The Rose of the Wind

Past due updating again, sorry. Thanks for all y’all who seem to still enjoy my meanderings whenever they show up. I’m also sorry for not checking comments regularly. Some of the brain wattage that I lost over the years of caregiving are still trying to find their way home, I think. Hope everybody is doing well. This past week was the anniversary of mom’s passing. It feels like just yesterday, and an age ago, all at the same time. I went thrift store shopping in her honor; it

This was supposed to have been done two weeks ago. Sorry, real life gets in the way. But! On a positive note, it gives me much more stuff to talk to you about! A couple of weeks ago I decided to take advantage of my currently- not-conventionally-employed status, and make another run to Atlanta for a favorite writer’s closest personal appearance. (it was the only stop on their tour that still had tickets too, so I figured it was meant to be. LOL) I took my car in to be service

I survived Dragon Con! And this year I will actually share pix and stories before Christmas. LOL As with last year, I did not stay at one of the insanely expensive host hotels downtown. I hate to drive in Atlanta, and hate it worse the closer to town I get. Thankfully, the little extended stay I discovered last year, not far from where the pen show is held, was available, and I landed there around lunch time on Thursday, day one of the con. Unofficial activities are starting

For a post that's all about creating, this has a rather down start. Job prospect did not pan out. I don’t know whether they just decided I was overqualified or what. I certainly didn’t ask for a super high salary; what they offered was fine with me, considering how awesome state benefits are. Whatever the reasoning, they went with somebody else, even with my cousin hopefully going to bat for me. Once I got over the disappointment, I figured there's probably something about th

Part of the joy of driving up to the Smokies is that the weather is generally a little more moderate—cooler and less humid—than the basin where Nashville sits. This year…it was not. I mentioned last week that the forecast was hot with chances of rain daily. The forecast was half accurate: there wasn’t a drop of rain that I saw the several days I was there, but the hot? Yeah. Tourists were complaining. I was joining with locals to assure them that no, they were not crazy, and

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the birdies is! They are outside tweeting like crazy right now. It’s a beautiful day, HOT, the hottest so far this year, I think. I finished putting out all my plants; the flowers I mentioned last post, some herbs, a couple of veggies, and my Joseph’s coat. Somehow, I didn’t expect them to, but the rosemary, lavender and mint that I planted last spring all came back! My knockout rose bush that I pruned last winter is going

Actually, I survived to get to the pen show. Aunt Peggy didn’t have a fever with her bout of illness, which was the main reason we concluded it was food poisoning. But while I was writing that blog post last Thursday talking such a good game about that, I was feeling progressively sicker and sicker, nauseous and with ominous rumblings in my lower segment. I barely got it posted before I had to run to the bathroom. Don’t worry, I’m not going TMI; just suffice it to say if the

So, like the song says, nothing ever goes as planned. I’ve been looking forward to the weekend run to Atlanta for the pen show, but a couple of days ago, I was pretty sure it was going to have to be cancelled. Aunt Peggy got food poisoning. We weren’t sure at first that was what was going on; it could have been a stomach virus, but in the long run, food poisoning was probably the better option. Not contagious, and all that. Her kids both have a ton on their plates, and she wa

I survived! Yes, I made it to Dragon Con and back in one piece. Didn’t have to break out my taser even once. Mom was good the whole time (even though Place K did call me at 3 AM the morning after I got home, to let me know she had had a nosebleed. Thank heavens for that timing!). I can’t begin to say what a great time was had. It still surprises me, somehow, to know I can come and go as I please, eat what I want when I want it, set out with one plan in mind and then change on

Time for a quick update before I start packing for the con! Things are going well overall, with no major excitement. Mom is doing fine. About once a week, the nurses call to tell me she’s gotten irritated and isn’t getting enough attention so puts herself in the floor. Sometimes, if they have just watched her do it, they are actually laughing when they call. It is pretty funny to watch, I admit. They have to call me because technically, it is a fall, even though it isn’t. I’m

Once again, I’m late in updating. I guess I could say that is partly because there’s not much going on, which sounds totally counterintuitive, doesn’t it? For the past couple of weeks, I haven’t gotten out much. A lot of activities involve spending money, and I’m trying not to do that more than I have to. Also, I’m more of a homebody than people know. it’s ironic, isn’t it, that now that I can go anywhere I want to anytime I want to, I want to do things at home? I think it’s

Nothing really exciting to write about this go-round; I just thought I should toss up a brief post to say hi. I am rediscovering something I had almost forgotten the feeling of…boredom! Okay, I’m not really bored. It’s more like, every now and then, I find myself stopping and going ‘all right, everything on my to-do list is done’ and I have to think about, what shall I do now? Not as if I’m actually short on things to do! When the list of ‘this has to be done right NOW’ gets

I wasn’t sure if I’d be going with my family on our little gambling mini-vacation, because as of the day before, mom was still at New Psych & I wasn’t able to get hold of people there or at Place K to get confirmation of the plan. I resigned myself to staying home and handling whatever came up alone for three days. My aunts and uncle, however, did not. They put their collective feet down and insisted. They wanted me to come; the facilities could manage moving mom, or keep her

Just a quick drive-by to say hello and share a couple of things! Did you watch the royal wedding last weekend? Yes, I did. Please, nobody start with me about how Bad Things A, B, C, & D are still going on and how dare people allow themselves to be brainwashed into spending several hours with fluff on the TV. (Although, if you are reading my blog, I’m pretty sure you aren’t the kind of person who would say that anyway.) I know bad things are going on. I also know what I’ve bee

On Mother’s Day, I did go see mom. She…sort of knew who I was? I wore her favorite Winnie the Pooh shirt, and she recognized that; but then she kept asking how old I was. I wanted to take her some silk flowers and the blueberry bread from the corner grocery that she likes, but New Psych doesn’t allow such, so I just took her a card. I kept up a conversation for half an hour or so, before she started to get fidgety and want me to roll her around so she could show me where she

Writing this post makes me feel like my favorite nightly newscast. It’s become a running joke, so much so that half the time when the show starts the host is already laughing, that they have a whole hour’s programming put together, and five minutes before air time, some crazy new bit of news blows up and the show gets tossed. Or as a character in one of my books says, ‘plan is to trash the plan’ (more on that later) As I said last time, I really did intend to blog toward the

When I last left you, dear readers, my head was spinning from mom’s transfers and travels, and I had been admonished to get out of town and try to relax. Wednesday, after we took mom to her apartment, I came home, and aside from the phone call attempting to calm her, I had an excellent afternoon. I cranked my stereo up and CLEANED MY BEDROOM. Seriously, I’ve never enjoyed cleaning so much in my life! That was followed by a long, uninterrupted hot bath, and supper, prepared ho

Sorry I’ve been scarce for so long! The past couple of weeks have been rough ones. My old laptop gave up the ghost so I had to sink my tax refund into a new one, my internet has been going out the past week more often than I do (another call to Comcast is in my future—thankfully, unlike some of the horror stories I’ve read, they have been very nice and helpful whenever I’ve needed them) and mom has been particularly challenging. Her behavior is really kind of odd, to me as a

The past week has been rather challenging. Mom’s OCD (which she’s always had, and her shrink didn’t think was serious enough to address. As if he knows; he doesn’t live with her) is feeding into her dementia. Some days she follows me around for literally hours, reading her fairly simple med schedule aloud over and over, fretting that she can’t remember when to take what, and refusing to listen when I tell her I know when she takes what. Did I mention she is also one of those

The other day, mom was looking for a meat vitamin. No, before you ask, I didn't know what she meant either. She got very irritated with me for that lack. "I'm out of them so I'm just going to be out since you don't know what I need!" I tried twenty questions. "Okay, how big is it? What color is it? What does it look like?" "It's not a vegetable like those," she said and pointed to the pill bottles on the table. "It's brown, like a bean and looks like this." She held up her li