As usual, I dropped it off early. I confirmed it would be done around 2:30, and the mechanic said he would message me if they were done early, then headed out.
I made my way to a restaurant where I knew I could hang out for a while. Once done there, I didn’t want to go back to all the same places I went to yesterday, partly because the truck wasn’t going to take as long to be done. Then I remembered that there was a second hand store I’ve been meaning to go to for years, and just never got around to it.
It was a nice store. They’ve got lots of place available for their inventory at the moment, so it was easy to see everything. I did get a laugh when I found this display, though.
There isn’t a single crochet hook in there. It was right next to a bucket stuffed full of knitting needles. These were all short enough that they would have disappeared completely in there, so I can see why they’re in another display, but you’d think they’d change the label or something! 😄
Considering how many times I’ve been crocheting in public and had people ask me “what are you knitting”, though, it could simply be they didn’t know there’s a difference. 😁
Eventually, I meandered my way back to the garage. I got there early, and saw my truck was in the parking lot. The owner had stepped out, though, so I got to hang out in the office until he came back and could process the payment.
The total was pretty much where I expected it to be. After taxes, it was $245.88 The “oil cooler line gasket” was under $10, labour was only $50. The alignment was $159.99.
*sigh*
It’s all done, though. We shouldn’t have to go back to the garage again until our next oil change. Unless we want to replace those sensors with the dead batteries, and there is no urgency on that.
Now, hopefully, I won’t need to do more driving for quite some time! We’ve burned through a lot of gas, just since I reset our trip meter after filling the tank at Costco.
Oh. I forgot. I have to go to town tomorrow for a pharmacy trip. After that, however, I have no scheduled trips for almost 2 weeks!
Won’t that be nice!
Of course, there will be unscheduled trips. If nothing else, I’m hoping we can manage some birthday take out for my older daughter. She hates it when we spend money on her, though, even though I budget for it. We shall see.
For now, I’m just going to enjoy being home for the evening.
I got to spend some extra time with the outside cats this morning. We had a chilly night, and it was still pretty cold, but they didn’t seem to notice! It’s going to be a decent day today, and then just keep warming up, so they’re going to be all over the place!
While putting kibble out in the sun room, I got accosted by a tuxedo, who wanted all sorts of pets.
We have a few tuxedos, but I haven’t seen most of them for a while. I’m actually not sure if this is one of our regulars that has come back from exploring, or if this is a new cat. It cats hard to keep track when they come and go so much.
I’m thrilled to have caught him in a tongue blehp, though.
He was incredibly friendly, though, and eager for both food and attention. So he’s probably one of ours that has returned. I suspect that if he were a dump, he would have been more skittish. He could be visiting from another farm, too.
Once outside, there was a crowd of cats on the cat house roof, waiting for kibble, so I went over and got an absolute thrill.
The tabby in front was named by the girls because he apparently always goes for their toes. He nips when he wants attention. He’s not the only one that does that!
Before I got my camera out, not only was I able to pet Adam, but I was able to give her full on, two handed, face and neck scritches. She looked like she was in heaven! This is so awesome! We have been trying to socialize her for 3 years, with virtually zero success. No, suddenly, she has decided she likes us. 😄
She is one of the cats that went into heat early, but she doesn’t seem to be pregnant. Given how long it’s been, I would have expected her to start showing by now. There’s no real way to know right now, though. However, now that she had decided to let us actually pet her, we should be able to get her into a carrier, rather than having to trap her, and get her spayed. Hopefully, the rescue would be able to arrange something, soon. It’s getting warm enough that I would be willing to try trapping cats soon. It’s those overnight temperatures we have to keep an eye on, since we have no way to monitor a trap.
As I was finishing up my rounds and passing by the isolation shelter, I had a whole crowd of faces, watching me!
Magda is one of the cats that is just too smol. She’s almost a year old, but looks like she’s just a few months old. There are several littles like her, but she is the only friendly one – and even she has her making strange moments, still. She would be an easy one to catch for spay and adoption through the rescue, but I’d be afraid to do it. With her small size, that tells me she’s probably going to need extra medical care. Whenever that happens, it seems they end up keeping the cats permanently, and they already have so many unadoptable cats right now!
I tried to do a head count this morning, and I think I counted a total of 30. It’s hard to know for sure if I got them all, or if I double counted some.
So many of them would make such great indoor cats, if we could find people to adopt them!
I just had to include my hand for perspective, though the kitty prints help, too. That is one big raccoon was had visiting us!
It’s doing a good job of cleaning up the old kibble that cats won’t eat anymore, so I can’t complain. I haven’t checked today’s trail cam files yet, so I don’t know it it was caught, but a few days ago I saw him going in and out through our gate, and he is a big’un!
While putting kibble into the isolation shelter, I got tackled.
That little tabby has been after attention pretty much every morning, now.
Colin wanted attention so much, he forced himself into my hand while I was trying to get pictures! Lately, I’ve typically had about 5 or 6 friendly males, pushing for attention, in the mornings. Plus Magda. I have to be careful trying to pet her. She’s so small, the big boys push her around without even noticing!
As usual, I left for my appointment early, remembering to leave the gate open for today’s prescription delivery. My husband would get his meds faster that way, than if I went to the pharmacy to get them myself.
While dropping off the keys, I asked for a general idea of how long it would take. The best he could tell me was “a few hours”. Thankfully, it’s warmer now (we are still at our high of -6C/21F), so it was a fine day to walk around town.
The first thing to do was find somewhere to get breakfast. I was still early enough that not a lot of places were open yet, but also, I needed to find somewhere were I could adjust my order to fit my Lenten fast from sugars and starches. I ended up walking across town, almost to the lake, to a hotel cafe where I knew they would be open for breakfast. I don’t often go there, partly because they are not accessible, and I don’t do well with stairs. But, it’s got reliably good home cooking type meals, and they open early in the day. I also knew that I would be able to take my time while there, and not feel like I’m taking up a table they needed for any sort of rush.
All their breakfast meals include home cut hash browns and toast in your bread of choice – both things I wanted to skip. I told the waitress what I was needing to cut out, and asked if they could just add an extra egg or something, instead. She said she would talk to the kitchen staff, and that’s what they ended up doing. I got their “Farmer’s Breakfast) of eggs, bacon, ham and sausage. The hash browns and toast would have made it a really huge meal! It was very good.
My tea without sugar, however, was … tea without sugar. 😄
When I was done there, I went to several nearby shops to look around. One of them was a dollar type store, and I did find a few things, including a long pipe cleaner style brush for our bathroom sink. When we had to take stuff out of the bathroom while replacing the taps, faucet, some pipes, and the old tub surround, we had to take pretty much everything out of the bathroom. That included one of these pipe cleaner type brushes. It’s the only thing that can clean out the bathroom sink properly.
Unfortunately, it disappeared at some point. We figure a cat had to have dragged it off, but to where? It’s been months, and we still haven’t found it!
I was happy to see they had some in stock and made sure to grab one!
I spent enough time looking at things and checking out other stores that when I got closer to another restaurant, a fried chicken place, it was actually a good time to stop for lunch.
They had a new sign out front. They are now open for breakfast, too! Until recently, they didn’t open until 11am. Something to remember, should I need to in the future.
It took a while, but I finally settled on one of their “snack” meals, that came with only one side and no bun. Instead of the usual fries, I chose their coleslaw. I like their coleslaw better than their fries, anyhow! So that worked out.
Again, I was able to take my time about it, as much to make it easier on my hips and knees as anything else! I knew I would have a lot more walking ahead of me.
Once I was done there, I made my way to another shop where I found a few more small things to pick up. The pharmacy was across the street, and I remembered to go there to get the printouts for our taxes.
We paid over $1400 in co-pay for my husband’s meds last year. His private insurance covers 90% and, once the $3000+ deductible is covered, some of his medications switch to the provincial prescription insurance, which then covers 100%. Most of his meds aren’t covered by the provincial insurance at all.
Thank God for private insurance!
My prescription co-pay amount is miniscule compared to his.
From there, it was more walking – and finding a clean bench to sit on for a while. Last of all, I stopped at a hardware store, where I finally found a metal dish rack to replace the plastic coated one we’ve been using since moving here. It was here before us, and pieces of the plastic coating was already starting to break off. After 7 more years, it was definitely time to replace it! It was surprisingly hard to find a non-plastic dish rack in the size we needed.
I mightily resisted picking up grow light kits today. One would have done will for our plants in the living room. The other would be great for starting seeds. I have decided I do want to use the new part basement for seed starting, but we have to do some re-arranging, first. I do have a nice, bright shop light down there now, but it’s not the kind where a timer could be set. I can still use one of the big aquarium lights, though, and it does have a timer, so that could work. We shall see.
At that point, I was just a couple of blocks from the garage. I hadn’t heard from them yet, but I was done with walking, so I headed over. I knew I could stay in their office waiting area, at least for a while.
When I got there, the truck was up on the lift.
There were 3 mechanics under it, the owner/mechanic had something in his hand, and they were all looking slightly perplexed.
Hmmm.
Once I was in the office, one of the first things I noticed was a bag of take out food on the desk, still all closed up.
The owner soon came in and told me they would have to change the oil plate gasket another day. He had the wrong one! He ordered a new one immediately.
He went out and was back again. The only thing left to do was the wheel alignment, and he suggested doing it at the same time as the gasket, rather than today. The bay with the equipment to do the wheel alignment had another vehicle on it still. They’d have to finish that vehicle first, then move the truck, which would make it another 2 1/2 hours! They were so busy, they had all three bays full, plus smaller vehicles/equipment tucked in spaces in between that, even with three mechanics, they hadn’t been able to stop for lunch, yet! It was well past 1pm by the time I got there.
By stopping at this point, though, it would only be a few more minutes.
So I paid for the work they did today. When he mentioned that the gasket he’d ordered would be in tomorrow, I asked if I could come back tomorrow, and he fit me in for the afternoon.
Just one more day, and the list of small(ish) fixes will be done!
It was just a bit longer as they lowered the truck and tested it out before it was ready.
Today’s work was replacing a front left axle seal, the new oil pressure sensor, a new cv boot and new front links. The parts totaled $216.35. Shop supplies cost $36.99. Three hours of labour cost $299.97 After taxes, the final bill was $619.71
I’m expecting tomorrow’s work to be in the $200-$250 range, after taxes.
That done, I still had a couple more stops to make, now that I could use the truck to do them. First, a quick trip to the grocery store across the street to refill two of our big water jugs. We didn’t need anything else, but I looked around anyhow, and did get a few things that were on sale – specifically, cheese and lactose free cheese, plus some salad kits that I can eat. The ones I got at Costco have dressings that are just over my tolerance level for spicy heat.
Before leaving town, I got some gas at the one gas station where the prices have started to go down. $1.519/L instead of $1.569/L
My husband had let me know a parcel had come in, so I stopped at the post office on the way home. The 250 watt ceramic bulbs I ordered were in. However, the pair of clamp lamps I ordered that can handle 250 watt bulbs are not in yet. Once that package reached the Canadian side of the border, it switched to CanPar for delivery. I think we might actually get delivery to our physical address with them! Tracking information says March 14 for delivery, but I do know it’s in our province now, so it shouldn’t take that long.
Once it’s in, I want to replace the fixture in the isolation shelter. The new fixture has a wire guard around the bulb, so no cats can burn themselves. The current fixture has no such protection. Granted, it would take a lot for a cat to end up that close to the heat bult, but still, I’d rather not take the chance! Plus, the current heat bulb is incandescent, so there is light in there, day and night, which can disrupt sleep patterns. Considering they cluster together right in front of the bulb to stay warm, that can potentially be an issue.
The clamp lamp in the sun room has a 150 watt ceramic bulb in it right now, and I’m thinking of still using that, but setting up a second 250 watt heat bulb nearby, somewhere.
Look! No check engine light! And the oil pressure gauge is working again!
The tire light is for the three remaining tire sensors with dead 14 yr old batteries that need to be replaced. Those can be done, little by little. We’ve had that light on for over a year, now. I think we can last a few more months! We need to focus on paying off the credit card for the work we’re getting done right now, first.
The trip meter shows how many kilometers I’ve driven since filling the tank at Costco. Which is about twice what it normally would be, this early in the month!
Oh, I just realized. I need to go read the meter for our electricity, while it’s still light out enough to see it!
My last task on today’s “to do list”.
It’s been a pretty darn productive day.
I’m going to feel much, much better once the final work is done, tomorrow!
I was tending to the flexible hose for the emergency septic diverter, getting any liquid sitting in it, out, and the cats were very interested! Syndol, however, went for a post-eye view! 😁
This morning, I was just starting to feed the cats outside, when my cell phone started ringing.
*sigh*
There’s really just one place that calls my cell phone.
Home care.
Yup. They were short staffed again. This time for my mother’s morning meds.
Given what time it was, I quickly finished feeding the cats, grabbed my purse, then finished short rounds before heading to my mother’s. With what time she’s supposed to take her morning medications, I didn’t have time to change or call her ahead. So my mother got a bit of a surprise when I came in the door instead of home care this morning!
I wasn’t there for very long, but a lot happened in that short time. She has some confusion about her meds and that led to her making all sorts of assumptions and accusations. Then she commented on how the case coordinator we had a meeting with yesterday had said we’d soon be getting rid of the lock box. Very clearly, she said this, according to my mother.
Which is the opposite of what she actually said.
After answering her as best I could while doing her meds, I took her blood pressure. It is much better this early in the day than in the evening. She had already made herself some breakfast, but I was able to empty her commode for her. I offered to help her dress, but she was happy to stay in her warm and fluffy night gown today, as she doesn’t need to go anywhere. My sister will be coming by later, so she will be able to do more light housekeeping and laundry for her. Hopefully, she also found a hot water bottle and some Velcro shoes for my mother, too. Finding shoes that my mother can get her feet into is even harder than for me. She has massive bunions and bunionettes, so her feet are much, much wider at the ball of the foot, even compared to mine. My sister was also planning to bring some microwave dinners as well. Home care will be able to heat those up for Mom, if she wants them to.
As we were talking, my mother mentioned that our vandal and his wife had stopped to visit her not long after I’d left yesterday. !!! It seems they were on the way back from another chemo treatment. Apparently, he was so sick, he couldn’t sit down, but had to lie on the couch and, even while driving, has to lay the seat back.
If he’s that sick, he shouldn’t be visiting my mother.
But, he’s playing her like a lute, and it’s working. She feels so sorry for him, and started telling me how my brother and I shouldn’t be “afraid” of him, and that we should basically suck up to him because he’s sick. She heard the messages he’d managed to leave with my brother’s voice mail, and knows full well he claims we caused his cancer, among other far more vile things he said about me and my daughters. Unfortunately, she is easily swayed. I don’t know what he’s trying to get out of her (and I doubt his wife has any idea that he made those calls), but he’s certainly succeeding in getting her to feel sorry for him. I think my brother may need to keep an eye on her accounts to see if any checks made out for large amounts get cashed!
After I left, I decided to stop at the post office to pick up a couple of parcels. I have another that’s supposed to arrive tomorrow, and was going to pick them all up on my way home from getting the truck to the garage, but went ahead and got the two that were there today, anyhow. More on that later!
Once I got home and updated my family, I called up the case coordinator. She was actually in her office, so I was able to talk to her directly. I knew she would have heard the messages I’d left yesterday, but there was no need for her to follow up on those. I wanted her to know about how my mother had declared she had said the opposite of what she really said, about the lock box, and about my mother’s confusion with her bubble packs.
I also mentioned that our vandal had showed up yesterday. She is somewhat aware of that situation. We talked about how it would work out if my mother were in a nursing home. Particularly the one she wants to be in. I would hope that we’d be able to ban him from visiting her, but they don’t really have security. Their security is to keep nursing home patients from wandering off, not to keep people out. The only real way to keep him away would be if there were a court order, and we looked into that several years ago. My mother would have to go to court herself, which she physically can’t do. My brother, as PoA, could only do it on her behalf if a doctor declared my mother mentally incapable of doing it herself. That she is physically unable to doesn’t matter. Granted, her cognitive decline would make it difficult for her to do it, too, but she’s not far enough gone for the PoA to kick in, in that regard.
Either way, it’s disturbing that he keeps showing up at my mother’s, and that she lets him in. At least his wife is with him, so he’d be on better behaviour. Apparently, he’s so unwell, he can’t sit, and had to lie down. Even while in the vehicle, he has to have the seat back. Even the case coordinator wondered, if he’s that sick, why is he stopping to see my mother?
Once all that was done, I could finally make myself breakfast – brunch? Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. Once again, I am giving up sugar and simple carbs. Bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, that sort of thing. The first year I did that, it was not that difficult. Last year, it was oddly difficult. But then, it wouldn’t mean as much if it was easy.
I ended up making a creamy meat soup for breakfast, with bacon lardons, celery, mushrooms, ground beef, mushroom broth, cream, a can of mushroom soup and a handful of shredded cheese (cheddar and mozzarella). It turned out delicious!
That done, I finally got to opening the packages. One of them was the keyboard protector I originally bought for myself. March is a birthday month, though, and after talking to my younger daughter, I found that my older daughter would not want what I originally planned to get her. Knowing that she has the same issues with cats on her keyboard that I do – and her computer is how she makes a living – I decided this might make an acceptable gift, instead.
When I took it out of the box, I discovered some pleasant surprises!
This is what I got. (not an affiliate link) Just a basic acrylic piece in the large sise, that would fit over my ergonomic keyboard.
It was not the only thing in the box!
The cover itself came with self adhesive, no slip pads to protect the desk surface. There is also an optional back cover, with clear Alien Tape type stuff to attach it, if necessary.
Then there was the clear acrylic phone holder.
A colourful round mouse pad.
and… what the heck???
An odd looking stick and some brightly coloured fuzzy things???
The odd looking stick turned out to be a “fishing rod”, and the fuzzy things were the “lures”.
It was a cat toy, with two different fluffy “lures”.
I called my younger daughter down and asked her if she thought her sister would like it as her birthday gift. We knew she wouldn’t have much use for the phone holder, and the cat toy would, of course, be for the cats, but she said that yes, her sister would like the gift. So she took it upstairs to set up over her sister’s keyboard as a surprise.
Then she got the cat toy out and put it together with a highlight marker yellow lure, discovering that the rod was telescoping!
The cats went absolutely insane over it!
Unfortunately, one of them woke up my older daughter after parkouring off of her stomach to get to the other room and try and catch the lure!
So my older daughter now knows what she got for her birthday – and then promptly fell back asleep!
My younger daughter was able to get all the cats downstairs and played with them for some time. Only the three grandmas were completely uninterested, and stayed on my bed! Tin Whistle was the most insane with her leaping and twisting and flipping through the air. Amazingly, the cat that was almost as acrobatic was Tin Whistle was Cheddar! He’s such a big boy, I really did not expect that!
When she saw Tin Whistle actually starting to pant (cats should NOT pant!), she stopped and tucked it way into the bathroom, where the cats are not allowed, until next time.
I plan to get two more of these covers. One for my own keyboard and one for my younger daughter. While I did balk slightly at the cost, the extras that came with it more than made up for it! Only the optional back panel was included in the description.
I am getting quite the giggle out of this “Engrish” description of the large sized cover.
【large size】20”long x 7”Width x 4.7”high. 0.4” thick；- this is large enough to cover each of them with enough room for keyboard. It’s high enough allows boys with large palms to type without any hindrance. that you can use the keyboard easily. It’s thick so it can take the weight of you chonky adult cats easily. Compared with glass, the sturdy and drop-proof acrylic material makes it safer.
Boys with large palms!
You chonky adult cats!
Too funny.
On a completely different note, I’ve been chatting with the Cat Lady today. They’ve been in the US for the past while, combining a family holiday with her husband doing a presentation at a conference. It turns out he was offered a job and they are seriously considering moving. Or, more accurately, she would really like to move. He’s not too keen on moving. As someone who has moved so many times, I’d be more like her husband on this one! Plus, they’ve been in their house for less than 2 years. So why would she want to move?
Better weather (Florida).
Better healthcare (US in general)
No state income tax (her husband would get to keep 52% more of his income).
Better political leadership, both state and federal.
I can’t argue against any of those points. Especially right now, when our Liberal government has chosen a tariff war that will destroy our economy, rather than accepting the reasonable request of beefing up our border security, dealing with the fentanyl crisis and meeting our NATO obligations, all of which we should already be doing.
If you’re hearing about it in the news and the US is being painted as the “bad guy” in all this, and Canadians are all up in arms against Americans and boycotting, they are lying. We could easily have avoided a tariff war, but our governments, federal and most provincial, have decided to play a dick waving war. Most Canadians see that, but you won’t be hearing about them, in the media.
Like the quote, wrongly attributed to Sun Tzu, goes…
“An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground… to rule over the ashes“.
That is what our own government has chosen to do. Burn our nation to the ground, but now they can blame Trump for it. Our own government is the “evil enemy”, not the US.
Honestly, it’s gotten to the point where, if it were an option, I’d be moving, too. That whole “51st state” thing? That might well be the only thing that can save Canada. Lord knows, we haven’t been able to save ourselves. As I write this, Trudeau is still our Prime Minister, having stated his intent to resign after a new Liberal leader and PM is chosen, in a few days.
In our system. we don’t vote for our Prime Minister in federal elections. We have 338 elections for our Members of Parliament. The party that has the most winning MPs wins the federal election, and that party’s leader becomes the PM. The PM is supposed to also be an MP. Technically, he or she could still be PM if they did not win in their own riding, but they would not be able to debate in Parliament. In the rare event that this happens, an MP that did win would volunteer to step down. The party leader would officially move to that riding and be the MP in their stead.
On announcing his intent to resign, our Prime Dictator got the Governor General (who is supposed to be a neutral representative of the crown, but is a partisan T2 appointee) to shut down parliament. This was to avoid a planned vote of non-confidence which would have passed and triggered an election. The act was blatantly unconstitutional, but then, most of what T2 and his Liberals have done for the past 10 years have been unconstitutional and often outright illegal, and they’ve been getting away with it.
With T2 (not to be confused with his father T1, who was the most hated PM in Canadian history until now) saying he will step down when a new party leader is selected, there is now a leadership race. They managed to get rid of the one person that was actually competent (a woman born in India, and if there’s one thing our “feminist” PM can’t stand, it’s a strong, ethnic woman), so there are 4 people running for leadership. The one that they are blatantly working to install is Carney, a guy that hasn’t lived in Canada for more than 10 years, holds 3 passports, has destroyed the UK economy and, it turns out, has been advising our Prime Dictator for the past 5 years. So he’s been busy destroying our economy, too. Of course, he isn’t an MP, but that doesn’t seem to matter. He’s actually worse than T2. If (when) he is installed, he would automatically become PM – though when asked directly, when he would resign, T2 said it would be up to whoever won the leadership race. So… he might not resign after all.
Carney, meanwhile, has already talked about using emergency measures in Canada. My prediction (please, God, let me be wrong) is that, once installed into office, he’ll pull a Zelensky. Invoke the war measures act (aka: the emergency act) and declare martial law (because, Trump), and ban any elections. They can keep parliament from resuming, but can push through that “internet safety” bill they were trying to force through before parliament was shut down. This bill, if passed into law, would literally allow for people to be arrested for thought crimes and pre-crimes. Basically, anything anyone says that the government does not approve of can lead to charges, but it would also allow people to press charges against each other essentially for hurt feelings. It would allow them to ban opposition parties, start arresting anyone who disagrees with them, and give them the power to control the media, including social media.
It blows my mind that Canada has fallen so far. Worse, there are so many people who actually cheer this on.
So… yeah. I can understand why so many people have been leaving Canada (a trend that has been going on for years) for greener pastures, like the US.
I would certainly be sad to see the Cat Lady and her family go, but if they are able to escape, more power to them!
Thankfully, we live in the boonies. Things would be much worse if we still lived in a city!
I also mentioned to the Cat Lady about my having to cover for home care so many times. She completely understood our situation. Her mother had gone through the same with her mother (the Cat Lady’s grandmother. She had to be there almost all day, every day, because there were so many cancellations and screwups.
Suddenly, our situation doesn’t seem to bad!
When I got the call this morning, I confirmed that this evening’s med assists were still on schedule, and was told yes. I’m still half expecting my cell phone to ring, and be told they suddenly don’t have staff again.
My brain is feeling fried, so not much to say this time.
While heading to my mother’s for the meeting with home care, I noticed the trip meter on the truck was already at almost 450km. It’s only March 4, and I reset it when I filled the tank at Costco on Feb. 28. Just over 100km of that was the trip home. The rest was the first three days of March.
If I keep getting so many calls to cover med assists like in the past couple of weeks, this is going to be a very expensive month on gas!
I got to my mother’s early, in case she needed help with getting dressed or anything like that. She was already dressed and ready. She and I are alike in one thing: if we have some sort of appointment, we can’t sleep the night before.
Yeah, I’m didn’t get much sleep last night, either.
We got to talking and my mother quickly launched into an attack on my brother. She started accusing him of keeping secrets from her again, and said a few strange things. One was how he “brags” about his technology (he doesn’t brag. Even the slightest attempt to talk about his work is so far beyond her ability to understand, he avoids talking about his job at all). Then she said, she doesn’t want his technology, but his kindness.
No one has been kinder to my mother than him. No one has done more for her than him. He has covered her butt for decades. But because he doesn’t tell her all his personal stuff, and doesn’t always agree with her, doesn’t allow her to treat him like her personal slave, that means he’s not kind to her – then she suddenly started saying that it’s his wife that controls everything. !!!!
There was one thing she said that actually confirmed something we’ve suspected for some time now. A matter of phrasing, really.
She is getting my brother mixed up with my dad.
He looks more and more like my dad as he gets older. My mother and my dad were always butting heads. A very dysfunctional relationship. We’ve noted that she’s treating my brother like she used to treat my dad. Today, she actually started talking about him as if he was my dad.
Then there was a knock at the door, and the case coordinator arrived.
We talked for while about all sorts of things. They’ve not been able to find exactly what happened with the morning no-shows. The best they could come up with is that there was confusion and lack of communication because a previous shift scheduler has been away for the past month, and there is come chaos with the people filling in for her.
I tested my mother’s BP so she could see how my mother has to move around when just shifting from chair to chair, so I could access her left arm. My mother and I had already decided that, at the end of the meeting, I would take her to do her blood work, so the case coordinator could observe how my mother gets into the truck, and moves around in general.
In the end, it looks like my mother will start getting some meal assists – all they can do is things like make her a sandwich, or reheat leftovers. My mother was indeed already scheduled for longer time in the mornings, for assistance in dressing and emptying her commode, but it hasn’t been happening, so that will be looked into. I don’t think my mother is in “bad” enough condition for her to actually get considered more urgently to get her into supportive living or long term care. Which is so very frustrating.
After the meeting was done, I got my mother to the lab in the local hospital with no doctors, just a few blocks from my mother’s place, for her blood work. Only one vial was needed, and no one else was there to get done, so it was really fast. Just that outing wore her out, though, and she was glad to be home. It was just coming up on lunch time, so I got some food together for her before I left.
And that was pretty much it. I had actually intended to go for a nap, I’m so tired, but after I had my own lunch, it just didn’t make sense to try and nap, or I’d screw up my own night. So I’m basically just dragging my butt through the day until it’s a reasonable hour to go to bed.
I need sleeeeeeepppp.
Thankfully, I don’t have any appointments tomorrow, so I should be able to have a recovery day. Unless I get another call from home care to cover my mother’s meds again! Then I have the appointment at the garage for the truck to do a whole bunch of relatively small things before they become big things, along with replacing the oil sensor. Which means a few hours in town, while it’s being worked on. I should have several parcels to pick up by then. Two are already in and waiting. One is something I finally broke down and ordered; a clear acrylic guard for my keyboard, to keep the cats from walking on it and digging under it! Ghosty in particular is truly dedicated to waiting until I’m in bed, then digging under my keyboard. She’s even knocked it right off my computer table at times! That and many is the time I’ve gone back to my computer and discovered all sorts of strange things have been opened, some of which I have no idea which keys got stepped on to find!
Anyhow.
Time to move on to things that don’t require much thought processing. Like laundry!
Okay, after going through their website more, I made some decisions and placed an order at Vesey’s. It was mostly for our future food forest, but I did order a couple of seed packets so I could take advantage of a promo code for free shipping.
As I was preparing to write this post, however, I got a phone call.
From home care.
Guess who has to go to my mother’s again this evening, to do her med assist?
Two nights in a row. Apparently, someone just called in sick.
My mom is going to be furious.
*sigh*
I will just have to deal with that, later.
Meanwhile, here is what I ordered today. (Links will open in new tabs)
These were the one thing we absolutely wanted to get this year. The Opal Plum tree. The description from the website:
Prunus spp. Opal stands alone as the hardiest European type Plum available on the market. It is vigorous, productive and self-fertile. Even in short summer seasons, the fruit will reliably ripen. The plums are round, red-purple with a golden flesh and have a complex and sweet flavour, fresh or dried. Hardy to zone 3. We ship 18″ trees
The key points were that it is self fertile, so we don’t have to plant it next to our dying wild-type plums, but can plant it in the section we’ve designated for a food forest. It’s hardy to our zone, so we don’t have to do like we did with our zone 4 Liberty apple, and tuck it into a sheltered area. (Hopefully, it survived the polar vortexes we got this winter!)
I decided to also order some more haskaps. We already have three, but they have not been doing well at all. While I should probably transplant them, I’ve decided to get a couple more that will be planted in the food forest area, this time.
The second is Boreal Blizzard, an early producing and largest fruit variety.
We currently have “Mr” and “Mrs” haskap varieties, where are sold as cross-pollinating varieties. The “Mr” is an Aurora, and seems to bloom too early to pollinate the “Mrs.” variety, so I am hoping that the early Boreal Blizzard variety will work out better.
If these haskap do well, that will confirm that the ones we have now are not producing because they are in a bad location. Which I am 99% sure of, but it really is a good location – for us!
To use the free shipping promo code, I needed to have at least one packet of seeds.
I had been looking at these last night, while planning my order, but they were listed as sold out. This morning, they were back in stock! So I snagged them.
This is the Sweetie Snack Mix of small sized peppers. They have a short growing season, too, so they should work out. I think my family might like them better than the larger bell peppers we’ve been trying so far.
Last of all, I got some flowers for the girls. 😄 The Jet Black Hollyhock. These are pollinator attracting biannuals and should be self seeding, so we will plan out where to sow them with that in mind!
There we have it. Another order in for our 2025 garden, and our food forest.
The grand total for this, after tax, came to $137.08, however we will only be billed for the seeds when they get shipped in the next day or two. The sapling and haskap plugs will be shipped closer to our last frost date of June 2, and we will be billed for those, then.
The flower seeds were not that expensive, but that packet of mini peppers cost $8.75, with only about 20 seeds in the pack. That’s almost 44¢ per seed!
Still cheaper than buying them at the grocery store, but what a huge leap in prices for vegetable seeds! During the illegal lockdowns, with people panic buying and prices going up and up and up, so many people decided to try growing their own food, a lot of seed suppliers were completely sold out. They are still recovering from that. I know some smaller Canadian seed growers had to back out of the consumer market completely and only sell commercially in bulk. Add to this, in the years since, more people are trying to grow their own food because the grocery prices have gotten so high. That increased demand puts a major stress on supplies, too. Which is why I’m seeing the cost of vegetable seeds skyrocketing, while the number of seeds in the packets are going down, but not with flower seeds. I haven’t been looking at herb seeds lately, so I don’t know how they are doing for pricing.
With this order in, the next thing we’ll need to decide on is what variety of potatoes we want to grow and where. Anything beyond that is just gravy.
Okay, I wasn’t really planning to buy more seeds this year. Not exactly.
With our winter sown beds, which are detailed in the video below, we actually have a lot already planted for this year’s garden…
… that’s IF they survived the winter.
If they didn’t, then we’re not going to have a whole heckuva lot at all, because I finished off seed packets in doing this method.
There are a few things that I am thinking to start indoors – especially now that we have the portable greenhouse – but other things I will likely buy as transplants in the spring. Decisions will be made in the spring for that.
In the end, though, I broke down and made an order with MI Gardener. I’ve been looking at Canadian seed sources but, in the end, it came down to price. I’ve been really shocked by how expensive some seeds have gotten, even with very low seed counts in the packages, at a number of the sites I’ve bought from in the past. Plus, some of the things that interested me were either sold out or no longer available.
I didn’t even make a large order. Just a few things, some of which I probably won’t even plant this year.
The first item in the list is red noodle beans. We tried growing these a few years back and ended up having a drought and heat waves that year. They grew, but I only found a single pod when I was cleaning up for the end of the season, and it was the saddest, skinniest little thing! Along with the bush beans I have winter sown, I want a pole bean and a shelling bean. We have plenty of bean seeds, but no red noodle beans, and I’d really like to try those out.
Next is Winter Giant Spinach. I winter sowed all our spinach seeds so, if they don’t take, this will be our fallback planting.
Next is Turkish Orange Eggplant. We grew Classic and Little Finger eggplant last year. This year, I want to try a different variety. I’m not sure we’ll grow them this year – we’ll see if the order comes in early enough to start them indoors – but it will be an option. If nothing else, we can try the portable greenhouse to extend the season.
I got a package of sugar beet, but don’t expect to plant them this year. I want to actually try and make sugar with them, so this is going to be one of those “fun” things I like to include in my garden every year.
We have more than one variety of carrots winter sown. We still have more Uzbek Golden carrot seeds, if the winter sown ones don’t take, but it would be nice to have another variety as a back up seed.
We did the Summer of Melons mix last year. This year, we still want to grow at least one variety of melon. My younger daughter prefers honeydew types over cantaloupe types, and this Green Flesh Honeydew variety seems to have a short enough growing season to make it worth trying. We have other melon and watermelon seeds already on hand we can try this year, but we will definitely be scaling back from the number we grew last year!
Next are some basic sugar snap peas. I have shelling peas already, and want to have both types.
Last of all…
Yup.
I’m going to keep trying!
I ordered some luffa seeds.
If they come in early enough, I might try them this year. I’m not completely decided on where we will set up the portable greenhouse but, once we do, I will try growing the luffa there in pots, rather than transplanting them into a garden bed.
That’s it, that’s all. A whole 8 items.
All of these together came to a grand total of US$23.50, including shipping. Granted, with our Canadian dollar tanking so much right now, it will probably be closer to Cdn$50, but that would still be less than if I’d try to order these, or similar varieties, anywhere else.
[update: the order was processed, and it came out to Cdn$34.82]
The other things we will need to order or buy for this year’s garden will be things like potatoes and fruit trees. They wouldn’t be shipped until closer to our local last frost date of June 2, so we have time. We just have to settle on what we will be getting this year, first.
I have never ordered from MI Gardener before, but have heard nothing but excellent things about them, so I look forward to getting and trying out these seeds this year!
Well, I’m back from going to my mom’s for her med assist. I’m glad I went, in one sense, and wishing I hadn’t had to in another.
It wasn’t just my mother.
After I’d called my mom to let her know I’d be coming over to do her evening med assist, I had time to get a few things done. It was absolutely gorgeous out today, with temperatures just above freezing. I fed the outside cats early and took the time to check on the flexible hose on the emergency septic diverter. The black plastic had warmed up enough that I was able to get quite a bit of the thawing ice chunks out. It wasn’t in any danger of getting blocked by ice, but I still wanted to get as much out as I could.
While I was outside, my mother called back and left a message, asking if I could pick up some milk and croissants along the way. Since my sister introduced her to croissants, not that long ago, it has become her favorite thing to have with tea!
Which just meant leaving a little bit earlier.
The first problem was actually at home. We’re all pretty unhappy about how often homecare hasn’t been able to do my mother’s med assist, just in the short time since she got out of the hospital. My siblings have expressed their dissatisfaction, but they have also expressed their gratitude that I’ve been able to take care of it. It would be a lot more difficult for them to do it! My husband, however… well, along with his physical disability, he also has military related PTSD. With him, it was more anger, and he started taking his frustrations out on me. Which I don’t put up with.
We are not a couple that has arguments, as others do. We don’t raise our voices at each other, or anything like that. But when we disagree on things, and my husband recognizes that he is starting to get a PTSD rage response, he has medications and coping techniques to deal with them, which is what he resorted to.
I’ll just leave it at that.
When I headed out, my first stop was at the grocery store to get the stuff for my mother and, since I was there, to pick up more of the deli meats for ourselves that this store has at better prices than anywhere else I’ve seen. Then I went to the gas station to top up the truck and pick up my mother’s favorite fried chicken and wedges. I wasn’t sure if my mother would have had her supper yet, but I wanted to make sure she had something available so she wasn’t taking her meds on an empty stomach.
I’m glad I did. It looks like she was just going to heat up a can of cream of mushroom soup for her supper, and was out of milk to make it with.
After putting away her things, we sat down for our supper.
My mother was just looking for things to rage at today.
The first was about my having to drive soooooo far, just to give her her pills. The doctor wouldn’t want that! I told her, the doctor doesn’t care. He just cares that she gets her medications. Then she raged that she should can take her medications herself. I side tracked that. She started saying that home care should just come once a day, and leave her medications for the rest of the day ready for her. I told her, they can’t do that. They have very strict regulations they have to follow these days. They can’t even take pills out of the bottles, but only out of bubble packs.
Oh, you’re always taking their side, she says.
Then it came up about my brother visiting her yesterday, after having gone to the farm, first. I mentioned I had been out and missed them entirely, and that he’d just gone to tend to their truck, as a way of saying he was at the farm for a very short time.
Which my mother latched onto. She’d forgotten that they’d sold their property and everything was at the farm now. We weren’t talking about it, because if she remembered, she would end up telling our vandal about it, and that’s the last thing we need.
Well, I won’t get into how it went with that, but she went into another rage against my brother and started to literally invent scenarios in her head about how he was “keeping secrets” from her, among other far less pleasant things. It took some doing to calm her down and distract her.
All before we even finished eating our meal.
Once we were done eating and got her table clear, I got her supper meds out for her to take, while I made notes for the next home care person to see, then prepared her before bed medications and puffer, before putting everything else back into the lock box. Then I got her blood pressure machine, which she had hidden away in a closet, and tested her.
After that, I started changing her garbage and doing some clean up, when she asked me to do her water bottles. She fills various bottles of water she uses for drinking and cooking from a tap in the laundry room that has softened water, and they were all empty. So I took care of that, then washed her dishes, before getting ready to head home.
As I was getting my jacket on, I reminded her again to take her last meds between 8 and 9pm, when she told me she’d already taken her puffer.
…
What? When???
It turns out that, while I was filling her water bottles, she decided to take her inhaler dose.
This is not the first time she tried to do this with me. During one of the past evenings I’d gotten her evening meds ready, she suddenly decided she should take her puffer dose right way. I stopped her and said to take it with her before-bed medications. This is supposed to help her with her breathing at night (I don’t think it’s actually making a difference, but it’s a trial). It’s not going to help her much if she takes it too early.
When I found out she’d taken it, I told her all the same things again. She seemed surprised by it. I have no idea why she gets it in her head to take it so early. She takes a puff twice a day. With her morning meds then, about 12 hours later, with her before bed meds.
Thankfully, doing this won’t harm her, but if she can’t be relied on to wait 3 hours before taking her before bed medication, I may have to stop getting them ready for her on nights like tonight, when home care is short staffed for both evening med assists. I will have to go home, then come back 3 or 4 hours later.
She’s already losing it over the fact that I’m coming at all. If I start having to come in twice in one evening, I don’t know how she would handle it. She certainly would think that her own actions have anything to do with it, but it does add another layer of concern.
Thankfully, we’ve got a meeting with the home care case coordinator in a couple of days. I should give her a call tomorrow, just to let her know about my mother’s behaviour, as it’s not something I could tell her about, with my mother there. As concerning as it is, perhaps this is one more thing that will get my mother into long term care, as she has been wanting for months now.
I didn’t stay too much longer after that. Thankfully, the days are longer now, so it was still light out during the drive home, and I could actually see the deer, well in advance!
Once home, my priority was to update my siblings – and apologize to my brother and his wife. My simple comment about him coming out to the farm and why set her off, and now she’s going to be even worse towards him because of it. My mother keeps saying how she loves all us siblings equally, but her actions belie her words. The twisted hatred she has developed towards my brother has been getting so much worse. It bothered me less when it was directed at me, the first couple of years we were living here, than it does now that it’s directed at my brother. No one has done more to help her and take care of things for her than he has, for so many years. He deserves so much better than this!
*sigh*
So, on the one hand, I’m really glad I ended up going to my mother’s, today, as she ended up needing help with other things as well.
On the other hand…
*sigh*
It is what it is, and there is little we can do about it but, my goodness, it shouldn’t be this way!
Today was supposed to be a home day. And it mostly was.
Then I got a phone call.
From home care.
They don’t have anyone do to my mother’s med assist for her two evening visits.
Which means I am going to soon be on my way to take care of that.
My mother came home from the hospital on Feb. 10. Today will be the 20th day since she’s been home and her meds set up with the lock box. In those 20 days, this evening will be the 4th time I’ve had to do a med assist due to short staffing. Technically, 7 times, since she has two evening visits, and I’ve had to prepare her before-bed pills, too. Plus, she has had two morning no-shows, where someone was scheduled to show up, didn’t, and they don’t know why.
It’s a good thing we’ve got a meeting already set up in a couple of days. I had no problem being the one for them to call if they are short staffed, but that was supposed to be a fairly rare occasion.
Last night, we got more of the bitter temperatures we were supposed to be past by now. When I looked during the night, we had hit our predicted low of -25C/-13F, with a wind chill of -33C/-27F Today, however, we reached -9C/16F – at least, that’s what the display on my truck showed me. Inside the sun room was at least 10C/50F. You’d think the cats would be hanging out in that, but they were running around outside in the sunshine. I guess with that winter fur, it might actually have been too warm for them in the sun room!
Oh, and Happy First Meteorological day of spring! 😄
Today, we had one shopping stop planned, but made extra ones, too.
The first unplanned stop was to a Dollarama sharing a parking lot with the Walmart in the nearer city. I’m still checking to see what garden supplies they’re getting in, as I’m wanting to pick up the larger plant stakes I’ve found so very useful. They didn’t have then yet, but I did pick up a couple of shallow trays that we use for the inside cats’ cat soup, as we’re down a couple. One, because the cats manage to break it. Another because it now has the new water fountain taped to it, to keep the cats from spilling all over the floor. The water fountain is also taped closed because Ghosty like to tear to top off and start splashing around inside!
When we’d gone to a Dollarama in the city, I’d picked up their last 4 bowls in a particular pattern. The bowls are more like what I grew up knowing as pulmisek. I don’t know if there’s an English name for it, but it basically means “half dish” because it’s half way between a bowl and a dinner plate in side and shape. Anyhow, today, I spotted the same pattern in side plates – something else we’ve been losing to breakage – and my daughter spotted more in dinner plates. They had lots, too. So we got four of each. With the bowls we already have, we now have four 3 pc place settings in this pattern, all for much less than buying a new set of dishes would have cost. I’m quite happy with them.
Our planned stop was to the Walmart. There, we finally found the new toilet brush and toilet roll holder we didn’t get at our last Walmart trip, this time making sure they had their bar codes! An extra purchase was a case of New England clam chowder. Locally, they cost a bit under, or a bit over, $4 a can, depending on what store we go to. Walmart is usually $2.97 a can, so we do tend to buy it there when we want a treat. Today, they were on sale for $1.88 a can. Then there were a few little things my husband requested.
Another thing we got was 10 little cans of Fancy Feast cat food. These, I will be keeping in my room so that I can give them to our elderly Freya, who seems to be having trouble even with softened kibble at times. The grand old lady deserves to be pampered! When I kick all the cats out of my room, except Butterscotch and Freya, in the morning so Butterscotch can use the litter, eat and drink without being harassed by other cats, I can also give them their special breakfast. Butterscotch is also getting on in years, though she is certainly more spry than Freya, so she will get her share, too.
After we were done at the Walmart, I decided to go to the Canadian Tire across the street, for our second unplanned stop. I wanted to look at countertop ovens and microwaves. Our microwave’s fan stopped working, so it’s no longer safe to use. We only used it to reheat things, sometimes make the occasional mug cake or, rarer still, thaw or melt things.
My daughter and I looked through the section and weighed the pros and cons for the ones that met our needs, and was more affordable. Some of these get really expensive!
In the end, we decided to get the Black & Decker countertop convection oven (not an affiliate link). With the various functions, we will probably use it more than we ever used the microwave. Most toaster ovens/countertop ovens have doors that swing down from the top. This one has French doors that open to the sides – something we felt would work better, since it will be sitting on the one counter in the kitchen the cats are allowed on, because they can look out the window. The real deciding factor, however is that it is an oven that my husband can use. He can’t bend over to take things in and out of the regular oven. This will give him a bit more independence, as he’ll be able to prepare some of his own food.
It did price out at the upper limit was what I was willing to pay, but since I found myself with a Canadian Tire Mastercard, I’ve been using it strategically. In this case, I took the financing they offer on purchase totals of over $150 before taxes. Which means the amount will be divided into 12 equal payments, with 0% interest. I could have used my accumulated Canadian Tire dollars, too, but I’m saving those up to cover planned future purchases.
In the end, it turned out to be a very productive trip. The only down side is that we ended up missing my brother and his wife. They’d gone out to the farm so my brother could get his truck running for a while. He wasn’t able to actually move it – there’s too much snow and ice around it – but that was okay. While there, he also checked on the septic ejector to make sure everything still looked good, even though we’re not hooked up to it right now. They were done and gone shortly after we started for home. They did have time to stop and visit my mother, though, and bring her a dinner from a local restaurant. She did get her Meals on Wheels today, but the less she has to prepare for herself, the better. I look forward to hearing in more detail, how the visit went. Hopefully, well, but my mother has a tendency to be remarkably cruel to my brother and have no awareness of the pain she is causing him. The last time the subject of my brother came up with me, she would just suddenly start going on about how he never visits and never calls – and then started going on about how he wants all her money. ??? The only person who is after her money (not that she has much) is our vandal, who believes she has millions squirreled away somewhere.
It makes for some very difficult visits, at times. I just hope she was having one of her good days!
I’m happy to say that today was a good day for me, at least, but I sure an looking forward to having a couple of days of not having to go anywhere!
The Re-Farmer 