About 80 percent of our leaves have fallen. Dear Husband has been out with his blower, moving them into piles of yellow and brown and gold. I need to browse on the subject of leaves as winter mulch. Do they need to be mowed over before they are used as a mulch, or can they be applied uncut?
The herons and egrets have gone south for the winter. October 22 was the last time I saw an egret. They might have been around a bit longer. I was cooped up in the house with a cold, so I might have missed a day or two, but that’s about the time they leave for warmer climes.
Milkweed pods have burst open, and the silks are afloat. I’ve had a love affair with milkweed pods since I was a child. One memorable Christmas, I spray-painted a number of them gold to use as “angel’s wings” on Christmas packages. That was back when I had less to do, and more energy. Those packages were really adorable! Gold milkweed pods occasionally showed up as decorations on evergreen wreaths until I realized that I like the natural look even better.
As a more mature person (snickering) I choose to collect milkweed pods and teasel and what my family called “Indian tobacco,” for large bouquets. I have a collection of dried weeds in a large ceramic pot at my front door. One of my errands this week is to get ribbon for bows for that bouquet. I need something in fall colors for this month, and something dark red, or green for December.
We still have a little bit of yard work left to do. It seems that Indian Summer may return this weekend. We are expecting temperatures in the low 60s with no rain! In addition to the last of the yard work, I’d like to finish sanding a bench, and use oven cleaner on my stove top cartridges. Cop Car……are you tired yet?? I’ll make it through the weekend, but don’t expect much of me on Monday! lol
I’m off to make binding for one of two quilts I want to bind. Bee meets Friday night, and I want to have something to work on as we chat.
Have a great day, my friends!

I was visiting with my youngest sister, Frankie, of Just My Opinion, about ten days ago. In the quiet of the early morning we were chatting about our on-line connections, and I mourned my lack of blogging in the past few months. “I don’t have anything to say!” She corrected me, gently commenting that I have a lot to say, I just don’t know how to put it down. She’s so right.
I have avoided discussing my mother lately. My mother has had at least one seizure, and a host of small strokes. She is no longer in my care, but has been set up in a condo with a round-the-clock caregiver. She is mobile but requires a lot of assistance and attention. She is no longer able to do any of the things which were the mainstays of her life: writing, quilting, crafts, or cooking. She can read, but she can’t retain what she’s read, so she no longer reads her beloved English mysteries.
We are consumed with the problem of deciding what choice is best for EM. Do we leave her in the condo until she requires nursing, or do we look for an Alzheimer’s unit? Do we need to talk to Hospice? Finding the right caregiver is a nightmare job, especially with the number of people who choose NOT to report their income and pay taxes. We will not hire a person who is unwilling to give us their social security number, so finding the perfect match is a difficult proposition.
Arranging for care for Elegante Mother on the weekend when the caregiver is off is equally difficult. My sisters and I have been sharing the duty, but it’s becoming more difficult as time goes on. There is an entire book to be written about this problem.
We are in agreement that EM should not be moved to a nursing home until she requires nursing, but trying to find the right facility is another enormous undertaking. Our experience with the two nursing homes that she needed in the past has left us wondering if there IS a place that will give her the care we want for her.
One of the minor irritations came yesterday when I opened the phone bill to find that EM has been billed almost $700 for calls to Poland made by her caregiver. We thought we had put a stop to these huge bills by adding the International plan to her phone in June, but it seems her provider slipped up. What’s the chance that they will take responsibility for this error and change the billing????
EM gave me her power of attorney for financial matters. I have spent as much time organizing her expenses as I do my own. I pay the bills that come in the mail, the rent, the caregiver, the hairdresser, and weekly expenses. I also have to sort through all the junk mail, and magazines which come, and deliver what is appropriate to her. We are afloat in mail that I need to put a stop to. I collected addresses from catalogs that need to be stopped, when I can make the time to send out the notices.
You can see how the problems are cumulative. It has become more difficult for me to care for EM because she is a 45 minute drive away from me now. It doesn’t make sense to visit her for a quick visit when it takes an hour and a half out of my day to make the trip, so I try to spend several hours with her when I go. Usually I stop for groceries to restock the condo when I go to visit.
Yesterday, I dropped off the groceries and then went to sit with Elegante Mother while she had lunch. She is able to feed herself, although she requires assistance cutting things up. She tends to eat a cup of cottage cheese, a piece of bread or crackers, and some of the meat on her plate, and always, DESSERT! Anything sweet gets her attention.
I rarely quiz her on who she is or where she is. Instead, I ask her how she feels, or is there anything she wants. Yesterday I asked her what my name is, and she didn’t have a clue. I asked her if she knew what my relationship was to her, teasing her as we do small children. “Am I your sister?” “Your aunt?” “Your mother?” “Your daughter?” None of that made sense to her. When I told her I was her daughter, she asked me to explain how that was possible. I told her that she had married my dad, and she has five children, 17 grandchildren, almost 26 great-grandchildren, and in February she would have a great-great grandchild. The woman sitting with us at the table was very impressed and told EM that was quite an accomplishment. EM looked suitably proud, despite the fact that she can’t remember how it came about.
We never know what we will find when we visit. Mother is as likely to be connected and aware of her circumstances as she is to not recognize us. It’s very difficult to see her fade away like this. Soon, much too soon, we won’t be able to make any connection with her, and I hate to see her slip away like this. This is the woman who did crossword puzzles in ink, and wrote columns for weekly newspapers.
So, to bring this full circle, I have chosen not to blog about some aspects of my life because I feel that my mother deserves some privacy as she declines. But, what’s happening in her life has a huge impact on my life. You may find me ranting about quality of care one day, or discussing how difficult it is to find the right home for an aging parent. These are the subjects that are foremost in my mind.
I know that almost everyone in my age bracket is experiencing something similar. I’m not the Lone Ranger of parental care. Perhaps by blogging about my experiences I’ll find how others are dealing with the same situations, and it won’t seem quite so difficult.

We’re celebrating Dear Husband’s birthday tonight. His birthday was actually October 26, but it’s difficult to gather the children and grandchildren, so we celebrate on whatever day we can all gather.
As far as we are concerned, birthdays are lovely reasons to get together with family. We made a trip to Indiana last week, and celebrated three of the October birthdays. Frankie, my youngest sister, has been kind enough to host us each October, and we celebrated my birthday, her youngest daughter’s birthday, and DH’s birthday. She asked each of us what would be our favorite celebration dessert. I love carrot cake, my niece loves the dark chocolate cake her family makes, and DH loves cream pies. Frankie arranged to have all three of the desserts, including coconut cream pie for DH! I have never been invited to a place where there was so much dessert offered! lol To make matters worse, DH picked up a red raspberry pie and turnovers at the bakery to take as a bread and butter gift! It was rainy and chilly, but it gave us good reason to stay inside and visit. We watched “Monsters, Inc.” on Friday night, and “The Perfect Storm” on Saturday. I have a brand new (unopened) copy of “The Perfect Storm” for sale if anyone would like it…… Thank you, Frankie, for such a wonderful weekend!
Tonight….we do Italian with the bambinos. I expect to hear tales of trick-or-treating, and candy piled ten feet high! What a lovely end to a lovely day!

This is sappy, I know, but I’m not going to delete it. After all, this is a journal of my days. Keep in mind as you read this that I am a very simple person. Small things please me. Accomplishing chores that have been waiting for a long time is the kind of thing that makes me giddy. You might want to stop reading now….
I had one of those very satisfying days that we wish would happen more often. I started the day by feeding the cat and taking a mug of tea to the computer. I love to do the LA Times crossword puzzle at the computer. Since I was there, I thought I’d make the time to blog about last weekend, another couple of satisfying days.
At that point I decided the house wasn’t going to warm up fast enough, so I turned on the heat, and then settled in to clear work off my desk. I have the power of attorney for my mother’s finances, so I waded through her mail, paying bills and organizing those things that would need further attention. Then I did the same for our personal mail and bills. I filed things, and organized the outgoing mail, and created a grocery list for the next four days.
I made a run to the bank, and to the post office, and then I stopped for groceries on the way home. While minestrone soup was on my mind, I got out the recipe and copied it for two friends who had requested it.
I know this sounds dreadfully dull when you read it, but the upshot of it is that I can see the top of the desk. I FEEL more organized, and I’m eager to buzz my way through more of the backlog of chores around the house. I can comfortably leave what is left of the paperwork, knowing that it’s taken care of for the next week or so, and not have to worry that any disasters are waiting to befall us.
Dear Husband needed a ride home tonight. I ended my paperwork session to go and collect him. The truck needs repairs to pass it’s safety testing, so we left it with our favorite repair guys. They’ll work on it first thing tomorrow and try to have it ready for him during the day.
We worked on dinner together, went over our schedules for this month, and now have the chance to sit back and relax. It was a satisfying day, and I hope tomorrow is just as satisfying!

Yesterday was our nineteenth anniversary! I am embarrassed to admit it, but I almost forgot. Had we not received an absolutely gorgeous card from my sister, Frankie, it might have slipped by unnoticed. I would have remembered in a week or so.
Our business has been on my mind. The economy has really hurt us. There are companies, large and small, falling around us, throwing in the towel because there just is not enough work to sustain them. We have pared down. We are cutting expenses to the bone, and we respond to every request we receive for a bid.
I was invited to lunch TWICE last week. I virtually never go out to lunch, but I had invitations on both Thursday and Friday. Thursday, I met with our CPA. She’s a dear friend, who I don’t see as often as I would like, so these occasional lunches are our time to catch up. She is a great networker, and we talked about networking over our meal. It turned out that she had a lunch date set up with the woman who is our lawyer. She is also heavily into networking.
I thought about them as I started my day on Friday, and at the end of exercise class, I mentioned our company, and asked if they would keep their ears open for anyone needing masonry work. Two women called me later that day with requests for information!
Lunch on Friday was with a group of women from the Empty Nesters at Elegante Mother’s church. We visited the Emerson Creek Pottery and had a fabulous meal. I asked if they would consider letting me post a note about the company through their e-mail.
I have a quilting bee that meets once a month. One of the woman called this week to arrange for DH to look over some work that needed to be done at their house.
I e-mailed the queen of our Red Hat Chapter and she gave me several contacts to pursue. She had been involved in real estate, and recommended several associations which might give me more ways to network.
And, I talked with our lawyer, and mentioned her upcoming luncheon with our CPA. I told her we were looking for work, and that I planned to put together a PR brochure in-house to send to contractors. She suggested that I provide her with several of the packets, so that she could distribute them among her contacts.
Frankly, I was astonished at the support I received from my friends. My goal was to keep our company name on people’s minds, and I think this might work. I didn’t realize that I had so many contacts
So, you can see that I had a lot on my mind this week. I have an entire year to get ready for our twentieth anniversary, so I think I’ll try to plan something special.

We all have a personal sense of humor. Within my family there are a variety of types of humor. Some of us love slapstick humor. Others love puns. Some love Adam Sandler, others can’t bear him, and some say it depends on the movie.
At any rate, the silliest thing made me laugh today. My old cat, Edward Scissorhands went out this morning. As he’s aged, his visits outside have become shorter and shorter, but he’s not willing to give them up totally until it gets COLD outside.
Ed went out the front door and made half a circuit around the house, ending up on the windowsill at the west end of the “Green” room, where we eat casual meals. Frankly,it astonishes me to find him there, because it’s quite a jump for any cat. I opened the back door, and called to him, and he paused to think about whether he wanted to make the jump down or not. I waited for a bit, before stepping out onto the stoop. Mind you, I was in an over-sized T-shirt nightie. (The grove has been allowed to grow dense and close to the back of the house, along with a stand of tall grass and weeds. No one was going to see me.) I reached for the cat and he backed away. I conned him, and was able to pull him up into my arms and step back into the house.
An hour later, I got up from the computer and felt the chair grabbing my nightie. I looked and realized there were dozens of little tiny burrs stuck to the chair. And then, I realized there were branches of this plant stuck to the hem of my nightie.
The burrs made me laugh. (What else are ya gonna do?) That I had been sitting on them, unaware, made me laugh. That I had collected half a plant with one brush of my shirt while I reached for the cat made me laugh.
It’s the simple things that get me to laugh these days. It seems that the goofiness of human foibles is what I find the funniest. I can’t recall when I last belly-laughed, or laughed until I cried, but there have been plenty of times when something my family has done has made me laugh.
I wonder if our sense of humor changes over time?
I’ll be going now. I have to pull burrs off my nightie. *G*

My sister and her husband and their dog arrived last night. My brother-in-law is spending the weekend on the boat with Dear Husband. The three of them rose early, so that the guys could get down to the lake early, and Frankie could be on her way to Elegante Mother. We made appointments for Frankie and EM to have their nails done this morning, and then the two of them came to visit.
My mother can not remember living in this house. She asked me how I got a job here. I told her I married the boss. She wanted to know if I thought there might be anything she could do, so that she could work here too. As you can see, she was having a really difficult day. The change of scenery confused her. Despite the fact that she really liked visiting, she couldn’t quite understand just what “this place” was.
I invited Frankie to bring EM here so that Frankie would have a chance to get some work done to prepare for the classes she will be teaching on Tuesday. I fixed little crustless tuna salad sandwiches, and offered fruit and potato chips. My mother’s appetite was fine, and I was glad to see her eating well.
We watched the movie “Titanic.” Apparently my sis is teaching a series of classes around the story of the Titanic, and the kids will have the chance to see part of the movie. EM was absorbed in the story, which surprised me. I don’t know how much of it she understood.
I was casting around for a simple meal for dinner while I was at the grocery store, and came across a sale on shrimp. Normally a two-pound bag costs about $31, but they were on sale for $9.90. I decided that I would make garlic shrimp (shrimp scampi), with rice, and a salad. I made what we call Summer Salad: cucumber, tomato, green onion, vinaigrette and lots of dill. I had three chocolate cupcakes, with fudge frosting left from quilting bee dessert last night, to which I added scoops of ice cream. We were stuffed. I’m sure I won’t have any trouble sleeping tonight….I’ll be in a food induced coma! lol
Again, EM ate well, and seemed to really enjoyed the home cooked meal. I think we need to check on what she is being offered when we are not around. I’m sure that we are operating under the assumption that no one would feed EM as well as we do, but at the moment, I think we are right. We all know what EM likes to eat (LOBSTER! and chocolate), and we also know what she doesn’t care for. She is used to freshly prepared meals, and rarely has much appetite for left overs, unless you are making lobster salad from leftover lobster tail. We may need to be keeping a closer eye on what she is getting to eat, both from the dining hall, and her caregiver.
It was really tough seeing Elegante Mother as confused as she was today. Perhaps when I see her during the week, she will be more connected because she recognizes her surroundings. I plan to join EM and Frankie at church tomorrow, and then come back to work on things for dinner when all four of us will be together again. Tortilla soup, anyone??
I’m dog-sitting tonight. In a few moments we will make the last call for the night, and then I hope that Sydney (the dog) and Ed (my cat) will choose to settle in for the night. Ed is more than a little ticked off about having a DOG visiting the house, and his schedule has been majorly disrupted. But, it’s only for another day or so. I think he can adjust.
I hope you all enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

I can’t believe that I have not made the time to post in the past 17 days! Where does the time go? I can recall when I was a child that August seemed to last for years. Now, it flies by.
Let’s see…in the past three weeks…
Dear Husband had to have the car towed three times in one long weekend, and have it repaired three times. Apparently there was an electrical short that was missed during the first two repairs
Dear Husband had to have the boat towed. He was outside the harbor, trying to raise the sails, when a line went overboard and wrapped in the propeller. Needless to say, we will be buying towing insurance in the future. DH was in four-foot seas. The driver of the tow boat said that he comes prepared to dive to free tangles like that, but with the back of the boat rising and falling four feet, he wouldn’t get into the water, and I can’t say that I blame him.
I had “Mom Duty” two weekends ago. Saturday during the day went well, but Elegante Mother was ill during the night. Luckily, I was able to manage her care on my own, and two of my sisters came to our rescue in the morning. My-Sister-The-Nurse arrived at 9:00 a.m. to check on EM, and she gave me the chance to go home early and catch up on my sleep. My second sister came at noon to spell her, so EM got to see three of her four daughters all in one day. EM is fine. She saw the doctor on Monday, felt well, and had no lasting effects from her difficulties early Sunday morning. She has actually been talking a lot more, recently. She’s still having trouble with short-term memory, but she’s able to get her sentences out before she forgets what she wants to say.
Speaking of second sisters, mine just retired as Director of Christian Education at a big church in the suburbs. They gave her an amazing send-off, complete with luncheon and presentation. All of her siblings attended along with quite a few of the next generation. It was quite lovely, and the ladies of the church did a wonderful job sharing their love with her. She’ll have wonderful memories to wrap up in.
I gardened this morning, and I’m going back for a little more punishment this afternoon. It has become popular not to cut back iris leaves in the fall, but I prefer to trim them to prevent wintering over leaves that might be infested with something that could damage the iris. I’ve been cleaning out dead leaves, and opening the plants up to the sun. I also plan to cut back a volunteer mulberry that I can’t seem to kill off, and dead lily stalks and oriental poppy foliage. I prefer to have the gardens go into the winter looking clean.
Dear Husband has not seen much of Elegante Mother during the sailing season. He was home one Saturday when the car was in the shop, and went to lunch with us, but otherwise, she has not had the chance to visit with him. We plan to take EM and Sophie to dinner this evening, so that she can see him. I know that it will make her day. She has quite the soft spot for him.
We had a week of cool, gray, off-and-on-again rainy weather. And this week we seem to be having a week of brilliant sunshine and below normal temperatures. We opened the house Tuesday to air it out while we were cleaning, and by 6:00 I was shivering and closed it back up. It’s always wonderful to let fresh air through. I’m looking forward to more days like that during September and October.
I’m sending two quilts, one large, and one small, to be machine quilted. I wanted to use up scraps and put together a quilt using four patches on point, alternating with rows of solid strips of fabric. It will be a “Use it up, Wear it out” quilt, that I will encourage the kids to wrap up in. The smaller quilt has one of my very rare uses of applique. It was a kit. It came with pre-selected fabrics and a pattern. The colors are absolutely wonderful fall colors, and I’m quite pleased with the applique. It should be back in time to set out for part of October and November. Once it’s bound, I’ll take a picture of it to share.
And, last of all….our exercise guru is taking a week off for some personal obligations and a class. I’ve been invited to lead our class three times. Yesterday went reasonably well, and I’ll lead class again on Friday, and then Wednesday of next week. It keeps me working, and I’m happy to keep the class in session. I’m a sloth. Give me the least excuse and I’ll curl up on the couch, so I’m glad that our guru asks me to help out.
I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day. Get outside and enjoy the incredible weather, and the long weekend.