Hiya Debbie! Good to see you back, even if only briefly!
If it's not too personal, please update us on what's going on.
Thanks, Chuck, good to be here.
Do you mean basically the things I PM'd you on Dave Cullen, for everyone here to read? That's not too personal. And here's a fuller story, because you've heard it in bits and pieces as it happened.
So for all of you who don't know: I went to Colorado at the end of May, intending to go on the Wyoming trip. But my mom had fallen right before I got there, and two days after I got there, she had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital because she couldn't get out of bed. I cancelled the Wyoming trip, although I have been to Oxford and to the BBM event in LA since she started improving. Meanwhile I've been in Colorado most of the summer and am going back there this coming Friday.
Regarding my mom, there was nothing broken, but she was very weak and couldn't even sit up straight in a wheelchair. After four days the hospital sent her to the Rehab wing of a nursing home, where she could get physical therapy to build up her strength, and now she's also getting occupational therapy (practicing skills like dressing, etc.) She's progressed from being in bed, to propelling herself in a wheelchair, and now to being able to walk with her walker and sit in a chair for part of the day.
At first we and the social worker didn't know if she could ever go home again. They thought her best long-term hope was assisted living. But her own goal was to go home. The social worker thought that in that case, she would need 24-hour care at home, but she wants her privacy. Her goal is to be able to take care of herself. We don't know how it will end.
When I first got to Colorado in May, her house was a shambles because she couldn't do anything to take care of it, and she is also a grand collector of unread newspapers, newspaper clippings, puzzle magazines, empty tubes that once had paper towels on them, empty canisters that had had hand-cleaning towels in them -- just everything. My sister, brother-in-law, aunt, cousin and I started out by throwing lots of trash away, but I had to sort through her clippings to save some of them while trying to reduce the volume -- I knew that if she ever did go home, she'd be asking for them. We started out by moving the "keep" items to the basement.
Then we decided that whether the house was to be sold (if she went to assisted living) or whether she came back home, it need to be thoroughly cleaned and painted inside. (Some rooms hadn't been painted since the house was built in 1961.) We started boxing up her books (20 sealed boxes plus more loose books on basement shelves), moving furniture to the basement, getting rid of some old furniture that was in the basement that she wouldn't miss, and then painted the livingroom and hall. When my brother came out on vacation in July, he moved even more furniture to the basement, did some handyman chores, and started painting the back bedroom which had once been his (and had tape marks from posters on the walls) but recently had been where my mom stored books and so on. After he went home, my brother-in-law and I finished (for the most part) painting that bedroom.
I've started painting the bedroom where I'm sleeping, so far just the two primer coats to cover the dirty old peach paint. I'll finish it when I get back. Now, in the other rooms, we also went through the papers in desk drawers and dresser drawers and organized things, and moved the furniture once the drawers were empty. The one room we haven't touched yet is my mom's own bedroom (except to throw out obvious trash). She has a bed, a diningroom piece that was my grandmother's, and three chests of drawers in there -- too much furniture, especially for using the walker. All the furniture is piled with stuff on top as high as it will go. So that also has to be organized, and then we have to move the furniture -- except the bed, at least -- somewhere, before painting. She's okay with the painting and is picking out the right shade of blue this week.
Somehow this painting project turned into a home remodeling project with contractors involved. My mom originally wanted a new water heater, new copper plumbing throughout the house, and a new sink with a garbage disposal. The portable dishwasher was broken and started leaking so badly that it ruined a big place in the linoleum kitchen floor. We finally convinced her to get a built-in dishwasher (thinking partly in terms of what a new buyer might eventually expect to find). Every time she is unhappy about something, she blames it on the built-in dishwasher, but actually this expanded project started out by getting the plumbers involved regarding the garbage disposal.
The plumbers next door, who operate as general contractors, had to get their electrician to see whether the sink was already wired for a garbage disposal (it wasn't). While they were there, they found lots of electrical code violations (some from my dad's handyman work) and the plumbers found plumbing code violations (again, some from my dad's handyman work where he put a second clothes washer and dryer upstairs in the kitchen because my mom couldn't go up and down the stairs ten years ago to use the appliances in the basement. They gave us options, but we decided to have everything brought up to date and modernized.
Cabinets had to be taken out to make room for the dishwasher, and after much discussion, we decided to go ahead and have all new cabinets put in the kitchen, as well as new floor tile and a paint job. The electricians had to have the cabinet guy remove some other cabinets anyway and remove drywall, so they could run new wiring through the walls to put in the number of plugs and so forth that are required by current code (eliminating an extension cord for the stove clock to plug in, as just one example, and eliminating some wire that ran outside the wall instead of inside of it). So, basically a new kitchen, except for the appliances.
We're also getting the downstairs bathroom (which has a tiny shower) remodeled -- shower will be the same size, but won't be cracked and peeling. And the upstairs bathroom will be completely remodeled -- new walk-in full-size shower designed for handicapped access with a bench, grab bars, etc.
So right now, I am living in the bedroom which is being painted, and have one desk chair to sit in in the livingroom. The comfortable livingroom chair is buried behind boxes of cabinets which the handyman contractor and I recently picked up and he brought home from Home Depot. Now there's also floor tile and a new dishwasher (still in its box) and other stuff taking up most of the livingroom floor space, and in one corner there are gallons and galloons of primer and paint for the handyman to use in the kitchen and stairwell. The refrigerator in the kitchen is still plugged in, and I have access to the microwave on the desk and the toaster on the kitchen table, which is in the livingroom. The gas stove is disconnected and is sitting in the livingroom, too.
And to top it all off, something plugged up the old laundry tub in the basement, so I can't do laundry downstairs because the washer empties into the laundry tub -- it overflowed last weekend and took all night to do down. (The upstairs washer empties into the same laundry tub, too, at present, and it's disconnected now anyway.) The plumber's assistant (his wife) promised to get that situation taken care of before I get back, when they install the new laundry tub and snake the line. And they hope to have the downstairs bathroom finished so I (and the contractors) can use that when they start tearing apart the upstairs bathroom.
They actually suggested, before we began, that I might have to stay in a hotel or something for a while, but I'm hoping that this week while I'm in PA will alleviate the need for that. I still have to be in Colorado as much as possible to pick out fixtures that are being installed (it will be a light fixture next), to see my mom and do her bills and bookkeeping, to do my own painting, to start clearing out my mom's bedroom, etc. Even if we run out of time and have to get the contractors to paint her bedroom, we would have to clear off and move furniture out of the way.
So that's what's been happening........
just have to keep my sense of humor, and not be too hard on my sister and brother-in-law about helping out.
Topic: Cellar Scribblings (Read 9131363 times)