Okay, as I just added to last week's post which apparently – though I remember posting it – was never posted and has been sitting as draft.
For some reason I seem to be getting hit a lot lately with crazy things. As I have mentioned I am an accountant and it is, of course, “tax season”. As the daughter of two accountants I grew up with tax season so I am accustomed to dealing with same. I was helping my father making photocopies when same was relatively new in the 1960s – to give an idea of what I mean – First the original and the paper to be copied were run through a slot in the copier where the original was copied onto the paper. Then the 2 papers came out of the machine. The copy (and, yes, sometimes we ran the original through by mistake and that was a mess) was then inserted into a different slot in the copier where it was run through the chemicals to make the printing appear on it and fix same to it. The copies came out wet and had to be hung up to dry – and it all smelled terrible.
I am down to a handful of clients who I prepare individual tax returns for and even less business clients (and two of those are my husband). The clients I have are mostly my dad's clients, (dad having passed on some decades ago) some started with him in the 1960s or 1970s. The returns are fairly straight forward as they are all retired long ago – nothing to tease my brain. So while preparing the tax returns takes time and I have to make sure that I have all the info from each client, it is not a brain busting matter to prepare the returns (add instructions, etc.)
I belong to an embroidery chapter of a national embroidery club. I serve as Treasurer of same. The renewals for this organization are due by the end of May, so every year renewals overlap tax season – but I am used to this by now.
So far, so good.
I am also the Treasurer of our reenactment unit. This is not normally any sort of problem or situation during the main part of tax season as dues to our national organization from members,, as well as the dues to our unit, are collected in January and February and the dues to the national organization must be mailed by me to them by March 1. This year, however, the national organization decided as long as things were quiet due to the pandemic – it was the time to redo their membership records and how they are managed on their end. As a result they pushed back renewals into later in the year – yes, they are also due the end of May. But to make things a bit easier, since our unit basically did nothing, the board voted to roll over paid dues from 2020 into 2021. So only those members who did not renew with unit in 2020 have to renew now with the unit and only those members of the unit who belong to our national organization (and we do not require members to belong, so only about half of our members do) have to renew now.
I have been working on tax returns – have all done except one friend who always files late (years late) and one client who always asks for an extension – and our return, of course, though our return is actually almost finished – I need the mileage on our car odometer to calculate business use of the car last year and we will get our car back on Friday.
Forgot to throw that in – our car has been at our mechanic for over 2 months. He actually gave up early week and husband went looking online and found the same odd problem we have and what people did – so the mechanic was finally able to fix it – but two months ago I did not think to take the mileage off the odometer and will not have it until we get the car back this Friday.
I went to file extensions for the client who needs them while I was still waiting for information from the other clients last week. I found out that the tax software I am using has a problem with our state and the forms are not fileable (my practice is too small for me to be able file for clients online). So, I have had to take the copy of the return as I get it from the software and then fill in the state forms by hand to be able to use them. This did not happen with a return I had to prepare for a different state so it is related to this state's returns not a general problem. This was not a big deal, but it did take more time.
I had to send a couple of weeks ago emails to both organizations for renewals and I am currently waiting for the renewals to trickle in from both groups.
It doesn't matter how much I have systems for getting things done on time when things go awry elsewhere. Plus of course – Easter and Passover dinners for husband and myself, as well as husband's birthday. This is one heck of a spring for me, and I have to work hard to juggle it all this year.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
Chances are that whatever one's plans are and how well they are organized something will go wrong. Hopefully nothing goes wrong in a major way that cannot be adjusted for. The comedienne Gilda Radner used to say on “Saturday Night Live” - “It's always something.”
Oh, did I mention that our shower drain is backed up and we cannot use it until we clear the pipes, we still have to figure out what to do about the poison ivy in the backyard that we ignored last year and it grew all the way from the back of the house to the front – including onto the house, and we could not mow the backyard due to same and still have weeds the size of trees back there...
Showing posts with label car repair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label car repair. Show all posts
Thursday, April 15, 2021
BOY MY MIND IS FRIED THIS TAX SEASON - WHAT WILL HIT NEXT?
Thursday, July 25, 2019
A CHORE LEADS TO A TIME FOR SOME REST
Well we now both have working computers - yay!
The fridge seems to be working - bigger yay! Husband found out that the drawers at the bottom of fridge keep a more even temperature than the rest of the fridge. After testing the temperature in same, we decided that the best place for his insulin in one of the drawers as the temperature in same seems to always be 36F or higher so that problem is resolved too.
Missed working with my sisters and their husbands at mom’s house again last weekend. We had terribly hot weather here and I was “under” it. My sister told me that they have gone through all but 3 rooms and 6 closets - not sure if that includes the room I have to go through as I left a lot of “stuff” in my old room. I found out that the other day that “we” will having a tag sale. Hmmm, I guess if I found stuff to donate it might be worth leaving it for the tag sale and maybe I will add some of the stuff we need to get rid of in our house and the money from same when (if?) it sells can go towards mom’s living expenses while not costing us anything that we don’t have to give her.
I has been HOT here - over 100F one day and almost the same the day before. Monday night there were major rain storms around the area - over several states. Husband was again demonstrating to me how wonderful having Roku is and that we can see every episode of “Midsummer Murders” from the start (we- mostly I - have only seen about 3 seasons as that is when I found the show) and we don’t have to watch it 3-5 am when it is on PBS we can see it any time. Last week when he ran the second episode (had run the first one previously) it kept going out of sync and needing to be restarted. Monday the hottest of the days and at night was the huge thunderstorm. We were watching episode 3 when it froze. He kept trying to get it going. Then something dawned on me - I turned on my cell phone and turned on the house wifi - nothing. I switched the TV to the cable - nothing. We had lost our Internet service - no cable, no computer Internet. (We still have copper wire telephone service from old telephone company so same still worked.) Husband was having a fit over no TV and no Internet. I knew that at least we had electricity. The TV came back gradually over several hours. At first the broadcast channels were back. Then the non-premium channels. The cable company’s local news channel was not there - but husband found it on their local weather channel - how the heck can one channel from their studio work and not the other? And shouldn’t their news channel at some point have mentioned - hey, we are on this other channel do an outage of our service - sorry - here is what is going on and which problems are where? They did not even do so after the service was restored. When the first channels were back, I went on my cell phone to see what had happened - just lots of people complaining that they had called to report the outage and find out what they could and got the message I did - “We are experiencing a large call volume. Please contact us through our website.” No website working of course!!
Today we went on a little trip. (Oh, no, another of her nightmare trips.) Our RV has two batteries (the type that are used in golf carts) which charge from the RV being driven, running the RV generator and/or plugging in the RV to electricity at home or at campground. As I am pretty sure I mentioned our two had reached beyond the end of their lives. We found a company in New Jersey that could order the batteries that husband had been told were the best to get for our RV and could install them. We ordered the batteries last week - paying for the batteries themselves at that time by charge card over the phone. They came in and we made an appointment to go to have them put in - for this past Monday - the day of the storm. On last Friday husband looked at the weather and saw the huge storms expected and told me to call and change the appointment to today (Wednesday). Blew out my week - I had planned to go to my client this week either Tuesday or Thursday and could not wake up that early two days in a row. I did so. Good thing we did. The area where the company is located was hit hard by the storm. Parts of the area were still out today and the company was running on two generators.
We (I) cleared out stuff where they might need to work - both halves of the bed were stacked on the base for husband’s side of the bed on each other. (His side is longer than my side and they might have needed to access the cabinet under my bed.) We figured out what we needed to bring. Not having been to this place before and having looked at online maps and there was no place for lunch near by, we bought sliced deli turkey and made sandwiches last night and bagged them in a cold bag made for lunch with two cans of diet soda and plastic ice. I emptied out my travel backpack. (I use it when we go somewhere where we will not have easy access back to the RV or car if we use same instead during the day. I put in what we might need based on where we go and what we do.) I put the cold bag with our lunch in it. I also added a package of saltine crackers as they work well for husband if he has a blood sugar low. In our other cold bag I put some bottles of a sugar drink he uses if his blood sugar goes too low and I put that bag in the RV fridge - which we did not put on. We had no idea if there was a place for us to wait while the work was done inside the building or if we would be sitting outside (in lesser, but still heat) on a curb waiting for it. We were also not sure how long it would take for the work to be done as we knew that there was no way we would be there by 8:30 am as we just cannot get up early enough to get ready and drive at least 2 hours and be there by then.
We got out this morning just ahead of our planned leaving time (okay - it was the same 8:30 am that it had been suggested we be there) and when husband went to back the RV out into the busy main street we live on it was actually empty on our side of the street long enough to pull out without waiting. (I stand in the street with a walkie talkie and tell him when he can pull out - he pulls up next to the curb and I jump in and we go.) As mentioned in past posts, what used to be a 45 minute drive to the bridge off the huge island we live on, can take 2 hours now. We have found that leaving the house at 8:30 am seems to be the best time for us to leave - we are driving at the rear end of rush hour and by the time we reach the construction areas - they are just short of starting work.
Drive was going pretty well and then the news announced that there had been a car fire on the bridge we had to take off the Island and traffic was bad. OH (expletive deleted)!! We figured we were in a mess for sure. Husband asked me about alternatives. I started thinking. We are on the south end of the Island and therefore also the south end of Manhattan Island. To get to “the main land” - mostly New Jersey we can take a bridge to Staten Island and then another bridge from there to New Jersey. We can drive through one of several bridges or two tunnels into Manhattan and then go across same and go out through one of two tunnels to New Jersey - this would involve driving the large van that is our RV in crowded Manhattan streets and we cannot take a tunnel due to having propane in a tank in the RV. So, we could get into Manhattan from where we were, but we would have to drive most of the length (south to north) of it to get to the George Washington Bridge. We could go north on our Island on one road that we can go on (we are too tall for many limited access roads here) just at the start of the next (Queens) county/NYC line drive north to the Bronx - over a bridge - and then across the Bronx on a road that I have never seen or heard of not being stopped by traffic - and then into Manhattan (on a bridge) and then over the same George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. An additional problem was the road we needed to use in New Jersey was only open to vehicles like ours for part of the way - no problem if we go by State Island, but if we go by the George Washington Bridge we have to figure an alternate way to drive south until we are near where we would get on the road if we went through Staten Island. We decided to keep on the way we normally go as it was so much simpler and it would probably take more time to go north and then come back south again than deal with the delay. The car that had been on fire was in the opposite direction from the one we were going. And the GPS traffic was not showing any drastic problems.
We figured that we would monitor the reports on the radio news channel we listen to as we went along and that, along with the traffic we hit would make our decision. But - today was the day that Robert Mueller was testifying at Congress and the radio station decided to run same instead of news and weather. The road was not as bad as usual. The bridge barely had a slow down. At 9:30 am I called the company and told them that we were on way and would be there in about an hour.
When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised. The building was large. The employees very friendly and nice. Robert had some info that the guys putting in the batteries needed to know and he gave it to the nice woman who wrote up the work order. I took my back pack - with lunch and some paperwork (about the ordering of the batteries) I had in case we needed it out of the RV. She wrote up the work order and then showed us what she called their “living room”. There were sofas, a huge TV showing - of course - Robert Mueller testifying. There was a man already there waiting for them to work on his car. I sat down - backpack on an end table - and husband walked around their small shop area of stuff for RV s. The man was very nice and we talked thorough out the time we were waiting. (Found out that there was a TV remote and he had chosen the show - fine with us.) I played solitaire on my cell phone. I had also brought my old Palm Centro as it had different games I like to play in case I got bored with the solitaire I play. The poor fellow was going to be there most of the day and have a huge bill when he was done. (Not that our bill between the parts paid for and the work to be done was small.) At one point the employee came out and asked him if he wanted to see local food place menus to order lunch as he would be there so long. (Very nice of her to think of this.) He offered it to us also, but I pointed at the backpack and we explained that we had brought lunch when we saw there was nothing near by. Of course I needed a trip to the ladies room. Very nice compared to most and especially to what I thought it might be based on other RV places.
Our work was done by 1:30 pm and we paid for it and were off - with our lunch still uneaten. We found out that the place still had not had their electricity restored and were running on 2 generators. We had not even noticed a problem with same. We were glad that they had been able to do the work under these conditions.
We have been in the general area before and had planned to hang around, have dinner in the area and then drive home - both because there is a chain buffet restaurant husband likes near there and to avoid being stuck in rush hour - which we would hit by the time we got back to Long Island. We decided to go to a shopping mall and walk around - and we figured to eat lunch in their food court area. As we were driving there we noticed soooo many stores that were dark and no cars in their parking lots as well as utility crews working. I suggested to husband that since we would pass it, we should check that the buffet was open after the storm instead of spending time and then finding ourselves with a dinner problem. Few cars outside it, but the lights were on and we saw people at tables.
Went to the mall and had lunch and walked around for over an hour. Then we went to Barnes and Nobles and walked around. Then we drove to a Walmart we knew about - closer to the restaurant then the other two - and went there for a while. Then dinner and home. Coming home the upper level of the bridge was closed - we presume based on what we saw that they were still clearing the bridge from the accident or making repairs due to same. It was the most traffic we had the entire trip.
Although much of the day was wasted time as we did not want to come home and got stuck in traffic (and he REALLY likes that buffet) I don’t feel like we had a wasted day. We had a lot of down time and actually I feel as if I had a chance for an enforced rest period today. (He, on the other hand, was in a constant state of concern.) Now that the batteries are replaced and new - he is worrying that the alternator is going bad or the “separator” is going bad. (The same alternator charges both the car battery under the hood that most if not all cars have and the RV batteries. The separator - surprise - keeps the RV and car batteries separated when same is going on - one is charged than when it is finished, the other is.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things work out better than one thinks they will - but always make sure to plan for the problems that may arise. Sometimes a chore that wastes a lot of time can bring some needed rest to you.
The fridge seems to be working - bigger yay! Husband found out that the drawers at the bottom of fridge keep a more even temperature than the rest of the fridge. After testing the temperature in same, we decided that the best place for his insulin in one of the drawers as the temperature in same seems to always be 36F or higher so that problem is resolved too.
Missed working with my sisters and their husbands at mom’s house again last weekend. We had terribly hot weather here and I was “under” it. My sister told me that they have gone through all but 3 rooms and 6 closets - not sure if that includes the room I have to go through as I left a lot of “stuff” in my old room. I found out that the other day that “we” will having a tag sale. Hmmm, I guess if I found stuff to donate it might be worth leaving it for the tag sale and maybe I will add some of the stuff we need to get rid of in our house and the money from same when (if?) it sells can go towards mom’s living expenses while not costing us anything that we don’t have to give her.
I has been HOT here - over 100F one day and almost the same the day before. Monday night there were major rain storms around the area - over several states. Husband was again demonstrating to me how wonderful having Roku is and that we can see every episode of “Midsummer Murders” from the start (we- mostly I - have only seen about 3 seasons as that is when I found the show) and we don’t have to watch it 3-5 am when it is on PBS we can see it any time. Last week when he ran the second episode (had run the first one previously) it kept going out of sync and needing to be restarted. Monday the hottest of the days and at night was the huge thunderstorm. We were watching episode 3 when it froze. He kept trying to get it going. Then something dawned on me - I turned on my cell phone and turned on the house wifi - nothing. I switched the TV to the cable - nothing. We had lost our Internet service - no cable, no computer Internet. (We still have copper wire telephone service from old telephone company so same still worked.) Husband was having a fit over no TV and no Internet. I knew that at least we had electricity. The TV came back gradually over several hours. At first the broadcast channels were back. Then the non-premium channels. The cable company’s local news channel was not there - but husband found it on their local weather channel - how the heck can one channel from their studio work and not the other? And shouldn’t their news channel at some point have mentioned - hey, we are on this other channel do an outage of our service - sorry - here is what is going on and which problems are where? They did not even do so after the service was restored. When the first channels were back, I went on my cell phone to see what had happened - just lots of people complaining that they had called to report the outage and find out what they could and got the message I did - “We are experiencing a large call volume. Please contact us through our website.” No website working of course!!
Today we went on a little trip. (Oh, no, another of her nightmare trips.) Our RV has two batteries (the type that are used in golf carts) which charge from the RV being driven, running the RV generator and/or plugging in the RV to electricity at home or at campground. As I am pretty sure I mentioned our two had reached beyond the end of their lives. We found a company in New Jersey that could order the batteries that husband had been told were the best to get for our RV and could install them. We ordered the batteries last week - paying for the batteries themselves at that time by charge card over the phone. They came in and we made an appointment to go to have them put in - for this past Monday - the day of the storm. On last Friday husband looked at the weather and saw the huge storms expected and told me to call and change the appointment to today (Wednesday). Blew out my week - I had planned to go to my client this week either Tuesday or Thursday and could not wake up that early two days in a row. I did so. Good thing we did. The area where the company is located was hit hard by the storm. Parts of the area were still out today and the company was running on two generators.
We (I) cleared out stuff where they might need to work - both halves of the bed were stacked on the base for husband’s side of the bed on each other. (His side is longer than my side and they might have needed to access the cabinet under my bed.) We figured out what we needed to bring. Not having been to this place before and having looked at online maps and there was no place for lunch near by, we bought sliced deli turkey and made sandwiches last night and bagged them in a cold bag made for lunch with two cans of diet soda and plastic ice. I emptied out my travel backpack. (I use it when we go somewhere where we will not have easy access back to the RV or car if we use same instead during the day. I put in what we might need based on where we go and what we do.) I put the cold bag with our lunch in it. I also added a package of saltine crackers as they work well for husband if he has a blood sugar low. In our other cold bag I put some bottles of a sugar drink he uses if his blood sugar goes too low and I put that bag in the RV fridge - which we did not put on. We had no idea if there was a place for us to wait while the work was done inside the building or if we would be sitting outside (in lesser, but still heat) on a curb waiting for it. We were also not sure how long it would take for the work to be done as we knew that there was no way we would be there by 8:30 am as we just cannot get up early enough to get ready and drive at least 2 hours and be there by then.
We got out this morning just ahead of our planned leaving time (okay - it was the same 8:30 am that it had been suggested we be there) and when husband went to back the RV out into the busy main street we live on it was actually empty on our side of the street long enough to pull out without waiting. (I stand in the street with a walkie talkie and tell him when he can pull out - he pulls up next to the curb and I jump in and we go.) As mentioned in past posts, what used to be a 45 minute drive to the bridge off the huge island we live on, can take 2 hours now. We have found that leaving the house at 8:30 am seems to be the best time for us to leave - we are driving at the rear end of rush hour and by the time we reach the construction areas - they are just short of starting work.
Drive was going pretty well and then the news announced that there had been a car fire on the bridge we had to take off the Island and traffic was bad. OH (expletive deleted)!! We figured we were in a mess for sure. Husband asked me about alternatives. I started thinking. We are on the south end of the Island and therefore also the south end of Manhattan Island. To get to “the main land” - mostly New Jersey we can take a bridge to Staten Island and then another bridge from there to New Jersey. We can drive through one of several bridges or two tunnels into Manhattan and then go across same and go out through one of two tunnels to New Jersey - this would involve driving the large van that is our RV in crowded Manhattan streets and we cannot take a tunnel due to having propane in a tank in the RV. So, we could get into Manhattan from where we were, but we would have to drive most of the length (south to north) of it to get to the George Washington Bridge. We could go north on our Island on one road that we can go on (we are too tall for many limited access roads here) just at the start of the next (Queens) county/NYC line drive north to the Bronx - over a bridge - and then across the Bronx on a road that I have never seen or heard of not being stopped by traffic - and then into Manhattan (on a bridge) and then over the same George Washington Bridge to New Jersey. An additional problem was the road we needed to use in New Jersey was only open to vehicles like ours for part of the way - no problem if we go by State Island, but if we go by the George Washington Bridge we have to figure an alternate way to drive south until we are near where we would get on the road if we went through Staten Island. We decided to keep on the way we normally go as it was so much simpler and it would probably take more time to go north and then come back south again than deal with the delay. The car that had been on fire was in the opposite direction from the one we were going. And the GPS traffic was not showing any drastic problems.
We figured that we would monitor the reports on the radio news channel we listen to as we went along and that, along with the traffic we hit would make our decision. But - today was the day that Robert Mueller was testifying at Congress and the radio station decided to run same instead of news and weather. The road was not as bad as usual. The bridge barely had a slow down. At 9:30 am I called the company and told them that we were on way and would be there in about an hour.
When we got there we were very pleasantly surprised. The building was large. The employees very friendly and nice. Robert had some info that the guys putting in the batteries needed to know and he gave it to the nice woman who wrote up the work order. I took my back pack - with lunch and some paperwork (about the ordering of the batteries) I had in case we needed it out of the RV. She wrote up the work order and then showed us what she called their “living room”. There were sofas, a huge TV showing - of course - Robert Mueller testifying. There was a man already there waiting for them to work on his car. I sat down - backpack on an end table - and husband walked around their small shop area of stuff for RV s. The man was very nice and we talked thorough out the time we were waiting. (Found out that there was a TV remote and he had chosen the show - fine with us.) I played solitaire on my cell phone. I had also brought my old Palm Centro as it had different games I like to play in case I got bored with the solitaire I play. The poor fellow was going to be there most of the day and have a huge bill when he was done. (Not that our bill between the parts paid for and the work to be done was small.) At one point the employee came out and asked him if he wanted to see local food place menus to order lunch as he would be there so long. (Very nice of her to think of this.) He offered it to us also, but I pointed at the backpack and we explained that we had brought lunch when we saw there was nothing near by. Of course I needed a trip to the ladies room. Very nice compared to most and especially to what I thought it might be based on other RV places.
Our work was done by 1:30 pm and we paid for it and were off - with our lunch still uneaten. We found out that the place still had not had their electricity restored and were running on 2 generators. We had not even noticed a problem with same. We were glad that they had been able to do the work under these conditions.
We have been in the general area before and had planned to hang around, have dinner in the area and then drive home - both because there is a chain buffet restaurant husband likes near there and to avoid being stuck in rush hour - which we would hit by the time we got back to Long Island. We decided to go to a shopping mall and walk around - and we figured to eat lunch in their food court area. As we were driving there we noticed soooo many stores that were dark and no cars in their parking lots as well as utility crews working. I suggested to husband that since we would pass it, we should check that the buffet was open after the storm instead of spending time and then finding ourselves with a dinner problem. Few cars outside it, but the lights were on and we saw people at tables.
Went to the mall and had lunch and walked around for over an hour. Then we went to Barnes and Nobles and walked around. Then we drove to a Walmart we knew about - closer to the restaurant then the other two - and went there for a while. Then dinner and home. Coming home the upper level of the bridge was closed - we presume based on what we saw that they were still clearing the bridge from the accident or making repairs due to same. It was the most traffic we had the entire trip.
Although much of the day was wasted time as we did not want to come home and got stuck in traffic (and he REALLY likes that buffet) I don’t feel like we had a wasted day. We had a lot of down time and actually I feel as if I had a chance for an enforced rest period today. (He, on the other hand, was in a constant state of concern.) Now that the batteries are replaced and new - he is worrying that the alternator is going bad or the “separator” is going bad. (The same alternator charges both the car battery under the hood that most if not all cars have and the RV batteries. The separator - surprise - keeps the RV and car batteries separated when same is going on - one is charged than when it is finished, the other is.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things work out better than one thinks they will - but always make sure to plan for the problems that may arise. Sometimes a chore that wastes a lot of time can bring some needed rest to you.
Thursday, May 16, 2019
SOMETIMES FATE IS HAVING FUN WITH ONE
Last week I said that I was finally catching up a bit. I should not have said so “out loud”. Fate had more in store for us.
Thursday morning my mom - 90 years old, still living alone, and having problems recently - telephoned me. She needed something she had in her garage and could not carry it into the house as it was too heavy. Could we stop by later in the day and bring it in for her. “Sure.” Oh, and could we bring her a burger to eat as she did not have food (which I took to mean in her house). “Sure”. We went to Wendys for our usual lunch and planned to buy a burger for her before leaving and bring it to her. I told husband I was going to pick up some groceries on the way to her house to hold her over. I knew that on Saturday she was going to my sister’s house for the weekend to go have and have her hearing tested and for Mother’s Day. I telephoned her and said that we would also bring some deli turkey, what kind of bread would she like and what else could we bring. “I have plenty of food in the refrigerator.” Huh? “Mom you said that you had no food!” “Oh, that is up here in my bedroom. I am too frightened to walk down the stairs.” OH BOY! We bought the burger and drove to her house.
Mom was upstairs. I went up and walked down her down the stairs step by step. She sat in the kitchen and talked to my husband while she ate the burger. She thought it was wonderful. (She had never been to Wendys before she went there with us a couple of months ago and had been surprised at how good their burgers were - this is not an ad for Wendys.) I looked around her kitchen. We had been there on Monday and while her house always has stuff around - don’t we all - the kitchen had been clean and neat. This time - only 3 days later - there were dirty dishes and the like all over and food out and rotting. I washed the dishes, etc and tossed the garbage.
I then suggested to her that she go to my sister’s house early (based on conversations with my sister I knew this was okay) and she would mostly not have to deal any stairs while she was there. She agreed. We then started packing clothing for her - she told me which drawer to get clothes to pack - “why are you bringing so much, I am only going for 2 days?’ “No mom, it is at least 4 days.” She has started sending her laundry out to be done and there was a sealed package of it which had been returned clean to her. I took that package also - despite the towels and bed linens also in it - the more the better. We took her medications - complete bottles and weekly box. We took both of her walkers and her cane - none of which she has been using, but has started to. All was thrown in plastic bags.
My sister met us and we got mom in. Our thoughts were that she can no longer live alone and we would keep her at sister’s house bit by bit until we managed to get her to agree to stay. That night we had call from my sister. Mom could not get up the sofa - even with help - and kept falling asleep so they were at the hospital near my sister. Mom was there for at least the weekend. There was a decision that one of her meds was too large a dosage and it was cut back - it was making her too groggy. She had been scheduled to go to a psychiatrist on this past Monday to deal with the meds, I called and canceled it as the hospital had dealt with them and if she was going to be living a county away, she should have a doctor out there. I also called her regular doctor and canceled an upcoming appointment, explaining the situation and saying that we would tell the doctor handling it out there to call him about it.
We spent Mother’s Day at the hospital. (All three of us daughters, our husbands, and her grandchildren were there at varying times - even without planning it.) I joked to someone yesterday - maybe this was her way of making sure everyone visited her for Mother’s Day. She was transferred to a rehab facility on Monday and they are working with getting her walking better. We still have to figure out where she will be going on a permanent basis. We have not talked to her about it. (No, she doesn’t even know I have a blog - so she does not read it so she will not know about any of this.)
Yesterday I had to go my client in NYC - what a mess - somehow she had bounced checks - from customers and then as a resort her checks which had paid bills - and had several situations with customers credit card payments and cancellations. (Client is not much younger than mom.) I was ready to scream between what had gone on with mom and what was happening at client. I work at client on a desk maybe 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep and it filled with all sorts of stuff around the edges - so I couldn’t spread stuff out to work. Her vault is behind the chair I sit and she seemed to need to open it - and open the door more fully than normal and was constantly hitting the back of my chair. Oh, and I had left earlier in the morning to go to her to deal better with the overcrowded parking garage - and it still took almost 2 hours after I got there to get a space (and I really had to go to the bathroom when I pulled into the garage and had to wait) so I had about an hour less than I planned and needed to do all of this. I actually took photocopies of many things to go over them again here at home.
In the middle of all of this, I heard husband’s ring on my cell phone - in my brief case on the floor in a plastic bag (concerned about bed bugs in the place) beside me. I was about to scream, but knew if he was contacting me it was IMPORTANT. He had gone out for lunch in our van and after lunch at (yes) Wendys, it would not start. He called the auto club and they got it started and he drove to our mechanic to be looked at. Our RV was already at our mechanic for the annual state inspection. The RV was finished so he drove it home and left the van. He had texted me to bitch about all this. My response “Much the same here.” I got an apology from him.
I have made arrangements to forward her mail to my sister. In the interim until that starts we are going to her house and picking up her mail. Today I said to husband that the weather was nice (rain tomorrow as it is most days lately) so I wanted to drive to mom’s house and pick up the mail and make sure that there were no packages of stuff she had ordered before all of this there. He was not happy about the time it would take, but agreed. Only junk mail of course, but lots of it. I think my mom gets more mail in a week than we get in a month - lots of catalogs and strange magazine offers. On the way home we stopped to gas up the car as I had used up a lot yesterday and we are thinking of a day trip to PA on Friday.
As we drove home from the gas station (closer to mom than us), which we have used before, the car started acting funny when we were stopped at lights. Sooooo, we picked up the van and left the car! There is a new fellow working for our mechanic (I met him once, husband met him twice as he was there yesterday) and we went in and explained. I also told him that we do not normally have serial car work done. :-) So far the costs for the vehicles have not been bad, hope this one is not expensive.
In between all of this I have managed to catch up a bit more - the “to do” pile is getting noticeably shorter. The “to scan” has gotten slightly taller though. I have managed to get an email out to a friend who husband told me had posted on FB that she needed a source for food trucks for an event - told her about a large event in that area and they must know who comes to their event. I also scanned in the “who is bringing what to the June luncheon meeting” of my embroidery chapter - both because I intended to send it to the membership and because one of the members who had not been at the last meeting to sign up had asked. Scanned and emailed out to the members. Hopefully there are more of us coming and I am not the only one bringing something other than some sort of salad.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
We never know what is going to come our way. Unfortunately it tends to be problems more than solutions. Each item has to be dealt with - to overlook it will make bigger problems down the road. When I am ready to scream about everything I think about all of those with much larger problems. Mom is aging and needs more help - but she is still with us. My client is driving me crazy, but she is a nice person and I do like working for her - most of the time (and we need the money). The vehicles are driving us crazy at this particular point in time - but they normally run fine and don’t end up costing a lot of money for repairs. New rule - van will be driven at least every Wednesday as if it had been driven more often than twice a month or so, it might not be having problems lately. I am not a “Mary Sunshine” but I know that the problems we are having are not as bad as others have and we can deal with them. And they give me something to write about. What do you think are the chances we will go to PA this Friday?
Thursday morning my mom - 90 years old, still living alone, and having problems recently - telephoned me. She needed something she had in her garage and could not carry it into the house as it was too heavy. Could we stop by later in the day and bring it in for her. “Sure.” Oh, and could we bring her a burger to eat as she did not have food (which I took to mean in her house). “Sure”. We went to Wendys for our usual lunch and planned to buy a burger for her before leaving and bring it to her. I told husband I was going to pick up some groceries on the way to her house to hold her over. I knew that on Saturday she was going to my sister’s house for the weekend to go have and have her hearing tested and for Mother’s Day. I telephoned her and said that we would also bring some deli turkey, what kind of bread would she like and what else could we bring. “I have plenty of food in the refrigerator.” Huh? “Mom you said that you had no food!” “Oh, that is up here in my bedroom. I am too frightened to walk down the stairs.” OH BOY! We bought the burger and drove to her house.
Mom was upstairs. I went up and walked down her down the stairs step by step. She sat in the kitchen and talked to my husband while she ate the burger. She thought it was wonderful. (She had never been to Wendys before she went there with us a couple of months ago and had been surprised at how good their burgers were - this is not an ad for Wendys.) I looked around her kitchen. We had been there on Monday and while her house always has stuff around - don’t we all - the kitchen had been clean and neat. This time - only 3 days later - there were dirty dishes and the like all over and food out and rotting. I washed the dishes, etc and tossed the garbage.
I then suggested to her that she go to my sister’s house early (based on conversations with my sister I knew this was okay) and she would mostly not have to deal any stairs while she was there. She agreed. We then started packing clothing for her - she told me which drawer to get clothes to pack - “why are you bringing so much, I am only going for 2 days?’ “No mom, it is at least 4 days.” She has started sending her laundry out to be done and there was a sealed package of it which had been returned clean to her. I took that package also - despite the towels and bed linens also in it - the more the better. We took her medications - complete bottles and weekly box. We took both of her walkers and her cane - none of which she has been using, but has started to. All was thrown in plastic bags.
My sister met us and we got mom in. Our thoughts were that she can no longer live alone and we would keep her at sister’s house bit by bit until we managed to get her to agree to stay. That night we had call from my sister. Mom could not get up the sofa - even with help - and kept falling asleep so they were at the hospital near my sister. Mom was there for at least the weekend. There was a decision that one of her meds was too large a dosage and it was cut back - it was making her too groggy. She had been scheduled to go to a psychiatrist on this past Monday to deal with the meds, I called and canceled it as the hospital had dealt with them and if she was going to be living a county away, she should have a doctor out there. I also called her regular doctor and canceled an upcoming appointment, explaining the situation and saying that we would tell the doctor handling it out there to call him about it.
We spent Mother’s Day at the hospital. (All three of us daughters, our husbands, and her grandchildren were there at varying times - even without planning it.) I joked to someone yesterday - maybe this was her way of making sure everyone visited her for Mother’s Day. She was transferred to a rehab facility on Monday and they are working with getting her walking better. We still have to figure out where she will be going on a permanent basis. We have not talked to her about it. (No, she doesn’t even know I have a blog - so she does not read it so she will not know about any of this.)
Yesterday I had to go my client in NYC - what a mess - somehow she had bounced checks - from customers and then as a resort her checks which had paid bills - and had several situations with customers credit card payments and cancellations. (Client is not much younger than mom.) I was ready to scream between what had gone on with mom and what was happening at client. I work at client on a desk maybe 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep and it filled with all sorts of stuff around the edges - so I couldn’t spread stuff out to work. Her vault is behind the chair I sit and she seemed to need to open it - and open the door more fully than normal and was constantly hitting the back of my chair. Oh, and I had left earlier in the morning to go to her to deal better with the overcrowded parking garage - and it still took almost 2 hours after I got there to get a space (and I really had to go to the bathroom when I pulled into the garage and had to wait) so I had about an hour less than I planned and needed to do all of this. I actually took photocopies of many things to go over them again here at home.
In the middle of all of this, I heard husband’s ring on my cell phone - in my brief case on the floor in a plastic bag (concerned about bed bugs in the place) beside me. I was about to scream, but knew if he was contacting me it was IMPORTANT. He had gone out for lunch in our van and after lunch at (yes) Wendys, it would not start. He called the auto club and they got it started and he drove to our mechanic to be looked at. Our RV was already at our mechanic for the annual state inspection. The RV was finished so he drove it home and left the van. He had texted me to bitch about all this. My response “Much the same here.” I got an apology from him.
I have made arrangements to forward her mail to my sister. In the interim until that starts we are going to her house and picking up her mail. Today I said to husband that the weather was nice (rain tomorrow as it is most days lately) so I wanted to drive to mom’s house and pick up the mail and make sure that there were no packages of stuff she had ordered before all of this there. He was not happy about the time it would take, but agreed. Only junk mail of course, but lots of it. I think my mom gets more mail in a week than we get in a month - lots of catalogs and strange magazine offers. On the way home we stopped to gas up the car as I had used up a lot yesterday and we are thinking of a day trip to PA on Friday.
As we drove home from the gas station (closer to mom than us), which we have used before, the car started acting funny when we were stopped at lights. Sooooo, we picked up the van and left the car! There is a new fellow working for our mechanic (I met him once, husband met him twice as he was there yesterday) and we went in and explained. I also told him that we do not normally have serial car work done. :-) So far the costs for the vehicles have not been bad, hope this one is not expensive.
In between all of this I have managed to catch up a bit more - the “to do” pile is getting noticeably shorter. The “to scan” has gotten slightly taller though. I have managed to get an email out to a friend who husband told me had posted on FB that she needed a source for food trucks for an event - told her about a large event in that area and they must know who comes to their event. I also scanned in the “who is bringing what to the June luncheon meeting” of my embroidery chapter - both because I intended to send it to the membership and because one of the members who had not been at the last meeting to sign up had asked. Scanned and emailed out to the members. Hopefully there are more of us coming and I am not the only one bringing something other than some sort of salad.
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK -
We never know what is going to come our way. Unfortunately it tends to be problems more than solutions. Each item has to be dealt with - to overlook it will make bigger problems down the road. When I am ready to scream about everything I think about all of those with much larger problems. Mom is aging and needs more help - but she is still with us. My client is driving me crazy, but she is a nice person and I do like working for her - most of the time (and we need the money). The vehicles are driving us crazy at this particular point in time - but they normally run fine and don’t end up costing a lot of money for repairs. New rule - van will be driven at least every Wednesday as if it had been driven more often than twice a month or so, it might not be having problems lately. I am not a “Mary Sunshine” but I know that the problems we are having are not as bad as others have and we can deal with them. And they give me something to write about. What do you think are the chances we will go to PA this Friday?
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