Evening out with Mom and Trying to Lower the Stress Levels with Laughter and Mindfulness

Since we had life group Sunday, I took Mom out to eat and to the store last night after work. We went to Cracker Barrel. There was a cute towel in the gift shop to remind us not to be crabby! ha. I need the reminder maybe more than anything.

She was supposed to have someone come to fix/install her camera/doorbell (Ring). They no showed. Of course. She already paid one installer a crazy amount of money and he installed it but said he wasn’t in charge of making it work, just installing it. A neighbor tried to help and couldn’t. So she is going to call someone else. Hiller installed ours. I looked the number up for her while we were at Cracker Barrel. She wanted to remain a homeowner instead of going to assisted living, and this all goes with the territory. And this whole ordeal has not been easy on her, nor us.

She said yesterday she wondered if Dad would have agreed with her decision and that she really missed her house. I told her I knew she did. But she said since my sister was not there to help her she had to move up here. And of course we all know that she is not happy with me and my caregiving since she let me know that several weeks ago because I was not being a good social director and taking her for a hamburger once a week. (We actually do take her out once a week, sometimes twice, and even sometimes three times, depending on if we have doc appts or not.). But she likes to go more than once a week. With us working FT (out of town) and having a dog, it makes it hard to get over there at night sometimes – but if we do we have to split up. I had to let her know we will fail at being social directors. But we can see to her needs. I keep saying, I can’t give up my entire free time to be by her side. If it’s to that point then she needs to go to assisted living. Anyway, let’s get out of THAT rabbit hole. I’m tired of talking about it and tired of thinking about it.

My dinner was so good at Cracker Barrel. Kind of a comfort food type of thing.

Mom’s toaster oven went out. George looked at it and verified it was fried and not working. So we had ordered her another one last week. And now Mom says it’s not working right. I think it had more bells and whistles than the other one. I don’t know if it is not working right or not. I didn’t test it. Because when Mom has made up her mind she doesn’t like something, there is no convincing her other wise. She it is broken…it’s broken…even if it is not. lol. So we tried getting the darn thing back in the box. Mom is very impatient with me and I was fitting the styrofoam in the box she said to turn it over so I did. She meant the oven and not the styrofoam. lol. Anyway, the two of us could NOT get the darn thing back in the box where the top would close, but somehow how I have to return the darn thing to Amazon when I can barely lift it. I drug it to the car. But the lines are always long at the return center. It’s going to be nutzoid trying to get the bulky darn thing from the car to the UPS center, in the door and then stand there with it.

All I keep saying is….of course….would we have expected anything different but that the darn thing “would not work” or “would not do” and we would have to return it? Of course. The phrase of the month seems to be changing from “laugh more, enjoy more, share more, learn more” to “OF COURSE!!!!!”

So now she wants to go shopping for a new toaster in the real stores and pick one out. My guess is this one worked different and she couldn’t see to figure it out. It didn’t work like she wanted so therefore it didn’t work. Again, that is my guess. But I didn’t try to verify it because she didn’t want it. But it will be March 11 before we go shop in the stores. I only have ONE day to myself until the end of March and I’m not giving it up. We might can go one day after work sometime though but she suggested it be on Fancy trim day so we’ll keep it that day as that is our running around errand day for her general errands.

So after Cracker Barrel we went to Al’s because I know she is trying to save money and not spend much. Much to my surprise “AL’s” is not in the best part of Lebanon. And we were there after dark. There was a guy that was following us to the parking lot not having bought any groceries himself, that I had noticed in the store watching us, but when he realized the bagger was taking our groceries out with us he suddenly turned around and went back in the store. Weird. So we are not going back there in the dark. Again, of course.

Anyway I pulled her car back in the garage. She likes to go in her car. It’s always funny when you pull back in the garage. It has to be in the perfect spot. So YOU will NEVER get it perfect yourself. She has to give you the word and you will ALWAYS have to go up at least a half inch or more. As long as she has you pull up a little more, it’s good! Cracks me up. Of course.

She took food home for Fancy. Some of her fish and fries, but put a lemon in there too because she couldn’t see it. I told her to take the lemon out. I don’t think Fancy would have eaten it anyway. Dexter would have, lol. I’m kindof afraid to take Dexter over there because there are random pills on the floor where they have been dropped and she can’t see to pick them up.

Mom is complaining that she no longer wants to cook for herself. But she says she has a long way before considering assisted living. Of course. I’m not so sure about that. But of course when the money runs out, since she does not have a trust set up, she would have to go to a state run nursing home after that I guess. So it IS best to wait as long as possible. Anyway, it is such a touchy subject, I stay away from it. She is still of sound mind, I guess. And it is her money and her decision at this point.

Anyway, I’m decompressing this morning and going in a little later and staying a little later. I needed and wanted to blog, so therefore I am. Late is better than calling in on a payroll day. I just didn’t get ANY time to do my normal blog/vlog time last night so I’m doing it this morning. Robbing Peter to pay Paul—with time. Of course.

Something funny happened. I spent all the time the weekend to make quiche for breakfast and had them all the top of the freezer and somehow this lovely fudge pie made it’s way to the top of the freezer and I grabbed it as I could see the triangle wedge shape and thought it was the quiche. So I went to microwave it and it was fudge pie from Christmas. Darn it! Of course. Story of my life. So I had cereal instead.

I put this back in my work freezer.

I did have a few moments of peace yesterday as I came to work and saw how pretty the sunrise was. There was a thin layer of ice crystal clouds making a pattern in the sky and then the rain clouds were moving in.

It was truly a gift from God. And the pictures don’t do it justice. Plus you cannot hear the birds happily chirping nor feel the slight breeze on your face. You can’t feel the perfectness of the morning where the breeze was warm but yet cool.

It’s these types of moments that lower the stress. Music can do it, prayer can do it, petting the dog can do it. Blogging can do it. Exercise can do it. Watching my YouTube favorites can do it. Reading can do it. I just need to take some time out and do these things even for a few minutes. But yeah something suffers. Like right now. I’m going to be later going in to work. But it’ll make me a better less stressed person. But then I have to work late. Then when I come home I’ll be trying to catch up and will end up staying up later to get the normal stuff done I want to do tonight since I worked later. So everything will keep rolling forward since I wasn’t home last night. lol lol What can you do?

A coworker got out of the car too about the time I was through taking pictures and videos of the sunrise. She said “let’s just stay out here forever”. It was just gorgeous. I think that was the best part of the day yesterday.

George and I stayed up until after 10 p.m. Sunday night talking about my stress levels. He said he didn’t know what to do to help me, but he keeps trying. He understands my dilemma and that it is my personality to put stress on myself and be determined like stone to do what all I want to do and push through it. But that I have to find ways to relax. He said I have all these things layered up: work, the house, Mom, and all my to do’s and projects, the channel and the blog and that I layer it all up and live in a constant battle of stress that never lets up. It’s true. But pushing things through are the only way I can get ANY DARN THING DONE!

I think really the only thing I can do is just try to have mindful moments, try to laugh more to exhaust some of the frustrating time packed moments. Again, I’m unwilling to give up things that make me happy – like working on blogs and videos. I may have to slow down but I’m not giving them up. I know I know, I’ve decided on April 1 for sure on the videos, but honestly in my mind, I’ve decided not to abandon it. I will be bitter if I do. Because having happy times are what keeps me going. I just have to not care about the numbers or growing it so much.

I constantly have to fight with myself to have a Christian attitude about everything. And trust me that “everything” is fully loaded. There are so many things that make me say “well of course”. lol. I’m so used to everything going wrong and those dark clouds being over parts of my life where negativity reigns. It really brings me down and then it brings down people around me. I don’t know why and how negative energy does that. But boy it does. So my search for laughter and smiles and peaceful mindful moments mean everything to lower the stress levels. That is why eating is so important to me. I comfort eat. It releases the good hormones.

Anyway, I will stop here and get to work. I slept good last night and feel good this morning. Tonight I’ll work on video editing some for this Saturday. And maybe read some. I’m behind on that to meet my book of the month. I’m 3/4 the way through. But just haven’t had time to stop and do it. It forces something out that needs to be done when I do. So I’ll likely not make my 3 books in the first quarter of the year unless I pick a skinny book for March, lol. Maybe I will – ha!

Oh well, I am off to get ready now. I’ll be mad at myself at 4 when I can’t leave yet b/c if I go in late, I’ll have to leave late to get my time in. But I really needed some decompression time this morning and I feel good for it. It’ll take longer to get to work as I’ll be out with the school crowd and have to get through school zones. But I will pray, and listen to music and see the sunrise over the lake.

Be back in a couple of days!