A Pause, A Breathe, and Waiting

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We finished moving into my mom’s house. 90% of our stuff is in storage. The rest is in nooks and crannies in my mom’s house. Brandy is learning to live in the back yard, and we are getting use to living with mom. It’s a good thing that my mom is a good friend as well as my parent. As time passes, we will adjust. We are doing our best to leave a lot of the hurt behind us and work on the positive things.

One of the last things I did was dig up my garden. We brought it over to my mom’s and spent a day digging and transplanting. I shared the rest of the irises I didn’t plant with three friends.

This last week we have caught up on sleep, email, meetings and life in general. I cleaned house and did laundry. It hasn’t been easy, but we are taking those deep breaths. We are pausing and trying to smell the breeze that carries the hint of spring.

Today we went shopping in Pueblo for the first time in weeks. After we did our shopping, we ate lunch at Romero’s. Then we went to visit Dad. Over the last week or so, he declined rapidly. They moved him into hospice on Tuesday night. In some ways, it was a relief not to visit him at the mental unit. The hospice is very nice. It had a good feel to it and the staff was pleasant. A friend of our had been in hospice and that place had not been nice. It looked alright, but had an ick to it. This place did not. (phew!)

We went in to see Dad and then let Mom have time alone with him. We chatted with the nurse, and she talked about how he was doing. She said he was restless, which to them means that it won’t be long. This matches with what my mom felt. We were originally going to visit on Friday, but she had this feeling that it had to be today. I’m glad we went up. He didn’t wake when we were there, or when we talked to him. Mom has his wedding ring now. We said our goodbyes and headed home. We may go up on Friday.

Mom has made all the arrangements with the local funeral home where our cousin works. In her own way, she’s getting her ‘ducks in a row’. Dan and I are doing our best to keep things running smoothly. And it is the little things that help so much. A dear friend sent us a lovely package full of treats. 🙂 It even had twiglets in it! Others have sent good wishes, hugs and energies for an easy transition for Dad.

Where to start?

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When last I was here, my aunt had just passed and my mom had returned home. Then all hell broke loose.

On Monday, Bryan came by to let me know that he’d bought the house from Stefan. He wanted to let us know that he planned to move in and that we’d have to stuff everything in storage and/or the Wendy House and live there. We tried to explain that this just wasn’t viable. We wasted our breath. Shock. Horror. Disbelief. A week later, we were told we had to totally leave the property. Leave the Wendy House…

While we were reeling from this, my Dad had a major ‘sundowners’ moment. Yelling, screaming, threatening people, etc. We called the police and the EMT’s. When all the dust settled, Dad was in hospital in Pueblo. In the mental unit. Meanwhile, we moved in with my mom, as she was very upset and didn’t want to be alone.

We have been up to see Dad. He’s been diagnosed with moderate to severe dementia and psychosis. From what the doctor and nurses said, he’s been bipolar all of his life, but could deal with it. The dementia robbed him of the control to cope. When my sister and I talked, we could see it looking back. My dad has always ‘escaped to the mountains’, and we figured he just didn’t like living in the city. Now we see it was his way of coping. Now we are working on Medicaid paperwork and other bits. It has been a crazy time.

And… in the mean time, we’ve been packing. It’s very hard to leave our home of 10 years. Hard to leave behind all the work we did on the Wendy House. We are doing our best to keep positive. It’s just tough.  Brandy isn’t doing too badly. She has a new yard to explore and we hope to build her a dog house soon.

Menapausal March

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Yesterday, it was warm! mid 60’s with decent winds. Today, it’s 33F, and snowing. Brrr!

The last week or so has been a game of catch up. My Aunt Debbie died on Friday the 13th. We had work up in the Castle Rock area on the 14th, and Dan worked for the county and school district during the rest of the next week. We had lots of little meetings too. Tech committee, and website committees.

We took care of Dad for a week and Mom came home on Saturday. We almost got to sleep in on Tuesday. Today, we shopping in Pueblo. We started out warm and sunny, and now we have close to 3 inches outside and it is still falling.

There are a few other things going on, but I’m not going to post about them until the dust has settled.

Taking a deep breath

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We headed to Denver in snowy weather the last week of February, on our way to a CASB conference. (Colorado Association of School Boards) Two days of Legislative Updates on what our local state politicians are up to. It was a pretty good conference, and we had a lovely hotel. Of course, there was about 10 inches of snow that fell while we were there. Thursday night we went to a COCatalyst.org meeting which was different.

Friday, Dan went off to get the car so we could head home. What should have taken 15 minutes took forever. The doorman at the Brown Palace heard that there had been a couple of accidents because of the snow, and of course I panicked a bit. My phone was in the car, so I finally borrowed a phone to call Dan. He was alright, just. He had literally bounced from one accident to another. We finally headed out of Denver about 90 minutes later.

On the way home, the “fun” started. Dan was feeling worse and worse. By the time we got home, he was ill. We thought he’d eaten something bad. Nope. A very Nasty Virus. And of course, two days later, I got it. Ugh! I haven’t been ill like that in 15 years. All we did for the next week was sleep. I did everything possible via phone or email.

My first outing was a Celtic Music Festival meeting. Dan drove. I spent most of Sunday and Monday trying to recover and get back on my feet. I survived the school board meeting on Tuesday, shopping with my mom, and the Tech committee meeting on Wednesday.

In the middle of that meeting, I got a call from my mom. My Aunt Debbie had a stroke. Thursday was crazy. A new washer for my parents, my dad having a bad Alzheimer’s day and waiting to hear about my aunt. They did a lot of tests, and the decision was made to take her off of all the machinery today. If she lasts the night, they will move her to hospice. I know it may sound rather cold hearted, but I truly hope that she passes quickly. My mom went up with my sister Jill this afternoon to be with my cousin and sister. Dan and I are staying here to take care of Dad. Plus, Morgan is due home from college for Spring Break today. Oh, and one of my favourite authors passed away. RIP Terry Pratchett.

What a exhausting couple of weeks.

A snowy morning

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The sun is out at last. School is canceled. Yet we need to dig out and visit a computer client and check on my parents. What a storm. I love all the snow and took pics as Brandy barked at the birds and I shoveled a path to the main house. With all this snow, 12-13 inches, we might get an inch of moisture.

Just a bit of snow

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We woke up yesterday to just a bit of snow. More wet dirt than anything. Was it a non-issue? Had the weathermen failed? We watched over the morning. The clouds rolled in and a few more flakes fell. We were sad that our event, Corazon, had been canceled, but figured it was for the best.

Late in the afternoon, the snow began to fall heavily. It sounded like rain on the roof, but it was snow. Then the flakes became big and fat. Full of moisture. Dan stepped outside and took a few pics.

It was difficult to see as the snow was falling fast. When we went to bed, the snow was fine cold flakes, and still falling fast.

This morning, we got up to Winter Wonderland. Here are my pics from about 10am. You can see the depth of snow change in the pictures. Oh, and it is still snowing.

Waiting is…

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We are under a Winter Storm Warning. One that had people scrambling for groceries, firewood, batteries, etc. It even canceled our SCA event, Corazon. I took my mom to the grocery for a few things and then for a bit of a drive. It was crazy. Oh, and 62F was our high temp today.

When I got home, I made bread, a plum cake and then a casserole. While it was baking, I helped Dan with the firewood. We heat with it, and we’ve been whittling down a ‘hedge’ of pine. Today, we cleared the last of it. What wasn’t chopped, split, or stacked went into the compost bin. It was so strange to see the yard clear. By the time we came in, it was 38. We now have a bunch of firewood. 🙂

Since I posted last, we’ve had a bit of snow. Nothing like my friend Kirsty, who has 7 feet in her front yard. She lives in Massachusetts.

I’ll post pictures if we really get the snow they say we will.

Amazed!

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Stunned. Smiling. Flabbergasted. While I wanted to give back to the sewing/costume community that has fired my imagination, I never expected the boom in stats over a hat. A hat that drove me crazy trying to get it done. I was beginning to think that I’d never manage it.

Bespoke Viking Hat.15

 

I did though, and wrote up a tutorial. I’d had people ask me about Viking Hats, and figured it would be easy enough to document how I made them. Once I did that, I updated the Viking Hat page and added the tutorial. Then I posted the link on Facebook and G+.

I figured maybe 50 or 100 people would ‘like’ it and a quarter of that visit the blog. That’s been the average when I’ve made other things, like tunics or apron dresses. That was on February 2nd. Since then I’ve had over 2000 views on the hat. 🙂 (about 1000 actual visitors)

I’m happy.

Same weather, different Month.

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It’s February! Wheee! Tomorrow is Groundhog’s day, and if he says another 6 weeks of winter, I may scream. Or cry. Or whimper. We did have a few glorious days where the weather got up to 65F for one day and others in the 50’s, but today we are back to snow, cold, 29F weather. Brrr! At least most of the storm yesterday was rain and it didn’t turn to snow until late last night.

That was appreciated, as we were chopping firewood. Our friend Mark stopped by and gave us a small load of wood. He said that the ‘wood fairy’ had told him were were short of wood. He was right. I was so stiff this morning, that the prospect of getting up was daunting! No choice though, as it was a Bob & Earl morning. Bob & Earl’s is a little greasy spoon cafe in Trinidad. My parents found it and fell in love with it. Now that we are their designated drivers, we take them to breakfast about three times a month. If the weather is good. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad today. On our way down, we saw a bald eagle sitting on a fence post. In fact, he was still there when we drove home.

B & E’s is sort of the Cheer’s of the cafe world. Everyone knows you. We were an hour later than usual, and when we walked in, Holly the waitress looked at us and smiled as she said, “You’re Late!”. We all laughed. As she brought us our drinks, she took our order. “Now let’s see… Jon, you want a Mexican biscuit and two links. Carolyn, waffles or an egg with bacon, and sourdough toast? Right. You (Dan) want a Mexican biscuit, no onion, but extra cheese, and you want a breakfast burrito, no cheese.” Then she walks off.

Breakfast arrived 20 minutes later. Ahhh heaven. After breakfast, we dropped my parents off, got some groceries and then headed home. I’m updating blogs while trying to resist curling up for a nap.

Other highlights… We had a couple of ice storms. Slippery, nasty things! Beautiful for pictures, but dangerous.

We took Morgan up to CSU, Ft. Collins, and she is doing well.

I’ve been making hats for the Clothing bank at our school, and helping clean up Washington school so that the community and the school district can use it more.

The district’s finance manager retired. This has thrown the district into a tizzy, but we will survive. We’ve had a bunch of meetings as of late as well. A BOCES retreat, workshops and lots of committee work.

We’ve also been doing a lot of clean up around the house and yard, getting ready for SPRING! (ie, the warmer snow season) We cut down a tree out front that was just so scraggly and stacked the wood to burn next year. We are planning a greenhouse as well.

Last but not least… We have an SCA day in 3 weeks. I’m considering a new outfit. I have the fabric, but not sure if I have the time to complete it. We shall see.

Colorado Breakdancing

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It’s been cold. Icy. Damn icy. Wednesday and Friday were horrid. On Wednesday, we took my mom to the library and grocery. Dan had to take her to the door, as I couldn’t stand up on the frozen parking lot. Everything was coated in ice. Oh, and the Subaru was sliding, even with 4wd!

Friday was no better. My meeting was canceled because I-25 was a skating rink. Dan and Morgan went to the store, and when they came back, Morgan fell, and Dan skidded all over the place. We were making jokes about Canadian Breakdancing coming to Colorado. In the end, just to walk between the woodpile and the Wendy House, we had to put down ashes.

Of course, we’ve had a couple of nice days up in the 50’s. Tomorrow isn’t one of them. Once more into the freezer. sigh…