MOTHER'S DAY - MAY 11, 2008 - CONTINUED

And, par to course, I got lost several times trying to put this posting together!! Finally, surrendered to computer, once again and just left the pictures before I lost them for about the 10th time again!!

It is a wet and cold day here in the cornfields this day!! Max has his 20 foot long by 1 foot wide vegetable, he says garden and I say "patch" in!! I always try to make Mother's Day a day to get my flowers redone and planted in Miprezious' play yard. Max usually puts the pond and fountain out as I love watching and hearing it. It sparkles in sun with a Tiffany glass lined bottom!! And, we get the outside fireplace and gas grill usually cleaned up. But, these things simply did not get done last year and if it gets done this year wonderful, if not okay!! Miprezious doesn't want any thing in "her" territory any way as she wants it for total play although she is slowing down as she nearly is approaching her 7th birthday in a few weeks. She has always had a party complete with birthday cake!! This is where our friends all gave us "pay back" for all the obnoxious and noisy toys we had given their "people" kids while they were growing up!! My best friend's husband really enjoys these occasions to this day, however, Garth pretty much gave up his pranks since we both have become "old aged"!!
Garth got DeDe I a large stuffed dog, but he sprayed it with some hunting scent!! That darn dog had "her way" with that stuffed dog each and every time we had company, especially the priest!! We would take it all the way to the basement, or third floor of home we had at that time to hide it and she would always bark until she would get it back just in time for another outstanding performance for company again!! She would hardly go unoticed every time she would come into a room dragging a stuffed dog three times as large as she was!! Very hard to carry on a normal conversation and act like it was not happening!! That DeDe I was spoiled worse than Miprezious I think!! I can't remember a whole lot, but every one always brings up the stuffed dog, Krinkles, each and every year!! When she passed, friends took all of her things to the Humane Society (took three trips) and I often wonder about the current location of "Krinkles"!! I can also remember we had the big console televisions back at that time frame!! When ever that darn "Chuck Wagon" came running across the television screen, we had to get up and physically move the big television out to prove to her there was no "Chuck Wagon" behind the television if we wanted peace and quiet the remainder of the evening!! DeDe I kept us young and moving ,while we are blessed as Miprezious is content to be retired along with us!!

I got very little, like none, for sleep last night and thus my legs were not elevated enough and I am trying very hard to get rid of very huge swollen area covering from tip of my toes to just below my knee. Unfortunately, this is the stage where if skin bursts, I am again hospitalized. Thus, I will not be online very much or long this day and night!! Guess, I am stuck watching "Jon and Kate Make Eight" while I stitch!! I am to point today, I am again "bargaing with good Lord" to get me through this RSD flare up again!!

But, I truly am not feeling, all that bad, but this requires the additional fast acting morphine to control excruciating pain!! But, I thank the good Lord, it does!!

I am very excited and anxious to really start me needles smoking!! I got a lot of tea cup and saucer areas to fill!! I hope they do lookk okay in those spaces!! I am really wanting another finish, or more to point finishes, as I truly believe I have now taken title of having the largest stitching rotation ever even thought of by any one else, who would be so crazy!! I wanted to list and update my rotations, but that is going to have to wait a few days!!

Not a lot to tell, even though it has been over two weeks since my last post!! Whoa, this is starting out like Catholic confession!! Well, Catholics took me off their list a long time ago, with my first husband straying and having another woman pregnant, without "benefit of my consent", so what was I to do!! I divorced him "eventually"!! Max and I actually did decide we would try and get me an "annulment", but the price was way too much!! Thus, I did opt to stay as close as possible to being Catholic, by becoming an Episcopalian and I always refer to it as Catholic lite!! But, I consider our priest one of the very best and she has got me through more than she even realizes!! Very, very caring and fantastic lady!!

Max is still not doing well!! He has had a very bad cold for a couple of weeks!! I think he had an infection thru his January 19 surgical incision for dialysis fistula!! And, I would go by my medical opinion, over locals he has seen for this!! I won't nauseate you with all the details, but when an incision is still needing the bandage changed out several times a day as it becomes saturated with blood three weeks after the surgery something is very wrong!! In fact, he has only been bandage free for about ten days now from this incision!! That just is not right!! I think Max has just never distressed since my Jury Trial in December and he just wants to let every thing stay status quo for now!! He continues to smoke, like a chimney, and is to point of exhausting himself just trying to catch a full breath!! He did try to get into his "wonder" bed (I am still "wondering" why I ever agreed to that darn thing!!) last night, but has been sleeping in his recliner for 3-4 weeks now!! I think he needs the oxygen at night, rather than myself any more!! His kidney specialist says he is right on edge of going to have to start dialysis and his kidney function has just took another nose dive of another 15%!! He only has one kidney functioning at all. My "uneducated" guess is he is going septic!! But, we will continue to pray he is not or makes a very big "about face"!!

I am going to get to the next task on my "to do" list and that is "blog" out the details and show the pictures of our attempting to move to Assisted Living facility!! Just to give you a clue, we lasted only 1-1/2 days!! And, Rene did get to see the pictures. She very well did make a long story, short in stating her opinion of "she has stayed in motel rooms bigger than our entire new home, should we have chosen to stay!! Their first major rule of having to leave your door opened from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. did not set well with me either. And, most especially as our bed and my oxygen equipment would not fit into "bedroom" so staff decided we would have mover's set up the "living room" as our bedroom which was in full view with door opened. I did not like the fact of having my living room exposed to all 39, aging, but gracefully, new members of our family!! Leaving the door open was part of "cottage" mission statement as it made every one a big happy family!! NOT!! I am not used to even being up at 8:00 a.m., much less dressed and wanting to deal with any one!! A lot of these people, a.k.a. family, were on verge of Alheimzer's and I can only be left to wonder how many wandered into your "cottage" and decided to "nest" daily!!

It came to the point of having to start interviewing all over again to place new Caretakers in our home!! Again, I know my limits, and gave it all up and tried Assisted Living facility as looking for a nice person, who does not intend to rob us blind, is equivalent to "looking for a needle in a hay stack!!
I really had a big change of mind towards Assisted Living Facility, a.k.a. Bickford Cottage, came about when I had the perfect Easter dinner prepared and a beautiful table only lacking my silver to be placed on it. I went to pantry to locate it for Max to lift out for me!! IT WAS GONE!! I caught the day girl in a couple of bold wrong moves and I am sure she is the one who stole every thing!! She forever was asking for something from very nice kitchen stool that converted into step stool she wanted as her live-in had just had back surgery and he needed a shower chair to every day taking half of what she was told to bake for here!! She even was so bold to take the baked goods on practically new Tupperware instead of paper plates!! She had asked for some of my stitched pieces for gifts for her live-in's parents for Christmas!! I told her absolutely NOT!! Well, the stitched items were discovered missing and Max confronted her about it and she quickly said it was in a box I had yet to sort and put away permanently!! GONE!!
Max was continually asking me to tell this day girl that he wanted a cake or brownies, etc. made for him!! I just would tell her to do it and paid no attention to it as I rarely ate any of it!! Then, I suddenly discovered three bare shelves in my pantry where practically new Tupperware had been stored!! And, this sparked my inquiry of what in the world was Max doing with so much cake!! I had not really noticed that Max was asking for another cake almost daily!! I had too much on my mine during trial time to think of little else!! But, I was telling her daily to bake a cake and she was taking half out of here on new Tupperware daily also!!
Finally, the weekend before Christmas arrived and I knew we would have many visitors!! I had not realized it was this weekend with my mind elsewhere, so I told her on that Friday to bake a Funfetti Pink Cake and thought that would be a bit festive for holiday visitors to have while visiting with coffee!! Late that evening Max wanted his cake and I heard him just explode with expletives!! I toddled on out to see what in the world could be wrong!! When I got in the kitchen, he was holding a 9" x 13" cake pan with about an inch wide row on both ends with the entire center, and majority, of cake GONE!! I was still in fog, and at first, finally asked Max what in the world was he doing with all the cake!! He then brought it to my attention that he had not even touched this cake yet!! Well, then it was worst expletives out of me immediately!!
I could not even begin to believe this, if I had not seen it and then checked my storage area in pantry!!
And, the kitchen stool!! She put it in our own van and Max drove her home that particular evening!! This gal had to take municipal buses and they quit at 6:00 p.m. Our Court days ran into some nights being 8:00 p.m. before we got back!! She always asked me to call as we were leaving the Court House as we had a 50 mile commute each way every day. And, she always had a beautiful dinner prepared, complete with candle light ready to be pulled out of the oven when we arrived home, as "she had our travel time perfectly timed"!! But, if it was after 6:00 p.m., Max did have to drive her home clear across town!! I inquired about the kitchen stool being loaded into our van and she told me Max had told her to take it!! I did not questions this as we are definitely continue to downsize!! But, after the fact, I find out Max asked her about the stool and she told him I had okayed this. The girls, overall with exception of two, pulled this "con" on us quite often!! This kitchen stool had movable parts and was chrome!! There was no way it would ever be usable without rusty water leaking out of it continually!! And, just to know where it had been I did not want it back in my home - insert instant nausea at though!! We had also caught her "con" game on this and confronted her. Well, she "was drying it off every time and was going to return it when the live-in healed enough so he did not need it"!! Complete repulsion and nausea!! It was at this point, I very "clearly" told her that I was beginning the trial and that I would not accept any BS out of her!! I told her the answer was absolutely NO, so don't even provoke me with another request for early paycheck or cash advance or any thing from this home!! She had never been one minute late and did do a pretty good job until her last "unplanned" day!!
We had to be down at Court House location, but we were to have a breakfast meeting at hotel with my legal team prior to us going over to the Court House together!! This gal, called when she was due here to say she was coming and would just be a few minutes late. Well, 90 minutes later we had not been able to get me ready, and every thing else, so we missed meeting with attorneys!! I was livid with her and we were just in process of locking up home when she came running fast as she could up our hill. It was day she was to clean and I truly needed the home cleaned for holidays or I would have told her she was "history" right then!! She was very evidently, hung over for first time also!! I proceeded to telephone her every recess or break where I could. The phone always rang at least 8-10 times before she obviously answered just being woke up each and every time!!
I had plans of "terminating" this gal myself immediately after Max's surgery as I truly needed help with holidays coming down on us! However, the more I thought about every thing that day, I thought she was "history"!! We arrived home to nothing being done all day!! I was so angry that I just let her have it with both barrels!! She was in the midst, of trying to get Max to drive her home, although this day she had plenty of time to catch bus!! She immediately began on me the minute I came through the door about Max driving her home!! I told her he was at Eunice's home talking to her husband as we had arranged to have the dining room set we gave them for Christmas delivered the following day and we needed access to their home, if Eunice was not home. (And, she sure wasn't as Max had called her and asked her to sit with me as he had an errand to run!! She was sitting with me as furniture was being delivered!! The whole neighborhood heard Eunice scream when she returned home!! Nice ending to awful ordeal!!)
I told this gal that personally I would not approach Max as he had a terrible headache and one hour's sleep the preceding night, but she did the ole "Deborah says you are supposed to drive me home"!! But, it was her last "con" as I had been able to make my way through home and saw it had been untouched!! She plead she had done laundry all day - nice try, but I knew Max had done it all while he could not sleep night before!!
Thus, she got "terminated" on the spot!! I think it was a very fortunate time, as all the things she stole were really not that noticeable to us up to then!! The live-in had to have found "transportation" as he always was able to do after she begged for an early paycheck and I would give it to her just to shut her up!! He was here in minutes to pick it up!! I think he "picked up" each day while we were safely 50 miles away those eight days and she knew there was no chance of us coming home and Eunice was with us. Granny Lou has a pattern of going to workout center and I am sure they planned around her not being home either!!
Eunice has been adamant that I not file charges of theft on her!! I finally just told Eunice the other day that I was going to have Max search this home one more time for my silver to make absolute sure that some one else had not placed it elsewhere to get it out of way and make room for other things!! If it is not found, I am calling the police. I know, and I think this is Eunice's reasoning, that it will not be worth the stresses on me for what she will get, if we can possibly prove she took all she did!! However, I am looking at it, that at least she will be exposed to may be the next victims of her "care"!!

But, this still leaves me in "search and interview" mode!! I am totally fed up with this as it is a good waste of excellent stitching time!!

I think my dear Stitching Room will finally be organized and all put away exactly where it belongs!! No more packed full boxes, but they were at least fun to just feel the wonderful stash!!
I want to get carpet cleaned if such a thing can be accomplished. Since installing the carpet I had a total wall and half a wall covered with near impossible to move shelving units!! The full wall simply can not be at this point. Existing carpet runs under all of these!! This had been the master bedroom before my accident. The rehab time included a 20-ounce Coke being dropped right in middle of room repeatedly!! To this day, Max buys the small 12-ounce Coke in bottles that I can grip, even though many times they cost twice as much as the 20-ounce bottles!! Another, go figure!! But, I do plan on putting on a picture tour of this newly finished room!!

Now, what is my odds of having the "Good Fairy" come finish the other six rooms, entire lower level (which is like another home, that people have lived in before when it became necessary that) and the garage!! Today, I wanted to plant real flowers and, I "think" Cynthia's (sorry if I confused some one again) very good idea of silks in the base of my antique street light!!

Well, I am off to regain complete serenity for the rest of day and completely after supper rest of evening in my stitches!! However, good ole "Mr. Morphine" is making me hope I can figure out spell check on this site, if not hope you all can decipher who are trying to read this!! Hope I can just count and can keep track of my felt tipped pen and things will be real fine for me!!

Deborah, Max and Miprezious