JURY DUTY - WHAT CAN BE WORSE THAN SAME, DOES HAPPEN

 Well, last week I wrote about not being able to get housework done due to a problem with my leg and that it was finally getting better.  But, life has its own way of having its fun!  

I was scheduled to go for jury duty yesterday (Tuesday).  Like many to most people I did not want particularly to go, even more so, due to the continuation of Covid in our area.  The idea of sitting closely in a room with other people scares the heck out of me.  But I had figured that based on my age I could not be called for jury duty again after this time as there is a minimum time that must pass between when one serves jury duty (even if not actually put on a jury) and when one can be called again and by the time I could be called again I would be past the age when I have to serve on a jury.  In addition I had already pushed the date back 6 months by requesting an automatic delay.  I had actually picked this week as my alternate date to serve as it was about as far I could push back the jury duty and it was a 4 day week – I figured that cut my chances of being seated on a jury by 20%.  That did not work.

I am not, especially during the pandemic and sitting home most of the time, a person who takes a shower every day – and since the pandemic started I have been taking a shower even less often than usual.  I figured that I should take one before going in for jury duty.  So, Monday night I climbed in the shower and took a shower.  

When I got to my feet I had a problem.  My left ankle looked as if I had a hammer hit it or something dropped on it!  Purple from collected blood.  I don't know how many days it has been like this.  We tend to dress in half light, I don't generally go looking at my body, and I can't see far clearly without my eyeglasses – so until I lifted my foot to wash it  - I had not seen the purple area.  I quickly finished my shower and yelled for my husband – who was as upset with it as I was.  

I went through the papers on my desk which had been collected to bring with me to jury duty and found the instructions on what to do in case of emergency and one cannot come.  8:30 the next morning I tried telephoning the court – steady busy signal.  Went back to sleep half an hour and then tried again.  I got a very nice woman who when I explained that a medical problem had come up overnight and I had to go to the doctor told me that all I needed to do was get a “doctor's note” and mail it along with my jury duty paperwork to them.  She did not even ask for my name or my “juror number”.  A lot simpler than I thought it would be.  Husband then telephoned the doctor for me and the first appointment available was at 3:30 that afternoon.  

After a late lunch we drove to the doctor's office.  He examined my foot asked questions and decided that it was not serious (I thought it might be PAD – as my mom has same).  I had a bad spasm in the back of my leg a little over 2 weeks ago and he said it might be from that.  Just to be sure he wanted me to get a scan of my leg.  (There was no problem getting the doctor's note for the court.)

Sitting in the car husband called the lab that was to do the test (using my phone as his has very limited minutes) figuring we would get an appointment for the next day if lucky.  They had an appointment available early evening same day – we took the appointment.  

Having taken my mom for these scans I was concerned – not only about something being found, but it has been a long waiting process and where we have to take her is not a place which is nice about doing the test or anything else.  The place we went (which is part of a chain of locations) was very nice.  Employees were wonderful – from the desk staff to the woman who did the test.  I did not have to fill in a lot of paperwork – it was mostly already filled in, just a few questions, signature and date.  Only a short wait.  The woman doing the test was very pleasant, explained what she was doing each step and kept checking that she was not hurting me.  What a difference from where mom has to go (as it is her doctor's office).  

Called today by doctor and all is fine.  We each took a big breath!  

Husband had asked the doctor if I needed to stay off my foot or keep it elevated and he said no, but we have been taking it easy and I sit here I have my feet on the one step (used to reach cabinet shelves) that is kept under the kitchen table (no place else to keep it) with my right foot on it and my left foot sitting on my right foot to elevate it a bit anyway.  

Foot looked a very little bit better today – but a bit is better than none or looking worse.

Last night husband did the dinner and late night snack cooking and even washed up afterward. Today we ran out and did a bit of food shopping – we had planned on a bigger food shopping trip today, but just the most important items were purchased.  Tomorrow it suppose to rain heavily.  Hopefully by Friday my foot will look much better – fingers crossed.    

THOUGHT OF THE DAY -

Don't put off going to the doctor and worry about is going wrong – go, get it over with it and hopefully all will be well – or at least better than one thought it would be.  

No matter what one has plans to do – whether for fun or something which one has to do – one never knows what will happen that will cause one's plans to go awry.  

We had planned to go to an event our reenactment unit is having Sunday  - outside with lots of room to stay away from others  - that husband was really looking forward to as we have missed our hobby and being with our fellow “colonial people”, but as I put off the question of going or not going, he brought it up and said that we are NOT going.  It would be too much walking around and carrying things for me  - he says.  (That to me is true love.)

CHECK ONCE, CHECK TWICE, AND THEN CHECK AGAIN ANOTHER COUPLE OF TIMES

 A word on always check what others do.  

My mom is her 90s.  Today we took her to the doctor's office for surgery to remove a cancer.  

Mom has 2 cancers.  There was a big one on her forearm and a small one on her cheek.  Per our conversation with the office before I had expected that the larger one on her arm was going to removed today.  When I called and made the appointment I was told that no, this was to remove the small on her check and to consult with the doctor about if the same sort of surgery would be used to removed the larger one or if a different sort of surgery was needed.  

Mom is in a wheelchair and has trouble “transferring” from it to most alternative seating unless they are about the same height.  

Being a nervous person who likes to be prepared I had called the office last week and asked a number of questions and was told that no, this was to remove the small on her cheek and to consult with the doctor about if the same sort of surgery would be used to removed the larger one or if a different sort of surgery was needed.  So going in I now expected them to remove the cancer on her cheek (which is the one which concerns her more as people can easily see it.   At the same time I explained that mom has a lot of trouble transferring from her wheelchair to other seats, especially if they are higher than the wheelchair.   I have been terribly nervous and not doing well at all – not from mom having cancer – but from how this was all going to go.  My sister, who is mom's primary caretaker arranged for an ambulette and  an aide from mom's nursing home to come with her and help us.  This was a great help as it cut about an hour each way of travel as mom live half an hour further from us than the doctor is – so it was an extra half hour to her and then back again to the doctor (reversed on way home).  

When I went into the procedure room with mom apparently no one knew that they “could do the procedure with her in her wheelchair”.  It was finally worked out to do so.  Then the doctor started on her arm – which actually had made sense to me as it was the much larger of the two.  I questioned this and he said it was better to do it first – I agreed – but said that then I should not have been told the opposite.  Two things I did not expect – but yet, that is how crazy things are now.

The last time mom went in for the procedure her aide went with her instead of me.  I had thought there would be another session after wards.  The aide was handed the paperwork with the instructions for care and followup.  Since she needed it for the nursing home to follow, my husband took a good photo of it so we would have it for our records.  When we got home I sent the file to my sisters with my info about what went on.  Later in the evening husband printed out the paperwork for me to file in my records for mom.  He noticed errors.  “Did your mom have a something removed from her nose?”  No – her arm and the other cancer is on her cheek!  Someone else's name had been written on the form, crossed out and mom's info put in.  The appointment listed was for a different time.  Unknown phone number on the form as her phone number.  What!!!?  Just when my stomach was no longer feeling nervous...

I emailed my sisters again and told them all this.  Tomorrow we have to run some errands and now I have to call the doctor's office on Friday to find out what is going on – and then call mom's nursing home to let them about the errors and the resolution with the doctor.

Similarly, but less life threatening – a friend paid off their car lease.  A month later they received a past due notice and they have not been able to correct this matter.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK

Check, double check and triple check – and then have someone else check – any important papers you receive and are filing away.  Don't trust someone else to have filled them in properly.

MOM MOVED TO A NEW RESIDENCE - AND WE HAD PROBLEMS TAKING HER OUT TO THE DOCTOR

 I am guessing that I have mentioned before that I have an older mom – 93 now. She has been living in a very nice assisted living residence which is run by a non-profit organization of our faith. I mention the last part of that sentence as due to same it has been a very comfortable atmosphere for her – the rabbi's wife comes in late Fridays to light the Sabbath candles, the rabbi comes by for holiday services – they have a synagogue for same, the seats are fold up chairs so the space can be used as multipurpose room – including setting up tables and chairs for a New Year's party. Each floor has on the wall 2 Sedar plates (ceremonial plates used for Passover) framed and hanging on the wall – a comforting thing to see and helps one remember at which floor to get off the elevator. Familiar traditional foods for holidays and in general are served. While the residence is non-sectarian (I had a friend who was Roman Catholic who lived there for some time before she passed away and when I would talk to her – she would talk about how nice it was (and feeling uncomfortable due to her religion to go inside she would sit outside the synagogue to hear and see the services), it is very comforting to older Jewish people to have this atmosphere of their life as it had been around them.

Unfortunately it is also rather expensive and mom (being 93) has come to the point where she no longer can afford to live there, as well as reaching the point where she needs more care. The organization also has a rehabilitation and nursing home building on the site (and are currently building apartment buildings for those who are not in the need of either type of facility, but are looking to live with some help available to them). The nursing home does not have any vacancies – but the non-profit just took over another nursing home at a different location and it did have vacancies – so last Friday my sister and her family moved mom to this nursing home.

Two months ago I had made an appointment for mom to go yesterday (Tuesday) to a doctor (the one husband and I cannot stand their disorganization). I may have mentioned that husband and I are the “mom shleppers” we take mom to her doctor appointments (except during most of the pandemic as we are limited in going out due to same, but we had to start doing so again to help out my sister). Over the past two months mom has gone for tests at this doctor's office but now she was finally going to see the doctor himself. I checked with my sister when she told me that mom was being moved as to mom continuing to see her doctors and my sister told me that it was not a problem – “you just go and pick her up – same as before”. Well, yesterday we found out – not so much.

My sister told me over the weekend that we had to be “certified” to take mom out in our car. She has spoken with mom's caseworker and it would not a be a problem – she would do it when we came to pick up mom. (Implies that she knows we are taking mom out and when?)

I called the nursing home on Monday (first business day after mom moved in) to talk to mom's caseworker – voicemail that she would call back the next day, left a message. I called again and spoke with the front desk and was put through – another caseworker, then nursing director, then nursing supervisor – all went to voicemail with same message. Then I was put through to the physical therapy department (as they would do the certification) and spoke with a woman there – who said that they, not the caseworker do the certifications. I was concerned as we had been told it was a 15 minute process – and we would be on a very tight schedule. Mom is now living a half an hour further away from us – and from this doctor, along with allowing for getting mom into the car we were leaving at 2:30 for her 4pm appointment – we added another half hour for certification instead of 15 minutes – just in case.

Sounds organized – right?

Quite literally as we pulled off our driveway into the street my cell phone rang. It was the caseworker telling me that I could not take mom out as no arrangements had been made in advance to take her out and who was this doctor anyway – they know nothing about him – arrangements have to made 72 hours (3 days) in advance! I explained to her that this appointment had been 2 months ago, “yesterday” (Monday) was the first business day since mom had moved there, etc. I gave her the doctor's name and where he was located for her to talk to and we continued on our trip.

We were using GPS to find the location of the nursing home. Our timing was about to right to get there – but husband got confused about the GPS directions when we got off the main road (despite my figuring out where it would be located and explaining same in advance – so we had to make 2 U-turns (went wrong way, then passed turn on way back) and he hates to make U-turns. The location is on the service road of the main road – limited access highway – on the Island. As we drove we passed a senior residence from another company – just before it the GPS told us to stay right and then turn right – the road ahead of us split to the right and to the left was the entry back onto the highway in the direction we had come from, so we stayed right – boy, oh boy was that an error! It took us another 15 minutes to get back to the expressway service road. Go figure, below the sign for the other senior residence was a sign for mom's. There at last!

When we went in the entrance and I said mom's name the woman at the desk said “Oh, yes!”. She knew why we were there and who to call. Someone showed up in a couple minutes with mom (the caseworker I found out) and two people showed up to certify us to take mom out. (This did impress me a lot.)

I was given papers to sign and papers to keep and a large envelope to give to the doctor's staff for info from them about mom's visit. The certifying us to take her in car was just watching us help her get in the car – and mostly they did so. And we were off!

The doctor's visit was annoying as always – and I will skip the details other one of the two us had to leave when the doctor came (room too small, my fanny we have been both together with her in that room before) and I left husband as he better understands what doctors are saying (from years running a medical facility he speaks “doctor”).

We then brought mom back to her new home. It was rush hour and we were traveling in the direction that most of the rush hour travels so it took awhile. When we arrived back at her nursing home we wheeled her in – very impressed with them again – my error, I left mom's “pass” out in the car and ran out and got it for them. I explained that mom had not had dinner as when I made the appointment and she was at the old location her dinner was 6:15 and I had timed it out for her to be home for same, now that her dinner is 5 pm, I will try to make future appointments to take same into account. In normal times we would have taken her out for dinner (would solve our dinner problem also), but due to Covid we did not want to do so. No problem, they would make sure she had something to eat.

We then started our trek home in rush hour.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK – Always find out in advance about what needs to be done when going somewhere for the first time. Per the paperwork from the certification they need to know 72 hours in advance if mom will be going out to okay it with her doctor and they have to know at least that far in advance about any medical appointments.

I made the mistake of relying on my sister and not calling when she first said that mom would be moving here to find out about taking mom out and so on.

An aside – I did finish the paperwork for the real estate tax exemption over this past weekend and we drove today to the County building and I delivered it to the County Assessor's office and received a receipt for it. This office is normally jammed out the door, especially this time of year. There was one person in there talking to an employee, when they left, I was next and when I was leaving one other person walked in. When I commented on this to the employee who helped me he said “You should have been here an hour ago – the line was huge.” I guess going places late in the day has an advantage.

MISSED ANOTHER POST LAST WEEK - SORRY, BUT SO OVERWHELMED ALL OF A SUDDEN

 My apologies for missing last week's post – seems to be happening more and more.  Amazing how staying home a lot more (almost all the time) results in not getting things done in the house.  Always thought if we stayed home more (instead of going out daily for lunch at Wendys and wasting time walking around in stores for no particular purpose other than for husband to get out of the house) I would get so much more done – ha ha!

I was caught up last week in preparing for Thanksgiving,  For about 30 years I made Thanksgiving dinner for our two families.  Then when we stopped having our families (or anyone else) in our house due to having had bedbugs (and not wanting to EVER have them again) I made  Thanksgiving dinner for the two of us for 8 years with no problems.  Last year and this year husband has helped me with dinner – which for some reason leads to problems making the meal and finishing it on time – and a much bigger mess in the kitchen.  

Never buy a turkey bigger than one's baking pan – go smaller, not larger.  Husband has a particular market chain (two locations in our greater area) that he likes to buy the turkey from as we can get a fresh turkey instead of frozen – less figuring out the logistics of turkey cooking if one does not have to deal with defrosting.  Normally they have several categories of turkey sizes – this year they had two – 12 lbs and 20 lbs.  I had checked my notebook of past holiday dinners and knew we should buy 14-26 lbs (and even that I a lot for 2 people) and suggested a 12 lb turkey.  “NO NO!  That will be all bones and not meat!” I was told.  Rather than get into an argument in the store – we bought a 20 lb turkey, though I knew it was too big to deal with.  Somehow it all worked out though the turkey stuck over the end of the pan and its weight collapsed the rack it was on.  His solution - “We need to buy a big roasting pan and not use your baking pan.”  Oven floor is a bit of a mess and needs a cleaning from the drips.

In addition over the past several weeks we have taken my mom to the doctor 3 times (with another trip tomorrow).  This is the doctor with the office I call “the office from hell” as nothing ever goes right on their end (yes, I would take her elsewhere, but my sister insists on this doctor, who is her husband's doctor).  Though these 3 visits the office was not overcrowded and we did see the staff person we were seeing in a very reasonable time instead of multiple hours of waiting we experienced before the pandemic.   We also visited our doctor twice – once for blood work (before Thanksgiving of course) and our annual checkup this past week.  

At the same time I have my usual 2 year end urgent projects to deal with. I have to take courses (online) to be able to prepare tax returns in 2022 and I also have to complete the paperwork for a senior partial exemption of our real estate taxes.  These courses have to be completed by December 31.  Real estate taxes here are rather higher than elsewhere as same is just about the only taxes collected for our township and our county and costs are high here.  In other counties in the state each township handles this exemption with a minimum of paperwork.  Our county handles the exemption paperwork and determination of exemption.  I usually end up dropping off the application in two stacks of paper as I cannot figure out how to attach it all together  - over 100 pages.  This paperwork has to be completed by and at the county assessor's office by January 2 – which means by December 31, especially since January 2, 2022 is on a Saturday.  We drop the exemption papers off in person as one year there was a great deal of confusion, in general, about whether or not exemption papers had been received from people, so basically these papers have to be filed, in person, before December 24.

I have finished in advance a good part of copying the items I need for the tax exemption and have only the proof of expenses and income for our 2 businesses (which each make next to nothing) to finish copying and then I have to assemble all of the papers and add my summaries to it.  So, I started working on taking the exams online.  I have 2 of them finished – 5 credits of 20 required.  

It suddenly dawned on me that I HAVE to get the exemption papers done much sooner than I was thinking – as I said before December 24 if we are going to drop them off in person – and I have to switch to getting same done and prepared to start finishing it up do so today – but a new situation popped up.  I had to write and email out the newsletter/meeting notice for my embroidery chapter – and that took preference – and all 3 versions of it are out (members, prospective members, region newsletter editors).  

I also have an unusually large load of laundry to get done – normally one load of general clothes, this week 2 loads, plus a load of jeans.  Not sure why so many clothes – we did not dress any differently than we normally do or for more days.  

But yet – I have stopped to make sure I do not go 2 weeks before posting to all of you.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When overwhelmed – stop, step back, figure the order things have to be done by and pick the one with the closest deadline.  

THIS DOCTOR'S OFFICE IS NEVER ORGANIZED

 Sorry to post late again.  Yesterday was a short day as we had to get ready to take my 93 yo mom to a doctor today.  

Before the pandemic my husband and I had been “the schleppers”.  Since both of my sisters and their husbands work full time and we are mostly retired and both self-employed, we can better spend time, normally, to take mom to assorted doctors and similar.

During the pandemic it has been tried as hard as possible for mom not to leave her assisted living residence to decrease her contacts with people and her chances of getting Covid.  (Her residence has done what we think is an excellent job of keeping the residents safe and well from the pandemic.)

Since my husband and I are also “seniors” and both have medical conditions which further make us high risk for Covid, my middle sister, who handles most of things involving my mom, had to take over as schlepper also for some medical emergencies which arose.  

But schlepping mom in addition to sister's needing to deal with her husband's medical conditions and her own, meant that she used up all of her allowed time off from work.  So we had to step up and take mom today to one of her doctors.  

We don't mind taking mom – my husband says he even enjoys it somewhat as it is something different for us to do – but we REALLY don't like take her to one doctor's office.  Doctor is a good doctor – that my brother-in-law is alive is proof of that as brother-in-law has heart trouble and very nice - but his office is in a building which houses doctors who are part of a network.  It is dealing with the network that drives husband and me crazy.  

Our first dealings with this doctor and this setup was a nightmare – in organization and it this continues to be true.  We took mom there after she had been in the hospital and had to go for followup (he had not seen her in the hospital).  The followup was the day after she had been to the hospital and my sister had made the arrangements.  We arrived for her appointment and the appointment had been made with a different doctor.  After a telephone conversation with my sister – it was to be Dr. Q or no one.  With my sister, my husband and I all complaining the office staff setup an appointment with Dr. Q for mom – some hours later in the day.  We had lunch.  We ended up spending the time between in Barnes and Nobles – husband walked around looking at what he wanted to and I pushed mom in her wheelchair aisle by aisle through the store.  When we saw the doctor basically he said nothing needed to be done – and mom should be retested at a (fixed) future date.  

When I try to make appointments for mom they cannot be made with the doctors' office, but need to be made though the hospital system's setup – for a doctor appointment in New York State I have to telephone to Florida!

No appointment up to now has gone well and all involved sitting in the waiting room for this group of doctors for hours.  Nothing is done at the appointments – each time they take mom's information again and try to weigh her (she can barely stand – how can she stand on a scale and not hold on – I have learned to get the wellness office at her residence give me in writing her last weight taken there, as well as copy of her meds).

Mom had a problem two weeks ago and was taken to a local hospital as an outpatient – and was referred back to her doctor.  Since, my sister could not take her – it was up to us.  I told mom about the appointment during our weekly telephone call last week and again by telephone, reminded her the yesterday.   We over allowed time to get to her and get her to the doctor as we never know what the traffic will be driving out there (about 45 minutes away from us) or how long it will take us to get her ready and out to our car.  

Everything went fine picking her up and getting her into the car (not an easy thing to do).  Drive to the doctor went fine – but all this is the easy part.  When we arrived at the building his office is in (again, a building offices of doctors all associated with this hospital group – a one story building) there was havoc in the parking lot.  The lot was completely filled and they were parking one's car for one so they could move it as needed.  This has happened before, but never saw so busy as today.  Husband dropped mom, in her wheelchair, and me off at the door to doctor's office – we had figured on this problem and he had planned to stay in the car if he could not park, though he likes to come in with us as he worked in a medical related field and talks “doctor”, as well as it is good to have two people listening (mom's hearing is not good).

When I mom and I entered the waiting room of doctor's office I was shocked at how empty it was.  I had to sign her in on a tablet (theirs) based system – I remembered to bring my soft tip stylus to use on the tablet as I don't show up on it when I use my finger, let alone I did not want to touch a touch pad that other people have touching.  One problem is always asks for one to put their hand on it for sign in – not sure why and while my hand does not, of course, work for this – neither did mom's when she tried it our first trip there.  I made sure to wipe my hand down well with hand sanitizer after wards – is this the best idea, for everyone to touching their hands to these pads during the pandemic?  Husband came in rather quickly – he had been lucky a car pulled out and he pulled in.  

We were shocked when we were actually called into to see the nurse practitioner a bit early.  I had taken an appointment with her as the doctor did not have any open appointments until December.  Hmm, maybe things were not as bad as they had been?  

Nurse who took us in started taking doing a test on mom.  She talked with us about why we were there and then left room.  Yeah, there had to be a problem.  The nurse practitioner we had the appointment with was not associated with mom's doctor and did not work in the same medical field as we were there for!  As I was getting ready to scream and yell – “not easy to take mom out, not good for her to be out at all...” they said that they were making arrangements for a correct person to see her.  So we did get to deal with the exam today.  Told that what she came there about – she was okay, changed a medication to help with the problem – BUT – she has an entirely different problem!!!

So we now have 3 more appointments for mom – two for testing (3 tests – 2 given together) and one to see the doctor – himself.  

Not the most organize place to go and I am not sure if they had not made the mistake they would have done the EKG at all – and her medical tests at her residence's doctor have not shown any of the problems they say exist!

On the other hand – it was good to see her.  

Tomorrow it is suppose to rain, first day it does not, we have to put our car back together as it normally is and I have to move things I keep in the front for mom to sit in the front passenger seat as that is hard enough for her to get into, the back seat would be impossible.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes things go well, sometimes we have to deal with stupidity and there is nothing we can do about it.  As husband once said to me when I was upset when he was in medical office with similar problems - “stop getting them upset – they are going to be giving me shots!!”

ITS THE LITTLE THINGS.... CONTINUED

 Here's another example - 

I had renewed our reenacting unit's insurance - did the paperwork, paid for it and paid dues to a group that unit has to belong to get the insurance.  I was done for the year!

Or was I?  

A couple of weeks ago I realized I had not received the "Certificate of Insurance" which proves we have coverage and what the coverage is.  So, I sent an email to the insurance agent and he emailed back the certificates to me.  We get a certificate for our unit to prove we have the insurance from them and 3 more certificates as 3 different venues require us to have them added to our policy (in case something happens due to us) and we have to send them their certificates (I keep a copy of each).  I mailed out two of these certificates to places where we are actually doing events.  The third place I do not mail their certificate until just before the event or they lose it, so I did not mail that one.  Done with mailing the certificates out until the fall.  Check it off my list - take a breath.

The certificates had the wrong expiration date on them!  The policy expired two months before it started according to the certificates!!   New ones emailed to me with the correct dates on them and a big apology and I received them over the weekend.  I printed out the two which have to go out right away with a cover letter explaining why they were getting a second certificate and I put the envelopes in my outgoing mail basket to go out next Sunday night when we again go out and post outgoing mail.

Well, there is an event this coming weekend and the venue contacted our president - did we get a new certificate for this year?  He contacted my husband.  I explained to husband that it had been mailed to them, but was wrong and corrected one being mailed out with the mail to go out Sunday.  He scanned it into the computer and emailed it to them and we went out late tonight and posted our outgoing mail to date so they would have it sooner (hopefully before the event) - extra trip out and time spent.

 AND - we mailed in the renewal of our van's registration over a month ago and have not received the registration yet - we realized this last weekend. I checked with our bank's computer and the check had not cleared the bank. So Monday I telephoned the DMV, the hold was not as long as I thought it would be.  Now what is strange is a month before we mailed this registration renewal in, we mailed in the renewal of the registration of our RV - which is basically also a van -that came in 2 weeks.  The automated message said that they could not help with registrations mailed in less than 4 weeks ago. Since it was more than 4 weeks I waited put through the computer system to find out what was going on.  Nice woman came on and told me that it had been "processed".  If it was process why hadn't the check cleared our bank?  She did not know.  It was processed on June 21, I should call back if I do not have it 14 days.  I pointed out to her that the registration would expire before then - what should I do if it is not here before the expiration date - can we drive the van - NO!!  So we are waiting to hopefully receive the registration - at least the check is finally clearing the bank as of today.  If we don't get the registration before it expires, hopefully our car will not have problems and we won't need to drive the van.

I then had to call our medical insurance as one of my prescriptions was turned down - as past  6 months, need to go to back to the doctor for new prescription?  Huh, never had this problem before for self or husband - and why did all of other prescriptions go through.  Found out doctor had written the prescription for too long a time and I have to call him to fix it - why did they give the first renewal?  Our state passed a terrible law some years ago.  In an effort to stop the theft of prescription pads, all prescriptions must go directly through a computer system.  In the old days we would get the prescription, make sure they were correct and take whichever ones we needed filled right away to the pharmacy.  Now we have no idea if they are correct and if we don't need a medication renewed as we have, still get it anyway - if it is one of the expensive ones, we tell them to put it back and we call when needed - more work for pharmacy staff and time wasted picking up prescriptions. 

We need to go food shopping and plan to do so tomorrow. So in addition to writing to all of you nice readers and doing our laundry I took inventory of what food we have and what we need.  How nice to do something normal - we may even go out lunch at Wendys first - our third time doing so since mid March 2020. 

 THOUGHT OF THE WEEK - Is it the pandemic which is making everything weird and resulting in all of these stupid small problems one after another after another after...?

Are any of you finding you are having this same problem of one stupidity after another?

 

    

MOTHER NATURE DOES NOT HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR

 Well, that relatively small snow storm that was headed our way changed from under 6 inches to 6 to 12 inches and came in at more than that.  Around here generally the largest amount of snow falls “to the north and west” - ie.  inland.  A big deal was made that this storm was to have the heaviest snow to the south and east – ie. closest to the ocean.  

The storm started overnight Saturday to Sunday (late enough that we were able to go out to pick up Chinese food for dinner as we have been doing on Saturday nights.  When I put the kitchen garbage in the outside pail around 10 pm light snow was starting to fall.  It snowed steadily on Sunday.  It snowed heavily on Monday.  It snowed lightly on Tuesday.  After putting that garbage in the pail Saturday night we stayed in the house until yesterday (Tuesday) when we started to clear the snow.  We managed to move the thigh high snow in the original driveway cut by chopping it down with the shovel and blowing it to the side of the driveway and move the snow between the car and the sidewalk with the blower.  Our neighbor on that side of our house had cleared the sidewalk across that part of our driveway (on his side) with his heavier duty snow blower for us – how nice of him (yes, I sent an email thanking him) – this being an oddity as normally no one helps us.  We were working on clearing the driveway as very light snow fell.  

How much snow did we get here (as opposed to any point on Long Island, NYC, upstate NYS, NJ or CT or anywhere else this storm hit?  Hard to say.  When we went out today (Wednesday) the snow between our house and the circular part of our driveway was maybe 4 inches.  The snow across the circular part – next to the (more or less) center semi circle of the driveway (and where we park our van) was around 18 inches high.  The snow had been blowing so if take an average it was around 11 inches – the storm dropped 30 inches in at least one community.  The snow in the two driveway cuts was close to 3 feet high.  Even after the snow had stopped and the road was clear – the snow plows, sand trucks, and salt trucks kept coming.  At 11 am this morning the road was again plowed.

So, today when we went out to clear the other (about) 2/3 of the driveway – including the second cut – the first cut into the street had been partially refilled and we had to clear out that side again.  With no more snow falling it seemed easier to blow the snow – then again, I was not the one pushing it most of the time – when it was hard to push into the packed snow we each took a side and both pushed.  We started probably around 12:30 after eating an early lunch and finished close to 5 pm.  

The news reports had been saying to expect 2 more snow storms – one at the end of this week and another on Monday.  Luckily they have changed to a light storm at the end of the week and maybe rain on Monday.  

We are also dealing with a second situation. When we went to the doctor in November he changed the dosage of one of my husband's medications – no refills, husband is suppose to come back after 90 days to have more blood taken to see if the new dosage is correct.  I was very careful to count when he had to go back – next Monday or Tuesday - for the blood test.  As husband has been sitting here in a panic over all the snow for the past 2 weeks he is also in a panic as to when we will get to the doctor for the test between all the storms (and he does not like to drive in snow) and then go a few days later when the doctor gets the results to pick up his prescription (as well as some other prescriptions we need to renew).  Since we can now get the car out of the driveway (unless they plow yet again) I will get up early tomorrow (for us) and call to see if he can go for the blood test tomorrow.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

An old adage is “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.”  I have changed it to “Never put off until tomorrow what needs to be done and cannot be if it snows tomorrow.”  If we had gone last week to the doctor the blood test would be done with and the prescriptions renewed and we would not have to worry about weather permitting us to do both. 

LIVING WITH THREAT OF COVID-19

Well  - it has gotten much more serious dealing with the Corona Virus or COVID-19 as it is now being called.  I certainly hope that all of you and your loved ones are well and stay so. 

Last week I called and canceled a follow up doctor visit for mom as she should NOT go out – she will be 91 the end of this month.  Doctor's office was very nice and told me the  - very good  - results for mom.  I have not made appointments with two other doctors she needs to go to – they can wait until it is safe for her to go out. 

During this past week our lives changed.  We had changed to going to the post office, lunch at Wendys, an attempt to find comfort items for my husband – more hand sanitizer, more hand soap, more alcohol, and/or more food – did get some more hand soap in small bottles and a bit more food.  Shelves remain empty day to day, though I did point out to husband that we do go late in the day and that may be the problem.  One of the local supermarket chains is opening early – 6 am to 7:30 am – special for only senior citizens – we just qualify for same, but 6 am?  I fall asleep at 5 am.  We may go if they continue to do this and we continue not to find things.  We are not in danger of running out of anything for a few weeks – but my husband is from a very nervous family and panics easily.  I keep reminding how much of these things we have, which always ends with “and we have more in the RV”.  We then would go home without going to other kinds of stores to walk around.  Last Sunday we did not go out to our usual Costco, BJ s , big Walmart as we normally do for fun, but it was the same as the other days. 

This week we went to the Post Office once to mail out paid bill payments,  still daily to Wendys for lunch – but, of course, we can no longer eat in Wendys – just home and eat at home.  One day went back out to supermarket – still the same. 

Last Saturday night we took in Chinese food (no dinners out any longer and that was before they ordered to only have to go/delivered orders) for dinner.  We did not go to the movies.  The theater we go to is an independent and they had sent out an email that they were going to spread the showings out further and clean/sanitize between shows – especially the seats and arm rests, bathrooms and food counters, but we still decided not to go.  We stayed in a watched a movie on TV. 

Now, everyone has been making fun of people running to buy toilet paper right?  In the middle of the movie we each received a text message.  MY sister texted me to see how my husband was doing as she knows he panics. HIS sister texted him as she never knows what is going on in the world and – yes – she suddenly found that there is toilet paper available and she is out of same for her family, let alone the news is also, but we would never be that on toilet paper ever, and she needed her big brother to help her find some.  (Eventually her husband found someone selling toilet paper at a 7-11 and bought for who knows how much money.)

Well, I have our food organized  - cans all in rows, lists of what is in the basement freezer on the refrigerator, - and we are eating less than normal at dinner.  Husband said that he would stop going to Wendys and picking up lunch – but each meal we do same, leaves more food in the house.  I am no longer using paper towels to wash the dishes – but husband did not want me to go back to using a sponge – it swirled around in my head – then I remembered – I have my old kitchen towels that are raggedy and  use for cleaning up in the kitchen – I cut up one and I have 6 pieces to use – one a day – to wash the dishes and then they will be washed. 

I normally put out clean towels on Monday and on Wednesday and Friday do so again in the kitchen and on Thursday do so in the two bathrooms.  I am now changing the towels every other day. 

My hands are raw from washing them – the cuts on them from same worry me – but what else can I do. 

Oh, today husband had a text from his sister – do we know where she can buy fish – she suddenly claims she can only fish or she gets sick (in the past it was because it was less fattening) – I guess she will be getting sick often as one will have to eat what is available.  Then again, I had expected him to hear from her upset that they could no longer eat out (every meal) and her gym (she goes daily) was closed. 

On the other hand – being in the house all the time, I am getting work done – on client's taxes and  household clearing up. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Please stay safe – listen to what the instructions are for where YOU live and follow them.  Stay away from those outside your home as much as you can and far enough away for safety.  If we are all careful there should be fewer people ill or worse.  One day this will all be over and we will be able to put our lives back together again. 

Oh, and for something to relieve the stress – do a search for penguins at Chicago aquarium .  Since there were to be no visitors they were allowed out to walk around the building  - they look like tourists seeing the other exhibits!

CHANGES IN PLANS OCCUR AND ONE HAS TO DEAL WITH THEM

I had plans for tonight's post – but things come up and I almost forgot what I had planned to write about. 

We were suppose to take mom back to her cancer surgeon today for a second follow up visit.  I have spent part of the last two weeks getting the wellness center at mom's assisted living residence to do the blood tests requested by this and also by mom's oncologist and send the results to them.  My sister who sees mom a lot more than we do as mom lives near her, had to go in and talk to the staff to get the results sent.  I checked with this doctor and the blood work results were finally there – great, we could take her there today.  Oh heck, I had not realized that today was Ash Wednesday when I made the appointment.  Why does that matter?  Well husband is Catholic and cannot eat meat today – so for lunch he had to have Wendys fish instead of his usual lunch.  So?  Well, often eating fried foods makes his stomach ill and we were concerned about eating lunch, then having to drive out, pick up mom, take her to the doctor, take her back to her residence and then drive home if his stomach was bad.  But he figured he would be okay, but was not happy about taking mom to the doctor today.

Yesterday, the day before the appointment, I was called by the doctor's office - though they thought they were calling mom as we gave them my phone number instead – why? - you will see in a later  paragraph.  They wanted to move her appointment an hour earlier.  Big problem.  It takes, from the time we arrive at mom's residence, an hour and a half to get her to an appointment 15-30 minutes from there.  We have to go up to up to her room, take the big wheels off her wheel chair (or it is terribly heavy and does not fit in the back of our car and she cannot deal with getting in out van). Stop at the wellness office for a list of her meds for the doctor (easier than trying to remember).  Get her through the building to the front (only) entrance.  (Mom's apartment is literally the furthest in the building – top floor, end of the hall.) We then have to sign her out of the building – and we have to sign in as we run through the lobby coming in and then again when we leave.  We have found it easier to take mom to our parked car than try to get her in or out of the car in front of the building – curbs and sidewalk cuts are problems.  So we have to push her – uphill – to the parking area – either together or me as too hard for husband to do.  Then we have to get her into the car and stow her wheelchair.  Then the drive.  Then on the other end we have to park – where there is room for mom to get out into her wheelchair (we have to get her a handicapped permit so we can park in those spaces with her) and then get her into the building.  This last can be very easy to do – or hard – one building was on a hill with the building at the bottom of the hill and we had trouble finding the doctor's office – out and down hill, then back up hill – with both of us pushing.  Most of the doctors offices require one to sign in 15 minutes or 30 minutes before the appointment time or they cancel it.  Mom's lunch is at 11:45 am. Her dinner at 4:45 pm. If I make the appointment for 2:30  - it allows us to each lunch, drive out there, pick her at 1 pm and get her to the doctor – after she has eaten lunch.  Other than the “doctor with the office from h*ell”  she will be back at her residence, with the big wheels back on her wheelchair and settled in, in time for her dinner.  So 1:30 pm was a big problem.  We compromised on 2 pm.  

So now mom was going to have a problem with her lunch, husband was going to have a problem with his lunch – so I had a problem in general.  Then I had a thought.  I telephoned the doctor's office back and asked about moving the appointment to a different day.  Doctor would have plenty of time to her surgery and not rush us, husband did not have to worry about his stomach after lunch, and mom would not miss lunch.  First date offered was next Wednesday – my embroidery meeting and my only day out – no way.  We settled on a date in mid March.  Doctor's office happy.  Husband happy.  I had to call mom and let her know of the change.  I had been texting my sister as I went along in case she spoke to mom before I did, she could let mom know.  Mom is hard to reach, at least for me, by telephone.  By the time that generally I can call her in the afternoon – she is at dinner.  I figured that the best time to call was around 7:30 pm as that is when she calls me.  First time I left a message – but knew she would never get it.  I called another 4 times as time passed.  I went down to cook dinner.  Mom called,  “Did you call me?”  I explained.  “No, I never hear that there are messages.”  Huh, hear that there is a message, she has to look at the machine – and has being doing so for over 40 years.  Okay, go on there from there.  She remembered we suppose to go the next day and I explained about the change.  Fine with her.  We discussed it four times.  I also told her that if my sister called and said it was to be earlier tomorrow – that was old news and changed.  We did not get a call from her today asking where we were so apparently all went well with the change.  Mom is 90 and a year ago I would not question that she understood and would remember the appointment and the change,  but a year can make a big difference.

Next wonderfulness was our basement freezer.  We have a small freezer that we bought probably 30 years ago or more (it has out lived at least 2 refrigerators, probably 3).  We used to grow vegetables in our back yard in summer and would freeze the excess in this freezer.  Have not done so in at least a decade and it was being used for backup frozen vegetables and meat since, until about 3 years ago when we somehow switched to buy the food for dinner that day.  So it has mostly sat in the basement with some commercial frozen vegetables in it and a few other items.  Last year we used it when our refrigerator died and we had some items in its freezer.  It had about 4-5 inches of ice on the top coils.  Husband will not let me put frozen items at the back of the freezer in the new refrigerator – he read an article that the back needs lots of space for air to circulate – so I have (somehow) a smaller freezer in this refrigerator than our old and I cannot use about 1/6-1/4 of the space in it.  I figured I would melt the ice in the basement freezer so it could go back to being used – and since there was nothing in it as we used the last item stored in it about a month ago – this was the time to do it. 

I knew it would take a long time and would be messy. I had a plan.  I needed to remember to do this when we come home fairly early from running errands.  Today was the day.  We were home early and I would be making many trips to the basement at night to do laundry and could combine the trips down for both purposes.  When we came home I went to the basement and shut off the freezer.  I put in two large, deep baking pans – one on the right of one shelf and one on the left of the other shelf to catch the dripping water as I knew the bottom drip pan would not hold anywhere near enough and would be a mess to empty.  I grabbed lots of old used for junk purposes towels and spread them in front of the freezer.  I propped the door open, set an alarm for an hour and went upstairs to work.  An hour later – nothing had started – reset the alarm and back upstairs.  An hour later – still no melting, reset again and started to cook dinner.  After dinner while watching TV in the kitchen the alarm went off again. I went back down – goody!!  Two small puddles (dots) of water in one of the baking pans – it was working.  I went back to the kitchen – husband asked what I was doing.  I told him.  He had to inspect the situation.  He decided that what I was doing would never work.  He was going to use his heat gun.  Luckily he decided that was too hot.  We sat there for a couple of hours as he melted the ice with his hairdryer.  Dumping the baking pans and a couple of times the bottom drip pan into a bucket.  (I have done this before – just with a lot less ice – and knew that I would not be able to carry the baking pans or the drip pan to the sink without spilling.  Finally the last big piece of ice was loose and fell free.  After dumping the last of the water and ice into the basement sink he went upstairs and I dried the inside of the freezer. It is sitting with the door ajar to dry out before being plugged back in. 

Sooo, my post on doing your income taxes will be delayed until at least next week. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Plans are plans  - until they go awry.  Whether the appointment has to be changed for someone else's convenience or needs or what you plan to do in the house needs to be done differently than you think it will  - and takes more of your time as a result, or have you plans to write something and other items come up which need to be written about first  - they go awry. 

One has to deal with the changes and see what can be done.  If nothing else – the appointment change and the change in how we had to defrost the freezer gave me something to write about and you get out of hearing about income taxes for at least a week!

Mom's house and doctors plus stored away Christmas

Mom is taking much of everyone's time again.  Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch once said of his mother - “One mother can take care of 6 children, but 6 children cannot take care of one mother”.  It is true.  I have 2 sisters, we each have a husband, but there is a niece and nephew – that is 8 adults to divide up taking care of mom.

The family house is cleared out – mostly due to my sisters, brother-in-laws, and niblings.  ( I had invented a genderless word for nieces and nephews combined as there should be one – niblings.  When I posted this on some group that I am on, someone replied that someone before me had come up with a word for nieces and nephews combined – guess what it was – yes, they also came up with niblings.  I am now spreading the word in hope that this long missing word becomes common. Now I need a common word for aunts and uncles – any ideas out there?)  There is a broker showing the house now.  So, new problems come up. 

The family house is in the county and township as husband and I live in. The county (and included townships and a city) has had for decades ongoing problems with the local real estate taxes and how properly the houses are assessed for the value to be taxed,  In attempting to fix one problem an entirely new one arose.  One can “grieve” their assessment (value of the house to be used for the real estate tax calculations) which means that one files with the county and says that the amount they say the house is worth is wrong and it should be less.  There is no downside to this – they cannot raise your assessment, only lower it if they agree with you.  One can do this one's self or one can use one of several companies which do the paperwork and deal with the county for you.  Husband and I have done this for a long time with a company and our house value has always been lowered.  Mom has not done in the past until last year (which is for next year's taxes) as she was afraid of losing her senior  partial exemption from part of the school tax (part of the real estate taxes), though I had assured her it would not.   

Two problems arose with the sale of the house related to the real estate taxes.  First one is that since mom has this senior exemption she amount she pays for real estate taxes is probably less than someone buying her house will pay (it based on income and being over 65 plus one cannot have children in school).  The second is that the broker told my sister that mom's taxes are terribly high – higher than the neighbor next door with the same model house, with additions that mom does not have.  So yesterday my sister emailed me for help with same – since I am in the same county/township and know the system.  First thing I did was take the copies of mom's tax bills that my sister emailed to me and add up what the tax would be without the senior exemption – took a little time as I had to add up all the lines of taxes – once I had the total percentage of the taxes that are charged all I had to do was multiply the assessed value (a small percentage of the actual value of the property/house) by this total percent of taxes and there it was.  Even with both the school and other real estate taxes added together it was much less than the broker said it was.  Also I telephoned the company which is handling the appeal and they said that due to the county revaluing all the properties in an attempt to even off the assessments mom's assessment will go down as she had not appealed her taxes while other had.  I emailed all this to my sister and mentioned that the broker should be able to figure out what the full real estate taxes on a property is. 

Well, a thought occurred to me today  - there is another house in the county, in a different township, which has the same address.  We found this out one year a couple of decades ago when mom's check to pay her real estate taxes was returned to her marked that the taxes had already been paid by someone else.  I was going to check on same, but found an email from my sister that she had already thought of this and the huge high taxes (the taxes on this house are so high compared to other houses on the street that it does not make sense at all and there will be problems selling the house) and checked – the taxes the broker has is about $6,000 a year more than per mom's bill or on line and is actually the real estate taxes for the other house with the same address.  My sister will tell this to the broker, as well as pointing out that the value of the house for the next year's taxes (starts in September) will be lower as value of the house is lower and I will get a letter from a the company handling the grieving of the assessment saying that same is being done.  (Based on mail I receive from them for our house this should not be hard and mom should actually have had this paperwork at home – but her records were lacking as well as the letters might be in the stacks of papers I still have here to go through.)

At the same time I was relaxing from taking mom to the various doctors and thinking “Good, we have time now and can get her to a plastic surgeon for the possible cancer growths on her face and get to Costco for hearing aids .  Oh, well,  It is about 3 months since we last took her to the oncologist, the surgeon for her cancer and the cardiologist who put in her replacement pacemaker.  Guess what – they all either wanted her back in 3 months or wanted blood work done.  So I have an appointment set up with her surgeon.  I asked doctor's staff if mom needed blood work and they had to check with the doctor and get back to me – did so today and I have to call back and give them the info for the “wellness” office at her residence as they will do the blood work there.  I already gave that info to her oncologist – I had given the wellness office two sets of paperwork for blood work in November, they did the first one and apparently lost the second one to be done now.  Hopefully the two sets of tests will be done together so poor mom does not have to be stuck twice for blood.  We have an appointment for to have her pacemaker battery tested at the doctor's office, but they were suppose to set up for when one of their staff goes to mom's residence (lots of heart patients there – not surprising) to do test the pacemaker there.  Have not heard back so I have to make sure they are set up to do that and then cancel the appointment.  So, we are back on the doctors-go-round, luckily the doctor from heck does not need to be seen for a couple of months.

And it is about to be my work busy season – income tax season!

I did manage to take down and store away our small Christmas tree and Christmas stuffed dolls, pillows, and stockings – a small assortment of what I normally put out.  I switched out a set of bear figurines that I keep in the living room and change by month to keep it seasonal and went from Christmas – the bears for same were only half put out on display – to February (Valentine's Day and bear “dressed” as cherry pie for Geo Washington's birthday).  The Christmas ones are all stored away in their boxes.  My Teddy Bear Christmas village never actually was finished and will be partially taken down soon, with some bears added and others rearranged for Valentine's Day.  One can only do what one can do – and this Christmas season was not one that had time to get everything done. 

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Mom's doctors, blood work and related comes first – health over all other things.  

CLEARING OUT THE SPICE CABINET AND MOM'S HOUSE IS NOW CLEARED OUT

Well, mom's house is cleared out according to my sister.  The furniture people did not take much of the furniture as the pieces were “too large”.  Okay, I understand the living room sofa was custom made for the room and is a bit large – it is two or three pieces and goes along two walls, and turns in the corner.  (Let's see, my parents gave me y 6th grade graduation gift -a small portable typewriter – while we were getting the sofa so it is over 50 years old.)  I am not sure, but I would have removed the boards from the dining room table and set them either on it or next to it as with the boards it holds at least a dozen people comfortably and may have looked intimidatingly large with them in – and the boards were in to display stuff for the tag sales.   My dresser was a long one, but the other dresser that was my sister's and her desk were small.  The first fellow took the 3 night stands in the house and the chairs to the kitchen table, but the kitchen table was left and seats 4-5 people so it was not huge.  The dresser in the other small bedroom was smaller than mine, but larger than the small one that my other sister had and my mom's desk in her bedroom was a regular student desk so not large.  Gee, I wonder if they realized (my sister might not have known) that the long server in the dining in front of the window is 3 pieces – two cabinets and the center is a matching section that is empty with fabric on the doors – the radiator was there and this way the heat came through the fabric or the doors could be opened to let more heat into the room – someone might have liked either or both of the actual cabinets- 2 drawers and 2 shelves below – then again they would need to either take half of the large counter top or get new tops for them.  My dad had a lovely old, large desk – also rejected as too large – okay, if it hadn't been I would have taken it, but all I have room for is my old child's desk from when I was in second grade.  (Yes, I am that short – able to use my desk from second grade – still hit my knee on the same spot on the leg of the desk.) 

It bothers me that it does not bother me to have the house emptied and sold.  Will the actual sale make me breakdown wailing?  Has anyone else been through this and not gotten at least a bit upset?

We took my mom to the doctor with the office from h*ll last Friday so he could tell us what we knew from reading the report that was faxed to us instead of to her other doctor.  So all is well with that.  The doctor is very nice – no problem with him, just his office which is not run by him, but by the hospital group he is associate with.  While talking with him I mentioned a little about the problems (4 pm appointment, take in at 5:30,saw doctor at 6 pm) we have had.  Mostly asked if there is way to speak to him by phone as the phone number on the card goes to an office in a different state for making appointments.  He gave us a different number  - but only for questions, not emergencies as only answered during their open hours.  I also managed to, politely, mention that when we came in for the scan the office was closed, lights out, and no one in the building knew about the scan tech being there – he was surprised and said that someone should have been at the reception desk for his office and he would check on this. 

When first married we lived in an apartment.  Husband saw in one of my “ladies magazines”  a project to make a spice cabinet.  He took it and changed it and we made it.  It stands on the floor is about the depth of a cabinet across (used to sit next to the end of the cabinet in the apartment, now next to a small wall about the same depth next to our cabinet (behind the wall is the heat duct for the bathroom above the kitchen).  The original had shelves in the door with holes for test tubes to put spices in.  The one he made us has one shelf on each door with same – and knife blocks below them for our cooking knifes.  We actually put smaller of same in the holes instead of test tubes.  Against the back of the cabinet are thin shelves (cabinet is about 6 inches deep and the shelves are 3 inches deep.  The shelves hold spice bottles and such very well.  The cabinet is just short of 3 feet tall. 

I have the spices arranged so that the ones I use often are in a grabable spot.  But since husband has been cooking for the past 2-3 weeks as I was “covered in germs” - yes, he is that afraid of catching a cold – I had to look into the cabinet to tell him where spices he needed were located.  When I did so my eye fell on a bottle of something called Mrs. Dash.  I have no memory of buying it (well, I don't actually remember buying much of what is in the cabinet) or what the heck we used it for and made a mental note to clear out the cabinet as much as possible  and in my dreams of how much space I would have, dreamed of lining up cans of soup on the shelves where they could easily be seen.

Last weekend (we had reached the point where I was told that I would be “allowed” to start cooking again) and I decided to go through the cabinet.  Mrs. Dash, dill from when I made sour pickles, popcorn flavored saltt, spices that I don't remember using, and a variety of other items – OUT!  I checked a few spices to see what they were used for  - OUT!  Old Bay Seasoning (used on seafood, especially shrimp in the Baltimore, MD area and husband used to use it – not out, he thought maybe we might have shrimp and he would put it on same again or maybe even chicken  - I know it will be too spicy for him, I barely could eat it back then, but I kept it. 

Kept the basics – salt, pepper, lo salt salt.  Ground cinnamon (which I think I have used for some holiday dish I made) and sugar cinnamon (well, it tastes nice on pancakes or French toast) I kept – cinnamon sticks – out.  Nutmeg - used at Thanksgiving – kept.  Cream of tartar – useful for stuff – kept.  Minced onion, minced  garlic and basil -used for tomato “gravy' (sauce).  Bay leaves – used in a beef stew I used to make and plan to make again.  Allspice, ginger, thyme, tarragon, rosemary, marjoram, parsley, oregano – all kept, despite not knowing what we will use them for.  Kept a small jar of sesame seeds – not sure why, just seemed like something to keep.

Also we store in this cabinet wooden toothpicks – used mostly for crafts, but also for food related purposes. 

When I was done I had a half a kitchen garbage bag of bottles – but somehow I hardly picked up room in the cabinet – certainly not enough for the lines of soup cans I had thought I would I store there.  So, what to use the space for?  Well, we take at doctor's “suggestion” a number of OTC vitamins.  The small bottles of them (refilled from larger bottles kept in the kitchen pantry closet) sat on top of the cabinet – along with a candle lamp (looks nice and used in black outs), table salt and pepper shakers, napkin holder with paper napkins, a shop tape measure (meaning not a sewing one), 3 day of the week pill boxes (two his, one mine) and some “dropped there because it is convenient “ paper clips and other similar sized items.  It was actually rather crowded and some things would fall off the top when one walked past.  I put the OTC vitamins in the cabinet on the top shelf.  Now our day of the week boxes on top are no longer sitting between the napkin holder and front of the cabinet – subject to getting knocked off.

So in the end the work did not result in a lot of usable space, but it is better than before and the doors to it do close better than they have in awhile.  As I go along I will think about some of what I kept and if it can go also.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

Doing a small task might be what it is needed to get one started  - or started again – on working on clearing out things no longer needed.  If you find something small and think “well, dealing with that won't do much” if you do it, it might get you started on doing more – since the spice cabinet, I cleared off most of the stuff piled on my dresser.   It was primarily reenacting stuff left after our December event- small items put away where they belong and the clothes I wore (that reek of smoke) are in the basement laundry sorter – to be washed and stored away.  We have 3 plastic boxes in which we keep things such as OTC meds, sickness thermometer and such.  These items are kept in these boxes as the boxes fit in the bag we take when we travel in our RV with all of this – and our prescription meds fit in one of the boxes also.  By keeping the OTC and such in these boxes we don't need one set for home and one set for travel.  In the summer the boxes end up on my dresser (the bag they go in goes under our bedroom TV) and in the cold weather, when we are less apt to travel I put them in the upper shelf of plastic storage piece next to my dresser (in hot weather the spare blanket goes in this space).  So now they are where they belong for the winter and the bag is where it belongs.  I found more socks that were on top of the dresser for darning and now they have joined their need to be darned friends. 

So try one small task that you need to do and see where it leads.  (Now sorting through and storing what I brought from the family house – that is another story – what does one do with the proofs of the yearbook of which one was editor?)

WHY MY POST WAS SO SHORT LAST WEEK - MOM AND ANOTHER DOCTOR

Sorry for last week. We ended up having to take mom to an oncologist on Wednesday – the day before Thanksgiving and the day that I normally would write my post and post it – and I had to cook for Thanksgiving that night.

I realize that taking mom to a doctor is more time consuming than you might think. Remember – mom is 90. We have to allow an hour and a half to get her out to the car, up, drive her to whichever doctor we are going to (all with 30 minutes of her assisted living residence, most within 20 minutes), and get her into the doctor's office.

Why does it take this long? Well, when we get to her residence we park in the lot. We walk to the building and walk in – have to stop and sign in. Mom's apartment is – literally – the furthest one in the place. She is on the top (third) floor and is in the last room on the furthest hall – if we are running late picking her up and have to run - getting to her apartment is a good cardio workout. We go the elevator, go to the third floor and start walking (unless as mentioned we have to run).

Mom will be sitting in her wheelchair waiting for us. She uses a walker around the building, but when go out it is quicker and easier to take her in wheelchair. But – first she has to stand up with the walker so that we can take the two large wheels off the chair. In case you did not know this – the large wheels on the sides of wheelchairs can be removed (on hers we push in the axle and then pull the wheel off) and there are 4 smaller wheels. The big wheels are there so the person in the wheelchair can reach the wheels and push them to get around. (Mom will “walk” the wheelchair – sitting, but walking her feet to make it go when she uses it alone.) If we leave the big wheels on it is too heavy for us to lift into the back of our car and does not fold as flat. Big wheels off the chair she sits down in it again – we check that she has her room key, her medical insurance card and her driver's license (to be changed this coming year to a non-driver's ID). Even when one has been to a doctor before they need the insurance cards and her ID again. (One doctor is in the local hospital and we all need to show ID to enter and have to allow time for same as there might be a line – we each get an ID tag good for a day with the photo and info from our licenses on them.). When she is back in her wheelchair we head out her door to the hall.

There is what is called a wellness office in the building which, luckily for us, is on the same floor as mom. It is set up like a small clinic – receptionist, nurse's office, 2 examining rooms, and a medication room. In this last there are file cabinets with loose leaf books with pages with plastic bubbles on them with the medications for a month for each resident – each time during the day that the resident needs to take a medication there is a separate page. One thing that impressed me is that there is a photo of the resident in front of her/his pill pages so they can be sure that the correct person gets the correct medications. If mom has not been at a doctor that month I call ahead and ask for them to give me a copy of her medications – easiest way to given them to the doctor. The first time the nurse added mom's height and weight and since she cannot stand without holding on to someone or something and one doctor's office insisted that they had to take her weight, I now ask for her height and weight to be listed. Sometimes it is waiting for us when I call ahead, often it is not – so we often need time to pickup the info pages or wait for it to be done. If mom will be away from the residence when she is to take a pill, they will give ME the pills (they cannot give them to her per them as the resident might forget them or take them at the wrong time). Lately I already have the meds from last time and she will not miss medications so we can avoid this stop.

We then go back downstairs in the elevator and head back to the front desk. If mom will miss a meal we have to stop and we are not able to take her out to eat that meal, when we stop at the front desk to sign her out – and sign that we are leaving - we order a tray for her to be delivered to her room – this can take awhile for her to decide. We go out to the car and help her get in the front passenger seat. Ahead of time we clear out the hatch area at the back of the car for her wheelchair – it takes both of us to load and unload it. I ride in the back seat. That is at least a half an hour gone.

We then start driving to whichever doctor we are going to. At this point we are taking her to 4 different doctors – on different days - and still need to set up appointments for her for hearing aids (so we don't have repeat everything the doctor says by yelling it to her) and for spot on her face that has to be removed. She also wants to go and “get the shots” in her knees so that they don't hurt or least not as much.

Depending on the doctor (well his/her location) parking may be easy or hard. Generally it is not too bad – except there is one doctor whose office is “heck” and seems to be the worst organized place we have ever been and sometimes husband has to drop us off and then go look for a parking space.

The doctor we went to last Wednesday is in a temporary office and the building is on a hill – with most of the parking in the rear – uphill. Husband dropped us off at the back (main) door and went to park so we would not have to deal with the hill. We went in on the second floor as a result. There was a very small hallway area – basically a large room and we went through all of it and could not find an elevator. Husband said to me “I told you always check that the office is wheelchair accessible. “ we decided that since the front of the building on the right side had a big sign for the group that the doctor is part of, maybe we had to go there. So we went back out and around the building – downhill trying not to let the wheelchair and mom get away from us. The front of the building had stairs! Husband went in and asked and they told him to use the rear door – where we had been = there was an elevator and they could not understand how we could have missed it (none of us saw it). We each took a handle to wheelchair and huffed and puffed our way back up the hill. We went in the building second door on the left was the elevator! (I would swear it was not there before). You know the expression - “if it was a snake it would have bitten us?”). Rest of the visit went well and we took mom out to lunch at Wendys – she insists on paying for us.

We allow the extra half hour for things like this – not being able to find the elevator or problems parking or whatever. Some doctors say that if one is there 15 minutes or in one case, half an hour, before your appointment it will be canceled – why the heck don't they just make your appointment for the earlier time, especially as they don't tell you this until you are at the office.

We also have to allow time to get to mom. It is a half an hour minimum to drive out there – if there is traffic, especially rush hour – morning or afternoon, or an accident we need to allow extra time. The time we were going to the doctor who is half hour from her, there was an accident on the road after we picked her up and were on our way – the extra half hour saved us from being late. Of course if it is early (for us) we have to get up and get dressed and sometimes eat lunch before we go.

After the appointment the entire process is done in reverse - including signing mom back into her residence – sometimes ordering a tray for her then, taking her back to her room and putting the wheels back on her wheelchair. We may also have stop in the Wellness office with instructions from the doctor or to let the nurse know to expect same to come. Sometimes we will walk around a bit if we have time before her dinner.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

When you do something over and over – even with slight variations – take note of how long each part takes and use that information for doing whatever it is again in the future. But – always allow a bit of wiggle room as one never knows when there will be a accident on the road to the doctor or they actually want you there earlier than you are suppose to be there.

SORRY FOR LACK OF POST OF THIS WEEK

I am so behind this week – mom has needed some additional doctor appointments plus making Thanksgiving dinner for husband and myself– that I do not have a post for this week. My apologies and I assure you that next week I will be back with a regular post.

For those of you in the US – I hope that you have had a good Thanksgiving.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK –

Things happen and must be dealt with – we deal with them as we need to.

STILL TOO MUCH NEEDING TO BE DONE

That was a short week!  We have taken mom to two doctors in the past week.  One was a happy checkup with the doctor who replaced her pacemaker.  The other was a not as happy appointment with the doctor who did cancer surgery on her.  There is still some cancer and we have to take her to an oncologist.  Treatment recommendation by this doctor was based on mom's age – 90 – and the fact that it is a slow growing cancer.  I should mention after complaining about another doctor's office, both of these were great with helpful staff and no hours of waiting.  We still have to take her back to the doctor about her leg scan (the one with the awful office/staff setup) and then there are about another 4 doctors she needs to go to.

In between these appointments I have been trying to get our senior real estate tax exemption worked on and I should have all or almost all of the paperwork I need.  I will have to check each section's numbers against the paperwork for it and we have to copy all of it and I do so with a page that has our names, the section, block, and lot number of the property and the year the papers apply to written at the top (with the computer).  This page is put behind the items I copy as I do so that so that the finished copy will have this info at the top in case any pages get separate from the others – I am glad I have a heavy duty stapler that staples thick stacks of papers as there will a lot of papers.  I have already done our 1099s & similar and our medical expenses.  I have to mostly deal with our businesses expenses – I will do the joint expenses first (car expenses and some other ones have to be split between our two businesses and also from personal use), then husband's business as it is easier and finally my business. This has to be there before the end of December and I figure the earlier the better.  I was getting all this done quickly and early when I found out that they had added need for proof of business income and expenses. 

I also have to renew my permissions to prepare tax returns from Federal and state governments.  Federal mailed in already and I did the state application online – the only way it can be done.  I still need to finish the required tests for the Federal paperwork.  One test for 1 credit done, 19 more credits to go.  It will be done – it only one test for 6 credits that always concerns me as it has a time limit. 

I have still been heating the paperwork from my family home in small groupings in our PackTite heater (for bedbugs).  I found out that among the papers my sister gave me is my parents income taxes – back to the 1950s as well as the papers related to the purchase of the house back in 1958-9 and my dad's release from the military paperwork.  I commented to husband that I know their old taxes are no longer needed and I should just check through them and shred them – but – dad always told me that one keeps copies of client's taxes as long as they are clients and then at least another 3 years, so by that logic I should keep them.  I have discussed it with husband and will scan them into the computer and shred the originals. 

I got behind with the laundry last week – it was done, but not all was folded or put away, so I had to do same tonight before I started this week's laundry – first load is in washing now, when the ringer in cell phone goes off, I will go down and switch to dryer and put in another load to wash.  Just happened – will be right back – feel free to talk among yourselves until I do.

Back again. 

As I have mentioned in the past year, I have been having a problem keeping track of papers – something I have never had before.  In October our reenactment unit had an event.  I know and remember that the unit commander (club president) had asked me if I had brought the checkbook – which I didn't as it is safer to keep it home. Since he did, I assumed that he had given me a bill for something for the unit to reimburse him for.  ¾ of the way through the day it had started raining and we along with most members had brought their stuff inside our headquarters building and then at the end of the day I had brought our van back to the area where we had been setup and we packed it quickly to avoid getting things wet.  Two days later I started looking for the bill that I had to reimburse the commander for.  I could not find them.  We did not actually bring the stuff in from the van until the end of that week.  I went through everything again and climbed under the seats in the van looking for the bill.  Husband than threw another thought at me – at an event the unit did in September the place wrote the check payable to the commander personally instead of to the unit – and husband said that what I was remembering was probably the commander giving me his check as we had told him to deposit the check and then write the unit a check.  So was I missing the bill to pay him for?  The check he gave me for the that event?  Both?  A week in I had written him an email explaining and apologizing and asking him to let me know how much the unit owed him.  (I did not mention the check he owed the unit.)  He did not get back to me.  I have been “sick” with the idea that I lost a bill to pay, as well as maybe the check he wrote to the unit.  I brought the checkbook to the meeting this past Monday to settle up.  Whew! Nothing was lost.  He had asked me about the checkbook in reference to another matter that did not materialize and he told me that not only does the unit not owe him money, but he owes us the money from the check that he deposited.  It was a wonderful relief to know that I had not been careless and lost neither bill nor check. 

I have to complement and thank my husband.  He has been insisting on helping me with my mom and the doctors.  My mom is well, a 90 year old opinionated woman who does not hear well.  (One of the doctors we still have to go to is for hearing aids – but the other doctors are more urgent).  He has been wonderful with her.  One advantage to having him along is that he speaks “medical” and can talk to the doctors on a different level than mom or I can.  (He was the head of a mental health agency and had doctors working under him.)  He understands what the doctors are saying better than either of us and knows when and how to ask questions.  Part of why he comes is I helped with his mother when she needed same (although his sister handled the medical and I handled the financial), especially since he butted heads a lot with his sister and mother over how things should be handled, so I sort of ran interference by going while he was at work to help her.  Part of it is he does not like being home alone.  Part of it is that he know he can help a lot. 

We still have not really done any planning for (American) Thanksgiving.  Since he has become lactose intolerant (or so it seems) since last year, two of his favorite dishes may not be made for him, especially since I like neither – pumpkin pie and Colonial Williamsburg Sweet Potatoes (no marshmallows, of course).  The former uses evaporated milk and the later uses regular milk –  1/3 of ¼ cup of same (original recipe for 3 lbs sweet potatoes, I make him 1 pound).  We will see.  We are debating if I should make the vegetable soup that I used to make for the family for Thanksgiving dinner – I figured out how to cut it down and make ¼ of the amount of soup I used to make or even 1/8 of same, but it is one that we like and gets better reheated.  (I would make the entire recipe and reheat over the winter, but it has potatoes in it and they do not do well with being frozen, so I need to cut it down to what we can manage to eat without needing to being frozen to keep long enough.)  The alternative is to make a different Pennsylvania Dutch soup called Chicken corn soup.  We will see which he prefers.  Our normal menu was the Vegetable soup (cooked on the day before Thanksgiving as it takes a while to cook), turkey of course, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, the sweet potatoes, and gravy.  I did not cook the turkey as husband liked it better from a commercial oven – he says it is crisper.  When we started (I had never cooked a turkey) we found a local place that cooked turkeys with a hot pick up just about when we needed it – my sister and her family would stop and pick it up on the way here for us.  Three years ago we had run places to go to for Thanksgiving dinner for just the two of as we were no longer having family in for same, and I had to cook the turkey.  I did so and it was fine.  The following year I cooked it from the same place following their directions and it did not cook through, we ended up cutting off pieces and cooking them separately.  I figured out that the packaging had 2 different temperatures and I must have used the higher one first year and the lower one second year.  Last year I used the higher temperature and put the turkey in upside down and turned it over part way through and it was cooked through and I will remember to do so this year again.  In the old days there would have been the pumpkin pie and I would bake an apple pie and Venetians (rainbow cookies).  No need for so much dessert for the two of us, especially since neither of us should be having same at all.  

(And I will have to find time to post the night before while I am generally cooking.)

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

As it says in the “Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe” - DON'T PANIC!  Things seem to work out in the end.  We managed to get the appointments we needed to get right away for mom.  The real estate tax exemption will get done and in on time.  The exams will be taken on time.  Laundry will be caught up tonight.  The missing papers were not missing.  Thanksgiving dinner will get a menu and will be cooked. 

RV, VAN AND OLD PAPERS

Another week, another post.  Mom had 2 surgeries within a week and is now back in her apartment at the assisted living facility.  We will taking her Friday back to the doctor who changed her pacemaker for a checkup and I have to make an appointment for same with the doctor who did her cancer surgery as well as with the one involved with her leg scan as it still has not has been discussed with her.  We did squeeze in appointments with our doctor for us last week – dealing with mom, we had forgotten to make same until the doctor refused to renew our prescriptions because we were so late in doing so. 

Friday we drove to Pennsylvania and picked up our RV – the batteries are working and the entire electrical system was checked and was fine.  Husband is concerned about driving such a distance alone (as I probably mentioned when we had to drive it there) and also concerned about driving alone in the dark – the combination of the two, even more so.  We kept calculating when to go and what to do coming home.  We figured out that we had two choices – both involved trying to get the dealer as early as possible, having lunch at Wendys very quickly and starting home.  In one version we would immediately drive home, this way we would miss Philadelphia rush hour and hoping to avoid rush hour from NYC headed towards our home. The other version involved again leaving immediately after lunch to avoid the Philadelphia rush hour and driving to near the Golden Corral in New Jersey that I am sure I have mentioned before.  We would then go to some stores in that area to spend some time, then have dinner at the Golden Corral and then head home. With this version we should avoid the rush hour from NYC to home, but would be driving in the dark home from Golden Corral.  We figured we would decide after we picked the RV and while eating lunch.  The golden morning time to leave home and head off Long Island for us seems to be 8:30 am – we are following at the end of rush hour and are before the construction work on two of the major roads starts.  We we were out at 8:20 -since we were driving only our van, we did not have to waste time backing the RV out of the driveway (a process that involves walkie talkies and me standing in the middle of a 4 lane road road that has traffic that all speeds – which is why it a problem to begin with.)  We had figured we would get to the dealer between noon and 1 pm.  We got there just after 11 am.  We picked up the RV - “schmoozed” a bit, gassed up the RV and the van for the trip back, spent about 15 minutes having lunch and started home – confident that we would miss the rush hour traffic at both cities.  We did fine in PA – no traffic, NJ not bad almost no traffic.  One very quick stop at a rest area for me to use the facilities – so fast, I left my cell phone in the RV and husband waited out there so we did not have to shut everything did – I ran literally both ways and we were off again.  Then we hit Staten Island  (NYC) and there was traffic, but it was not bad – 15 minute part of the trip maybe was 25 minutes.  We then crossed the bridge to Long Island.  The limited access roadway we have to taken home was BAD.  How bad?  The signs on the bridge said not to exit to it, to exit to a local street that allows later connection to the roadway – which we take anyway.  It took us 2.5 hours to the dealer – it took us 5 hours home – and that was with arriving in NYC at 3 pm.  Another day of our lives – gone.

But the RV is home and working properly again – so all is well – right?  Driving home husband found that the brakes were squealing so today they were at our mechanic again.  He said they were okay to use – a problem sometime down the road as there is rust. 

Wait a second, have to run to the basement to switch laundry loads and check the heat in the PackTite.

Back.  Normally I have a load of clothes, a load of towels, and a load of bed linens each week with a load of jeans every few weeks.  With all this going on, I have not changed the bedding in a couple of weeks – no time to do so and saves a wash load (yes, I think ewwww also, but it will done soon).  This week I have a load clothes, a load of sweatshirts and nightgown – I bought 3 new ones and have worn a few of them and they don't fit in the general clothes load, a load of towels, and a load of jeans.  I also have a load of white reenactment clothing (much “small clothes” - undergarments, all of which are white) from our last couple of events and a second load of the rest of our outfits – next time we will need them is December and I want them clean so I don't have to run at the minute to wash them – some of the pieces need ironing also.  Just put the general clothes load into the dryer and the sweatshirt load into the washer. 


At the same time I have been going through the bags of stuff from the family home.  Being a crazy person who had bed bugs. I fill (lightly) our PackTite heater with some of the stuff and heat at it night – mixed with whatever fabric or paper items we have in addition to be heated.  Then the next afternoon I go through the stuff from the house after putting away the stuff from our house that was added in.  Today I went through the papers from our wedding – 40 years ago.  All of the response cards & envelopes – shredded, set up invitation with all the papers which were included and put it in the shoebox that I have as a “memory box” of the stuff I am finding and want to keep from all this, shredded the other invitations, tossed out the other response cards (no names, etc. on them), I kept the blank envelopes for the invitations – can always use larger envelopes, have set aside the unused response envelopes they do have my parents and name and address, but I will see if labels will cover same and decide if we are keeping them or they are being shred, shredded the receipt for the wedding (what a waste of $8,000 – I was right, we should have just gotten married & not bothered with a wedding), and shredded the seating charts and other papers.  I kept the box that it was all in.  Good box.  Apparently there is much more than my stuff in what my sister set aside for me – work papers of my dad's and other financial stuff.  I have a found a certificate given to my other sister when she graduated from high school (she is 55 now).  I scanned it, emailed it to her and asked if she wanted the certificate or what.  I found old bank statements and similar of mom's and even some of dad's (he died in the mid 1990's).  I found a dividend check for $4.50 that was never cashed – I will see if it can cheaply somehow be replaced – but 1994 was a long time ago.  More to do tomorrow after the current load is heated – this load also has some yarn husband bought for weaving project to sell and a new sweatshirt that I bought  - both today. 

At least every year I go through the papers from 10 years before and get rid of almost all of them – 25 years is a long time to keep bank statements and a check.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

So progress is being made on the stuff from mom's house. I am trying to keep up on household chores – dishes washed after dinner and after night snack (only meals we eat home).  Obviously laundry being done.  Towels changed and into the laundry.  (If only I did not hate changing the bedding and folding same after it is washed even more than more than cleaning toilet bowls – I figured it out – my arms are too short to deal with sheets easily.)

Any suggestions for my family and me about dealing with all of the stuff from the house?