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JessieBelle, It seems like people who have never been an a situation always think they know better than everyone else what is best. I just cannot believe that God would condemn a tiny child that he created, or anyone in some faraway place who isn't fundamentalist to burn for all eternity just because their beliefs are different. Sounds to me like they are judging others and use religion to control people. They really don't get it. I cannot stand to watch or listen to this type of condemnation. Then often we find out that they are doing something really awful in their own private lives but tell others what to do to deflect their own bad behavior.
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I have to give my brother kudos for being there when I really need him. I complain that I don't get help from my siblings with Mom, but he tries to help with other things when he can - things around the house that I don't know how to do myself. He put up our Christmas lights last year (I could have done it myself, but was nice that he did it for me) and if I have a project I get stuck on, he'll offer advice or come help if he can. He is dealing with his MIL's aging as well, and his wife often needs his help with things on that end, so I try not to ask for too much. DenialSis stops by once a month and visits for about 30 minutes or an hour, but has no concept of how far Mom has declined and doesn't want to be informed of it, either. Other sister comes to visit when she can, but that's the extent of the help. So I've just learned to do a lot by myself or to hire it done if I can afford to.

Been a busy weekend, and it's kind of fallen over into this week, but I'll get it all done. Lots of house projects going on.
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FF .... I think a lot of men are good at causing more damage than they fix sometimes.... (not speaking of Captain of course :) )

My brother is pretty notorious for "fixing" things....some things turn out ok, but to be honest, I have gotten to where I have to crack up seeing some of the catastrophes he creates...always ends up costing me twice what it would have cost in the first place to have jut hired it done...or better yet, just done it myself.
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Sigh. I was watching TBN on TV with my mother yesterday. There was a preacher, Jack Graham, talking about how it is our responsibility as children to take care of our aging parents. He was very adamant and condemning in his talk. I listened to him, sitting there with my mother, thinking that the man had not one bone of compassion in his Bible-thumping body. People in Bible times were expected to live 30 years. Anyone living beyond 50 was indeed lucky. I don't listen much to the people who lived hundreds of years, because calendars were not the same back then. What was a year during the time of Genesis?

Now, I could have put it down, but the subject was resurrected this morning on AC. Something I'm really starting to have trouble with when it comes to preaching is the legalistic, condemning nature of fundamentalists. I am so hard on myself already that I don't need a fire-breathing person condemning me further. If I could no longer take care of my mother, would I be damned to all eternity or have to do daily penitence for forgiveness?

I grow weary of the condemning nature of many of the religions. I am tired of condemning myself based on what someone else thinks I ought to be doing. Some people use the Bible to beat people over the head with it.

I do think it is wonderful if we are able to take care of our parents. Graham had gone on to say that we should still obey them. I wonder if we get an exception if they have lost their ability to reason. There was so much Jack Graham was saying that all I could do is shake my head and figure he had never been a 24/7 caregiver for a person with dementia or other serious disability. He spoke from the Bible, but without any understanding.
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Yesterday I took my Dad's watch to a watch maker to have a new battery installed. The place is at the mall where I don't like going, I rather walk through fire then deal with parking and all the people.

Anyway, the watch maker said he was hesitant to open up the watch because it looked like someone who wasn't a jeweler had pried opened the back cover because of all the scratch marks on the back of the watch and the cover was placed back incorrectly. He was afraid if he tried to force open the cover it would break the stem. Since it wasn't my watch I decided not to take the risk.

Ah ha, I bet Dad [93] got out his tool box and was trying to open the watch himself... he's always been Mr. Fix-It and used to do excellent work but now he has trouble seeing and he's not too steady. Once again he was messing with something and damaged it. Couple weeks ago it was Mom's hearing aid where it looks like someone broke off a piece of the hearing aid, and I know it wasn't Mom doing it..... [sigh]
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Captain, well said.
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My mom was living like a hoarder. Now that she lives with me, she doesn't understand Why I am always cleaning and putting things away. I cannot live with clutter. She has to check her pocketbook everyday so that I didn't steal it. She has the same amount of cash that she had when I took her in.
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i worked today then took my aunt a piece of coconut cream pie . conversation is impeded because she doesnt hear well now so we usually rummage thru her meager possessions . today she gave me back one of the gold dollars i gave her a few months ago . a few minutes later she tried to give me the other one . i tried to decline but she asked me to PLEASE accept it . i dont know what her rationale is but im guessing she gave them to me as a sign of her trust in me .
my mom done something similar with nearly 800 . 00 cash that she was trying to stash . after losing it and accusing me of stealing it she came into my room and gave it to me for safekeeping . its sad and sweet at the same time . the two women , both with late dementia , came to the realization that they have no choice but to put their trust in someone else as their own judgement simply gave out on them .
i guess theres a lesson for everyone here . at a point the earthly possessions are reduced to a bushel basket full of trinkets and clothes and eventually money means nothing .
someone with the guts enough to take the last walk with you is the real treasure .
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I'm so happy for you Jeanette...sounds like your Mom is doing great also! And so happy that you and your brothers are doing well...my brother and I have come a long way too...and I'm very thankful for that...!!
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Had a GREAT day! Has been a gorgeous day..in the 60's...sunny...really nice...my brother called ahead of time to let me know he was coming so if I wanted to go somewhere he'd be here soon...So I made sure I was ready this time...He and Mama had a really good time together apparently as every time I asked her about it she would holler "yay"...bless her heart..she's smiling and laughing...love it!!!

Went for a fun drive through the countryside with the music cranked up and enjoying a soda...wow I forgot how good that feels...before I came home I went by and got my flowering bulbs and also some pretty iris...going to start jazzing up the yards now. I felt alive today...

Even fixed me some peas and cornbread and am about to enjoly along with the new episode of one of my favorites...The Walking Dead.....

Thank you all for your encouragement...what a difference a day makes.. :)
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No whine at all, Made giant steps with my brothers today.
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No whine... it is so nice to see the sunshine at 6:00 pm :)
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I'm glad that your mama is okay Hope!!
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Daughter52, as annoying as it is at times, just think of it as backwards now. Your mom probably meant to say how nice it looked. How she folds clothes, wears pants inside out, makes the bed by smooshing it all in the middle, is backwards, so her thinking is the same.... she just says it backwards. My mother did the same exact things... there has to be some logic behind it if a lot of AD loved ones have similar actions.

Hope, YAY!... glad your mama is feeling better!! So is mine. Finally. She's been so lucid and talkative today... and it's so pretty outside, she want's to go for a walk :) she can no longer walk though so... gonna try and improvise a makeshift ramp so we can go for a sunny day stroll. Yeah, it's almost 65 out and gorgeous. Hey, she's even eating more. She wants to get up and help me do stuff around the house, bless her heart. Apparently she has more energy than I do !!! This Wednesday I am for sure going to take my 5 days of respite.

Katie, I swear I hope there is a flood of good and wonderful coming our way. My yang has yinged and I always think too much and lately it's leaning towards the negative vs the positive and I truly hate that!!!

So now that I'm thinking.... I might try and take all of us for a walk. I can leash the 2 dogs to mom's wheelchair (they dropped it off today) and push her while the dogs help me by pulling :) Yeegads I've lost my mind. haha
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Hope, glad to hear things are calm. Have a good Sunday....in fact I hope everyone has a good Sunday. I am still waiting on another script for a UTI...takes so long. Things here seem chaotic at times once I moved Mom in. Had to rearrange closets etc. and things seem so packed in. I find myself cleaning bathrooms and vacuuming a lot as it is something I can have some sort of control over. Now the garbage disposal leaks and I am using paper plates amap before I can get the plumber in here tomorrow.
Always problems to some degree or another. Isn't there some law of physics that states that "for every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction" ??? If that is the case, then for all the bad things we are going through somewhere somehow there should be a time where there is more good than bad for all of us!.....right now it seems that there is too much "ying" and not enough "yang".....that the state of things is always below the median line if we were to graph out how things are going....things are balanced towards the bad and difficult. Will there be a flood of good and wonderful things for us in result of going through all this now?....Maybe I am thinking too much!
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I'm feeling like I need to vent today so here's mine today...
One thing that I notice about the dementia/alzheimer's sufferer is their perception of things. There brain is very disorganized. For example...I go OUT OF MY WAY to make mom's environment comfy and orderly and pleasant. Yesterday after cleaning the deck off and making her a lovely seating space that she can look out from, she says to me, "It's kind of messy out here isn't it"? Are you kidding me???? This is a lady who cannot fold clothes--she wads and rolls them up. She cannot hang things straight on a hanger. She cannot put her clothes on right side up or frontwards. And she calls the environment that I have just spent a great deal of my morning arranging for her---'messy'. Heck, why do I try sometimes?
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And yes, one day I'm going to call him the night before and ask him if he can be here at such and such time because I have some things I want to do...not need...but want.. :)
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Thanks Babalou and Veronica :) I hope you both have a wonderfully relaxing one too. It is so pretty and sunny here, so I'm going to try to go through some more of my stuff, and maybe get out of the house for a while depending on when my brother shows up here...
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Enjoy your Sunday Hope.
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Glad to hear things are calm, Hope.
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I know I slept like a rock after being so sleepless the night before
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Thanks Jeanette....yes, I have unfortunately had to hear the death rattle before...I remember Daddy had it, my grandparents had it...pretty much all of my elderly family members had it and yet, I cannot remember it right now.. and don't really want to..I am just so thankful that Mama slept well and the little stinker is still snoozing up a storm with her little cat, Madeline, curled up beside her...it's a sweet sight and since she is sleeping so well, I am going to let her snooze til she starts stirring...I have learned she seems to function much better that way....I love mornings as she is more alert and likely to say something to me....so it's like I am waiting for her to wake up and lay some words of wisdom on me....but for now I think the time change has messed her up, so I'm letting her sleep in...
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Thanks Glad. I shut down the iPad and turned it on. It's working now. Strange. I shut it down before recharging it. This is the first time for it to act up after charging.
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Book shut down the iPad and try a reboot.
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Book, try using google chrome as your browser. I use IE primarily too, but some websites just son't work with it right. I am on my tablet now, and I see all the buttons. But I am not sure what browser my tablet uses. These new fangled devices!
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Must be an iPad problem. I'm now using my kindle. No problem at all with the newsfeed, Likes, and report this....
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I'm not sure what's happening with me and technology. Today the IE is not working on my laptop. Just now,I'm using the IPAD. I'm having problems negotiating it. I cannot get access to my newsfeed or the latest activities on the right side. Everyone's avatar photo is missing. And The LIKE button is missing. The Report This button is missing. Sign that it's time to shower and read a book.
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Thanks, Jeanette. I think I will download Firefox. I'm trying to delete a lot of my files to make room for a Firefox download. I have 92gb free out of 141gb. I may need to transfer a lot of my notes onto a flashdrive and a CD. If I can free up more space, I can then download the Firefox.
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Hope, I am so HAPPY to hear your mama is doing well.... Like you, I love my hospice nurses/aides/volunteers. You won't mistake the "death rattle' (shudder) let's hope you never ever hear it.

book... i detest IE. I use either Firefox or Chrome, if one is pissing me off I switch to the other. windows 8 sucks. too hard to get used to after all the others. It's made for the younger more savvy kids.
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I've been having problem today on getting on the Internet Explorer (IE). It's a good thing that my gmail had problems with IE and insisted that I download the Chrome. Unfortunately, most of my bills and other favorite saved sites are on IE. I just googled why IE is down. Seems that Windows have been hacked a day or two ago. Since I'm now down to Chrome, I'm wondering if I should download FireFox as a backup browser.... just in case Chrome gets hacked and shuts down.

I guess since most of you are still posting, that you don't use IE.
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