The calm after the storm

My daughter-in-law left early this morning for her weekend with her family. My son and I agreed not to tell her what happened yesterday until after her trip. The only thing she noticed that was out of place were the pictures that fell off the wall when my son slammed a door.

I spent the evening copying video tapes to my computer. It's all part of a project for my dad. I found footage of his mother in my sister's old home movies. I have contacted my brother-in-law's family so see if they would like to have DVDs created from the old movies.

Other than working on the video for dad, I want to get the pool filter running today. It looks like a swamp, but I know I can clear it. I started removing the leaves on Thursday. The filter will remove a lot, but we will still keep cleaning. I hate that pool and could live without it, but it is here and I have put money into it to make it usable, so we will use it. I figures when the deck reaches the point where it is no longer usable, we will disassemble the pool and get rid of it. I never wanted it. I just let my sister go ahead with it to appease her. She was in it all of 2 times.

What a bummer

I hate it when I climb all over my son. This morning it happened after a series of events lead me to find hamburger wrappers and cat pee behind a chair in the livingroom. It's not fair that I seem to have these blow-ups when his wife is not available. The problem is that they live like slobs. Nothing is ever put away. Empty soft drink cans and dirty plates litter the livingroom and my son's office. I hate going into their bedroom. I cleaned it once when they went away for a few days. I won't do it again.

We need to sit down together and hash this out. My fear is that this behavior will continue when they have children. The answer I get from my son is that he is busy with school and his wife has work. Somehow I worked a very demanding career, raised a son, kept a fairly clean house, did yardword and still had time to sit down and watch a movie.

I've written down what set me off today so that I can talk with my daughter-in-law. She is working right now. She will be home for a little while, but then has to go back to work until 10 pm. Tomorrow she is leaving to spent the long weekend with her mother. I think I need to let it wait until she gets home. I need the notes to explain how this happened.

I hate this.

It's been a while

I think I need to start using this as a diary. Things happen and I don't remember them or only remember part of them. Today I called a company that had charged my debit card for $1. My account was overdrawn, so that was an extra chunk of money. When I called the number listed on my statement, it turned out to be for a medical discount card. I never would have said OK to that. Then they mentioned the $100 gas card come-on. That I remembered! That is the only part I remember. I would not have approved it if they were going to charge my card before I saw the program. Well at least the bank is going to reverse the charge and the NSF charge. Life is expensive enough.

This business with my memory bothers me. I have times like now when I feel dizzy and floaty. I can make sense, but not if I am given too much stimulation. Right now I would get really pissed if someone interrupted me. These are the days when calls like that come in. Or someone beeps in on call-waiting. There never seems to be anyone doing that except when I feel weird.

Maybe I am feeling this way because I worked on cleaning the pool today which I am not supposed to do. Sean's going to help me with the pool tomorrow. Seems like I always have to start on a project by myself before I get help. I have had dinner while I was typing this and I feel a little better.

My niece is in jail again. She has been there since March. This may be her "third strike". At least she has not been bugging me. I still keep waiting for "pay phone" to show up in the Caller ID.

The pain is intense today

I have had a really crappy day today. At least I slept well last night…and all afternoon! I don’t know what started it, I didn’t do anything strenuous. I have been having headaches all week, but today I developed a hot pain along the drain for my shunt. It’s ridiculous, I need an ice pack for the pain in my head, but I need heat for the pain in my neck and running down my chest. I would be really worried if I were running a temperature, then it might be an infection. This is supposedly scar tissue running along the tubing. When I ended up in tears I took a Darvocet and a Tramadol. When they kicked in I got so drowsy that I ended up in bed for the afternoon. Shannon’s mother called and I am surprised that I managed to make sense to her and get a message. It took all of about 5 seconds for me to fall asleep again. Sean even came in the room, after he knocked on the door and left the mail for me. I was totally unaware of it.

I’ve taken the Darvocet and Tramadol again before the pain gets too bad. I really hate that I have 2 shelves in my room that look they belong in a pharmacy. I get most of my meds in 90-day supplies, so there are several bottles of each thing that I have to keep track of. My pain specialist won’t write 90-day prescriptions for 3 things because they are controlled substances. He doesn’t want to risk having them stolen from the mail. I guess it is wise but it is a bit of a pain to keep track of which meds get filled every three months.

I suppose it could be worse; I could be without treatment for the pain. It’s so stupid that this all started when I was trying to tie my shoe. It just seems like it has been downhill ever since. I can’t really look at it like that. I had developed osteoarthritis in my knees in my early 20’s. It seems to be in all of my joints now. It is the worst in my knees and thumbs. Why my thumbs? The hydrocephalus was supposedly there all of my life. It might explain the bad headaches I have had for years. I thought they were caused by allergies and sinus congestion. I need to get my head around managing the pain like someone would manage diabetes. It just hurts so bad to walk some days. I think I look like the chimpanzees in the original “Planet of the Apes”; all hip movement and no knee.

I am going to go watch the stuff I taped tonight. I am leaving Raina upstairs again tonight. After she woke me at 3:30 am the night before last, I need to have her sleeping with the other dogs. This way she will already be out of my room when I have one of the pregnant dogs move in.

Hi there! I'm still around, just have been busy

If you check my blog at www.monsterpuppies.com, you'll see why I have been very busy since July. Even though some days I didn't think I would make it, I loved having the puppies here. I am looking forward to our next bunch. My daughter-in-law is interested in showing Cavaliers, so we are planning for the future there. We will need to find a breeder that sells show quality dogs.

The drought here in Georgia has been getting a lot of publicity. I am concerned about it. I'm wondering about shutting down the pool. I hate to let the water go unused. I wish I had something to store it in so that it can be used later. I have to partially drain the pool so that the plumbing is not damaged by freezing. You never know how our winters will be. Some years they are very warm and I would not have to shut down the pool. Then we also have winters with sub-freezing temperatures for days. Those are the ones I am concerned about.

I am also concerned about my memory. I called one of Zoe's friends the other day because I could not remember if I had let her know that Zoe is gone. It turns out that I did contact her in 2005. I am thinking very hard about giving her the link to this blog. She and Zoe were very close and this woman was touched by the abuse that occurred in our family. It's a very tough call. I am working on a very long email to her that covers what happened to Zoe with her last surgery. I am thinking of giving her the link to let her know it would explain a lot of Zoe's behavior and she can read it or not. I don't know yet I am going to do. I keep remembering the old saying about letting sleeping dogs lie.

My thumbs hurt!

I am so tired I could just cry. Since my finches are gone, I wanted to clean the floor in my room. I had rolled up the area rug and put it in the trash the other day. The dog and puppies had just wet it beyond cleaning. So, I spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon moving furniture, vacuuming and mopping the floor. I had been thinking about turning my bed with the long side against the wall, so I tried it. I even lay down and watched my soap to try it out. It was a good idea, but I didn’t like it. So I ended up putting it back where it was this morning. I had my son help me move my dresser into my room. I was a little tired of realizing that I needed a bra and nearly stepping out in front of someone. Now I can dress in privacy. I still have some other moves to make, but didn’t want to push my help too hard today. After all, he was going to his in-law’s house to clean it around 5:00 pm.

I took my dishes upstairs to wash them after my meal of canned red beans and rice (ooo, yum; NOT). The sink was so full of dirty dishes from yesterday and the day before, I ended up doing an hour’s worth of dish washing. I hate it. Washing utensils is so painful. Any pressure against my thumbs is awful! I scraped the remains of last night’s casserole into the trash with my hands. I wish I could let the others here feel this pain once and they might appreciate what it takes for me to do the dishes for everyone. I think I’m just crabby because we ran out of cigarettes and don’t have any money. Maybe I should look at it as a good thing.

Oh yeah, I was right about the squirrel's cage. I had to throw one of the towels away it was so nasty.

"T" strikes again!

New trouble with my niece, the guy who took her junker car came by the other day. He had been to the tag office to transfer the title and get tags for the car. The second title showed up on the computer. A flag was put on his personal car tags and driver’s license. If he cannot show that he has a legitimate title by Sept. 29, they will suspend his tag and license. I was just sick! I had forgotten that ‘T’ had gotten a duplicate title. One of her drug dealer friends tried to use the second title to transfer the car into her name. Now we need ‘T’ to go to the tag office to prove that the car is being transferred legally. I don’t want to see her. I am not really needed, but I am the connection to ‘T’ so I have to be involved so she will go with us to straighten this mess out. The guy with the car has a friend who does title transfers for a car dealer. He has provided her with copies of all of my documentation about the car loan and the release ‘T’ signed so I could get her car when she was in the county jail. If this woman can make this happen, I won’t have to see my niece. I should know in about an hour, a very long hour.