STILL UP IN THE AIR

I finally get a break, to run back to the house, take a shower, and try to grab a nap, and what do I do? Run straight to you!

As usual, there is both good and bad in every situation. The good news is that: 1)Mom is almost back to her usual self, after 2 days of us force feeding her and watching her like a hawk around the clock, 2) The Christmas presents I am making this year are portable, and I have been able to work on them some whenever Mom dozes (I'd so love to show them to you, but everyone who is getting one reads this blog!), and 3) A fabulous new book called Blogging For Bliss, by Tara Frey, came in the mail just before I left Wimberley, and it's really helping to make my time here more bearable. Not only am I gleaning great tips on how to improve my blog, and wonderful advice to share with attendees when I sit on the Story Circle Network blogging panel at the conference in February, I'm also being introduced to some fabulous new blogs that I can't wait to explore further! For any of you who have ever toyed with the idea of starting a blog of your own, run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and nab a copy for yourself.

The bad news is that as soon as we leave Mom to her own devices, she will go right back to her old ways of sitting on the sofa all day, and refusing to bother with picking up a fork to eat what's on the tray they have brought her, or take her meds, or let them bathe her, or anything else she needs to do in order to be able to stay in her lovely appartment in the assisted living building. So in all liklihood, when we meet with the staff, they will probably say that she'd be better off in a skilled nursing facility, stuck in a bare, double room, having nothing but a bed and a chair to call her own. When or if she will have to move, who will have a space for her, how soon we will have to get her room dismantled and belongings disposed of, and how much longer I will have to lie awake all night on that very skinny, slightly odorous sofa in her living room, jumping each time she calls, well, all that remains to be seen.