Sick & Oh so Tired.

The trip to Mom's went just about like we expected. The refrigerator was horrible. I could smell it as soon as the door opened. Hubby was brilliant grabbing his phone and taking video of her opening the doors for the first time. Hubby was nice and brought along a respirator for her to wear as we had both declared we were NOT cleaning it out. (we had a freezer go out while we were on vacation a few years ago and we are still suffering trauma from that) Mom refused to wear the mask, however she did get in there and empty all the stuff into trash bags and wipe the interior and shelves with strong bleach solution. Needless to say it still smelled REALLY bad. I wiped it out again the next day and changed out charcoal in it daily while we were there. I left it with several boxes of baking soda in it and sprinkled in the bins. Honestly I think it needs to go to the dump which is a shame as it's a decent fridge other than the smell coming from the interior.

Other projects tackled were to clean up the lot next door where a mobile home had sat until recently. The people mom had rented the lot to left piles of junk, including and not limited to an old carpet cleaning machine, the carpet, tires, toys, chemicals and a mattress. The lot had not been mowed for a year or two because of so much junk hidden in the grass. We had a very large fire going for two days but still didn't get all of the stuff burned that we could, the last day there was very windy and we couldn't burn at all. I'm sure the EPA would have written us a large ticket but what do you do? Hubby and both boys did tons of yard work, trimming trees, bushes, and mowing. I did too, with frequent runs into the house to prod Mom back to work on her "desk" which was literally covered in years of papers. Hubby managed to get into some poison ivy and rubbed it on his face. Sunday he looked as if somebody had used him for a punching bag with swollen eyes and red scratches. He went to the doctor today and she gave him a shot and a pack of prednisone. Since this morning the swelling has gone way down. The bad part is that he has to dress up and give a presentation tomorrow in front of a whole bunch of people, I hope the meds do more magic overnight so he's not so self conscience of it, he's nervous enough without that worry too.

I "staged" things, and cleaned the house. Mom hired a cleaning lady who came out the first day but she didn't really do much of anything but charge her $40. She did run the vacuum and get most of the dead lady bugs up around the house. Mom and I went through her huge closet and she weeded out tons of clothes. Honestly I don't think she's thrown anything out in years. I found the dress she wore to my wedding 15 years ago, I found stuff I'd gotten tired of and passed on to her 10 years ago. She tried on and we declare keep or toss and she came home with a large box and a suitcase of clothes we have to hang up and find a place for now. Many things need alterations, so we may have to find a seamstress as my sewing skills are seriously lacking.

We cleaned out her food pantry. I brought home a couple of boxes of canned goods. Many of the cans I found were way out of date. If they were too old I tossed, a year or two I'm going to try it. I found one can of pineapple that clearly had issues. Mom had left a loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter. I know why it's a "Wonder" The bread was clearly dated Feb, had been opened and was still somewhat soft and had no mold growing on it. NOT natural for bread.

Honestly, Mom left the house like she was just going on a 2-3 day trip instead of moving, I was disappointed in the type of things that were not done. There were dishes in the sink, dirty clothes in the hamper, and cigarette butts in the ashtrays. I don't think she thought she would actually stay, but she has and I think we are doing OK. We are starting to adjust to having her in the house now and she's realizing that doing some exercises and getting dressed daily really do make you feel better and I'm not torturing her just for fun.

This afternoon I noticed that the landlords for the rent house behind us were over there cleaning up. It appeared that the last tenant had moved out over the weekend. I'm disappointed somewhat to see him go as he was the best tenant they had move in there so far, quiet and the yard was relatively neat and he didn't have junk around and no dogs coming over to poop in our yard etc. Anyway I stepped over and re-introduced myself as we haven't talked in literally years and asked about the house. It's a very small house and they are asking a reasonable rent, it is under discussion as to if Mom should rent it. I brought her over to take a look and she liked it well enough. It would work out well as we could keep up the yard easily (it's tiny) and she'd be close enough to keep an eye on her but still give us all some privacy.

Along with Hubby having poison ivy, Igor has some sort of bug and is running a fever. Nice. We are all worn slap out and have sore feet. It will take a few days to get back into the swing of things I'm sure.