About Me

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I am mundane and magical, Silly and serious. I am an underachiever who suspects that someday in the eternities I may yet blossom and even fruit. I am a collector of spirits and essences, a studier of mood and nuance.I have many many faults and yet I've always been loved. I am a good friend, but I will let you go if you so desire. I believe in Somewhen. I laugh easily and cannot often cry, which I know is a Flaw. Like You, I am a work in progess.

Monday, June 4, 2018

California

I'm leaving for California for a couple of weeks early in the morning on June 8.I'm going to my 40th HS reunion, I will see friends and family and spend a few days in my beloved Crestline. Trying to get the bills all paid and supplies in and everything ready to just go. I notice I am stressed and short fused.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Hospice

Well, I got sick and even though I wore a mask I passed it along to Bruce and to my mom. I'm still coughing a lot, but mostly functional. At the height of it, which lasted about a week, I had to sit down between even simple tasks to tend my mom to try to catch my breath. All I really wanted to do was sleep. Bruce smokes and he is having even more trouble than I did. My mom, well she decided she was done. She pushed her call button twice the other night and told me plainly, clearly and decisively that "she wants to go to sleep and not wake up" So yesterday morning I called hospice and she has started the process of transitioning from this world to the next. I think she could have lived years longer and Bruce and I would have been happy to care for her but she doesn't want that. I skipped the morphine last night because I wanted to make sure this is what she really wants to do and she said she did this morning. Last night she had a blessing from elders in her church. I hope it gives her peace. I am overwhelmed and sad and just full of thoughts and questions. And I'm tired. Not that I can sleep but hospice here is very different than it was in FL. There I had 24/7 help and support. There was a CNA all day and a nurse all night.Right there. Here, I've had nurses drop off med, take her vitals and this morning I had the nurse help me administer medication, change her sheet, her diaper and her blouse but then they leave. They are just a call away they say, but it is diy here. I'm sure I will adjust and it probably won't be a long time in any case. I can't get my head and heart around the fact that my mom is going to die

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

I haven't updated for a log time. I've been exhausted. My mom got her carotid catheter out, which is good from a standpoint of less risk of infection but means she will be on needles from now on. Her numbers are good but she keeps saying (just as we are leaving) that she doesn't want to go to dialysis. She knows she'll die if she doesn't. I told her if she tells me she doesn't want to go the day before and the day of dialysis I won't take her, but that this is not a decision to be made lightly because even if she changes her mind and wants to go after a missed day or two, her body will be affected and she's pretty fragile. I told her I understand that she says she's ready to die but that right now she feels pretty normal and her mind is still there and I am thinking the process of dying will not be very pleasant. So far, she's been agreeing to go to dialysis.

She was supposed to get her hair done today and have a shower (I pay Clark, our big, kind neighbor to shower her) $60 a pop which he didn't ask for but which seemed fair to me given that the CNA services would charge $35 for a bedbath. I can do a bedbath. It is not nearly as satisfying as a shower. But Clark didn't get back to me today, s another day it will be. Kim asked to change her hair to Friday (she's going to have blue hair, not the usual little old lady blue hair, but kind of punk. I hope she likes it when it gets done.

The house still isn't finished. But it's coming along. Garage door and opener ordered, estimate for gates accepted and scheduled. I found a lady who will tole paint our front door. I'm excited about that.


My grandma's dishes. Vernon Ware Gingham. My mom bought them for her in maybe the 1950s? I have good memories of these dishes. I think of expanding the collection. It makes me think of more gracious times




Thinking of having built ins added for the trash and recycling where all those vacuums are now...


I remember folding napkins for the senorita's skirt




The front room. This is my taste. I wanted it to look like a cabin. I guess I am desert chalet boho




Tokens from friends are all over this room









I love the lamps. They are made of natural materials, the leaves are real and the lighting is perfect for evening tv watching


This is the Sunroom. I told Bruce he could decorate it with the caveat that it had to remain a usable dining room. It's not finished (no room is) He's going to make a puzzle wall of his art. The woodburning stove (which I didn't take a picture of) need to be painted black and the hearth fixed. We are on blue clay up here and we've had to have extensive repairs to foundation cracks. The tile took forever and it was way more expensive than we thought it would be. The hearth has a big crack that needs to be fixed. Also the chimney on the stove is only single thick and it has to be triple thick 





Bruce spray painted his filing cabinet. I think it looks cool



Vertebrae chairs. Stiff, but stylsh