A look inside my world

As I mentioned briefly before I am caring for my aging Mom. This is not a job I ever planned for but on reflection, I suspect none of us has. First a true confession, not tabloid worthy, but a confession none the less. I was never close to my Mom. Never. Actually we are polar opposites. I am warm and fuzzy, she is not. I love all things creative, her foundation is math. I tell the people I love that I love them.....often. It's an after thought for her.

This journey has radically changed our relationship. The transformation began three years ago. At the time I was taking my Mom out once a week to run errands. I would check with her the day before to see what all she'd planned. Then the day came and it invariably took HOURS longer than I planned. Each week I returned home frustrated. Then my insightful husband gave me a brilliant piece of advice, "Just plan to spend the whole day in town." It was an "ah ha" moment that changed everything. So once a week we went shopping, out to lunch and generally futzed the day away.

Fast forward. After spending nearly everyday for the last three and a half months advocating for her at the hospital, skilled nursing and assisted living facilities she's home.Unfortunately the organization that was to provide in-home care didn't. So Daphne to the rescue! I'm hoping to have greater success after Thanksgiving finding a caregiver. In the meantime.......its me.

I'm back....sort of

Life has been a blur since Spring. I am caring for an aging parent in declining health. Millions of other boomers are on the same journey so I know I'm not alone.

I also made a what was I thinking commitment. Earlier this year I was asked to sit on a committee that organizes luncheons for a club I belong to. Then I was asked to make table decorations for a couple of the luncheons. So far so good. Before I knew it I had offered to make 8 centerpieces. The theme:  fashion from the turn of the 20th century.

Of course I couldn't just slap something together. Noooooo I had to make 8 different pieces; each distressed. This required 2 coats of paint and 1 coat of crackle medium before I could do any of the fun stuff.

While I was prepping the boxes I was gathering images. Thankfully Graphic 45 paper company had a Couture Collection available. For weeks I was up to my elbows in paint, gel matte medium, dimensional medium, paper, bling and various other pieces of ephemera. When all was said and done I had spent 7 hours on each piece. Thankfully that's behind me.


 

Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life love gives you a fairy tale.  -Anonymous

Thank you my darling for 17th glorious years. My heart still skips a beat when you wink at me. I love you

Are we having fun yet?

Each year we take a road trip to explore places on our “I’ve always wanted to see it” list. We’re campers. You know, the kind where you sleep in a sleeping bag in a tent on the cold, hard ground. One of our more memorable trip was to Crater Lake.

On our first night on the road we went to set up the tent and found it impossible to do. It seemed we (aka he) didn’t pack the poles. How do you do that? Or how do you not do that?

I look for the silver lining in situations like this; even if I wasn’t going to find it on the inside of our tent. We spent the first night in our sleeping bags with binoculars trained at the night sky (see there IS a benefit to not sleeping in a tent).

The next day we went to every outdoor store in Bend, Oregon looking for tent poles. Apparently they don’t make universal tent poles. Dang. We couldn’t bring ourselves to buy another tent because ours was brand new. Besides, it wasn’t so bad.

Our next stop was Crater Lake. Once again we spread out our sleeping bags and again enjoyed the night sky.

Crater Lake

The next morning was a different story. We experienced one of the perils of not sleeping in a tent... it was FREEZING! We jumped out of our sleeping bags and threw them in the car. We couldn’t turn the car on fast enough.

Our SUV is equipped with a thermometer and to our shock it read 34 degrees! Yikes! My husband made his best decision of the trip…..we headed into the lodge for a hot breakfast. I think we have a camper in our future.

Everybody has a wacky neighbor at some point…..

One particular neighbor moved to the head of that category early on. We were out inspecting a huge madrona tree in our yard that needed to be removed. Since the wacky neighbor was outside watching the goings on with the tree he offered to take it down. Since he had a view corridor through our property we decided to let him.

A couple of days later he and his brother were driving a scissor-lift down our driveway. I told him there was only one thing to stay away from; a four-way plum tree that had been given to us by my Mom. No problem. So the brothers ascend in the lift and start lopping off branches with a chain saw. All was well until they started consuming copious amounts of beer. Oh, boy.

It wasn’t long before they had gotten the lift lodged in the tree. They were up there squabbling like little girls, we were down below laughing hysterically. Finally they got the contraption dislodged and the chain saw was fired up again. The next thing we heard was “Oh _ _ _ _!” They had cut off a huge branch that came sailing down and impaled the sacred plum tree. It sliced it in half vertically!

Later that day they finished and left the way they came like a couple of knights atop their trusty steeds. That was twelve years ago. The neighbor has since moved on but the branch is still lodged in the tree.

Dad, he’s laughing at me

Yesterday I took Tucker to be groomed. Which in itself is kind of funny since he has short hair. When I went to pick him up the groomer was finishing up a teeny, tiny dog…at least I think it was a dog. The not so teeny, tiny owner picked it up and left.

The groomer retrieved Tucker and we were off. He’ll usually stop and peruse the dog treat aisle on his way out but this time I exited via a horse paraphernalia aisle. Smart move; I’ll have to remember that next time.

I noticed the owner of the teeny, tiny dog was parked next to me. He must have roamed around the store because he was just getting in his car. As I was waiting for the hatch to open on my SUV the fellow leaned out of his car and said, with a perfectly straight face, “I think your dog was laughing at mine.”

After he pull out of the parking lot in his teeny, tiny car Tucker and I looked at each other and broke out laughing.

He has issues...

Tucker, according to the calendar, has left puppyhood behind. He is now a card-carrying, adult dog food eatin' dog. So I'm thinking he should've outgrown some goofy habits; at least one or two.

He loves to chew, I mean REALLY loves to chew. Thankfully he has given up on shoes.....for the most part. Tucker is especially fond of wood. Its important to give him a wide berth when he's running around the yard at breakneck speed with a 4' long stick clenched between his teeth. If he can't put his chompers on a stick he'll climb onto the wood pile to find a suitable candidate. Our deck looks like the home of the 2014 international woodchuck convention!

Please tell me he'll outgrow this faze. Our wood pile is dwindling.

Customer No Service

There is one grocery store in our little burg that I loath. Unfortunately for me they have deep discounts that I just can't pass up. I won't name the store but it rhymes with Albertson's.

I had a rain check expiring soon and decided to suck it up and head to the store. It was late in the evening so I  thought surely the lines won't snake down the aisles. I was wrong.

I quickly grabbed my items and decided to use self check. I waited patiently for a register to open and signed in with my loyalty card (I hate to admit I have one!) and began scanning. My first item went smoothly. The second not so much. I scanned it and put it on the belt. The scanner said to take it off the belt. The second I lifted it up it said to place it on the belt. After dancing this dance three times I looked for someone to help. No one in sight. Frustrated I moved to another scanner.

The process wasn't much smoother. Finally a surly woman showed up to help. "She has trouble scanning sometimes" she said. Did I miss something? When did grocery scanners become anthropomorphic. I couldn't push the pay button fast enough!

I had a rain check so I took it to the woman who had reluctantly helped me. When I handed her the slip of paper you'd think I had put a cow pie in her hand. She went ballistic. "You can't do this at self check" she yelled. When I finally found my voice I blurted out, "I've done it this way before without a problem." She was not amused.

It seemed she didn't know how to process the transaction. After finding someone to give her the magic code she punched a couple of keys and muttered, "You can pay now". I paid and sprinted to the nearest exit.

My son, my loss

When the night sky is illuminated with a billion stars and there is a stillness to the air, I feel the presence of my son Jonathan. The pain is so raw, searing through my chest. For a few minutes it is difficult to inhale. Then it passes.

 

The grass is always greener

We make a trip each summer to a beautiful alpine lake in North Central Washington. It is a steep climb from the valley floor on a rock strewn, narrow road. Its not unusual for me to get out of our SUV and push large rocks out of our path. Hey, I'm not the driver. Nor, more importantly, am I afraid of heights. 

The eastern side of the lake and adjoining land are owned by the state. The southern portion is owned by the federal government. The rest is a cattle ranch.  As we drop down into the lake basin there are cattle wandering through the trees munching on dry grass. They're often standing IN the road which makes for slow going since we don't happen to have a grill guard affixed to our front bumper. As we near the lake there are several cattle guards to keep the quadrupeds from invading the rather primitive camp sites.

I woke early on our last day to mooing. No surprise except they sounded like they were under my pillow. So I poked my head out of our tent and guess what? They WERE milling about right outside our tent. Some wandered down to the lake to enjoy nice fresh, tall, green grass.



 Phil, I thought you said all the campers were gone!

As you can imagine I quickly rousted my husband and granddaughter. As we exited the tent the cows looked startled. I could just imagine them saying, "Phil, I thought you said all the campers were gone." As we stretched and marveled at the sight of these giants, they slowly ambled their way back to cow town. And how did they get back across the cattle guard you ask? They jumped. No, really....we watched as one-by-one they jumped across the cattle guard.






 

A lesson for us paper crafter

I am an unabashed paper addict. Don’t get me wrong, I use my stash to make cards, scrapbook pages, collages, mini books and anything that calls my name. One of the supplies in many paper crafters arsenals is glue dots. They are small round disks of adhesive.
 I came downstairs from my studio today to discover our dog Tucker (who just made the move from puppyhood to adult dog status) chewing on something. I ran my hand around his mouth and removed a wad of cardboard. He must have trolled through my paper recycling bin; the paper crafter's equivalent to dumpster diving.  Afterward Tucker laid down and, after washing his slobber off my hands, I returned to my craft room.

 A short time later I came down for a glass of iced tea. Tucker sprinted towards me (he doesn't seem to know how to walk). I noticed that when his left hind foot lifted off the floor there was a peculiar sound. It sounded like there was a sticky substance on the hardwood floor. I walked the same route and all was quiet. On closer inspection I found a layer of glue dots affixed to the bottom of his left hind foot. Really Tucker? Glue dots?

We may not see eye to eye on this one!

Gardening is a funny thing. It can be quite subjective but at times there needs to be a clear objective. Take pruning for example. We have a huge hydrangea. I prune it back a bit each year but this spring it had gotten WAY too big. We're talking Guinness Book of World Records big. So I asked my husband to help me cut it back. Big mistake!

Apparently we had two entirely different visions of what we wanted the end result to be. I was thinking a nice medium sized shrub. He was thinking....actually I have no idea what he was thinking. Let's suffice it to say it was not a shared vision.

Let me say right here that I adore my husband but when I saw my poor hydrangea I was less than pleased. Fast forward a couple of months. The hydrangea is in full bloom and doesn't look so mangled, but it doesn't look any smaller either. Weird.

Just another day in Puppydom

 

This morning I decided it was time to begin spring gardening so I brought the pots containing begonias up from the basement. I lined them up in front of our french doors hopeful they could eek out a few minutes of sunlight each day. Then I gently lifted the tubers out of their pots and set them on top of the dirt and sprinkled them lovingly with water. Then off to the shower I went.

To my horror when I came out I found our puppy chewing up my favorite begonia tuber! He was having great time tossing the tuber in the air, dirt raining down around him. To his credit he did contain his dirtfest to the dining room.