How much?

Happy Tuesday to all of you.  It has been a great day around Casa De Noce.  We are getting things done for my mother in law and I actually think we are on the right track now.  Hubby got all the papers to the nursing home Dr this morning and she promised to have them complete by this afternoon.  How great is that?

Hubby and I have been filling out form after form to get his mom ready to move back to Nevada.  We are still hoping she will be able to move into the Veteran's home there.  It is one of the highest rated homes in the state.  And that includes all the state inspections as well as inspections done by Medicare.  We have been there too and it is very clean and the people are treated with great respect and loving care.

Unfortunately.................getting all this paperwork completed plays havoc with my sense of order.  Just how much paperwork does it take to move one little lady from Arizona to Nevada?

The dining room table is unusable at the moment.  It is covered with just some of the papers we are filling out and reference papers too.

Then, the desk I am sitting at now is where the rest of the paperwork is laying.  This should all be cleaned up and out of here by the end of this week.  Hubby is still planning on going to Nevada to personally turn in all the paperwork to the Veteran's home.  This way, we know it got there and to the right person.  We also made his brother in Nevada, Power Of Attorney so we will be turning all of the paperwork over to him at the same time.  This will relieve quite a bit off our shoulders.  It has really been hard on my hubby to try and get all this taken care of.  He has never had to work with medical stuff before and was at a complete loss.  Since I had been in the medical field since 1974 I was much more familiar with the ins and outs of the way things worked and who to call and what questions to ask.  Between the two of us, we manged to get it all handled.  We have also been blessed with people that have given us names and numbers to call when we were stumped.  Those people have just appeared in our lives at the right time.  We call them our angels.

While hubby was working on all the paperwork, my bff and I went out to pick up some LuLaRoe we had bought.  It was kind of nice to just get away from the hectic mess at home.  When I got home I made our dinner and put it in the crockpot.  I am trying so hard to make sure we eat healthy in the evenings.  I have gone back to making Skinnytaste meals for our dinners.

Tonight we will have:

Slow cooker Beef and Two Bean Chili.  It is a new recipe to me but it smells so wonderful in my house right now.  I normally will not cook soups, stews or chili's when it is warm outside but, this sounded so good and makes enough for us to have at least 2 meals out of.  Since hubby is planning on leaving on Thursday, this will mean, I do not need to cook while he is gone.  I can have leftovers!  

I am getting ready to head outside to side to sit and work on my shawl some more.  I made quite a bit of headway on it yesterday.  I am hoping to get to the point where I will start the edging on it.  The edging adds another 5 to 10 inches to it.  I don't want it to be so long it becomes cumbersome for an ill person to handle.

Until next time.........................happy crafting!

Mother Nature and Me

I finally got a change to go and sit outside on my front porch today.  I was going to do it yesterday, but we had a house full of company again.  There was a 10 month baby in the group and I didn't think the cold concrete of the porch would be too good for her little hands and knees.

I grabbed my prayer shawl and plopped down and started to crochet away.  It was so peaceful out there.  I looked around and realized how blessed I am to live in such a wonderful neighborhood.  

I took a few pictures of what I look at as I sit and rock and crochet.

Look at those palm trees.  We used to have the tallest ones in the neighborhood until they were struck by lightening.  Now our neighbor across the street gets that honor.  See that blue sky?  It was a lovely 83 degrees out today and not a cloud in the sky.  We seldom have clouds here.  When we do, I have a party.

This is the same neighbors house.  This flowering plant is a bougainvillea.  It is a lovely to look at plant but those flowers are forever finding their way into my swimming pool and clogging my skimmer up.  

We had a lovely breeze all day today as you can tell by the flag waving.  We are a patriotic neighborhood also.  Almost everyone has a flag that they fly on special days.  Some fly them all the time which is fine with me.  This house is directly across the street from me.  They have done a wonderful job of fixing it up.  It was in a bit of disrepair when they purchased it.

See those yellow things on those trees?  They  are actually orange in color.  My phone does what it wants with color.  Anyway, those are oranges ready to be picked.  If you love citrus fruit, now is the time to buy it.  It is plentiful and should be at it's lowest price in your local stores right now.  These trees are right across the street from me also.  In the next couple of weeks they will bloom again and the air will be filled with the sweet sweet aroma of orange and lemon blossoms.

It is time for me to go and start our dinner.  Our company left today so it is just the hubby and I for dinner tonight.  

Until next time............................happy crafting!

31 DOWN, 21 LEFT

Sunday has arrived.  It is time, once again, for an update on the "Year of Projects" that started, for me, on July 1, 2017. I am so thankful to be able to do the crafts I do.  It has led me to 'meet' so many wonderful people and learn so many new skills in my crafting areas of knitting and crochet.  I have also gotten some new cooking recipes from this group too.  That is always a plus in my book.  You can join anytime.  Take a peek at out group here.

Here is what happened in my yarny world this week:

As you can see from my progress keeper, this sock did get some love.  Just not enough to get to the heel yet.  Maybe I will get there this week.  I have been more into something else this week.

Shawl making has been my passion this week.  This pattern is Mrs Hughes' Adventure Faroese Shawl.   This has been a fun project.  I started it on Tuesday afternoon.  Crocheting goes so much faster than knitting.  I plan on having this completed for next weeks Prayer Shawl meeting.  Then, I will turn my attention back to my lonely sock.

I did not make it to the prayer shawl meeting this week.  I was busy trying to find a placement for my mother in law.  She is being discharged from rehab in the next 10 days and we need to get her back to Nevada for her permanent placement.  It has been a mess and I still do not have a solid answer to the place we really want her to go.  I will be calling them again on Monday and each day there after until I get an exact date they can take her.  They will either get her in soon or stop taking my calls.  LOL

I did get my front porch completed on Friday.

I have not taken any time to sit out there yet.  I plan on doing that today while planning our weekly menu.  We are supposed to hit 80 F today and tomorrow with bright sunshine.  Since this area is always in the shade, it will be cooler there by about 10 degrees.  Perfect for a light sweater, hot tea and my cookbooks.  There is a breeze blowing today too.  Yup, perfect front porch weather.  There will be plenty of people watching happening too.  We have a Mormon church right behind our house and most of the people that go there walk, to and from it.  

Until next time.............Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't Ask

I am going to make this saying my motto.  It has been one thing after another around here.  It has gotten to the point that we are laughing about all the crazy stuff that is happening with our mom's.

As you know, my mom was in cold storage for 3 weeks.  Once she was cremated they discovered they did not have the urn for her and had to wait another day or two for that to come in. When I went to pick her up, they did not have the death certificates yet so I had to wait another few days for those to show up.  In the mean time..........I found out they had spelled the name of the town she was going to be buried in, wrong.  I mean wrong on 15 pages of a guest/memory book.  Then I got the death certificates and found out those were also incorrect.  They had me listed as her mother!  I am now waiting for the corrected certificates.  The book pages were corrected and those have been replaced.  Today, I called her home church to schedule the funeral for April 6th.  The pastor that knew her is not going to be in town that day!  So he now has to get permission from the senior pastor to have a retired pastor do the service and hopefully, the retired pastor is available that day!  This has been so crazy.  My mom had everything planned out down to the kind of flowers she wanted at her funeral.  Nothing has gone as planned......................hubby and I were laughing so hard today about all of it.  My mom was the most organized person on this planet.  It seems, once she left us, that all went away too.

Then....................my mother in law is going to be discharged from rehab in 2 weeks.  We are now in a frenzy to try and find a place for her in her home state.  I have been making phone calls everyday to places trying to find a good fit for her.  I have not received one phone call back from any of them.  This has been a bit frustrating too.  Since I am not in her home state, I am at the mercy of the internet when looking for state inspections of places and recommendations from other folks.

On a happy note.........................my rocking chairs arrived and have been put together.

I am in love with them.  The little table on the chair is for in between them so I can set a beverage on it while enjoying the out of doors and people watching.

This morning I took a broom and shovel out to clean off the front porch.

When it rains, all the dirt from the roof washes off and we get quite a bit of dirt on the porch.  To be honest, I have no idea as to when I swept the porch the last time.  It looks so much better now and I am excited to get it all set up and ready for me to enjoy.  Hubby is not as excited as I am.  He is a house plant and has no desire to sit outside to just enjoy fresh air like I do.

Hubby is finishing up mopping the floors and then he is going to go and visit his mom.  I am going to work on my prayer shawl, I started a few days ago, and watch some of my shows on TV this afternoon.  There will also be bread making going on during that time period.  I have missed my homemade bread and with the bread maker it is so easy to do.

Tonight we are going to make a lovely salmon dinner on the grill.  Hubby makes the best grilled salmon ever.  I will prepare some butternut squash with it as well as some spinach. Healthy, healthy, healthy eating tonight.

Yesterday, I baked a double batch of my Malachi's cookies and the day before that I made brownies.  I am making sure we are eating healthier snacks as we both need to be careful with our diets.  

My laundry just buzzed, so I need to go and get that in the dryer and another load in the washer.  I already did my mother in law's clothes this morning, so they are folded and ready to go back to her.  Yup, a woman's work is never done is it?

Until next time....................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!

Midweek

I used to be a morning person.  Being married to the worlds biggest night owl has slowly changed me into a mid morning person.  Retirement has encouraged that behavior even more.  Ten in the morning is my 'get to it' time now a days.  I do have morning routines, though.

This is my cuppa and my journal.  Each morning I make either coffee or tea and put it in this cup.  I then sit down with my journal and go over my 'to do' list and also journal my thoughts from the day before.  This gets me pretty well centered for the day.

That travel mug is used each day and is the bomb!  I despise lukewarm morning beverages.  My Contigo Travel mug keeps my beverages hot for HOURS!  Yesterday I actually timed it and my coffee was toasty warm for 3 hours!  Just a little side note......I also have refrigerated creamer in my tea and coffee.  So, for it to stay really warm for that long is something.  This summer I will try cold drinks in it to see how it works with them too.  Stay tuned.......summer starts here in about 2 months.

Last night I got bored with my sock.  So I decided to start a crocheted prayer shawl.  I started a knitted one some time ago but feel knitted shawls take way too long.  So it is going to be frogged and I will be crocheting that yarn into this:

Mrs Hughes' Faroese Adventure Shawl.  It is the first time I have used a crochet charted pattern and am loving it.  It is a fairly easy crochet pattern as long as you keep your count straight.  I plan on going back to the Prayer Shawl Ministry group this week and will take this along to work on.  I have not been for over a month and really miss being with my lady friends.

My rocking chairs came in yesterday.  Assembly will happen today.  I am very excited to get them done and my porch ready for some outdoor crafting time.  

My kitchen got the cleaning I talked about in Sunday's post.  The fridge got torn apart and scrubbed down.  All the spices were taken out of the cabinets and only the ones we use were returned to the cabinets.  The counter tops were scrubbed and polished (granite shines so nice when all cleaned up.  Cabinets and drawers were culled and cleaned.  Yesterday I cleaned out our pantry........what a disaster that thing was.  I now have all my baking 'stuff' on one shelf so I no longer have to dig and move everything when I want to make cookies or bread or brownies or any other of our 'healthier' snacks.  This made me so happy, I looked like this all night.

No, that is not one of my dogs.  But speaking of my dogs:

They love their blankets. Usually one of them is buried inside the blankets.  Guess it was too early for that much effort this morning.

I am off to try and assemble a couple of rocking chairs.  Hubby needs to get his allergy shots today so it will give me time to read instructions (Yes, I do read them).  I have the power tools charged and ready to go.

Until next time.........Happy Crafting!

WEEK 30 YEAR VII

Crafting has happened this week.  I have a FO to show and it is not my sock!

 A lovely market bag for me!  I went to the store this week and realized all our shopping bags were in the hubby's car.  I started this Monday night and completed it 
Saturday afternoon.  I had made one of these 2 years ago but gave that one I made away.  I made the handle shorter than written as it stretches a bit.  It may not look like it holds much but...........it is almost 12 inches in diameter and then has some stretch too.  It is made with #3 fashion thread and a size G hook.  I got the pattern off ravelry but do not remember which one it is.  I did not print out the title page of the pattern.  This will be perfect for the veggie/fruit market.  I will be making more of these but will be looking for different shapes. (rectangular or squarish or even oval)

 I did work a bit on my second sock.

The progress keeper shows where I was last Sunday.  I will be working on this today once I complete my to do list.  There is a football game on at 4:40 this afternoon I am quite interested in watching.  This sock is perfect TV crafting.

I had told you I was looking for rocking chairs for my front porch.  I found them!



I got this one and one just like it in olive green.  They will be arriving on Tuesday and I am as excited as a kid on Christmas.  I have been looking for over a year for seating for my front porch.  It is not a common thing to see people here in Arizona sitting out front, yet several of our neighbors have started sitting out front on the nicer weathered days.  (Most new houses do not have front porches) This will be perfect for me to sit out and knit/crochet in the mornings when it is cooler outside.  I have never enjoyed sitting in our backyard and crafting.  Our house faces north so, it is nice and cool there until around July.  I cools back off again, around the middle of September.

Today will see me tearing apart my kitchen and doing a deep cleaning in there.  With all the company we have had, it has really taken a hit on sticky door/drawer pulls, finger prints on all surfaces, crumbs falling into drawers and items just stuck willy nilly where there was room for them.  It is driving me nuts.  My kitchen is my sanctuary where I love to cook and bake for my family.  If it is in disarray so am I.  

I am going to close this and ask you to send some prayers for my BFF, Beth.  She lost her father this morning.  This is her first parental loss and she is a lot of heartache.  Like most of us females, she was a daddy's girl.  My heart breaks for her.  Having suffered a parental loss in the past month, I can empathize quite a bit with her.

Until next time............Happy Crafting!!!!!!

Remember When?

 Do y'all remember when I posted everyday in November?  How I enjoyed doing that.  I don't now why I don't post more often now.  It's not like nothing happens around here on a daily basis.  Today, I decided to do a bit of blogging just so Sunday's post wouldn't be so involved with my daily life.

Monday saw me trying to play a bit of catch up on daily life.  I did 2 loads of laundry, made out a menu for the week, went grocery shopping and cleaned the fridge.  It was a greatly productive day for me.  It felt good to be doing normal things again.

Tuesday,  hubby and I spent 4 hours with his mom at the nursing facility talking to elder advisers, social workers and her therapists. She is improving slowly.  She will never be independent again though.  We have a lot of research to do on her behalf as well as getting an attorney to help us.  She has no will or power of attorneys assigned and she can no longer make decisions on her own behalf.   It is quite a mess.  Today also saw me receiving my mom's death certificates.......finally.

Wednesday I had my blood work done for my liver functions.  They are so close to normal!!!  I mean super close....less than 10 points close to normal.  To let you know how bad it was.....I was over 1000 points above normal.  They were sure I was in the throws of liver failure when, all that happened was, my Arthritis medicine built up and effected my liver.  I am no longer taking that medicine and it has stopped the issue.  Now we are looking into other medicines for my Arthritis.

Wednesday also saw me loosing my cool when I noticed my mom's death certificate was incorrect.  It had me listed as her MOTHER!!!!  So now I have to wait for an addendum to be filed and the certificate to be reprinted before I can send it anywhere.  This is the second boo boo made by the mortuary.  Needless to say, I am or recommending them to anyone at this point.

Wednesday evening we had a lovely dinner with friends from Las Vegas.  They are really more like family than friends.  It was so much fun to be able to just laugh and talk for several hours.

Thursday I took the last puzzle my mom and I did together and paid to have it framed professionally.  After that I made a quick trip to WinCo and Costco for a few essentials and then came home to do some much needed house work.  

Today, hubby and I are going through paperwork that has been scattered all over from our frantic searches over the past month.  Having 2 family members going through traumatic times together is not fun.  We are surviving and even are managing to keep things pretty normal now.  I am back to cooking dinners for us.  Hubby is back to cleaning house and me back do routine laundry.  Our dogs are fed and loved on daily and we even have time to watch our TV shows we record.  

Life as we knew it 3 months ago will never come back.  We are learning to live with our new normal though.  So you see.......you can teach an old dog new tricks.

My goal for the next week is.......................find a rocking chair for my front porch.  I want one that will hold our blistering heat and fine dirt that is on everything all the time.  I would love to sit out front during the day and work on my crafts while watching the little devils angels walk to and from school.  Maybe I can figure out which brat child is the one throwing rocks at my dogs and in our pool.  

I am off to get ready for the day.

Until next time............happy crafting!!!!!!

Week 29 and Life in General

 

I have lots of pictures to post as well as stories to go with each one.  So if you are in a hurry, you might want to come back when you have some time.  Otherwise, grab your favorite beverage and a snack and let's get to it.

First up:

I completed sock one of the Hermione Socks.  This is such a great pattern to work when under a bit of stress.  Easy to memorize and if you make a mistake, it seldom shows.  

Sock 2 got started Thursday night but didn't see much love until yesterday.  It has been just a bit busy around here.

That is it for crafting.  Next will be about my life in week 29 of Year 7.

As you know, MIL (mother in law) had a stroke on New Year's Eve.  She finally got released from the hospital on the 11th and was placed in a skilled nursing facility for rehabilitation.  So far she has tried to get out of bed by herself, twice, which resulted in falls. (She is unable to stand or walk at this time.)  Luckily, she has a thick foam mat by her bed and is only 6 inches off the ground.  Last night, she was by the nursing station because of irritability, and fell out of her wheelchair and had to go to the Emergency Room for CT scans. (She is fine)  According to new Federal Guidelines, facilities can no longer use rails on beds or ties to help keep people from falling out of their chairs.  That is considered restraining the patient.  They can use it in a hospital but not a nursing facility.  I wonder how long before a law suit is brought to the federal government because of serious injury or death from this brand new ruling?  So, I have about 4 hours of sleep under my belt and a full day ahead of me.  

We have had some fun this week though.

This was dinner time one night this week.  Looks like a feeding frenzy in my kitchen.  Hubby is in the blue shirt, Brother in Law in the hat, Sister in Law facing the camera and the other two are my nieces from the dude in the hat.

See those pink roses?  Son in Law brought them over on Monday.  They lasted until this morning.  They were gorgeous though.  I am now flowerless for the first time in 3 weeks.

This is the crew out to dinner one night.  We had such a great time talking and laughing.  It really helped with all the negativity that was going on.

I don't normally like any photos of myself, but SIL managed to get a pretty good shot of my hubby and I.  This man has been my rock these past weeks.  

I was finally able to bring my mom home yesterday.  I still don't have any death certificates.  Hopefully they will be ready next week.  The urn will remain on my mantle until around Easter.  Then we will travel back to Kansas to have her service and internment.  I am in love with this urn.  It is so my mom.  Just getting her ashes has helped me so much.  I am much calmer now.  Thinking of her in cold storage for 2 weeks was making me nuts.  She hated the cold.  I know she could not feel it, but it still bothered me.  The Medical Examiners office even called me to apologize about the length of time it took them to review her medical records.  They did change her cause of death though.  It was complications from her pelvic fractures.  Most probably some type of embolism (Per the private conversation with the Medical Examiner)

Journaling has been my saving grace these past two weeks.  I keep my to do list in here as well as writing about my feelings.  I love checking off all the things I accomplish each day.  If they are not competed, it goes on the next day.  It is just a super simple layout, but works so well for me.  I set it up each night before bed so I don't have to think too hard in the morning.  My SIL has a journal too and carries it everywhere with her.  She loved my reading journal and thinks she might start multiple journals for different areas of her life too.

The internal Christmas decorations came down on Wednesday.  I am never that late getting them put away.  Our tradition is to take them down on Epiphany (January 6).  Hubby pulled the yard art that day too but........................we still have lights out front (even though they are not coming on anymore).  Our goal is to get them put away this week.  

I get my blood work done this week again.  Praying my liver functions are back to normal so I can get back on my anti-inflammatories.  They were not the drug that messed up my liver functions but I had to stay off everything to give the liver time to regenerate.  RA is not a fun thing to deal with when you are not allowed any medicines to help with the pain or progression of the disease.  I have been drug free since the first of December.  (That sounded weird LOL)  With all that has happened in the past 6 weeks, I am lucky I haven't been totally knocked out of daily living.  There has not been any adult beverages during this time period either.  My hubby says I come from strong stock and that's why I don't let my RA get the best of me.  (See?  He is my rock)

That covers my life this past week.  Next week will see me working on a sock and visiting my MIL a few times.  We are hoping they can get her strong enough to transfer her back to Nevada in a couple of weeks.  We already know she will never be independent again.  She is getting an hour of therapy 5 times a week.  She really tries hard to do all they ask.  Her upper body is doing pretty good but the right leg has a mind of its own.   She is still on pureed food also and that will need to change before she can get to the next level of living arrangements.  Her speech is getting better but still needs some work.  I can now understand her about 40% of the time.  She is 90 and 1/2 years old.  (Seems when you hit 90 the half years become as important as they were when you were a child LOL.)  We ave nick named her Spark Plug.  Sparky for short.  She is bound and determined she is going to escape and go home. Those nurses will be given a run for their money with her.

Until next time.............Happy Crafting!!!!