Oy...

Holy cow – it’s been almost two months since my last post! So sorry that it’s been so long; this has been a bit of a rough year, and the last two months have been the hardest of all so far. I’ll give you the nutshell version:

·         Not long after my last post, I had trouble with a kidney stone. It’s a big ‘un;  spent time in the ER, still have not passed it. Missed some work, spent a lot of time in bed on pain pills. Haven’t been able to do anything crafty, creative, or industrious. The good news (I guess) is that it is in the bladder now so it doesn’t bother me too much; it only hurts when it tries – in vain – to escape.

·         Since mid-June, Mom has been in excruciating pain. Kaiser finally thought it might be a good idea to do an MRI (last week) on Mom’s back to figure out why she is in such a terrible state. Ah, yes – the sciatica you diagnosed REPEATEDLY was actually a compression fracture in the spine? Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit. Now, what are you going to do to FIX IT YOU MORONS?!?!?!?!

·         Financial trouble of epic proportions because of missed work due to kidney stone and Mom’s troubles. I don’t get paid time off for sickness or anything else for that matter. I do get 16 hours of paid time off every six months. Big whoop. Doesn’t last very long when I’m finally eligible for them.

·         Have been spending most of my time down at Mom’s to give Sissy a break. When Mom’s problem first surfaced, Sis stayed with her down in Portland for three weeks solid. Mom could not get out of bed, get to the toilet, get herself anything to eat, drink, etc. I am not physically strong enough to get Mom out of bed; Sis is a trained home-health caretaker and knows how to do that stuff properly. Plus, she is much taller and stronger than me; I don’t have the right leverage to get Mom out of bed. Once that phase was passed (Mom refuses to sleep in her bed and has been sleeping in a chair instead), I volunteered to stay with Mom the majority of the week. I go down on Sunday afternoon (last week it was Saturday afternoon) and stay until Thursday morning. Sis then comes down on Thursday night and stays until Sunday early evening. I commute to work from Mom’s, working four 10-hour days; I use the extra day off to take Mom to the doctor, grocery shop for her, etc.

·         Due to new schedule (see above bullet point) I have not been able to do anything crafty. No cards, no cross stitch, nada zip nothing. I have gotten a few books read, so I will be updating those parts of my blog. I leave for work around 6am and don’t get home until around 8pm. I can’t haul all my craft stuff to Mom’s and there is no place to work on crafts in Mom’s teeny-tiny trailer house. Add to that the fact that it has been hotter than the Devil’s armpits out here, which pretty much makes it impossible to do anything other than sit directly in front of the teeny-tiny air conditioner, eat popsicles and complain about how hot it is (I am a professional at this).

·         I am currently doing this update from work (shhhh…) and hope to get some posts in this weekend with pictures of the cards I made for the swap with Jenny, a card I made for Les and Sis’s 13^th anniversary on 6/22, and some pictures of Les’s garden and other random things.

Sheesh – I should get the blogger version of the Debbie Downer award for this post! Well, hang in there with me; I’ll get some better stuff up soon.  TTFN.