Happy Memorial Day Weekend!

Well, the teachers at T's school cleverly scheduled the last floating holiday on friday...giving them and us a 4 day weekend, not just a 3day weekend. Yippee! A few weeks ago when it was announced, I thought we might do something fun or go somewhere this weekend. That's not happening for two reasons: my mom's medical equipment and I'm broke.

On the equipment scene, T and I spent our day off on Friday at my parents' house, waiting for the medical equipment to be delivered and picked up. As I said in the past, its been a logistical nightmare. My mom needs a hospital bed, an alternating air mattress, oxygen machine, nebulizer, and wheelchair. We ended up purchasing the bed and air mattress.

Medicare will only supply a semi electric bed, not fully electric. Semi electric works the head to sit up, and to elevate the feet. To raise and lower the height of the bed itself, one must use the crank. When caring for my mom, we are constantly raising and lowering the bed's height for various reasons. Our aide Icolene (and I) have bad backs and my dad has bad shoulders. None of us can easily (if at all) use a crank.

Re the alternating air mattress, that combats bed sores. My mom had bad ones after coming out of the hospital and nursing homes. Took us like 10 months for them to close and finally heal. We don't want them coming back, as that's one thing that could potentially kill her. Medicare only supplies an air mattress if you have a stage III sore, i.e. a bad one. Medicare prefers to wait until a patient develops a bad bedsore to supply the mattress, rather than prevent them in the first place. Then, once healed, the mattress would be taken away. We can't have all this switching out of medical equipment all the time. Its just too much. So we bought that as well. $1,500.00 for both: 850.00 for the bed, full rails, and reg mattress, 650.00 for the alternating air mattress. A veritable bargain since one equip. company quoted me a price for the mattress alone of 2,500, and another 1,450. Bastards.

So now, if my mom goes into hospice again, there will be no switching out of beds, as we will own the damned thing and its staying put. That's a good thing.

The reason I'm broke? On Tuesday I was going to work and my car wouldn't start. Luckily dot was in town and after my van was towed in, we drove to borrow my parents 2nd car. A chevy aveo they purchased in March of 2009. It has 2,200 miles on it. It was my mom's car. Dot drops me off, I go inside to chat. I come out and the Aveo won't start. I had to call Dot to return to give me a jump, then drove to sears to get a new battery. My car? needed a new battery (3rd in 4 years), needed the 30,000 service so that they wouldn't invalidate my warranty (the bastards), needed to flush the power steering line and add new, needed new brakes. Despite having a warranty, I dropped 850.00.

I hate car dealerships.

Yesterday, we picked up the car, went rollerskating (T is progressing EXCELLENTLY), went to a birthday party, and got haircuts.

On today's agenda: food shopping and bill paying at my parents, then a small bbq/swim party at a friend's house. Frankly, I'd prefer to just lay at home on the couch, but that's no fun for T, so off we're going to go. Sigh.

Hope your Memorial Day is lots of fun.

GS Yr-end Ceremony

Tonight was the year end ceremony for the Girlscouts at T's school. Four of the daisies "bridged" over and became brownies. Many brownies "flew up" and became juniors, and many juniors "bridged" over to become cadettes. T got her end of year pin, signifying that she's been a girl scout for one year. She will become a brownie after next year. It was a really cute show. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and took this with my phone.

Fun with Firemen!

Today the Daisy girl scouts toured the Coral Gables Fire Station. They learned about fire safety, they saw where the firefighters sleep and eat, they saw the pole, they got to pile inside a fire truck and actually go for a ride...sirens and everything, and the biggest thrill of the day.....they got to hold the fire hose.

Taylor can't stop talking about it. She had a blast!

Redemption!

T has successfully squirmed her way out of trouble and acheived redemption. I had to go to a meeting after work at a local irish pub, which meant T had to come along too. We talked about how she had to sit quietly and not interrupt. She was such a good girl I can't tell you. We were there about 2 hours and she was such a big girl. The only interruption she made, was when she asked if I could announce that she had learned how to snap her fingers. Both hands.

T is a champion snapper, and can usually be heard snapping her fingers every few minutes. The whole table was very impressed.

Since she was such a good girl, I announced that she was no longer in trouble. She's happily watching TV now.

Big Fat Trouble

No, not with my parents. T is the one who is in it. What was I doing last night between 11:00 p.m. and midnight?

I was in T's room on the rug, searching for stick pins.

T got ahold of some sewing items and was playing with them in her room. Probably since I was sewing this past weekend on the vest. anyway, when I realize she's still up, I go in to make her go to bed, and she's laying in bed playing nintendo. Strike #1. I walk around the room picking up misc. things and she continues to play. Strike #2. Only after I find a bunch of stick pins in her shag carpet, does she mention that I should watch out b/c there were some more behind me. Strike #3. SHE'S OUT.

She is unplugged til friday. No computer, no nintendo, no phone games, and no TV. she's in trouble not for dropping them, but for failing to come and get me and report it. She knows how dangerous pins are in the carpet, but said nothing. Purposely. Just ignored me as she played nintendo, while I walked around the room.

Has anyone ever tried to find stick pins in a shag carpet? Its like trying to find them in grass. I pick up like 20 and thought I was done. then I had the bright idea to use a hairbrush to brush the carpet. That worked like a charm. About 30 more pins were found.

I now think that we've gotten them all However, I'm in search of a strong magnet to use, just to make sure.

gotta go, I have a date with Glee!

Nothing Interesting to Report

If anyone is still even tuning in to this dumb blog anymore, I'd be surprised. With everything going on here, I just haven't been in a mood to blog. My mother is being kicked out of the hospice program, as her medical decline has plateau'ed. That's the good news. The bad news, now, is that its a logistical nightmare. It also means that the hospice doctors and nurses will no longer come to the house to care for her. It all began, of course, during my never-ending trial and continues even through today.

The bad part about it all, is that we are no longer able to take my mom out to the dr. She would have to be taken by ambulance. Because her old treating physician's office is inaccessible to a patient on a bed accompanied by 2 EMT's, we had to find a new doctor. Luckily, we found one that will make house calls and treat her in the home. That's the plus side. Unfortunately, all of the medical equipment in the house: hospital bed, oxygen machine, nebulizer, etc. has to be switched out. Depsite the fact that medicare is paying for it either way, hospice medicare is a different program so therefore the change is required.

I had been hoping to take T on a getaway weekend to disney at the end of my trial, but that blew up as I had to be at my parent's house to oversee the switch last monday. I was afraid my father would get mad and throw them all out if someone wasn't there. Now, due to my work schedule, its impossible to go to disney before a big black out period for our passes for the summer. Next opportunity will not be until fall. I don't have high hopes for that. With my luck, I've just wasted our annual passes.

Good thing I was there, as the equipment co. tried to deliver the wrong equipment. Even as of today, there hasn't been a switch due to back-ordered equipment. The new ETA is this week. Maybe. Due to issues at work, its just so much harder now and more stressful, as it will be really hard to get coverage so I can go over there, and I'm absolutely booked solid all day long through the end of the month.

You wonder what more could go wrong? In the midst of all of this, my father is causing huge problems. Our aide is ready to quit on us, as he's just nasty to her, and screams at her to get out of the house. On monday 5/2, I get a call at 730 a.m. that he was throwing her out. Despite the fact that I was in the middle of trial and had a jury coming back at 10:30, I went charging over there to maintain the peace. I was successful, was able to make it back to court, but was so stressed the rest of the day that I was near-useless. Luckily, my defendant took a plea. I have no idea what would have happened had she not.

We still have our aide for now, but I know its just a matter of time. I doubt my dad will get better and stop. Our aide is getting at the end of her rope. One can only take that type of environment for so long. I have no idea how this will all end up. She'll probably quit, and we'll have to find a new aide...which will require me to go over there and meet them, interview them, probably stay there a night or two. I could go on and on about these problems, but I'm just so sick of it all, I don't even blog about it much anymore. Even that stresses me out. So instead I escape with D@ncing with the stars, @merican idol, Glee, etc. Mindless entertainment is all I can do at the moment. That plus hanging with T.

So...on to better news:

• T's iron-on patches on her girl scout vest were peeling off. I confess to being next to useless on the domestic front, and my skills with an iron are practically non-existent. So I broke out the needle and thread to sew a few stitches around the patches. It was the perfect job for a rainy day. I'm particularly proud of the fact that I only sewed the damned vest to the shirt that I was wearing 2 times. That's a personal best!




• I just taught my daughter tonight what a wedgie is. Not sure if that was the right move, or not. However, they were talking about wedgies on some cartoon that's probably too mature for her to watch, but I'm admit to being less than vigilent in my TV monitoring. She kept asking, so I explained. Actually, I came to realize that the only way to truly explain was to do it to her...gently... The kid couldn't stop laughing and is now going around the house giving herself ones. She's under strict orders never EVER to do it to any other person, or let anyone do it to her. Only time will tell.




• While at the mall this weekend, I got a lead on a piano tuner and a piano teacher, both of whom would come to my home. Anybody have any idea on the age one should start kids with piano lessons? I started in kindergarten or first grade, but the dynamic was way different with me. I had an older sister taking lessons, so by definition, I automatically... desparately even... wanted to take lessons, too. Anybody got an opinions or words of wisdom? I'll probably delay this whatever the recommendations until my parents settle down. I just worry that will never happen for a really long time, and don't want T to miss out. Hard to know what to do.




• Remember my house painting and new sod from back in march? Pressure cleaning the house and watering the new sod? I just got my water bill. For 12 years its ranged between 40.00 and 60.00 every three months. The current bill? Frickin' $312.52. NO LIE. I nearly fell out of my chair.




• Taylor is still skating around the house every chance she gets...and makes me smile.

Hope you all have a great week.

Mother's Day 2011

Did I ever mention how we celebrated? It was really sweet. T woke me up, and made me wear a sparkling pink cardboard crown (similar to the old burger king crowns from when I was young). I then had breakfast in bed consisting of a diet coke, and an eggo waffle. Of course, T wanted to horn in on this action, and made dotty bring her breakfast in bed with me. This was a HUGE thrill for T b/c while we don't have many rules in this house, a big one is no syrup in bed...for obvious reasons.

T has been trying to squirm her way around that rule for a long time, and finally seized the opportunity. So, there we both sat, propped up on pillows, eating our waffles and syrup. With Phineas and Ferb (a cartoon) playing the whole time. T then reminded me that cartoon network was having a Scooby Doo mother's day marathon on all day, and we could just stay in bed and watch it.

So add to that her homemade card and a keychain made at school (that's already broke), my day was complete.

What a great day!

Back in Business!

We are officially back in business. Last weekend we made an encore appearance at the skating rink. T has gotten so good that she actually braved the big kid rink, and didn't stay in the middle section. She's really getting good!

She was itching to go b/c an acquaintance gave her a pair of roller skates. They are way big for her, but that doesn't seem to matter. We took them over to Grandma's house, and she was busy skating around the neighborhood.

She also constantly wears them in the house. Now that she's gotten so good, I don't worry about her falling in the house as much, and breaking her head open on furniture. The kid knows no fear.

No internet due to fried modem for 5 more days. Happy mom day!

Stop the Presses!!!

You think news of the long form birth certificate and a certain terrorist's death were big news? I beg to differ!

I bring you news even bigger! After 6 long LONG years, my defendant finally took a plea late Monday. 28 days jail followed by 1 yr of house arrest follow by 4 years probation. Special conditions of it all is that she pay back the damn $$, pay costs of investigation and prosecution, and never apply for or work for an entity that receives grants.

DONE!

Of course, it was not without its drama and the plea was PAINFULLY slow in coming, but at the end of the day, I gave a little and she gave a little. Neither of us were 100% satisfied with the plea, which usually means its a good one. It also helped that I pulled an old prosecutor's trick and had most of my witnesses, (10 of them) lined up sitting outside ready to testify. The defendant's sister came out a few times to see who was in the hit parade of witnesses, and was reporting back to her.

Hasta la vista, baby!