Getting things done.

I've got several things to do this week.  The most important one was that mom had to go to the pain clinic yesterday,   Taking her there is grueling for several reasons.  First of all, she lives north of the clinic and I live south of it, so I have to drive an hour to go get her, 45 minutes back to the clinic, then wait in there for 2 or 3 hours, then back to the assisted living facility and then back home.  It takes a while.  The bad part is that there is not a whole lot that can be done for her back and the doctor didn't do anything yesterday, we just talked.  She has some slipped disks and other issues that can't be repaired surgically because there are just so many of them and so she's just going to have to suffer.  It's very hard watching someone be in pain and not being able to do anything about it.   I did talk to the nurse at her assisted living facility yesterday and that day, she had been given her scheduled pain meds, but had also had Aspercream rubbed on her back and a massage, so they are really doing a good job with it.  That made me feel better.  Still, it's difficult.  I don't really think that the pain clinic deals with a lot of dementia patients either, because they just keep asking her questions over and over and she has no idea.  It's frustrating.

While there at the clinic, I did some drawing and some reading and some crocheting done.  All of that helps the time pass more quickly.  And there's the radio for the road time, thank goodness.  Gotta have my tunes.  :-P

 So 2 1/2 to 3 hours of this ...

and 4 hours of this.

Fun, fun times.

Getting back to normalish.

Oldest son has gone back to college and youngest son is doing school today, so I guess we're back to this year's normal.  Oldest son is a junior in college.  Youngest son is a junior in home school high school.  Daughter has graduated and is working on a novel.  I am still a medical transcriptionist (at the moment) but looking hard for another way to make a living.  I may have to have surgery again next week so this may not be the best time to look for another job but I am anyway.   Husband still, thankfully, has a good job.

Spring seems like it might come soon, it's been warm and rainy and occasionally a little bit sunny this week and my thoughts are starting to turn to gardening a little bit.  I want to go to my mom's old house before it sells and dig up some of her flowerbeds.  She has such a green thumb that I am hoping that some of them will still have her leftover magic on them and grow for me, though my thumb is brown, apparently.  :-)

Spring Break!

We're having spring break this week.  Our son made it home from Mississippi and our other son is taking the week off school.   We got together with the homeschool group last night and we will be getting together with grandparents and others throughout the week.  It's more low key than last year when he brought 2 friends home with him, but still nice.

I'm starting to feel hopeful that spring will indeed come.  :-)

Monday blahs.

It's a Monday and my day off work.  I have a lot to do; cooking,
cleaning, dishes, fun things like that.  I also have to call and try to get mom's glasses replaced and change a doctor's appointment for me since I have 2 on the same day in different towns.

My oldest son was supposed to come home this week for spring break but he got up not feeling well on the day he was supposed to drive 9 hours home, and didn't feel like coming.  So right now we are in the waiting phase to see if he feels better by tomorrow and feels like making the drive.  If not, we'll see him sometime this summer.  He has secured a job there for the summer so he won't be home the whole summer like he was last year.  It's hard on mamas when their kids just grow up like that.  (Dad and siblings too.)

I'm trying to hang in here.

Youngest son is still getting up early and being an exemplary homeschooler, getting all of his school work done early in the day instead of procrastinating about it until midnight on Friday, committing himself to the Early to bed, early to rise paradigm.

The girl is working very hard on her book.  The only trouble with that, is that the only time her creative juices get flowing is about 4:00 a.m. so the rest of us don't see much of her.  We don't like this because we like her and want to spend time with her, but she's very, very prickly about it so for now, at least I am going to hands-off-parenting-adult-children mode.

I went to see my mom yesterday.  She's doing okay and has friends in this new place, but even thought it's been 9 months that she's been there, every time I go see her, she thinks that she just got there today and doesn't realize that she's going to be staying there overnight.  Then, when she inevitably asks if I will be taking her home and I say no, this is her assisted living, then we have to go through the painful 'why can't I go home?" questions and the "how will I get my clothes" and "who's living in my house? questions and it leaves me emotionally and physically exhausted.

So, needless to say, I have been doing a lot of art journaling.  My therapy.  Thank goodness I have found something that helps me deal with being in the sandwich generation.

Also, Words with Friends helps.

Snowman?

Snow again.

Reading, Reading, Reading.

Well it wasn't exactly intentional, but we did celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday in a way I think he would approve of; we spent pretty much the entire evening reading.  I try to finish what I am doing in the daytime and spend the evening with the kids as much as possible.  Oftentimes we are just watching TV while pursuing our various hobbies, but we have gotten really caught up in this book we are reading.  I was feeling very tired last night so I recommended that we start early again (my daughter is actually doing the reading, I started and she took over, as she tends to do).  Anyway, we started around 8 I think and read for at least 2 hours.  Before reading the John Flanagan book, Slaves of Socorro, we took a moment and I read our favorite Dr. Suess book, Yertle the Turtle and tonight though it is not Dr. Seuss's birthday today, I think we might read Gertrude McFuzz.  :-)  More awesomeness.  I am so glad that my kids will participate in this reading with me because I don't know if I would sit down and read these books on my own and I enjoy them so much.   More than anything, though, I enjoy spending this time with my kids.  :-)

An unusual direction.

Today's unschooling topic for my son (which of course he has chosen for himself) is how to be a sharp dressed man.  He's researching on a website called The Art of Manliness.   Suit jackets, blazers and sport coats are all different.  This is something he has learned today and what the purpose of each originally was.  Suits were for business (etc), blazers were for sailing and sport coats were for hunting and tuxedos are for "ultimate fancy".  :-)  I never know where his unschooling is going to take him.  Also today, he got up early and discovered that his math brain (which is better than many all of the time) is especially perky in the mornings after a really good night's sleep.  He did his geometry in record time this morning and said that he could really visualize the geometry this morning, better than he can when he does it in the afternoon or as he usually does, around midnight.     

He has been working on his sleep schedule, trying to get up earlier in the day and yesterday, he had to fight to stay awake even until 8:00 pm because he's had such a radical change in his schedule and needed to do some catchup.  We are really, really enjoying the next-to-latest installment of The Brotherband Chronicles which we are reading in the evenings, usually starting about 10:30 or 11:00 and we knew he was going to bed early last night, so we read at 7:30.  It's really a good book and I don't know about the kids, but I am learning a lot of sailing terms.  I had no idea how many of our words came from sailing, such as leeway and tell-tale.  It's pretty fascinating, plus the book so far, is just really entertaining with the perfect combination of adventure and hilarity.

I'm trying to get a lot of things done so I'd better get to it.  Have a great day!