Draggin'

I've been in a exhausted state the last few days, every chore takes every bit of gumption I have just to get the old body in motion.  I'm really tired of forcing myself to do things.

Since the weather finally changed I've started the yard work.  I got a pick-up truck load of mulch the other day and spent the afternoon spreading it.  I've had bulk mulch delivered before but having it loaded into the truck seems somewhat easier as I drive up next to the beds and shovel it in without the use of a wheelbarrow.  I probably need to purchase two more truck loads to finish the beds but it took me two days to work the soreness out after the first round so I'm not too excited to be so stiff again but I will probably do it again tomorrow because I'd like to get it down while the plants are still pretty small and easy to work around.

Mom has had a round of doctor appointments this week and I'm exhausted from them.  One Monday, two on Tuesday, and a miserable one with a doctor running over an hour late on Wednesday.  No unexpected news from any of the doctors.  She did see a doctor concerning her osteoporosis and the only med available to her to help is a daily injectable.  This set up more teeth gnashing than you could imagine, honestly I think she'd have been calmer if she was told her left leg needed to be amputated.  Frankly I don't know if the drug is worthy of the money and time commitment or the nightmare that would be mom crying over getting a tiny little shot daily.  I'm researching as the doctor contacts insurance to see if it would even be paid for.  Of course this led to a huge fight because she's adamant she "just can't" take a shot every day.  Frankly the "can't" attitude pisses me off to no end.  Basically I told her she either has to change her lifestyle or she's going to be in a nursing home within a year and that I am DONE taking care of her when she won't do for herself.  I'm sure it went in one ear and out the other and I'm the evil bitch of a daughter who just doesn't understand.

SCREAM!  The boys just came in from school and Sonny Boy is being a little jerk because I won't let him vegetate in front of the video games.  The house rule is no video games through the week because they rush through homework in order to get to games.  Sonny Boy proclaims that I said video games are OK on early release days.  Maybe I let them play one time but it has never been a rule change and I never told them it would happen today.  I just had a good dose of no respect from the kid and I sent him to his room.  He might be 30 before I let him near one again.  Tempted to just through the damn things on the curb and delete off the computer they cause so much strife around here.

Anyway gotta do something productive.


Edited:  I should have really proofread this more thoroughly.  But I'm not going to correct it because I want to serve as an example of very poor grammar.😀

Eating Machine

Suddenly it seemed liked everything was running low in the household at once.  Household staples such as toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, and the like were all hitting critical stages.  Time for a Sam's club run.

I loaded my cart down with industrial sized bottles of detergent, a massive bag of dog food, and a few  basic grocery items.  I also purchased a 2 lb package of cherry tomatoes.  Pushing my cart up to the registers and  I tried not to flinch noticeably when my total was announced, it was breathtaking.  Oh well, I won't have to purchase toilet paper a couple of months or more.

When the kids came home and discovered the giant packages of paper goods they were amazed.  We'll never need paper towels again!  Igor then proceeded to eyeball the cherry tomatoes.

Cherry tomatoes are a weird thing in our house.  My kids will actually pass up treats to eat them.  Not a bad thing most of the time, but frustrating when they are purchased with a specific use in mind.  These tomatoes had a purpose.  I allowed Igor four tomatoes.

Despite the fact I had just spent an enormous amount of money on essentially groceries I still needed to go to the grocery store.  The tomatoes purpose required other ingredients and a birthday party gift was needed so Igor and I go to Sam's cousin Wal Mart.  I left Sonny Boy at home with my tomatoes, big mistake.

I came home to find at least a third maybe more of the tomatoes gone.  So frustrating, particularly when I now have to go back to the store today and buy more tomatoes so I can make the dish.

It's not just tomatoes though, for supper last night he ate a serving and a half of meatloaf, a serving of vegetables, a large salad (this would have easily filled most adults) then was still hungry so he ate a banana and a pb&j.  I cannot cook enough for this child anymore.   Every meal I add more to the pot thinking this will be enough, we'll have leftovers, etc.  nope.  It's like trying to fill the Grand Canyon with a spoon.

Does anyone have advice on how to economically fill a pit?  Pasta, potatoes, etc I suppose?  Seems like starches are the cheapest but in the end empty calories for the most part.  I know he's growing and that's what concerns me, this is eating at 85 lbs.  What happens at man size?  I may have to go SAMs once a week.

Poop

Literally, not figuratively or any other -ly but real, honest, excrement.

Last night after I finally wandered up to bed around 1:00 a.m Callie the obese Labrador came up as usual.  Typically she snores as equally as loud as Hubby through the night only punctuated with an occasional snarl or yip as she dreams of renegade squirrels in the yard.  - between the two of them I've seriously considered the guest bed.  I finally nod off and do my nightly battle of too hot, too cold, too sweaty to have it interrupted by Callie hauling herself downstairs.  OK, unusual but since I was in the middle of a hot flash and we are both middle aged non-reproducing females I figured she was too.  A little while later she comes back and starts panting like its 100 degrees.  I'm fairly awake by now and figure she's gotta "go" so I take my sweaty damp self to the door to shiver while she circles a few times in the yard.  Callie finishes her business and we all return to bed upstairs.  I spend a couple of hours tossing, turning, dreaming to have Hubby's alarm go off and Callie's pacing and panting begin again.  Sonny Boy is disturbed and he is sent to the door with her and the morning routine begins.  

Needless to say the dog has tummy troubles.  The dog continues to want out and poops about every two hours.  Other than an amazing amount of urgent and frequent bathroom trips she doesn't have any other ill effects so I wasn't too concerned.  Time to get the kids from school rolled around so I ran a quick errand and picked up the boys, was gone exactly one hour.  When we got home  Callie darted out the door and Hubby met us all perturbed because she'd had an accident in the living room.  He had just came in the front door in a miracle of crazy timing.  In the land of animal accidents it wasn't a big deal, wasn't even on the rug but gee whiz did it smell bad.

I must say that Callie is the queen of house trained animals.  I am pretty sure she has not pooped or peed in the house since she was three or four months old.  Even when left for very long periods of time we have always come home to cleanliness.  (Now she has killed a few toys in her puppy years though). Knowing this Hubby called the vet and we were instructed to feed her chicken and rice and give her some Pepcid.  So I cooked the dog chicken and rice, - before I cooked our supper.

She seems to be on the mend, but she is hungry as I wanted to keep her stomach a little settled until morning.  It's not like she doesn't have a little extra blubber to live off of in those extra 30 lbs.

Which Cliche'?

I don't know which is a better description.  Either I'm waiting on the other shoe to drop, or I'm stuck on the tracks (or in reality so one else is) and the train is in sight.

I've done my best to foster a hands off approach to dealing with Mom and her crazy lately.  Mostly it works.  She is still toppling over more often than a one legged duck but so far no further injury.  Currently she is due to go on a trip Monday with just about the only person she hasn't alienated in the world -why he still puts up her crazy I don't know.   From the get go I have declared I did not think it a good idea.  It started out a fiasco and I have a hunch it will end as one too.  From the moment it was  planned things went south when I was volunteered to have Mom at Midway in Chicago for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday flight.  Midway is at least two hours from home.  I frankly declared it wasn't going to happen and the flight needed to be changed, preferably to Milwaukee.  Instead they just changed it to a different time.  Dumb me should have said nope, not doing it, if you can't handle changing planes you don't need to fly (that was the explanation given as to why the flight was booked out of Midway).   I went along with it.  Then all this toppling over business started and her foot broke in a couple of different places.   To skip to the crazy part is she purchased herself some flip flops for her trip!  Flip flops, sounds like her typical walking pattern.  I warned her I didn't think this was such a good idea to wear flip flops at any time.  She doesn't see the problem.

When we went south for the class reunion I pondered the idea of turning off my WiFi because I knew she was getting antsy to do her taxes.  I had pushed her to wait on Hubby to help her with them but he had been busy and hadn't had a chance not to mention she hadn't gathered the figures I had told her to yet.  When I got back she told me she had tried to do her taxes but she thought she could do them for free and when she got to the end they wanted credit card numbers and the like so she quit.  Will teach me to disable the WiFi when she's antsy.  Hubby later found time and sat down with her when they got to the end he got up to the bathroom and when he came out she said "all done" so he figured ok.  Last week I asked her if she got her refund back yet and she hadn't and I figured there was a problem because ours came back lickty split.  I nagged Hubby to check on it but you know how those kind of things get pushed to the side.  Mom came over April 16 saying "I think we better check on this" and sure enough it hadn't gone through.  Hubby got it corrected with a look of wonder on his face.

I did check into assisted living.  43 K a year.  That's at the minimum level of care.  Yeah not in our budget anytime soon.  Thing is if she'd just do even half of what she should she would feel better, be healthier, and happier.

But here I am again,  fretting when I said I wouldn't.  Do you think it's possible to just buy a plane ticket for the inevitable medical emergency that is going to happen while she is on her trip?

Insomnia Channels

I'm plagued by sleeplessness.  I've tried all the stuff they tell you on the internet and short of tranquilizers, (tried those too) sleep is elusive to me.  Long gone are the days when I would fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and sleep deeply for  eight hours.  Now if I fall asleep within two hours of going to bed, wake up only three or four times, get up twice, turn the fan on, turn the fan off, turn the heating pad on, then off it's an OK night.  All that tossing and turning and my mind spins through thoughts like Hubby when he can't find a TV show that suits him.

Lists Channel- everybody watches this channel sometimes. Grocery lists, to do lists, Christmas lists.  I even have a running mind tally of stuff to google the next time I'm in front of the computer.  I think list stuff is somewhat productive as it helps organize the day and wipes the slate for the next.  The longer the list is, more stressed I am about an event.

SelfDefense Channel -  this is some daydream drama scenario of how I would handle an intruder, house fire, earthquake or possibly some other large scary disaster.  These things always occur while I'm in bed in my pajamas and barefoot without my glasses of course. I seem to have these more when Hubby is traveling for work. Think Lifetime network with me as the star in every movie!  These don't help the insomnia a bit.

What If Channel- I don't think I do this one much, mostly when I am very melancholy.  What if I'd married that old boyfriend?  What if I'd taken that job?  What if ...  Not my style on a normal day.  Only the commercials are in color.

HGTV - I redecorate /remodel my house without a budget!  Yeah only in my imagination.  Generally leaves me disappointed in the morning to find my 17 year old couches still in the living room.

Blog Post - I write eloquent, witty, posts that make people want to come hang out with my sleep deprived self.  (Then I get in front of a keyboard and this drivel comes out). Ever see Book TV?  Even more boring than c-span.

 

Work Ethic

I've been reading Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  This is her auto- biography she based her series of Little House books on.   I have to say the book as a historical work is detailed, so many footnotes your head spins.  I give Pamela Smith Hill all the kudos in the world for her work on the book.

The story its self isn't anything too surprising, yes, it deviates in some significant points from the books we all know and love, but no one ever claimed those books were non-fiction.  The spirit of Laura that we all grew up with is in this story alive and well.

Perhaps the most striking part of Ms. Wilder's story and the point I've dwelled on the most in the last few days while reading it is the amount of work the children were expected to do.  Not just simple chores that take a whopping 15 minutes of the day but actual work at 5 years old and younger that was simply taken for granted they were to do.  I'm not nieve enough to believe that Ma and Pa never had to send Laura back to wash a dirty dish she missed a spot on, or sweep the kitchen floor again but somehow I got the distinct impression it wasn't often and when it happened she simply corrected her mistake and took care to avoid it in the future.

What a stark contrast from children today.  My boys do chores on a mostly regular basis, when they proclaim they should get paid I usually start requesting payment for every trip to the fridge and that nonsense stops.  The problems I can't seem to find a solution for is the 1) the attitude and 2) the poor quality of work.  Generally I just ignore the attitude, I don't really care if you are angry about picking up the dog poop, just get it done and be quiet about it.  What gets my goat -milks it and shaves it too- is the quality of the work.  I don't even realistically think they won't miss a pile here and there in the yard, but when I find six piles of fresh poo in a 20 foot radius in the dog's favorite poop zone sort of tells me they weren't really working too hard.  Sure I do inspections, but when I point out the six piles I generally get excuses and even more attitude on top of the previous bad one.  All of the arguing, inspection, and such I'd really just rather spend 15 minutes in the yard with the poop scooper myself.

When I think of the poor quality of my children's labor I can't imagine how in the world factories actually found it cheaper to hire children than adults.  Sure, they could hire 10 kids for the price of one adult but I can't see getting anywhere near the same amount or quality of work as an adult unless we loop back around to children like Laura Ingalls Wilder who had done consistent amounts of hard and important work since she was preschool age.

With Laura Ingalls Wilder in mind I hope to start demanding quality work from my children,  I hope to stiffen my backbone and plug my ears to their whining and make them come back and do the job until it is done well.  I hope to make better use of the two short sources of labor in my house to a reasonable amount (I'm not gone work them like its 1880 for Goodness sake).

I better check the booze and make sure it is well stocked.

Dare I say It?

Dare I say it?  I'm really kind of scared to say it because if I do for sure it will here and go away again  but since the daffodils by the back door bloomed (and then were promptly beaten down by hail) I'll say it - Spring is finally knocking on the door.

I will say some sunshine has helped my late winter funk.  I've been more than crotchety lately not able focus on much and just really blah.  I have forced sunshine sat a couple of days and honestly that has helped some mood improvement.  Things are not sunshine and lollipops, but at least not blizzards.

Winding down

Finally, I settle down.  1:30 a.m. and I'm starting to actually feel like bed.  Night owl tendencies, coupled with insomnia, compounded with a strange new anxiety thing I'm blaming on my new migraine med and sleep is earned not fallen into.

Anxiety seems to be flooded around lately here though.   Just before we traveled south for the class reunion Sonny Boy had what I would loosely describe as a panic attack one evening.  Seems it all stemmed from viewing a few minutes of a silly computer game at school.  I talked him down from that event but he has since viewed the game and reimagined his fears again.  This game has suddenly turned my almost 12 year old into a kid who is scared of the dark.  Not just disliking a dark room and prefers a little night light, but full on needs a bright light.  More than a couple of times in the last few weeks I've woken up to his bedroom light flipped on  and it never being turned back off until I get up to do it myself.   I had to broker a regular treaty of Versailles the other night to convince him it was better to keep the closet light on instead of the hall light.   Next week he is excited to go on a scout camp out, he will be in a tent with another boy roughly his age and I certainly worry.  While I know the creatures from the video game are make believe, and his rational brain does too, I certainly don't want him to have a full blown panic attack without a parent there and there won't be the handy thing of a light switch in a tent.

The game that fired up Sonny boy's imagination does sound creepy.  I haven't checked it, but Hubby has.  It frankly sounds pretty benign, not really even something I would ban him from playing but I guess it hits the right nerve with him.  How do you know though?  I have a common sense thing, I'm pretty sure it's not a good idea to let him watch Nightmare on Elm Street, or play some realistic army shooting game but to shield him from all questionable media is impossible and or extreme.

These are new questions for this generation of parents.  The good Lord knows if my Mom didn't want me to see something she simply didn't let me see it at home.  If I didn't have a friend with permissive parents it didn't happen.  Now if I say I don't want to see /play a game the next time he is near a kid with a tablet all bets are off and the lights are on in the middle of the night.

Well I'm finally really groggy, I'm off to bed.