Unwelcome Surprise this Week and Planning Mom’s Move

Thursday, May 14

Well, sometimes things don’t go quite as planned. We have to accept that. I’m having a little mini crisis. Since about 8:30 last night, about an hour after dinner, I began having a sharp pain in my left side. I’m familiar with it. It’s some type of colon flare I get – it’s rare now when I get it and short lived. Sometimes I can just ignore it and it will go away. But this time it’s being a little persistent bugger.

I was able to sleep since I took Tylenol, but awoke to pain again this morning at 4:00. I drank a whole glass of water through the night and refilled at 4:00 a.m and took another Tylenol. At 6:00 even with Tylenol, it was still hurting when I got up.

I always call this “The Perfect Storm”. I do not think it’s any one thing that causes it but a few things can send it on its edge and make it rear it’s ugly head: stress, processed food like hot dogs, a lot of fatty or fried foods, and a lot of enriched flour and/or sugar all within a 24-36 hour time period. It sneaks up on me without warning.

I have been under the stress. That’s a given. I have also been eating out a lot. I’ve had pizza, hamburgers, Captain D’s fried fish, key lime pie, Cracker Barrel breakfast, and the ultimate no-no of hot dogs (two out of the last three dinners). That all spells trouble. I’ve not eaten well enough to save myself from the dilemma. And my eating is totally off routine and not much of the belly friendly foods I have each week – like yogurt. I’ve also not had fruit this week which I must have. I’ve also been so busy that two days lately I’ve forgotten (or not had time) to take my Vitamin D and B Complex – also a big no no to go without. So yeah, the perfect storm of doing too many things wrong have totally played into this.

I don’t even realize when it’s happening because we are busy and on the go. But I’m totally off my normal routine and that spells for disaster.

I was supposed to go pack red birds and crystal bowls today. But I realized at 4:00 a.m. that the plans were going to change. I just cannot deal with everything today. I need rest, peace, and quiet.

I’ve not had time to blog until now and that’s because I changed my plans. But here’s how the week has been so far.

Monday – I worked hard on the video and got 3/4 of it edited, did some housework and my normal Monday routines.

Tuesday – I finished the video and got it uploaded, worked on a few household chores. Then we went to see the Michael Jackson movie at the Tuesday matinees and had a nice Thai food dinner out. (It was a really good movie and a good meal too.)

Wednesday – I finished the thumbnail of the video, got the title, description, and time stamps done and scheduled it. I cleaned some on the kitchen, but ran out of time. I had to leave at 11:00 to go get Mom but was running about 10 min late. I was to be there at 11:30. I was at her mail box at 11:39. I often run about 8 – 10 min late but make it up since I have fudge time built in, but I hit every stop light, traffic was heavy, and the interstate was heavy as well and I got behind every slow car there was. Normally would have been there by 11:30. So at 11:39 she was calling me asking where I was.

We went to Cracker Barrel. Mom bought most of our lunch. She had a $25 gift card and so we used that and I paid for the rest + tip. I also used my rewards $ from my rewards account with them and saved even more money. I got breakfast for lunch and it was really good. We went over what all she needed to take for assisted living. I also advised her to be thinking about her furniture and to be careful not to take too much because I didn’t want her to have to hire the moving company a 2nd time to move things back. She says “George can move some things back in RAV4” but he has said he is NOT moving furniture back in RAV4. Boxes maybe but no furniture. His moving days are over. So if she takes too much we’ll have to hire a mover to move things back to her house for the estate sale. We are hoping to remedy this with another round of measuring after everyone is out and the place is renovated.

Then we went and got our nails and toes done. It was a pleasant experience for the most part. And then she wanted ice cream so we went thru McDonald’s and got ice cream cones.

Yesterday I got a rash of calls. It was like the earth unleashed signals for everyone to call. Aunt Martha called, Assisted Living place called, the doctor called, my sister texted wanting a pic of my Dad (which I still need to send her a digital picture), and I ran out of day. I called Aunt Martha back but no answer.

Today I’ve chosen low stress. I am washing my sheets so I can lie down tonight (or for afternoon nap if needed) amidst the smell of Buff City Narcissist soap plus the smell of freshly bleached sheets. (I don’t think their detergent has ammonia in it, so I use bleach. So far I’ve not passed out, lol.)

I took a break from blogging to take another Tylenol, take my vitamin supplements, after I just blogged about forgetting to take them, lol. And I made myself an elixir. I’ve been praying for God to heal and He popped up in my head (I’m sure it was from Him), to fix an elixir of honey, lemon (I had lemons), apple cider vinegar with Mother, peppermint, and ginger. I found hot tea bags that I had with peppermint and with ginger (2 separate ones). So I fixed hot water in the kettle and let the two bags steep into 1 coffee cup of water and then mixed it ALL up in George’s cocktail shaker over ice. lol. I have half of it in the fridge and poured the other half over more ice as the hot water melted the other quickly and also I’m sure it needed some more dilution. lol. It’s not the best thing I’ve ever had as I was moderately generous on the apple cider vinegar with mother – as that is considered to be highly capable of healing! So yeah, I’m sipping that.

George and I have talked about Mom’s move some today – the pitfalls we see and will try to avoid. I told him I am not arguing with Mom over anything. If she demands her way, she will get it. It’s all her money and it’s her life, and if she wants to pay for movers twice when she sees it won’t fit, then it shall be that way. My job is to help her and I can alert her or advise her but she is of sound mind as far as I can tell, so if we tell her the sofa won’t fit and she takes it, she can figure out where she wants to make it fit, lol. Or if she wants we can call the mover to come back and she can pay him again to move it. I have no intentions on arguing with anyone over anything.

I’m just there to help and coordinate because she doesn’t feel like it. But I’m not having any battles. My health and my psyche can’t handle it. Already I’m having stomach issues just worrying about it all. Here’s the timeline of events.

• My nieces wedding
• Mom and I both have doctor appointments
• A Two Day Packing Frenzy of her necessities for Assisted living
• Mom’s Move in Day and Set Up
• Change Mom’s address on certain things and doing a forwarding address with the post office
• Fine-tuning things at the Assisted Living to get Mom settled (Already she wants to get new curtains and it will escalate from here as a move always does).
• Getting mom set up with Asst Living Doctor
• I have to find me new insurance as my Cobra expires June 30 and adjust to that.
• Setting up a bit of renter insurance for Mom
• Mom’s TAVR Heart Valve Procedure (she decided to do it after her move)
• Going through Mom’s House (projected two weeks to knock it out) – removing family memorabilia or anything that Mom is letting the family have
• Estate Sale
• Have electrician come and fix a couple of things at Mom’s house (light switch and pendant lighting issue).
• Real Estate Sale of her place and changing over and stopping utilities, homeowner insurance etc.
• Cancelling any utilities and services that she is no longer using.

AFTER THIS I WANT A TRIP!

I get stressed thinking about it all but I’ve had to just write it all down and take care of things day by day. George is after me to start packing her up but I’ve explained I can’t pack because most of what she is taking that we need to pack are things she uses every day – except for those Nic Nac items which I was going to pack for today but have moved to next week.

Two days before the move I can 1) take everything out of the dresser that she is going to take as she’s using the 2nd bedroom furniture as her bed room suite at assisted living. So we’ll empty those things out and store in boxes for later for me to go through, so we can send the drawers empty for the movers. 2) We can go ahead and pack the dishes she is going to take.

The day before the move I will have her 1) pack a bag for things she will need for the next 24 hours so that her needs are all in one place (and not in random boxes) for her to get ready for bed and get up the next day and 2) Get all her favorite clothes picked out 3) Pack sheets, towels, toiletries 4) Food she wants to take.

And since we don’t have to be totally out of the house, we can still get more things if anything is forgotten.

We are keeping boxes that come in, in case we need them, but I’ve also bought six tubs. They are medium in size but sturdy. I’m thinking we may need a few more though, which I’m splitting with her b/c I’ll be using them after she is through with them. I’ll use them to store family memorabilia and things that won’t go in the sale. We’ll use them to tote food over that she is not taking with her. So I didn’t want her to front ALL of the cost of it. They were cheap anyway as I found a good deal at Walmart.

The Tylenol and the Elixir is helping to dull the pain some but it’s still there. I’m going to go put sheets on my bed, walk on the treadmill and take a shower and then take it easy from here.

Friday May 15, 2026

Well, it’s been a nice 24 hours. I’m feeling somewhat better. The pain pretty much went away yesterday afternoon and evening but started again this morning but was much more faint. I’ve been eating soft foods and/or very easy bland things that digest easily. I had yogurt for breakfast, plain. And I had Mac and cheese for lunch from Chic Fil A. I have had 1 cup of white jasmine rice for dinner, and 1/2 of a whole grain tortilla b/c it sounded good. Sometime in a couple of hours I’ll have a couple of scrambled eggs.

Yesterday afternoon after I blogged, I called the moving company along with George to see about rates and dates. So we are thinking that the first week of June will be a good move in week. Probably mid-week as I need a couple of days to pack her. We’ll be at a wedding a few days before that out of town so best to schedule the move after that is over as all of it is trying to happen at one time.

The moving company has to come out and see what all needs to be moved. They scoped it out. I told Mom to sticky note everything so they could easily see the furniture she wanted moved. I told her to sticky note the art work. And Mom says that George and I can move the artwork but George says “no the moving company can do it”. I know I can’t lift much and don’t want to be making a zillion trips to car and back with things to carry back and forth. I think Mom thinks we are still in our youth. Big surprise, no we are not and I don’t have the energy nor the capacity to lift things (even light things) and some of her prints are heavy. So the movers will have to do it.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not intending on arguing with anyone over this move, over the estate sale, and the real estate sell of the house. I don’t like telling Mom “no” and she forgets that we are no longer youthful or that we mean it when we tell her we are not moving things. But as I said, I’m not arguing with anyone, we’ll just tell the movers to move it. Period. If we don’t move it and she wants it moved, they will have to do it.

She’s “letting us” handle it (allowing us to, lol – which is now a family phrase we all *wink* and use with one another). I often tell George “I am gonna ‘let you’ get me some more coffee.” Anyway bottom line is since she is “letting us” handle it, we will handle it like we need to. We are too old now to be moving things. Already we spend chunks of our day on heating pads and using foot and back massagers.

The moving company did not think that the first week of June would be a problem but they will confirm after they see how much there is to move.

So I woke up and was in a great mood today. I had a hair cut at 9:45 and I went to Lowe’s after that to buy Mom’s surge protectors that had to meet certain requirement codes. Then I went to Chic Fil A and got the Mac and Cheese. Then I went to Kroger nearby (the big Kroger) and enjoyed a leisurely stroll through buying soft foods and things I could eat right now. Then I got a Starbucks for the ride home. There’s a Starbucks in the big Kroger now. But it wasn’t as good as the one across town.

Then I cleaned up some, finished out the laundry, opened Amazon boxes (dog food and supplements). And I am trying to get through my Friday list, but I’m running out of day. I’m probably going to go watch a movie and fix eggs.

I really liked the new salon I went to. It’s a pretty ritzy place. The total cost for the hair cut was $50 and I left a tip also so since I don’t get my hair cut too often, that’s a pretty good deal. I told George that for my birthday I’m going to spend the extra $15 on the 10 minute (might be 15, I can’t remember) shampoo massage. lol I think it would be fun to do once anyway. Kinda like the hot stone pedi. I think I’ve done that twice. It’s too expensive to do all the time. But this hair cut place was a treat for me today. I think I’ve needed a treat. I like the person that did the consult and cut and style. She listened and I told her she is the only one that has ever cut and styled a hair cut like the picture.

However, it was humid today so the curl fell out and my hair looked like something tried to eat it. lol But that’s ok. George said it looked cute though. I need to learn how to style it with a flat iron. I’ve always been afraid of it b/c I never was good at using it to make my hair straight. But she showed me how to do it to make it wavy. So I will try it. It didn’t take long to do, and I think I’ve tried to do this before but maybe my hair is long enough now to do it.

I really like having Friday as an errand day. It works great with my schedule. I don’t feel rushed as I’m already through with YouTube so it’s a great day to get out. I think I may start planning to do things on Friday’s! 😉

Anyway, I’m going to end the blog here. George has a few weekend events this weekend with his college friends who are in town – some from other parts of the country. So I have a lot of time to do what I want to – I will watch movies, be on the computer, work puzzles, read, and do whatever my heart desires. He and his friends will be over here some of the weekend, they will play frisbee golf, and also have some meals out planned. I cleaned up some today but need to do a bit more before they “swing by”. I decided to do the rest in the morning.

Over and out.