Marsia's Diary

Marsia said:
Now an hour and a half cleaning doesn't even scratch the surface of what needs to be done. But I am getting this feeling of dread about most of my chores and about taking care of my mom, so something has to change.
Click to expand...
Ok, then maybe it works the other way around: you get paid help for utterly boring, simple household chores once a week (or whatever works) so you have more energy left for the stuff that either really need your personal attention or is too specialized/expensive to get paid help with.

Have fun sketching! I love picnics.
 
I think LaMa's idea is an excellent one. Getting help one day a week or at least a few hours & then doing something you love- how good would that be?
 
Thanks LaMa and Cate - that helps a lot what you said about getting the boring stuff taken care of by house cleaners and it would free up time! Such a good idea. - thanks LaMa!! Just knowing there is a workable solution really helps!!!

I am reading the book on caring for people with dementia and it is so practical and great - like how to deal with a person who should no longer be driving (luckily my mom's license is expired and she isn't capable of jumping through most of the hoops necessary to get a new one) and how to help with finances when the person equates taking care of their own finances with independence and doesn't want that taken away, all sorts of things that were making me very tense to think about that need to be dealt with soon, and which my mom does not want to talk about or agree on. And it really helps reading other posts in the dementia support group - it is so weird how things are funny to everyone there that wouldn't be to normal people. Example, caregiver asks, "How was your day?" Mom who still has a sense of humor answers, "How would I know?!" That is an almost exact conversation that I had with my mom numerous times. Such a relief to know there are other people who understand what this is like who I can ask for advice if needed!

We didn't go sketching and picnicking because my mom is sick with a bad cold, which is normal because her house is so dusty from being a hoarder that even after her and I cleaning a lot, it is still quite bad and makes you have a sore throat to be in. I really don't know what to do about that. I keep hoping next time she is in the hospital, I can just frantically box a lot up and get at least a couple of rooms livable. It seems like a herculean task though. Ok, enough about the mom!

We went and saw the movie on Elton John, who I loved as a junior high school student, especially for his song "Benny and the Jetts" - we make an imaginary friend Benny who signed all my French tests that I knew I did badly on, and who was the one who we blamed for things going wrong in general. It was a sad but good film about the inner life of a famous person and was so good because it was about accepting yourself and being who you really are. I liked the line in the movie where a soul singer says to Elton, "You gotta kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be." I think that sums up what I need to work on in myself...
 
I love the story about the mother who said "How would I know?". :D
A pity about the sketching expedition, but at least you had the movie to enjoy - and it was also about art and self-expression, so all good!
 
Thanks, Glow! The best thing about the movie was how the song writer and Elton were like brothers. I love movies about really good creative friendships. We have the rest of the summer to sketch, so no worries. My daughter and I took a nice relaxing walk to a lighthouse and hung out there watching waves crash, so we still had a relaxing day. Bought a bunch of nice organic cherries and figs on the way home, too - yum!!

I need to get more exercise.- want to garden some tomorrow,
 
I have been humming & harring about going to see Rocket Man & have decided I will. Glad you got to go out with your daughter for a walk. YUM to cherries....figs not so much for me. I'm going to garden tomorrow too, when the frost lifts, xoxo
 
Rocket Man was so good because of the brilliant cinematography. They made the whole film very personal and about the struggle to be loved for who you are vs the urge to hide and protect yourself from scrutiny. I loved when they broke out into a musical in scenes. There is a lot of darkness to the film, but it was very well done and I am glad I saw it.

The support group is also good because I can read about what other people are doing - for instance, I have immense dread that my mom will become violent - her father had Alzheimer's and became violent towards the end. But people on the forum mentioned that Hospice will help if that happens. I felt about 40 pounds lighter after reading that. As backward as our health care system is, there is some help after all!!! I did Hospice with my mom's mom and it was fabulous.

Happy gardening, Cate - I should head out to mine now!
 
Hey Marsia, best of luck with your mother, dealing with an aging parent can be very hard. Challenges are many and all too often rewards few. My father died of Parkinson's, and it effected his mind much like Alzheimer's. It seemed to me like it exaggerated all the negative parts of his personality, while he lost a lot of the good. I hope your mother's goes better. Hospice was great, my only regret is that we didn't start it sooner.

Keep working on your eating, no matter what happens with your mother if you can eat well you will be happier!
 
Hi, Marsia. I'll go see Rocket Man as I really enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody & A Star is Born & I love Elton's music.
What a relief re hospice, hon. It will help you to cope with her thinking that can be an option. My Mum's Mum had dementia & was not at all violent or nasty. Mum was a feisty old thing who could be a little bit wicked at times. When she developed dementia she turned into a sweet, kind old thing. My sister & I could hardly believe she was the same Mum.
I'll be waiting quite some time to get into the garden. Everything is frozen solid. Enjoy your Summer & tell me all about it, please. I'll lap it up. Brrr!
 
alligatorob said:
Keep working on your eating, no matter what happens with your mother if you can eat well you will be happier!
Click to expand...
Thanks so much, Bob! And so sorry your dad and family had to go through all of that. I plan to take exercising really seriously now that I have more stress, and the eating is usually a lot better when I get enough exercise. I am lucky that my husband and daughter are helping with my mom, too, so crossing fingers it goes well!
 
Hi Cate! So nice that dementia brought out the best in your mom - I can only dream about that happening with my mom!

Sorry your garden is frozen solid. :( We got out the stand up paddle boards today and had a great time in the yacht harbor paddling around and stopped to have a picnic lunch on the docks. We saw a happy seal playing and lots of cormorants drying their wings on bouys or diving for fish. My daughter was playing in a shallow spot by the mouth of the harbor and got off her board and swam. I was taking a picture (with my waterproof camera) of a beautiful sail boat when she sat on the nose of my paddle board and launched me into the water by mistake. I know what it feels like to fly now! I love stand up paddle boarding. You are inches from the water surface and all the wild life comes within 6 or 7 feet of the paddle boards. It's great for here where it's foggy and cold parts of the summer - you can still get out in the ocean and usually don't have to get wet (unless someone launches you off your board!). Anyway we got lots of great exercise, and I am happy my back was fine with getting my monstrous paddle board in the water!

Had to dig around to find the septic tank cover - we need it pumped as evidenced by a back up in the house - yuck! So that was all my gardening today - tomorrow I dig for the second tank cover - for some reason we have 2 tanks.
 
My sister sent my a pic of her 7-year-old yesterday, proudly paddling past his school :beating: I´ve never tried stand up paddling but it looks like a lot of fun! My sympathy on the septic tank :oops: I hope you can get it dealt with quickly.
 
Ok, you know how in movies, when they dig graves, they take this shovel full of fluffy soil and pat it on top of a lovely 6' deep grave that they leisurely filled in while hardly breaking a sweat? Well, I can now tell you that is total fiction. It turns out there are two hatches for each septic tank, and though we found the one that is closer to the surface of the earth, the other one was about 2 1/2 - 3 feet down and we had to first find it, and then dig a big hole so they can take that hatch off without soil falling in the hole. We have heavy clay soil that is so hard to dig once the rainy season is over, so I wet it down, which makes it extra heavy. So after about 3 hours of digging, which my daughter said was really 3 days, we finally finished. Tomorrow we do the other tank. Great arm and leg workout though! Bonus, we don't have to pay the septic guy $58/hr to find the hatches himself. My daughter had a fun time talking about the poop demons who live in the septic hole and who will suck you in if you lift the hatch door. So nice how she can make anything fun!
 
Thanks Aiminglow and LaMa! (Sorry AL - I just parsed your user name correctly in my brain!). I thought my back would be unhappy today, but it's fine and I actually feel really good. Getting stronger! There's a happy cat sitting on me so I can't type well now, so to be continued...
 
I ripped out all sorts of ivy yesterday trying to find the other septic tank, and we dug down and got the first hatch of that all dug out. Another amazing workout. Today I dig for the second hatch and work on a sketch from vacation that I started. We were noodling around in the mountains in Oahu, which are impossibly steep and covered in lush vegetation and disappear into the clouds. Here is a painting Georgia O'Keefe did of the mountains in Maui that look similar:
Honolulu Museum of Art Waterfall End of Road 'Iao Valley 1939 O'Keefe.jpeg
We came upon a gate with beautiful stone lions on either side, and a lady drove up on a little golf cart-like thing and brought us to her husband's immense bonsai garden which was overrun with weeds and vines but there were hundreds of amazing bonsai and beautiful pots all garbled up with plastic figurines and trash and old tree stumps, ... In the background were these pristine massive mountains and the cloud bank above them. It was like we were pulled into the Spirited Away movie. So I have all these strange, intriguing pictures of the bonsai garden to sketch now!
 
That sounds amazing; please post pictures once you´re done!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top