So today is one of the days where she is argumentative, but also very whoa is me. She yells at me and tells me "you are not my mother and you have no right to do the things you are doing".. Her biggest issue is that I have taken her cigarettes away, which is to some degree true. I have taken them out of her immediate possession, but allow her to smoke anytime she asks. I just take her outside let her get one from her pack, light it and then I return inside to put them away. Leaving her alone to smoke. I wait until I think she is about done then I reappear to have her put out the butt out in a tray of water I keep on the porch for that purpose. Believe me it's not something I want to do. I would love to prevent her from ever smoking again, because it has caused nothing but problems. It messes with her health, is a safety hazard, and also is just gross. I know however that it's an addiction and I am not a monster who wants to make her miserable. Her smoking is one of the main causes to her vein occlusion that is steadily trying to blind her. We go every four weeks and get an injection in her eye to slow down the build up of pressure caused by the restricted veins feeding her cornea. She is told by the Dr. every time we go that she needs to quit smoking. That her continuing to smoke prohibits this problem ever being truly fixed. She has been seeing this Dr. and getting these injections every four to six weeks for two and a half years. At the astronomical cost of $1,500 and change each visit. Fortunately her insurance covers most of it, but DAMN. If a Dr. told me that drinking Diet Coke was causing me to go blind and that I was going to have to have an injection IN MY EYE every month to stop it, you can beat your sweet ass I would have one more large McDonald's Diet Coke and I would be done with them. 

So beyond me selfishly not wanting to die or lose my family (both human and furry) in a house fire I would also like for her not to go blind. Since I am a hateful asshole who steals all her money my opinion on the matter doesn't count. 

She has also misplaced her purse. I know it's in the house somewhere, because the other day when she was saying she was just going to go and get her cigarettes on her own I put it up in a cabinet when I had to leave to pick up Megan from school. I didn't want her trying to get in the car or going to the neighbors with money to get cigarettes. When I got home I put it back on the counter where it was originally. ( I also double checked the cabinet to make sure I didn't have a brain lapse and only think I put it back on the counter) I figure since she is stuck on me stealing from her she has hidden it somewhere in the house in an attempt to keep me from getting her money and has forgotten her secret hiding place. I looked in some of the places she normally sticks things and didn't find it. She's had me go look in my car about 20 times and call the Dollar Tree to ask if they have it. We went there on Monday. I am not too worried about it's location, because I know it's here somewhere and she may eventually remember where she hid it, or I will come across it.

So after another round of searching the car and a smoke break she sits down in the kitchen chair and we go for another fun round of  I am not her keeper and that I am going to give her her cigarettes back. She says "it's my house and I will do whatever the hell I please in my house". I told her "no it's our house because we all live here together". Her response "the hell it is". Then she informs me that she "has worked her whole life to pay for this house". (sidebar that's not true she was given the house free and clear by my grandparents) "I have no right to live here and take over her house like I have". She says "my shit is everywhere she looks and all of her stuff has been thrown away". We did move some of her things to the storage building when we moved in because we had to have room for our beds and things. She then brings up that she loaned me $500 a few years ago because John was on a much deserved motorcycle trip with his buddies and had an unexpected flat on the road. He needed the money quickly and I didn't have that much just laying around so I asked her if I could borrow it so he could get back on the road. I paid her back the next week when he got home. So after she brings that up and I remind her that I paid her back and she says "so there". ??? She then moves on to telling me to stop using her washer for my things. I said I don't wash my things in your washer, I have my own washer, I am washing your things, currently your bed clothes. She says I DON'T NEED YOU TO DO THAT!!! yet before I started washing her bed linens and fixing her bed she was sleeping on the bare pee soaked mattress with no pillow cases, covered by a dirty old also pee soaked comforter. With the very next breath she says there's dog piss in the floor you need to clean up. 

I try to remember that trying to convince her she is wrong or misremebering things is an exercise in futility on my part. That she is never going to understand or remember when I "win" the argument. I also try and remember that when she hurts my feelings or makes me upset that leaving her to her own devices for a while to "show her what all I do for her" is also fucking pointless because she is never going to see, remember, understand, or appreciate any of it. I think beyond the hurt feelings, no sleep, and general loads of shit what really breaks me down is knowing that none of it matters to her and nothing I do will ever be appreciated. That I have given up a lot ( a job, my time, my sleep, my home, and my sanity) to take care of someone, not because I love them or they love or ever truly loved me, but because no one else would.   

and now the rest of the story...

So a I stated in my previous post there have been lots of changes in my life over the last little bit. There have actually been a few more since I penned that last post as well. 

   My daughter has switched to the University of Tennessee and is now majoring in Classics. Maryville just wasn't a good fit for her.

   I finally got my mother to the Dr and as was expected she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia. Although if you ask her she doesn't. She is convinced she has 3 spots on her lung and has near constant diarrhea. Neither of those things is true, but we will get into that later. 

   I am currently really struggling with my role as her caregiver. I think now that moving here to take care of her was a bad idea and one that I currently regret. My intention with picking the blog back up is to give myself an outlet to vent my daily struggles, frustrations, and the sad shit that current makes up my days. As I said before my mother and I have never been close and I have always felt rejected and resented by her. That being said I fancy myself a decent being and regardless of how she has treated me I have taken on her care because she has no one else and she is still a human being. That does however leave me with some pretty difficult feelings to wade through. Our lack of connection even on a basic level coupled with her dementia attitude have made an already difficult situation exponentially harder. My hope is that writing things down here will help me process things with some clarity giving me the opportunity to deal with this.

  So here goes. My mother has been a smoker since she was 9 if you believe what she has to say. I don't smoke and neither does anyone in my family. That being said part of the agreement to us coming her to take care of her was she agreed to smoke outside from the time we moved in on. We built her a new deck off her bedroom to make that easier. She also has a garage she could smoke in where I set up a smoke station with a chair heater and ashtray. The entire length of the front of this house is a covered front porch that was also fair game for her smoking. Has a nice porch swing, a few benches, and a table and chairs. So it's not like the request was horrible or made her stand in the blaring sun or the pouring rain. Either way that shit lasted maybe a week before she started smoking in the house again. When I would catch her doing it and ask why she wasn't outside she was always on her way, or the phone rang, or she needed to shit. (her words) Then as she began to benefit fro me making sure she was eating and sleeping in her bed she began to feel better. So at that point when she was caught smoking in the house she would yell and say it was her house and she could do whatever she wanted in it. I would remind her that it was now OUR house as we sold our home to move here with her. She didn't give a shit it was her house. That has gone on for months at this point with us not running the center heat and air, closing off every air gap we could find, and separating our living spaces as much as we could. (it still made the whole house stink BTW) Fast forward to just before Christmas I had been cleaning on her side of the house and had put several paper towels in the kitchen trash can. She came through and put a lit cigarette in said trash can catching it on fire. She didn't notice the fire and went back into her bedroom. Luckily my husband and I walked through her side of the house as it went up. It has burned through the plastic lid and had melted the trash can into the kitchen cabinet. She denied putting a cigarette in there and said she had no idea how it happened... (we found the charred remains of a filter in the top of the burned out can) We again attempted to get her to go outside and smoke and to put her cigarette butts in a metal can on the porch. She would comply when we were home or she thought we weren't paying attention. Then when we would go over and find her smoking she would out right deny that she was. Smoldering cigarette in her hand or dangling from her lip. She would honestly say she wasn't smoking!!!!!! That went on for a abut a month with her burning holes in her, clothes, shoes, bed linens, and dining room table. Then just this past Saturday night after I had put her to bed I went back over to check on her before I went to bed for the night and found her nightstand drawer engulfed in flames and her sound asleep a foot from it. I managed to get the fire out and her up and guess what she says it wasn't a "real fire" and that she didn't do anything to start it. It burned up half a carton of her cigarettes, her house shoes, a few pads, her aspercream, and the bottom and front of the drawer, but it wan't a real fire. 

Since clearly we have a major safety issue with her and her smoking I told her she couldn't have her cigarettes anymore that I would keep them and her lighters and when she wanted to smoke she could ask me and I would take her outside and then make sure when she was done that it was safely extinguished. Well that really pissed her off so we have had several arguments about it and I am not budging. I am not putting my family and the house at risk because she wants to do whatever she wants. I got her some nicotine patches and gum to use at night to help curb the night time stuff. I have tried to be as nice about it as I can. She says she can take care of herself and doesn't need me getting in her business. However she can't dress herself for the most part, change her own depend, fix herself a reasonable meal, or remember to feed or water her pets. She gave up cleaning her house or picking up the dog shit years ago. She hits me, calls me the fat dictator and a hateful bitch several times a day. All while telling me she doesn't need my help. We had the conversation today with her accusing me of stealing her money, and taking over her whole life. That I was not her mother or her keeper and I should just leave her alone. As she was walking away from me yelling this she stepped in a pile of dogshit that had just been shat in her path. She noticed it and use the tissue she has in her hand to swipe at the shit on her house-shoe (one that I had to help her put on) she then proceeds to stand up straight and start wiping her nose with the shit covered tissue. When I try and stop her she tells me to leave her alone, she knows what she doing she's not a mo-ron. So she wiped shit on her face and her ear. I can't in good conscience leave her that way although it is so tempting so I get a wash cloth and clean her up while being berated and told she doesn't need me. 

    I know that some of this is the dementia, but some of it is just how she always has been toward me. So while I can rationalize in my head that she doesn't mean it and she doesn't know what she's saying, my heart knows that she does and it has a hard time dealing with it. 

  Folks will tell you oh it's just the disease, that's not really your mother, don't get upset by that stuff, just be happy that you get to do this for her. Well you know what? I am not happy about any of this and disease or no getting called names and treated like shit day in and day out by someone that you clean up after, wipe her butt, wash her clothes, de-shit her bed, feed, and keep from killing herself in a house fire it still fucking hurts and it's said by people that never actually have to deal with her.

 It's just me.

 I am the only one that shows up to take the shit and take care of her. 

   I don't want to put her in a facility because somehow in my twisted head that means I failed, not her so much, but myself. I want to think that I am a decent enough person to stay the course and take care of her.

 It gets harder everyday 

Random musings and hopefully a restart

So it's been a long time since I last posted. Honestly I don't know if this post will just turn into brain vomit that will never be posted or if I will get happy enough with it that it see the light of the web. Either way my hope is that by at least writing this stuff out and purging it from my brain more or less I will feel some better about things. 

Shit may get deep so if you aren't interested in that or are looking for fluffy feel good, this ain't the place right now.

So what all has happened in the last few years...

My beautiful daughter has graduated from both high school and Pellissippi State with her associates degree. She is currently enrolled at Maryville college in their teacher licensure program. She also has a steady boyfriend who seems to be an ok guy.

I quit my job working for the county school system and went through a phlebotomy certification program. I finished that excited to start out on a new career path. I had a bit of trouble finding a phlebotomy job so I took a job doing bio-metric screenings for large companies. This job meant I had to travel a bit which wasn't bad and it paid really well. However about two months in my boss had a heart attack and dies unexpected. It was a small independent company. His college age daughter has tried to keep it going and really for it to have been sprung on her she has done surprisingly well. As luck would have it just when things with that job were starting to plain back out we found my 70 year old mother half naked lying in her kitchen floor disoriented and unable to get up. She had been there several hours and wasn't able to get to the phone. While we knew her health had been deteriorating over the last bit we didn't realize how bad she really was. So I spent the next week at her house cleaning it up (it was a real shit mess) and trying to clean and feed her back to some semblance of human. When we found her in the floor she weighed 64 pounds. She looked like a refugee. Much to my chagrin she refuses to this day to go to the Dr and find out what is going on. I am pretty sure she has some type of dementia or Alzheimers, but we don't know for sure.  So that's one part of the fun that is my life. It was decided after a few weeks of trying to ride two horses with one ass taking care of my mother and keeping up with my own house that something had to give. I looked into hiring someone to come in and help her with cleaning, someone to keep up the yard, and someone to check in on her, but it just wasn't financially doable. So the idea was that John, Meg and I would sell our house and move in with her to take care of her and the homeplace. This was the first major mistake that we made. Let me give you some back story so this part will make more sense. My mother and I have never been close. EVER. I have pretended and dreamed of a close relationship with her. I have tried in my mind to make the relationship that we have into something great, loving, and beneficial to my life. It is not and never has been. I was born 10 1/2 years after my brother. I was a surprise and best I can tell not a great or happy one for my mom. I think she thought she was done raising babies since my brother was 10 and born an old man. Then surprise along came me. I had colic, ADHD and I was a girl. ( my mom really would have  preferred me to be a boy. In her words she could just relate and deal with them better.) so basically I was fucked from the jump. My childhood was spent being shuffled from one activity to another so that she didn't have to deal with me. She also refused to deal with my GLARINGLY OBVIOUS ADHD. She said it was just the diagnosis of the moment and there was no such thing. So I spent the majority of my early school days at silent lunch and sitting out during playground time. I struggled knowing that I should be better, sit still, be quiet, pay attention, and not be a weirdo. but I just couldn't seem to make it happen. My dad who was a great guy and I have no doubt was happy to have me as an addition to the fam was an over the road truck driver until I was about 14 so he was gone for most of my young life. I don't fault him or harbor any ill will toward him. He was doing what he thought was best to provide for his family. So the long and short of it is this my mom was distant, disengaged, and always striving to be the coolest baddest whatever. Coolest mom, biggest bad ass in the room, best employee, hottest chick or whatever. I have said many times lately looking back that she was so full of shit that I didn't know how she was able to be ambulatory. She also made it pretty obvious to everyone that my brother was her favorite and I was just a pain in her ass. Case in point I was 8 mins late getting home from work one night because I had hit a giant bullfrog in the road on the way home and had stopped to collect him and cry because I felt like shit for running him over. When I got home and explained what happened she told me " I am done with you, you are your fathers problem to deal with now" Seriously I was 8 mins late getting home from the job I got two days after I turned 16 and could drive myself there. I was never in any serious trouble in school. I didn't drink, do drugs or party. I was a bit of an outcast loser who hung-out with pretty much whoever. So it's not like I had this massive bunch of shitty kid baggage for her to throw up at me for being late. This was the first time I think it really hit me that she really didn't give a shit about me and never really had. I was the kid who was always sickly with strep or whatever and she wouldn't take me to the Dr. or if she did she would make up a reason not to do what they advised. I needed my tonsils out pretty badly. She told me if I waited long enough they would rot out and it wouldn't be an problem anymore. I still have my tonsils but they look a bit like swiss cheese from all the damage done from the repeated bouts of strep. I had terrible TMJ and she told the dentist on my second visit ever that she wouldn't pay to have braces because I was making it up. Her way to avoid that problem was to not take me to the dentist anymore. So at 20 my husband and I paid out of pocket for my braces to correct my screwed up jaw because our insurance wouldn't pay for adult orthodontics. When I was smallish and would get into kid trouble that would warrant a spanking it didn't really do that much to curb my behavior (hello ADHD not much impulse control) so around 8 or so she gave up spanking me and adopted a back hand maneuver. Granted this only happened five or six times it was still enough to scar me a bit. The last one happened when I was about 14 because I wanted to change around the contents of my dresser drawers and she didn't think it needed it. I did it anyway because it was my dresser. Bad call on my part. Funny thing I can tell you how many times she whacked me but couldn't tell you how many times she hugged me in my lifetime and it's not because they were to numerous to count...

Ok so I haven't blogged in like forever and I miss it. I miss getting to put my thoughts, rants, raves and bitches down somewhere other than Facebook. I will confess that FB has taken the place of my blog for a good long time now. But this, this is different. I enjoy the sense of community that I felt with my fellow bloggers back when I blogged regularly. In fact I am FB friends with a few of them. I am worried because it seems that the blogger world has changed while I have been away. With the start of Pinterest  and with companies paying top bloggers to push their products things are not as "honest" as they seemed before. Perhaps it's just me and I was naive before. I hope that I can get back in the swing of blogging and sharing. The stories from my job alone are enough to keep this blog going indefinitely. With that being said here's a little nugget from the other day. One of the kids came in with a sore place on his lip and he was obviously embarrassed by it and was trying to keep it low key. ( keep in mind these are high school age kids) One of the other kids notices and in a loud sing- song voice says...... "oh nooooooo he's got Herbies"  LOL

Well I hope this post finds all my old bloggy buddies doing well and hanging in there.

I miss me some Mommakin, The world according to Candice, Kathy B, and The everyday hills and valleys, Oh Andy and B Sparlkly.    

I have been bad but in my defense I have been a bit busy

Forgive me blogger it's been 14 days since my last post.....
So we got moved thank goodness. I'm still not completely done "setting up house" yet. It seems like we still have so much left to do. But when I look around we have already done a lot.
Megs soccer stuff has really picked up and we have been running her around from practices, SAQ, and games 6 days a week. She is doing so well and working so hard. I am one proud Momma.
It seems like the summer is flying by and I am not happy about that at all. We have less than a month before we start back to school :-( not looking forward to that at all.
Well I better get back to it. Working in the flower bed today... it's a mess. There are lots of "good" plants in there but they are just sort of thrown in there, crowded together, and it's full of weeds and leaves. I have to figure out how to move things around to better showcase whats in there and give the plants room to breathe a little. I will post some pictures as I go along. I have already raked out all the leaves so the first pictures won't reflect its true original state... but just know it was a mess :-)

2 days to go

So I have 2 days left before the move !!!!

I still feel like I have a ton of stuff left to do. 

I have been busy trying to get as much ready as I can but still feel like I have so much more to do.

That being said I better get back at it.

I hope everyone has a happy hump day  :-)

Holy crap I only have 9 days left

So I have 9 days left before we are set to close on the house !!!!! I have so much stuff to do. I have made multiple trips to KARM and dropped off a lot of stuff. I have even packed a few things. Linens and things that we don't use very often. My plan is to get some boxes this week and start packing up darn near everything except the few things we will need to get through the next few days. 

I am excited and nervous about the move. The house is pretty much move in ready, but I need to figure out how things will work in the new space. We have to add a doggie door to the garage man door so that the dogs can come and go to the backyard at will. I need to get some curtain rods and a shower curtain bar/rod. I also need to figure out where to feed my cats so the dogs don't eat their food. Right now they eat on a little table in my bedroom. The bedroom at the new house is not as big as the monster one we have now. I still need to go through and do a change of address with our bills, set up our cable, water, and electric. 

I have a ton of stuff to get done !!!!

Listing it all on here is amping my stress level up so I think I'm gonna stop doing that LOL 

I hope everyone had a good and safe 4th. 

Also wanna give a shout out to one of my new favorite things Ancestory.com  I have had such a good time researching my family tree on there. I am currently in the 2 week free period but I am gonna get the six month membership so I can keep looking. I have been able to trace my moms family back to the late 1700's in Germany and my dads family back to their trip over from Scotland in the 1600's. How sweet is that ?

16 days and counting....

So we have 16 days til we are set to close on the new house !!!!

While that sounds like a while I have a TON of stuff to get done.

Plus they still have some work to do at the new house before we can close. I am a little worried that they aren't going to get everything done in time. 

They still have a lot to clean up from where the trees came down last week. The fence still needs to get repaired/replaced.

My plan is to start in one room and pack up what we won't use for the next two weeks and clean up that room. I have made several trips to the local KARM store already and I see several more trips there in my immediate future.

I want to adopt a new philosophy at the new house to not keep things that we don't use. I am always hanging on to things that I think I may need or use again at some point. So I have all these "just in case" things packed in closets and cabinets. I am gonna stop this practice at the new house. I am tired of living surrounded by crap LOL.

We will see how I do on this goal.

 Getting John and Meg on board is another matter entirely.....

The count down begins....

So I have 18 days until we are set to move !!!!!!!!! 

I have so much stuff to get done it's not even funny.

I have to pack up and clean out the house now then once we get in there we have to come back and redo the house we are leaving. I (and by I, I mean John) have to repaint every room white and move 2 doors and close to doors in, take down a wall and then redo the flooring where we took down the wall !!! Maybe we will be done by September.

I am really excited about the move but dreading it just the same.

 I look forward to having my own house again.

 Where I can put what I want in the yard and paint the walls whatever color I want without having to ask. John can park his POS truck next to the house. Where we have control of the heat and air temp.

 I don't mean to sound ungrateful but it's the little things like that that help make a house your home.

 I look forward to that again.

 The work and the other stuff not so much, but alas it's part of it.

We are gonna have to make some changes in our spending so that we can live comfortably in the new house and still take care of the responsibilities we have at the other house. But I think we will be just fine after an initial adjustment period.

I am looking forward to being able to have friends over for dinner and stuff and for Meg being able to have friends over for sleepovers and things. It will be a nice change for all of us.

 In the meantime I have a ton of stuff to get rid of.

Anybody want this for a good price ?

I have a bunch of stuff like this I need to get rid of. While I LOVE it I don't use it and my goal for the new house is less is more. So it's gotta go !!!

Hope everyone is having a happy Monday. 

After SAQ we are off to Young Williams Animal Center to help with website pictures :-)

Look at me go... two posts in one day

So last night I had free sneak peak passes to see bad Teacher at the Regal Riviera Downtown. The movie was pretty funny. It had some zingy one liners and also had Jason Segal. I am really growing to love him as an actor. I almost wish I had gotten into how I Met Your Mother just for him.

The movie is funny and not really raunchy although there are a couple of scenes that push the line a little. Lets just say JT's character is really bizarre.....