Tuesday,Post on Mom....

    I drove into town at 2:45 Monday afternoon, just in time to open the studio.   I stayed at mom's longer than I thought I would.  Thanks for all of your support on the disability thing. It is a trial and I hate to pursue it but I can see the writing on the wall.  If I continue to work this hard I will shorten my life and the quality that I have left, so it must be done.  In the mean time changes are being made gradually to see this happen hopefully in the next 2-3 years.
 
     I came home to a very clean house and studio as daughters and husband worked while I was gone.  I still have work to do at studio and Hubs thinks I should throw some things away as it is becoming pack ratty upstairs so we might do a major overhaul soon, but not today.

     Update on Mom's place.  Sis and I worked very hard along with a girl friend. We wiped down every surface, and washed everything washable.  It took hours and buckets and buckets of water and cleaning products.  We had to throw away all pillows, mattress pads and blankets.  Anything that could not be bleached.  We found so much drug paraphernalia and many places where drugs had obviously been hidden so obvious that mom could not deny their use and abuse.  I don't know why she wasn't burnt up in her bed.

      The nice thing is that most of the damage was cosmetic.  There are a few stains on the carpets but not bad ones.  After we were done with the three bedrooms and the bath upstairs the place looked very nice.  It could have been much worse.  The wonderful thing about it is that every drawer is empty and all closets are cleaned out.  In and old house like that the closets go clear under the eves and can hold truck loads of garbage.  It is all gone to the dump.  All pillows and things replaced, it actually looks beautiful.  Sis has very good taste and mom has a house full of beautiful things and paintings so it was easy to redecorate.

      I spent a day just re-gluing wall paper, washing woodwork and ceiling fans.  All those large windows had long curtains and all had to be washed and pressed.  Mom is a pack rat of sorts and I think she may have developed hoarder tendencies in her old age.  Sis would go home to a girl friends house and I would stay with mom and continue to de junk the downstairs.  Sis would come back in the morning to a dining room full of things to be taken to the dump.  Old magazines, books, music, all were sorted and divided, keep, donate, senior citizens, then taken to the appropriate car.  Every drawer and counter and flat surface was covered with stuff, some of it broken and useless.  Mom refused to throw away much so we just did it on the sly.  I would get her to agree to donate a box of books and then find her going through the box later and keeping half of  them.  So I would go back and UN KEEP them.

     Sis still had to get up east coast time and run her company and Mom's internet was unhooked,so Sis had to stay at friends.  But I was able to get  so much work done one on one with mom and it is a better way as Sis and I are whirl winds and mom gets defensive.  The problem is we can't get Mom to keep anything neat.  Every surface has to be covered with crap.  I left yesterday morning about 9 and the kitchen table was empty.  When Sis got there it was a mountain of just stuff.  You can't keep up with her, or ahead of her. 

Example:  Mom was gone for the 6 weeks between the Holidays, she put up no Christmas things.   I went through the house and room by room took down anything Christmas from years past that had not been put away.  By the time I left I had one large box  full and another smaller box full.  She just doesn't see that things are accumulating and get rid of them or put them away.

     Mom will not go upstairs very often so as long as we can keep the boys out the place should stay clean and the housekeeper can just go up and dust and vacuum once a month. I am hoping that Sis and the girl friends can really deep clean the downstairs and pare down Mom's belongings.  Mom had four small end tables, and rocking chair, and huge leather chair and sofa, a large linen cabinet from Sweden and a electric fireplace all in a small room.  You could hardly walk through it.  I worry about her falling.  We were able to take two of the end tables upstairs to a bedroom and also the rocking chair, we just need to free up space.  Mom is also going to get rid of her large sofa in the front parlor.  It is hardly used.  When she does have formal company there are two chairs, a long window box and two piano benches, again just too much furniture in one room. Her bedroom is worse and she has files cabinets everywhere that are full.  She really needs just one.  So sis has her work cut out for her.

     Mom has a basement that is FULL of boxes of crap and I mean full.  You can hardly get to the washer and dryer, but that is a project for warm weather, where we can take everything up to the backyard and sort and eliminate.

     Out My Window:  Foggy and overcast, typical January weather.  It is also below freezing so I had better go check on my chicken's water.

     This has been a long post on mom and I will do another on my personal New Years plans as I have many.

Have a great and productive day!

Kim