isn't made anymore. So, I went with the scratch recipe in the book that came with my bread machine, but I did not have bread flour, so I am guessing that is the cause. I may buy some bread flour and give it a try again some time.

I woke up to it snowing and a little snow on the ground and it stopped shortly after. I don't think this is going to turn into the big "winter storm warning" they say it's supposed to be.  

DH is (I hope) finally making plans to get started on the big loft he wants to put in his shop. It will be a big loft along the back wall and also a smaller one in the opposite corner. He thinks he can get started on the smaller loft, now, without needing to wait for warmer weather. To do the big loft along the back wall he'll need to move a lot of stuff outside to give him room to work, and that's going to have to wait for good weather days. But, at least he seems to finally be moving towards starting the project. Underneath the loft along the back wall he also plans to build a long workbench, which will also have shelves under and probably put in some cabinets above. The loft and the workbench will allow him to put a good majority of what is taking up all his floor space, up above and on shelves and then give him some actual floor space to move around in and use. At least to get started on the smaller corner loft, it won't take too much supplies and he said he still has one beam left he can use for that. With the floor space he will gain, he will finally be able to move his big wooden "woodwork bench" out of our garage (almost taking up a whole bay) and into the shop.

We also just FINALLY ordered the hidden bookcase door for dh's den. There is a small closet in his den that holds his gun safe and the plan has always been to put a hidden bookcase door there. Only took us 4 years....gosh, it's hard to believe that our house was finished almost 4 years ago now. We sat down on Saturday and went thru the door website to order it and pick out all the specs we needed and then it calculated shipping....$1351....excuse me?! The company is in Utah, practically next door, LOL. The website had a chat function and I got online with a rep and said is that a mistake? She said she would check into it and get back to me on Monday. So, now with a 10% discount and a huge reduction in the shipping cost, the shipping is $500. We can live with that. It will be a big heavy thing to ship, but $1351 was insane. Our door opening is larger than a standard size door, it's 42wX94H and we are getting knotty alder to match our trim and other doors in the house and stained, and also some bookcase doors on the bottom. It's supposed to take 3-5 weeks, so hopefully that's all it takes. 

A couple weeks ago I ordered a navy blue chair for his den. It's sold on lots of websites, so of course I shopped for the best price and ordered it from an Amazon seller. Only it never shipped and then this morning I got an email the order has been canceled. So, I ordered it from someplace else, but had to pay $25 more. Oh well. Hopefully this one ships out soon. It says we are to have it by this Friday. Once the chair is here and the hidden bookcase door, that room will be completed. I'm really trying to just let him decorate it, he put his collections of stuff in/on the display cabinet, etc. but it's so hard, because he is the type that ends up with WAY too much stuff. He's the type that would have every surface and every spot on a wall covered with something.......and it's too much. He knows this and on a few things asked for my opinion. I'm like every blank spot on a wall does not need something. It takes away from what is already on the wall. (OMG, you should see his shop walls as you walk into his shop. Pictures galore. You can't even focus to look at anything there is so much. It gives me anxiety just to look at it all. He knows this isn't a good look in our house/his den and he's trying to not over do it. He knows he wants it to look "classy" but doesn't know how to go about it, so I'm probably going to have to step in and get him to pare it all down some, especially when he also gets to fill up the hidden bookcase shelves with even more stuff. I hate clutter and also told him, if he's going to have that much stuff then he's going to have to be the one to dust it all!

Scheduling (and rescheduling) appointments

I texted the hairdresser that goes into the memory care place weekly, and she said my mom did decline the haircut, but she will try again tomorrow. I said please do and that when I had a caregiver coming into help her with things at her previous place we discovered that what works best with her is to just tell her "it's time for...." and she is agreeable. If you ask her she will say no. I also said it also often worked for them to say "well, your daughter said you need to do....." Hopefully that will work tomorrow. Otherwise I'm going to have to make a trip in there on a Tuesday and be there to make sure it gets done.

I have 4 appointments coming up in the next few weeks. None of which I can schedule on weekends, so missing work time it will have to be. Friday is the cat's vet appointment.  March 7 is mom's dr appointment with the geriatrician who house calls at her memory care place, to get established and March 16 is my appointment to get established with new doctor, since I had to change. I also need to schedule a mammogram and ideally wanted to schedule it just before my dr appt (it's at the same place) but she said they don't have the tech in that week, so I scheduled that for 3/7, an hour and a half after mom's appointment, so I should be done in time to go the few blocks over to the mammogram office. 

I have the pork roast and veggies in the crockpot and it's starting to smell good. I'm going to give some bread making a try in about a half hour. It takes 3 hours and 20 min to bake in the bread machine, so I'll time it for around 5pm. The recipe calls for "bread" flour recommended, but I only have regular flour, but we'll see how it turns out. I just remember between the crockpot roast and the bread baking, the smell will be so good in a few hours :) Even if the bread doesn't turn out, LOL.

The snow storm is supposed to start coming in this evening. We'll see. It'll probably end up nothing. Right now it's 40 and melting. It just sounds like constant water running in the gutters below my upstairs window.

 

 

A good Sunday

What a difference between day and night with my mom. I called her today at 11:15 and for once caught her in her room. She was a pleasure to chat with and was doing really well. Easy to talk to, no complaining that she wanted to leave. I still need to find out what happened with not getting a haircut.

There is supposed to be a big snow storm heading in tomorrow for a couple of days. Glad we got all our groceries stocked up last Friday. I'm going to make pizza for dinner tonight and tomorrow I'm putting a pork roast and veggies in the crockpot. In the past years when I made a roast in the crockpot I also made a loaf of bread in my old bread machine. I always just bough the box mix for bread machines, but I guess they don't make that anymore. I do have some packets of yeast, so I need to find the recipe book for the bread machine or a recipe online to also make some bread. 

I think our neighbors aren't too happy right now. Dh saw something laying on the ground out in front of one of their garage doors, but couldn't figure out what it was/see that far without his glasses. Later he looked out the end of our garage window and saw it was their buffalo hide rug.....Mr had mentioned before they had an issue with son's dog(s) peeing on it. It's on the floor in their basement, so apparently it must've gotten peed on and they threw it out in the driveway because of the smell.  I told dh dang! that's an expensive thing to ruin - those hides are like $2000! He didn't believe me at first and then looked them up and yep. I said I had wanted one to hang over our stair railing upstairs, but then I saw how much they cost. LOL.

I found an antique item online I've been looking for, for a month or so. When I get it, I'll post a pic of it and why I wanted one. It's such an odd item, it took me awhile to even figure out what to call it to search for it. Not exactly sure where I'm going to put it yet, but it's not big and I have options.

I need to take the frozen dinner rolls out of the freezer at 2pm to thaw out in time to make the pizza dough for dinner. Then I think I'll take a nap.

 

Busy Friday

Change of plans yesterday. After I submitted my Walmart order for pickup Sunday, dh asked if we could go in later yesterday afternoon or evening to pick it up. They were predicting snow for the weekend. I got back online to see if any pickup slots were available and it said there were starting at 4pm. I walked back down to discuss (like 1 minute) with him the best time to choose. I decided on the 4-5pm and would quit work a little early. Got back up to my desk and the screen refreshed and then only starting at 6pm was available, so I went with that time. I was kind of annoyed to have to go then, I'll be tired after working all day, but then the more I thought about it, it sounded better. This way I'll now have the whole weekend to myself and not have to spend half a day in the city on Sunday.

Mom's dinner is from 4:30-6, but I figured she's probably done eating by 5:30 so we stopped at her place first to visit. I really did not want to do an evening visit with her.....as I knew it would just be a visit dealing with sundowning and even more confusion than usual, but oh well. When we got there it looked like most people had finished up with dinner or were eating dessert. She was standing next to a table and saw us walking towards her and got a surprised look on her face and appeared to recognize us and said "oh good! you're here, cuz I'm ready to get out of this place!". Oh great......

So for most of the 30 min visit she flipped flopped between saying she was ready to leave, or going to leave soon, or it's a nice place, I can't complain. She thinks she works there and at one point I think she even thought dh and I were her parents. Every time she'd mention leaving I'd either just ignore her or change the subject, though one time we asked what was wrong that she wanted to leave. She couldn't tell us anything. And, she obviously did not get a haircut on Tuesday, like I thought she was! So, no idea what happened there - if she turned the hairdresser down, or what. I'll have to call the hairdresser back next week and see. That was disappointing, too. We both tried to think of new things to talk with her about, showed her some pictures on our phones, but it's so hard. She will just ask or say the same things over and over. When I went to use the restroom dh asked her if she went on the drive/outing and she said she didn't think so, but she wouldn't remember. She couldn't remember what she just had for dinner 10 minutes earlier. My next visit probably won't be until next Friday, later morning, when I will stop in after taking the cat to his vet appointment. I'm sure at that time of day she will be better.

We got our groceries picked up, but as dh was reorganizing the bags and stuff a bit he says "you only got one case of Mountain Dew?" I said no, there should be 2. I looked at the order on my phone and it was for 2, so then I had to go back inside, wait in line at customer service to get credited and then walk halfway back thru the store to get another case. Since dh drinks at least a couple cans a day, 1 case would not last us until my next order in a couple of weeks. At least I didn't have to make dinner last night - we stopped at Wendy's drive thru and ate on the way home, both of us hungry as it was almost 7pm by the time we got through the line and got our food.

And neighbors DIL and 4 grandkids arrived Thursday night. Oh joy. Just as we were pulling out of our garage to leave yesterday we see the mom getting out scooters from their truck for the boys. When we leave dh always waits outside out automatic gate to make sure it closes (we've had issues before) and he knows it fully closed. We get home and it's partially pushed in. What the heck? Well....dh had moved the game camera back out front and though it wasn't pointed at our gate it was showing out in the street, in front of our fence. The camera shows the kids riding back and forth and the mom walking back and forth (of course on her phone the whole time, as usual) and the their 2 dogs. I said to dh I know exactly what happened....one or both of the dogs either went under the gate or around the gate piers, onto our property. The mom wanted to get them to come back out, so instead of just walking thru the openings at each pier, she tried to push the gate open to get the dogs out. I'll bet anything that's what happened and since the gate is automatic/electric you can't just push it open, but you also CAN'T force it or you will break the mechanisms that keep it shut! God, those people are the most annoying EVER. I told dh put the camera facing the gate while they are here........

It's snowing now, this morning and supposed to continue for a few more hours.

Canceling stuff

I canceled the SiriusXM subscription I had bee paying for the last 5 months or so. When we bought our new car it came with 6 months free. Then I went to cancel it (because I wasn't paying $20 a month or whatever it was) and they offered it for $10/mo, so I agreed. It was late summer and I was driving more and liked listening to the comedy channels. Well, seriously, with winter and dh thinking I can't drive in snow or he thinks there's ice, so he drives and he never turns it on. So, I figured no sense in continuing to spend $10.91 a month. I put the app on my phone and computer, but never use it there either. I can't concentrate on listening to talking when I am working. 

Then just now I remembered we have AAA and I canceled that. I got it about a year and a half ago when we took that trip to Texas in dh's old pickup. With the new car I don't think we need it now, so I logged in and unchecked the "auto renew" box. We'll still have it thru mid June. That will save $95/yr. 

As I was deleting the app for SiriusXM from my phone I realized there are also several other apps ok to delete now, all related to my mom. Hero, Blink, Lifelock, and the app to check into her apartment building for Covid. Her new place doesn't use this extensive check in like her other place did, thankfully. I don't have to go through the screen answering the same questions each visit, nor do I have to then get my temperature checked. I just have to sign a guest log that is out on a table outside the locked door with the keypad to enter the code to get inside. There are actually 2 locked doors. The exterior door gets me inside the hallway/entrance to memory care and the sign in table is there and then I have to enter in another code to get inside the interior door.

And speaking of Texas I got a text last night from the wife half of our friends, asking how it was going with my mom in memory care. That was nice of her to check in and she also said they are still planning to come Memorial Day weekend again. I said I was just thinking of that the other day and how Memorial Day will be here before we know it. I am glad they are coming again. They weren't lying, I guess, when they said this is now their annual trip, LOL.  I think it will be a busy month around then. DD said they are coming over for Mother's Day weekend, and then again in June around Father's Day/dh's birthday.

That should give us some incentive to at least find a pool table for the bonus room, as that would be really fun to have with guests here. I know dh is watching Marketplace and Craigslist. He asked me what my "style" was for a pool table...my reply was "cheap" LOL.

My mom's computer is one of those Lenovo "all in one" types. I asked dd if they wanted it and they don't. I guess I'll just put it in a closet for now. DH seems to crash computers every 2-3 years, so this can be a back up for when he does that next time.

I see on today's activities for mom's memory care place is a "scenic drive/outing" after lunch. I'm sure she will enjoy that and looks like they do that every Friday at 1pm. That's probably why it seemed to quiet last Friday (at 1:30) because a lot of the residents weren't there and that's probably why the staff was doing their meeting when we got there.

I think we'll go in on Sunday to see her again and pick up another load of groceries. Then we have to go in again next Friday to take the cat to the vet, so I'll stop in and see her then, too. With the vet appt being at 10am, I should be able to visit with her a bit before she has lunch. It doesn't seem to matter what time I visit her....the constant thing she will say is "oh, what should I do for you for lunch (or dinner)"? I am constantly saying oh, we just had lunch before we came or, if she's mentioning dinner, I have to say well, dinner isn't for several more hours. Over and over.

I can already tell this weekend is going to go by too fast.

Keep reminding myself

I tried a couple of times again yesterday during the day to call my mom. No luck. I did look on her phone log and see that a few evenings ago uncle did get a hold of her just before 7pm, so I decided I'd try at that time last night. Well, she called me at 6:30. I'm pretty sure she had a staff member help her dial me. She was super confused/sundowning. She had no idea where she was/lives, where I live, etc. I just did my best to act calm and assure her she was ok and that I knew where she was at. That's the main reason I prefer to chat with her during the daytime, she's more lucid during the day.

Then I reminded myself that's why she's living there now. I can hang up the phone knowing she's safe and has people to watch her, rather than spend the rest of my evening and night worrying about her being in her apartment all by herself in that state of mind. I can sleep better, not waking up to check my phone and see if there are any camera notifications. Then dd messaged me that she and her dh were out walking their dogs and a cop stopped and gave them a description of an elderly woman, with dementia, who has wandered away from her 55+ community the next neighborhood over. Sad, hopefully they found her soon and safe. DD said to me "people can think it's cruel or inhumane or sad to put Grandma in a place like she is. But it's truly the safest place for her, because I'm not the one out looking for my loved one". I agree.

And my firestick worked great again last night. No clue why sometimes it works and other times not. We don't have that issue with any of our other devices when streaming or watching videos. Next time it acts up, I'm going to try removing our network and then adding it back and see how that goes.

A few years ago I set my mom up with a "Lifelock" identity and credit protection service. This was when she was still replying to scam emails and taking calls from scammers, rather than just hanging up. I decided to cancel it now. She has none of her financial info and I have her phone set up to only accept calls from a few phone numbers. I don't think it's an annual expense she needs to spend money on anymore. 

I'm still working on cutting down sugar intake. At least I seem to have gotten used to my morning routine and used to my sugarfree coffee. I use one packet of Stevia and sugar free creamer in my coffee.  For my instant breakfast drink mixed with milk, I now use the lower sugar one. I bought some pudding snacks that are sugar free, for when I'm craving a sweet or chocolate snack. 

The chair I ordered for dh's den still hasn't shipped, which is a bummer. And now I see the seller has quite a few negative reviews, so I'll give it a little while longer and cancel and order it from somewhere else or another Amazon seller. 

Well, crap. I just messed up a bunch of vendor email settings in my work accounting software. I have all our mfg vendors set up with their order emails, because I send them PO's all the time. Well, after I started using the accounting software's bill pay service, it would send a payment confirmation to those emails attached to the mfg's. Which then I'd get emails back from their order dept's saying they don't want email notifications of payments, that's not their dept. Within the bill pay menu I found where I could remove the vendor payment email address and I thought I was just removing it from the bill pay service. Nope, it removed all the emails from all the mfg's I have listed in vendors and now all their order emails are gone. So frustrating. Now, I'll have to find and re enter them all again and go back to not being able to pay mfg's through our bill pay service, so that the wrong dept's don't get the payment emails. Guess I know now what I'll be working on for the next couple of hours...........GRRRR!

I just want to watch tv

Mid week. This is a week that actually feels like it's going at a normal pace, neither fast or slow. It's also pay day.  Bills not on auto pay are now paid. I also adjusted my budget for what I put in savings, each paycheck, for annual/semi annual type of expenses as I realized I wasn't including annual vehicle tabs. I also see that mom's previous senior living place has now credited her the prorated part of the month of February they charged her for.

I tried to call mom twice yesterday - or maybe it was 3 tries, but she is never in her room, LOL. I will try again today. I still don't know if uncle has ever been able to catch her, since I told him her phone is now working again. I'll have to look on the phone log online and see. I have a feeling, though, if he did talk to her he would have texted me, either saying "she sounds good" or whatever vibe he was getting from her.

It's snowing again, but half the sky is blue with clouds, so I don't think it's going to be much snow. 

Well, I just got disconnected from my work and can't get back on. Guess that means it's time to go down to the kitchen and get my breakfast.

I can't figure out the Firestick I have connected to our tv. I usually turn the tv on after dinner and one day it will work fine and the next day it keeps freezing up or showing it's not connected to the internet. It's annoying and oftentimes very slow to respond. I know it's not our internet connection/speed because I can watch the same exact thing on my ipad or phone and it works with zero issues. For 3 nights in a row it was being a pain. Often it takes me like 5 minutes of rebooting to get it to work, then I'll get half way through the show and it freezes, so I just turn it off. Last night I turned it on and it all worked great. What the heck?! I'm not sure how long they last? I just looked it up and this one was purchased 2 1/2 years ago now. So, maybe it's just getting old and worn out and time for a new one. They are probably like any other tech gadget and only seems to last 2-3 years before having to be replaced. I guess I didn't realize it's already been 2 1/2 years with this current Firestick. If I get a new one, I don't remember if I have to then re-add all my apps and settings. If so, what a pain that is, too.

It's still winter

Winter returned last night in the form of 2 or 3 inches of snow. I did not want to get up this morning, but the cat was being restless and making his little mewing noises, so I got up, made my cup of coffee, took it upstairs, fed the cat......and crawled into the bed in the guest bedroom next to my office. I only laid there about 20 minutes, but it was quiet (ie, no cat meowing and no dh snoring) and cozy, LOL. Now that it's lighter out, I can see it is still snowing lightly. Good - give dh a chance to use his plow again. He hasn't really had to use it since Christmas.

I have mom's accounts set up with my address, so at her old address she just got junk mail. I did a forwarding address just before I moved her, to her new address. But then I got to thinking - she doesn't need to get anything there, not even junk mail. I'm not even sure how they give people in m/c mail. I'm sure they probably do, but she doesn't have a mailbox with a key, like she did at her previous apartment. So, a couple days ago I went back online with USPS and changed it to have anything she gets forwarded here. I should have thought that through better the first time and did that, but oh well, it's only a week of potential junk mail going there.

ok, now it's at least 3 inches of snow out there. I hear Mr. Neighbor plowing with his quad and dh is up and getting ready to go outside and work on it, after he eats his breakfast.

My desk is a complete mess and I need to get it straightened up. I hate papers, but they seem inevitable, even with so much being paperless now.  

I have almost 4 dozen eggs stocked up now. Once they started laying good again, my fridge is getting full of them now :). We are going to have eggs for dinner tonight and use up several. This winter, I tried to have enough to get me through winter without having to buy some, but I ended up buying 3 dozen, which isn't too bad. It would have only been 2 dozen, but later fall, as I had several dozen I was trying to stockpile for winter, dh gave retired friend a dozen one day he was visiting, when I wasn't home, as he didn't know I was trying to stock up for winter. My plan now is to try to always have at least 4 dozen in the fridge, so going into next winter I should be pretty set. No giving away eggs unless I have 4 or 5 dozen stocked up first.

Still snowing and dh still hasn't gone out, LOL. I think he's waiting for it to stop, which it's supposed to in the next hour or so. No sense having it just snow on top of clearing it off and it's still coming down pretty good.

Oh ya, and it's Valentine's Day. Honestly, I have never cared about Valentine's Day, so it's a non- day around here, LOL. We just had our wedding anniversary and dh always gets me flowers for that. My friend who came an visited us last September, the one who's dh cheated on her, left her, never divorced, her then died, well, she met a guy a few months ago and it seemed to be going well, but then he just put the breaks on it all a couple weeks ago, so of course she's sad about that and sad she'll have another Valentine's Day alone and no one to share it with. The other day dh was saying something about if something happens to him and me moving on and getting a boyfriend...and I'm like NOPE! and he's like what?! why not? I said I don't want or need some 60 year old guy's baggage to deal with, LOL.  

It's warming up

Lot's of snow melting going on here today. I can hear the water continuously running out of the gutters below my upstairs office window.

I tried to call mom yesterday later morning, but she seems to spent most of her time out in the common area, so she is not in her room to answer her phone. I also figure if the nursing staff is not calling me with an issue, then all must be going good. Today's afternoon "social" is with chocolate. I'm sure she'll like that one, too. Tomorrow is her haircut day. I will definitely try to call her later afternoon/early evening and see if she knows/remembers she got her hair cut. It will be interesting to see if she does remember having it done.

Well, I'm not getting much done in writing this post, LOL. Yesterday was pretty normal and uneventful, as well as today is just being normal work day, so far. Boring and uneventful is good. I just haven't had a whole lot of that lately. Plus, I'm now down to my few hours a month or so for my side job, so that is one more thing less on my plate now.

The propane delivery guy came last Friday and fill us up with our winter contract amount, that I prepaid back in September. We seem to need to fill up 2x a year (1000 gallon tank). I think last year it was like 3rd week in January we got filled up, but sometime late Jan/early Feb seems to be our norm. Then again around July. I have been setting aside $150/mo to cover the fill up we will have in July and then the winter prepay amount that will be due next Sept.  

In the coming weeks I'll need to start thinking about and getting mine and my mom's tax returns done, but this week, I'm not going to worry about it. I'm just going to try to (hopefully) enjoy a week of no extra tasks or problems.

 

 

Sunday and chores to be done

I didn't realize that the big 58" (I think it's 58") tv I took from my mom's place is a smart tv. That sure made it easy to plug in, turn on, and set up with our wireless network and it works! It will be nice to have a tv to watch, if I want, that isn't so high up above the fireplace, like our other tv. One of these days, when I have money saved up again, I'll get a sofa for the room....and a pool table...and....LOL. 

I almost feel back to "normal" daily life, not having to worry so much about my mom and not having to feel like I constantly needed to check her on cameras to make sure she's ok. I feel like I can once again concentrate on some other things now. A little more time to get other things done. A little more relaxed feeling. All good things.

Which is good because work is probably going to get a little bit hectic and busy for a time period as we try to find someone to hire to assist me and then the training time involved for a while. I'm going to really need to be able to focus on work in the next couple of months, so this moving of mom has happened at a good time.

Today I need to do some vacuuming and dusting downstairs. That cat sheds a lot and other than vacuuming upstairs right before dd came to stay I have not had time to take care of downstairs in a couple of weeks, being gone and busy the past 2 weekends. My being gone 4 nights the other week seems to have finally broken the cat of needing to be taken up to the office to bed, LOL. Now he just sleeps on the rocking chair in our bedroom at night and while sometimes he's awake too early and meowing, if he does that, I just put him out of our bedroom and shut the door until I'm ready to get up. He likes to meow at 5:30 am haha.

He doesn't understand his friend - the one who's wife bought him the muscle car that she had dh find for her to give her dh as a gift. She had strict budget and wanted it to be a "driver". Not something he had to work on to get running, etc. Not something her dh would have to tear apart to change everything. Dh found one in her budget that was nice. Just needed more minor type of work done on it. He also showed her a nicer one that was $10k more, just to show her the difference but nope, she wasn't budging. So now guess what? They have spent probably $20,000 on changes to this car! A new engine, etc etc. The car has been sitting half torn apart in his shop now for at least the past year of the 18 months he's had it now. He's going to take the whole front end off to install the new engine...then get  new fenders... Like dh said....this car will never ever get finished now and just sit in his shop in pieces and not drivable. Sad. Dh doesn't understand the thinking, but we guess it's not his to understand. Supposedly they were going to bring it up here when they visit at the end of May as we have an annual car show in town, but I'm guessing that's not going to happen this year, if ever.

Nothing much else going on today. I'm going to make spaghetti for dinner, so that way we'll be able to have it for leftovers on Monday and I won't have to make dinner after working all day.  DH is doing laundry, as Sunday is one of his laundry days of the week.

A good day

DH and I went and visited my mom today. I have to say I was feeling some trepidation with the visit, even though the last couple of phone calls had been good. I was expecting to spend our visit having to explain why she is there or how long she will have to be there. BUT, she is doing really good!! She was in good spirits and seemed content and happy. No questions or mentions of staying there and no mentions of needing to call her mom. We had stopped at Walgreens before and I picked up up a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies. 

We were sitting in the "lounge" area with sofas and chairs and a tv, visiting with her. Occasionally another resident would walk by and wave or say hi. To one of them she said this is my daughter and her husband visiting. The lady seemed a bit more like mom with being talkative, but apparently she had some memory because she said "we enjoyed watching your mom dance to the music last night". I said yes, she loves to dance. Then dh said to my mom "hey, I thought you told me you haven't been doing any partying here?! LOL" The other lady giggled and said "oops, sorry (to my mom)" We all had a good laugh.

We stayed about 40 minutes and the only issue we had was when trying to leave. She wanted to walk us outside to say goodbye and of course she can't go past the locked door. We had to pretend something was wrong with the door and I ran off to grab one of the aides and he quickly diverted her to join in on their little group activity and all was good.  I felt so much relief after leaving there today. Uncle was also very happy to hear how she was doing and said I made his day.

FedEx delivered the missing package of the box for me to return mom's medicine dispenser so I got that packaged up. Looking online I saw that Walgreens took FedEx packages so that worked good to drop it there while I was buying the cookies. Then we stopped at the cable/telephone store and I dropped of the unneeded equipment from her old apartment, so now that is taken care of, too.

Dh and I stopped at Dairy Queen on the way home and treated ourselves to Peanut Buster Parfaits. After we got home I got the clean sheet put back on our bed. Then I took a nap. It's been like 3 weekend since I've been able to have a nap. Two weeks ago I was at dd's. Last weekend was moving mom and dd here. I needed a nap.

We weren't super hungry for dinner but dh thought that baked chicken from the town's store deli sounded good so we drove into town around 5:30 and got that to bring home for dinner. Now, I think I'll go watch some more episodes of Designated Survivor on my ipad.

So glad it's Friday

I am so glad it's Friday. One week under our belt with mom in memory care. Yesterday she seemed better, I'd say. I called into the nurses desk around 10am and she said mom wasn't so bad Wednesday, she only asked to call her mom a couple of times and this morning (so yesterday) she seemed to want to sleep in, so they were letting her sleep and saved a breakfast plate for her when she got up. Around 11am mom had one of the staff help her dial me from her phone in her room, but she seemed a little better than Tuesday. She never said anything like "I'm ready to leave here". She just made a couple of comments like "I wonder how long I'll be staying here". Then mom called me again on her own around 1:40 in the afternoon and she was in a good mood and seemed pretty happy. Again, nothing like "I'm ready to leave" just "I'm not sure how long I have to stay here, but they are nice here" type of comments 2 or 3 times. I told her about the ice cream social starting soon. We are going to go see her tomorrow sometime. 

I did get a hold of the new doctor's office and set her up to be seen by the geriatrician who comes into the facility to see the residents. It sounds like the doctor is in there every Tuesday. The first opening was March 7, so I will go in for that visit, of course. I emailed her old doctor office and they emailed me a records release form to fill out and sign so they can send over her records to the new doctor.

I need to return the medication dispenser I had been using for mom. They want it returned in their packaging and mom threw that out, after I had tried to store it in her closet back when I got her the dispenser. They sent me a new box to return it in and it supposedly was delivered this morning at 9:10 at our gate (per our delivery instructions). I got the email notification it delivered and within 10 or 15 minutes dh went out to get the package and no package anywhere. The email has a picture "proof of delivery" attached and it's completely worthless! I have looked at these pics before and they will take the picture and you can see the package sitting in front of our gate. This picture is just a close up of the label on the box. Sure, that shows me where you left it. We checked w/neighbors too, as dh had seen them stop at their house. So, now I've reported it as not received. 

Short post today - gotta get payroll done :)

Thursday this and that

I got one more item taken care of yesterday. The m/c has a beauty shop within it. Mom sure does need a good haircut! I called the number I was given for the hairdresser and she said she is there on Tuesdays and would add my mom to her schedule for a haircut next Tuesday. She said they just add the charge to her monthly billing. Works for me. I hope she's agreeable to it next week. I would think it might make her feel really good to get "prettied up". I hope so.

I got an email back from the manager at mom's previous apartment that they will be crediting her bank account back the prorated amount, so I need to make sure I keep out an eye for that and don't forget to make sure it's credited.

Caregiver K texted back again yesterday and said it's tough, but she will adjust. At her stage of dementia it just takes time for this new place to become her "familiar" now. I thanked her for her wonderful care of my mom and thanked her for helping give me the push I needed to make the move and find her memory care.

I did try to call the doctor's office that works with the m/c but got a recording and then didn't get time to try back, so I will try again today.

It was a quiet day yesterday with no calls about or from my mom. I decided to (hope) take that as a sign she was having a better day. I also did not call her, as I figured that would just trigger the "I'm ready to leave now" thoughts. If I don't get any calls this morning, I'm going to call in and check on her with the nurses station. Today's afternoon "social hour" is an ice cream social. I'm sure she will enjoy the ice cream.

Temps are starting to warm up a bit. High 30's/40 for the daytime high. My hens are back in full production and I'm getting between 1 and 3 eggs a day, rather than 3 eggs a week. I can't remember if I mentioned we had mice in the coop? Dh figured it out when I was on my work trip week before last. I think we have rectified that problem now. Once dh saw the mouse that one evening, when he went to check for eggs and close up their door (as it was going to be -15 that night) he saw the mouse. He put out a trap and within 15 minutes it had caught the mouse. He put it out again and the next morning there was another one caught. He hasn't caught anymore in the last week and a half.

 

 

 

 

On repeat

Mom's now getting agitated and anxious, most of the day yesterday. They first called me about 10:20. I was going to call in and check on her, but was waiting to see if their maintenance guy was going to return the message I had just left, then they called and said mom was being pretty anxious and kept asking to call her mom, so they offered to call her daughter, so she could talk to me. Mom said nothing to me about wanting to talk to her mom - just that she's ready to be done staying at this place......ugh! I really don't know what to say! I guess it's really not going to matter what I say because it's not going to stick in her memory. She said something like "I can just leave here when I want, can't I?" I just said 'oh, we're going to have you stay there awhile, they will take care of all your meals and you can do activities there". She still wasn't buying it. Then she tried again and and said "so what happened that I need to stay here now?". So, I tried the honesty route. "well, your having problems with your memory and they are going to help you". Her reply was well I can take care of myself. I told her with her memory problems she's been forgetting to take care of herself and they will help her and it's a nice place, etc.. 

Then they called back again in the afternoon and put her on the phone and we went through the same thing again. I then asked mom to put the "girl" back on the phone when we got done talking and talked to a staff member. I said I was having trouble knowing what to tell her as to why she has to stay there, what are they saying to her? She said all's she's been saying to them is she wants/needs to call her mom, which of course they won't tell her her mom isn't alive anymore and I said no, I'm not telling her that either. She's not telling them she doesn't want to stay there anymore. She apologized to keep calling me, but mom keeps tapping on their window and asking to call her mom. I said it's ok if they call me, I said maybe try telling her they already let her mom know she's there or telling her her mom is on vacation right now, we'll have to try calling her when she's back. I don't know. Nothing is really going to stick with her. I even tried the "your apartment rent at your old place went way up and this place is cheaper and nicer!". Then she wanted to know where her stuff is, so I had to try to explain to her her things are in her room they have set up there. She'd say "oh, I have a room here?" She asked oh, did I sleep here last night? yes you did. I didn't say you've slept there 4 nights now.

The maintenance guy never did call, but on the 2nd call I when I had mom hand the phone back to the staff person I mentioned to her about her landline and that I think it's just that the cable wire/cord needs to be plugged into the back of the modem I have her phone line plugged into. She said she would go see if she could hook it up. Awhile later I logged into mom's phone account but the modem was still showing as offline. Then I checked again at 4:30 when I was done with work and it was working! Now I don't know if that is good or bad, LOL. Once mom realizes it's working she'll probably constantly call me haha. Their dinner time is 4:30-6pm so I decided to wait and try calling around 6:30 to make sure it was calling in. I was dreading the call because I knew it would just be more of "I'm ready to get out of this place". The first time she said it, I just completely ignored her and started talking about something else, but as soon as I waited for her reply, it was back to wanting to leave. Then she told me she'll just get her brother to move her LOL. I said he's in Oregon,  he lives to far away. She said well, I'll just pay him lots of money ;)

From now on I'm just going to keep with my original lie - her apartment/building is having major repairs and she has to stay in this room while they fix her apartment. It's just going to be like every other change I've implemented with her over the past few years....like taking her checkbook...lots of questions over and over for awhile about where it is and then finally she forgets. 

I did get a text from K yesterday asking how she is doing, so that was nice. My one (step) cousin did finally reply to my message, but the other cousin never did.

I do have the monthly activity schedule for mom's new place to refer to. They do seem to keep them really busy. For example today's schedule:

Breakfast 8-9:30

Morning mindfulness (not sure what that is) 9:30

Watercolor memories 10:00

Balloon bop 10:30

Lunch 11:30-1

Baking 1:00

Tea Time 2:30 (other days have ice cream social, happy hour, smoothies w/J at this time)

Hand Care & Spa sessions 3:30

Dinner 4:30-6 

 

We will get through this! (right??.......)

Getting back to regular life

The bonus room carpet is installed and looks really nice. Now to furnish it......LOL. That might take another 3 1/2 years, LOL.

On Saturday we drove down to dh's friend (rich guy with a ranch LOL) to pick up that hutch he had for sale. We ended up visiting with them for at least a couple of hours. His wife is so nice and easy to chat with. The guys were out looking at man stuff and she showed us around her home and the outbuildings. The horse barn is amazing. Friend made an amazing man cave in the back of one of his shops and did all the decor decisions himself. It was really nice. They moved to this ranch last spring and are used to living in 9 and 10k sf homes and this one is 2600, so it sounds like they are just going to tear it down and build a bigger house. She said this one is too small, LOL. Turns out he was selling the hutch for a neighbor lady. It's ok, has some scratches and apparently got damaged a bit when they moved it to friends shop, so I think $200 was more fair then the $350.  But, it looks nice in dh's den and he was able to get his collection of stuff out to display. I just let him do it ;)

I am going to get him a chair to sit to the left of the cabinet. I think I found a nice navy blue barrel accent type chair to go there. Google Lens is my new favorite thing to use. I found the chair I liked on Wayfair but it was like $350. I saved the image and then put it in Google Lens. It brought up about 20 of the same chair with prices. It was also available on Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. Who knew Amazon had it from many different sellers at different prices. I looked through the prices and found it for $199. Some places online had it for over $400. Same chair. I think the navy blue will look nice in that small den and blue is his favorite color, too. Originally, I found this chair when I was looking for 2 chairs for the bonus room. It comes in many fabrics and I was thinking of the rustic leather look for the bonus room and then saw it also came in navy blue. This way I can see if I like the chair for his den before I buy the brown ones for the bonus room.

Today's phone calls/to-do's are to call the doctor's office and get mom set up with the doctor the memory care place uses. A call to memory care to see if they can hook up mom's telephone for me, now that I think I understand how the modem needs to be plugged in. I also need to get the cat scheduled for his annual vet check up. I'm sure there is something else I need to do, but I can't remember right now.

DD has a coworker (like my age) who went through dementia with her mom, who recently passed. She gave dd several books she had about the disease and dd brought them to me. I read one last night, by an author who had both parents with it, but this story was mostly about her mom. Her mom was so much like my mom is, though her mom still had old memories they could talk about, which my mom does not. One funny part was her mom looked in the mirror one day and said "I look like the wreck of the Hesperus". The author had never heard that saying, but I remember my mom saying it many times when I was growing up. 

I tried to send 2 of my cousins facbook messages to let them know I put mom in memory care. The one cousin is my mom's older brother's daughter. I said I just want to let her and Aunt J (her mom, who is mid 80's now) know that I put mom in memory care now. She read the message 2 days ago and no reply. Geez, you'd think she could say ok, thanks for the update, at least. Then yesterday I tried to send my cousin, who is a cousin through my step/adopted dad. She always sends a Christmas card to me and adds my mom to it, since I moved my mom here. I thought she might also like to know, but when I hit send the message just disappeared and it doesn't appear she got it. I guess I'll try again today, one more time.

And speaking of the friends we visited on Saturday...she mentioned they started taking the "Super Beets" supplement. Her, her dh and her 95 year old dad who lives with them. She said all 3 of them feel better and her dh and dad's blood pressure is now normal after being on it. I told her I've seen those ads and wondered if it was any good. I might try those myself.

The Move, Part 2

First off, thank you all for your kind comments on my first post that you were thinking of me this weekend. They were so nice to read.

As we pulled into the new place, there was no parking in back at the memory care entrance, so unfortunately we had to go into the main entrance and check in there, and then it's a very long walk back to the m/c part. As we pulled into the lot mom says "home sweet home". But when we walked inside of course she didn't really recognize it and said something to that effect. It was at this point I just decided to go with "your apartment is having some repairs done so they are going to put you in a different room" and she was totally like oh ok! 

Of course mom was tired and so slow. The lady was really nice and took us inside the m/c area and walked us to her room and I think (It's all kind of jumbled now) introduced us a med tech just as we were going into mom's room. She introduced herself but said it's shift change and she's just leaving and then she was gone. We checked out mom's room. They did a great job setting it up and decorating it with her items. It was really nice. Then what? There was no one to help us/tell us what to do/orient us. DD stayed with mom in the room and I went to try to find someone. Everyone was in this office (with windows) and appeared to be having a meeting. I stood back outside the office for a bit, but no one came out to help. Then one of the residents tried to go in and one of them told him "we're having a meeting" so I went back to mom's room. A bit later I tried going down to the "nurses station" again and a couple of them came out so I said "excuse me, we're just getting my mom moved in now and we're not really sure what we're supposed to do now". Both dd and I were a little miffed. We really felt that someone should have been involved with welcoming her and basically taking over to help her, take her around or whatever. One of the staff I stopped and asked sorta helped. Then she says "does she have dementia?" and  mom says "what? I have dementia?"  Well, no shit sherlock! Why else would she be here? The girl was training another person and that girl asked "do you know what stage she is?" I replied not really, around a 6 but when they did their assessment she's at your "level 2" for care needed. Like shouldn't they all know that? They also did not have her name on her door, like everyone else, which I thought would really help her find her room, don't you think?

We ended up staying for almost 2 hours, just because we felt like we were just leaving her all by herself at that point. Then we wandered back down to the dining area and they were having "happy" hour at 2:30 so we sat down with her and had "drinks" (punch) so that was better. As we walked up to a table, there was a group at the table next to us and mom said hello and another lady said "are you new here?" Mom says No. LOL. We did the happy hour and then walked her back to her room and she sat in her recliner, so we decided to leave and hope she's rest some. The movers had plugged her landline in the phone jack and I checked and it had a dial tone, but I didn't try to call it our call out with it.

Saturday morning a little after 9 I called the nurses station to ask how she did her first night. She said she really didn't want them to help her last evening but then this morning she was fine and let them help and seemed in a good mood. We went to our friends place to pick up that china hutch cabinet, so we got to mom's place around 2, I think. She was just kind of out in the common area and had apparently just been wandering around. She was happy to see us. We sat down in the dining area to visit and I realized she didn't have her glasses on, so I went and found them on her nightstand. It would help if she could see good, LOL. She seemed good, though for our visit of about 30 minutes.

Then about 6:30 Saturday evening she called me, from a # I didn't recognize, but she said she was calling from the phone that has my name on it (her landline where I have the button marked with my name). I was so confused - but her telephone is another story for later. She told me she doesn't want to stay here any longer, she doesn't want to do all the stuff they want her to keep doing, so she's ready to go home. Oh boy....I was honestly expecting that from our visit earlier that afternoon. I just said well, it's night time now and I'm already back at home so you'll have to stay there tonight and she was ok with that, but then said "well, I have my car (still on the car thing) here somewhere". I tried to tell her she doesn't have a car, but that just confused her more, so I just agreed with her and told her again, well it's dark out, so you better stay put tonight. 

Yesterday we stopped in again to see her, before dropping dd off at the airport. We got there around 3:45 and most of the residents were sitting in the common sitting area, listening to a musician they had playing guitar and singing. Mom was there, too, so we just went on past and to her room to drop off the extra shoes I got her and see if we could figure out the telephone. Then we went back to the common area and the music had just finished up so we said hello to her and walked her back to her room and visited awhile. This time her concern was she didn't have her mom's phone number so she could call her and let her know where she was. So sad. Other than after Thanksgiving and her telling K that she spent Thanksgiving with her parents, this is the first she has really thought her mom/parents were still alive. We just went with it, as her reality. I told her I didn't have her ph# with me. She mentioned it a couple more times and then dd said, we'll call her for you when we get home, is there something you want us to tell her (just where she is and she'll be going home tomorrow).

All in all, it's gone as best as can be expected. Though I think it's going to be a couple of weeks before the staff is tuned into her. I wasn't paying attention to what she was wearing on Friday and too frazzled on Saturday to check her clothes hamper to see if clothes got put in there, but when I went in yesterday she had the same top on as the day before, and obviously Friday too, as there were  no tops. She did have a different pair of jeans on, but her previous days jeans were laying on her little sink countertop. That annoyed me too, of course that she was still wearing the same top 3 days in a row. I went to the nurses station and there was just one in the room in back of that office area (that has like a half window) but she was standing at a computer screen with her back to me and didn't see me standing there, so I tapped on the window. When she first turned around and was walking towards me she had a really annoyed look on her face. I told her who I was and that my mom would need help making sure her dirty clothes got put into her hamper and new ones picked for her each day, otherwise she'll just keep wearing the same thing. She said "oh ok, I'm make sure the aides put her clothes in the hamper when they get her nightgown on and then put on clean clothes the next day" I said, perfect, thank you very much. I'm sure it's just going to take time to get it all in a routine and figured out.

I'm back at work this morning, but have to make a few calls about mom today. Telephone, new doctor, and cancel her Hero med dispenser system.

The Move, part 1

Whew! what a couple of days it has been. The move has gone mostly well, though it was a pretty long day on Friday and her room wasn't ready as early as they had told me it would be. DD and I got there about 7:50 and dd started marking everything on my list with blue (moving) or white (I'm keeping) tape. Everything not marked was for donation. Mom isn't usually back from breakfast until 9 but her apartment is right next to the elevator and around 8:40 we kept hearing people getting off the elevator and started worrying she was going to be early and walk in on us. We got everything done about 8:50 and went down and she was still eating.

The movers had told me that they would get to her apartment between 9 and 9:30 and their first priority was getting her items that will be moved (marked in blue tape) loaded and taken over to her new place and set up, so done around noon. With what little we were taking I couldn't imagine it would take them past noon. We saw them arriving just as we were leaving with mom. Then after getting her room ready they were supposed to go back and load up the donation stuff. We first went over to her new place and I ran in and dropped off paperwork and the check. Then tried the cable provider store, but they weren't open until 10. We drove over to Kohl's and had to wait 15 min for them to open. It took us a good hour in the store, just because she is sooo slow walking. Those my age...remember Tim Conway's old man skits on The Carol Burnett show? that's how she walks now. But, we had lots of time to kill, so that was fine. Oh boy, she did not want to give up her old tennis shoes. I didn't even realize how dirty and old they had become! We found some similar, but she thought they felt weird. I picked out another pair, too, to just have on hand for her in her closet. She kept saying "but I get to keep mine, right?" I just kept saying ya...but, ewww no. They were so dirty and no support left inside and the insides were dirty too. We also found her a top to try on, mostly because I had one of her new bras I had ordered online and wanted to make sure it fit before opening the other 2 packages. It fit well enough, I guess, so I just left the new one on her. Then we went to Spectrum to return her router but I got the router and modem mixed up and had the modem. The lady said I would need the modem to plug her phone in. We made a couple other stops (just for me to run in and take care of) to kill time. We decided to go over to Cracker Barrel for lunch. One of my mom's continued things to ask/say over and over is about eating, how is she going to feed us? when is she going to feed us? type of stuff. We got to the restaurant at like 11:30 and was taking our time. I had to order for her as she cannot read a menu or make decisions anymore, even if I give her a couple of choices. She'll just say what are you having.

At 12:15, we were pretty much done and I get a text from the movers that they JUST got to her new room to start! OMG. What have they been doing for 3 hours? I then asked for an estimated time so we could figure out what to do now. She said around 1:30 or 2, probably 1:30. Ugh. We stopped at Walgreens so I could get some waters and tylenol (I had a headache by then). From the time we left the restaurant mom kept saying she was ready to go home. And we could just drop her off at her car...where was her car parked? Lots of repeating this. It was a little after 1pm so we just decided to get on the freeway and drive a bit, telling her we were on our way to take her home. We drove about 15 min and then turned around to head back to the city. About halfway back, at 1:30 they texted her room was ready. Thank goodness, she was getting tired and confused.

Now was the moment I've been dreading - what to tell her when we walked into this new place? How would she react?

Part 2 coming up (DD is still here and this is all I have time for this morning, so figured it was a good stopping point)

Busy week

It's a busy week. Yesterday I was trying to finish up my side job year end stuff. I had told them I hoped to have it by the end of the day, but I ended up finishing it up first thing this morning. Then this morning I got a text from the carpet guy the installers are loading up their trailer and on their way here. They just got here and said they should have no problem getting it all done today. Then somehow this morning dh got a pinched nerve really bad in his neck. He can hardly move and is in lots of pain. He ended up taking a couple of the old pain pills left over from when he had his gall bladder removed.

I had a call from my boss yesterday and finally, they have decided to hire an accounting assistant to help me out. The company president is wanting some more in depth reports and breaking out our two offices and boss told him there is no more workload either she or I (mostly me) can take on. I'm already overloaded and behind. This will be really good to have some extra help, finally. We're just going to be looking to hire more of an entry level/clerical type position, no full accounting background/degree needed. Mostly just for this person to take on my time consuming, easier tasks. We're going to work on a job description next week, as she knows I'm kind of brain dead this week with dealing with my mom's move.

We pick dd up from the airport at 6pm tomorrow. I put in a Walmart grocery order to pick up before we get her. I just got the $60 rewards back from my ipad purchase, so I opted for a Walmart gift card and just applied that to my grocery order total. A nice reduction. Hopefully the roads are better by tomorrow and won't need dh to drive us for the moving day activities (he thinks he needs to drive us). It's warming up today to 36, then 40 the next 2 days. The roads should be completely fine and dh can just stay home. I told him I don't want to have to deal with him needing to find a bathroom every 20 minutes, nor another person telling me how I should do things, LOL.

Then the lady in charge of the moving just called to confirm we are set for Friday move. Then at the end of the conversation she says "ok, we'll see you tomorrow". I'm like wait! did she just say tomorrow? I called her back and she said oops she's off a day, it's Friday, she was thinking tomorrow is Friday.