Friday,fun with mother and arthritis

      I spent most of yesterday sewing to catch up on small stuff.  I will continue that today.  It is nice to be able to sit on the sofa late at night and not have to work on beading a wedding dress.  Right now I am working on a pillow for my sister.  It is just fun to do something just because you want to and not because you have to.

     I try to get mom out of the house at least once a day.  It is easy for her to walk three steps and sit or lay down.  She does not get enough time on her feet and she grows weaker. Yesterday I took her to women's group at her church.  She was just going to use her cane.  I put her walker into the car anyway and when we arrived at the church she quickly changed her mind and said she needed the walker.  She is so frail.  But she wants and demands her independence when in public.  So my last words to her were, "Mom don't raise your hand, you can just write a check".  I made sure she had her purse.


     In the mean time I was busy trying not to freeze to death in my shop.  My bodies temperature gauge does not work right.  It cannot handle the cold.  Once I get cold I cannot get warm.  I have to soak in a tub of hot water and raise my body temperature to find any comfort.  I literally hurt from the cold. Last night I could not get warm and I did not want to get up and get in the tub, I just wanted to sleep.  After an hour I went a found the heating pad but it took me another 1.5 hours to stop shivering with three quilts on me.  It was mostly my wrists and hands, I just could not warm them up. I have a heater next to me in the shop that blows hot air on me while I sew.  It is running full blast right now.

     Fall is my favorite season but you will find me in a hot bath almost every day. One of the ways I know the season is changing is the number of times the tub calls my name. I turned the heat on this morning, it is early but I cannot suffer any more.  I know it will turn of warm again, and I will just turn it off.

     Mom came home from her meeting and she was tired and hungry.  Didn't they feed her at the luncheon?  Yes but she enters the house and has an innate desire to be waited on by me.  I made her a fruit plate.  Then I went back to work as I was finally starting to warm up.  She is talking from the bedroom, trying to come up with a story about how no one had any ideas or would take charge of any of the meetings in the next few months.  But she had suggested that they could do something in December, such as......  "Mom, did you raise your hand?"

"Well no not exactly.....it will be easy.... (easy for who)  Finally after a long conversation I had her admit she had volunteered me.  Yeah I figured as much.  It will be easy for her.  I will do all the work.

     Next she has to go to the bank.  Right in the middle of my day.  So I get Hub's to watch the shop and take her to the bank, where she has to go inside and I cannot come with her.

     I pulled meatballs out of the freezer and ran to the garden for a spaghetti squash and also dug enough potatoes for three meals.  So we had meatballs,gravy, squash and spuds for dinner. Later in the evening Hub's left for the theater and mom wanted to get her flu shot, I needed milk and some binding, so we took off for Wal-mart.

     I got mom a cart and told her to meet me at her usual rest stop in front of the store.  I toddled around and when I was checking out no mom.  So I went back to the pharmacy and she was still filling out paper work.  I waited quietly in the background.  The tech finally told her to go to the blue box in the corner and have a seat and they would be right out.  Mom takes off the wrong way, I step in a whisper, "turn around that box over there'.  Mom turns walks a few feet runs her cart into a display, I jump in to help she gives me the look of death.  So I scurry back to my cart. She completely misses the big blue box like structure with the chairs in it.  I go around and aisle and meet her and whisper, "Mom you missed the box, turn around".  She turns and hits the box wall and then adjusts herself and peaks around the corner and turns to say to me, " I am just going to sit in one of those chairs for a while I have been on my feet too long."  Great mom because those are the chairs in the box where you are supposed to SIT.  Her sight is so bad and she wants to drive.

     After her shot she could hardly make it out of the store.  She had just been on her feet more than she could handle.  It took too long, her breathing was sketchy, I had to have a clerk help me get her into the car.  On the way home as we are driving into the garage, she says, "I am hungry, could you make me a grilled cheese sandwich." 
     "Feeling a bit peckish mom."  The woman has eaten all day long.  I don't say anything just get her to her room and go upstairs to make her a sandwich , I cleaned up the kitchen while it was cooking.  When I brought down her sandwich she was in her bathroom and she was crying.  "Mom what is the matter? What happened? Why are you crying?  She just waves her hand at me, this is a sure sign that she has done something.  My next remark is, What did you do?  More tears.

     I went into her room and she has spilled an entire quart container of dark chocolate pudding all over her bed clothes.  And did she hit every blanket and a couple pillows and the sheets and the heavy chenille spread? ( white by the way) You bet you she did.  She is smearing it all over with a wash rag.  I start to strip the bed.  "No I will just wipe it up and sleep with it."  "Mom chocolate stains, we have to put these to soak."  So I changed all her bedding while she laid on her stripped bed eating her grilled cheese.

     Yes , Linda I am doing linens AGAIN.

Have a great and productive day staying positive while you are in the negative.

Kim