Exceedingly Mundane

A busy weekend at Casa Hammons! Going back to last Wednesday…

Wednesday was the day my dad needed to do his pacemaker check. He has had a pacemaker for about 8 years or more, and does a quarterly check where he hooks a machine up to his chest and it transmits info on the pacemaker to his doctor’s office. He never had any problems (that I know of!) when he lived in his house in Hattiesburg. However, he doesn’t have a dedicated phone line in his apartment at the assisted living place here, and so he never could get it to work. He said he tried 3 places, different things, and finally called the doctor and setup an appointment. He called me Wednesday to “inform” me that he would need me to pick him up Thursday afternoon and take him to the heart clinic at 3 PM. They checked him out, and the machine and said nothing was wrong except maybe user error, and to try it again. So, he’s going to try again this week. Fingers crossed that he figures it out… else, I’ll be driving him to the heart doctor every 3 months!

Thursday was also a fun day, in that Grayson, Ava Clair and Sam came with Gail and met us all for lunch at Newk’s! Elizabeth had gone to Texas the week before and brought Grayson and Ava Clair back with her last weekend. They went to Gail’s for a few days, and then she brought them back on Thursday (plus Sam!), and they got on a plane going home to Texas Thursday night. We were so glad we got to see them. They’ve grown up so much and are so much more mature than in visits past. We had a great time seeing them, we just wished we had been able to spend more time with them 🙂

Friday, my dad was having issues with a prescription, so he wanted me to take him to the doctor’s office to get it fixed. He likes to do things face to face, as opposed to me, who likes to do things over the phone, on the fax, by email, internet, etc. Such polar opposites! So, we went to the doctor, then to Walmart to drop off his new prescription, then over to see Elizabeth and her new house. We visited a while there, then went back and picked up his medicine.

Tim decided not to play golf Friday night, so we had date night! We went to one of our favorites, Krilakis. We splurged and had an appetizer of pita mozz, then each had a gyro. Tim gets his with fries, I get mine with a Greek salad and then we share with each other 🙂 We were so stuffed that we didn’t have baklava for dessert, or go anywhere for sweets afterward. After dinner, we went to Best Buy and Sam’s to price tv’s. I finally gave Tim the go-ahead to get a bigger tv. Our 42″ plasma was fine with me, but he has been wanting a bigger tv for a while now. Our receiver is still being repaired, and we hope it is fixed and sent back soon… definitely need all this stuff in time for football season!

Saturday was golf day for Tim. He played twice, once at 7:30 in the morning and again at 3:30 in the afternoon. I made a big trip to Kroger Saturday morning, and got home around lunch. Not long after, in between his two golf sessions, Tim managed to swing thru Chick-Fil-A and pick us up lunch, which we wolfed down before heading to Sam’s to buy this:

I helped him get it inside, he took the old plasma off the mounting bracket, hung the new Samsung 60″ LED SmartTV one up, and then took off for the golf course 🙂 Leaving me to do the setup on the tv and start to learn how to use it. He still hasn’t gotten all the peripherals hooked up (receiver is in shop, blu-ray not hooked up, dvd burner not hooked up, Apple TV not hooked up, Wii not hooked up), but he will hopefully get to them soon. It’s big and it has a great picture! Saturday night, we watched an old movie I had recorded on the DVR, Mr and Mrs. Smith. Good action one 🙂

Sunday was church (current series: Recreate, our pastor still on sabbatical till mid August) and then brunch at Corner Bakery. I had the trio with soup (asparagus soup, caesar salad and fruit) and Tim had the BBLT (double bacon on a BLT). We went to Lowe’s after that to buy a new weed eater. This seems to be the season of buying! First my stove, then his tv, now the needed weed eater. He was cutting the grass and weed eating a few days ago and said his weed eater was not working right. He’s fixed it before, replacing hoses and different stuff, but it was time for a new one. I think the old one was 8 or more years old, so time for a replacement. He played golf again Sunday afternoon. I made homemade pizza and a new recipe for hot cocoa ice cream for supper:

Sunday night, Gail flew in late from Texas and stayed with us. Luckily, Tim was up since he had to work Sunday night. I tried to stay up, was reading, and got so sleepy, I didn’t make it. Sorry I missed seeing Gail in and seeing her reaction to the new tv 🙂 Monday morning (today), we got up and got dressed and picked up Fred mid morning for two doctor appointment. He went to see his retina doctor in the AM and the pulmonology doctor at 1 PM. We picked up Chick Fil A and ate lunch at his assisted living place after we had finished. He has to go back to the retina doctor in another month, for another shot in his eye. :shiver: I can never watch!

Ok, I think that catches me up. Going to try to catch up on cleaning, laundry and stuff in the next couple of days, and hope I don’t have to take my dad to the doctor again. Four appointments in three days, I’m ready for a break!

Another block of time has passed since I was able to update the ole blog. Let’s see…

I spent all of last week getting ready for the garage sale for my dad. We had gone down and filled up a UHaul with the remainder of items from his house. It’s empty now. We had the garage sale last Saturday. We put out a few things we had here to donate, and actually made almost $100 for us, in addition to all the stuff we sold for my dad. What didn’t sell, we boxed up to donate. And we took 6 or 7 bags of books to the library to donate. I had gone through and cleaned out three bookshelves and put them out to try to sell. Only 5 or 6 books sold, 3 of them being my mom’s old “Bell’s Best” cookbooks. Oh well. I read almost exclusively on my digital readers (stand-alone Kindle or Kindle app on my iPad), so I felt like I should get rid of a lot of books.

Saturday was the garage sale, and then last Sunday, we went over to see my father-in-law. My dad went with us, and all of Tim’s family was there to celebrate Mitchell’s big day (a couple of days late!). We had steaks with all the trimmings, and cake with strawberries and whipped cream, and a great time visiting. We got to meet Brittany’s new boyfriend and even see Zack, so it was a good trip.

This week flew by. I started this post on Monday and attempted to work on it on Wednesday, but never got very far. I actually deleted it by mistake, so I had to start over!

Wednesday, Tim went to Zack’s district golf tournament, held at Tim’s home golf course, and drumroll please… Zack won! So he will get to go back to the state tournament to defend his 3A golf champion title again this year as a junior! Tim and Mitchell went to cheer him on, and Tim was so very proud of him! I imagine he’ll have a much bigger gallery at the state tournament in a couple of weeks 😀

I went Wednesday afternoon to visit with my dad, pick up a couple of things for him at Walmart, stop by the library to get a book for me (Six Years by Harlan Coben) and a couple of movies for us to watch (Argo and Snow White and the Huntsman for Tim, and IronMan 2 for both of us, as a refresher before we go see the new one in May). I also ran to Sam’s Club and made a big run on household stuff. Thursday, Gail came down and we all went over to Ridgeland Pointe for “Family Night”. Basically, we visited with my dad in his room for a bit, then went down to the dining room and had dinner with him. Tim came home starving and had to eat again! LOL! He said, he could never live there, they don’t feed you enough, hahaha! I noticed that both my dad and the nice resident, Ms Myrtis that we shared a table with, neither of them ate much at all. I guess by the time you hit your 80’s and 90’s, you don’t eat as much as we do now, LOL!

Today (Friday) was spent on the road. We picked up Dad this morning and went to Hattiesburg to meet with a realtor. Tim had talked to her several times and emailed a bunch, and told my dad that he was pretty satisfied with her. So we met her at the house, went over a ton of things, and signed a contract for her to sell the house. She is going to have to oversee a ton of work (cleaners, painters, people to replace fixtures, install new appliances, etc) and then put it on the market. She hopes to have it sold in 3-4 months, but we signed a 6 month contract. I hope it sells then! At least there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel – we’ve moved my dad, got him new doctors, got him settled at his new “apartment”, gone to the house to get items for family members, sold furniture, and moved everything else out to sell. The house is empty now, and ready to be cleaned and gotten ready to sell. We’ve come a long way since February 15!

Tim has a busy weekend ahead – two tee times at the golf course, and a busy night of work this weekend. Me, I hope to catch up on some shows on the DVR, do laundry, read and maybe even watch a Harry Potter movie 🙂

P.S. I don’t often talk about current events here on my blog, but this has been a very news-worthy week. The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, then the huge explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas. So much sadness and sorrow 🙁

Well, I have now experienced the phenomenon of cleaning out your parents house. We went to Hattiesburg yesterday for another trip, with another UHaul. This time, we cleaned out every last thing from my parents house. My sisters and I had done some cleaning out of my mom’s things about a year or so after she passed away (it will be 11 years this June, goodness gracious). And now since we’ve moved my dad into the assisted living place near our house, we have been working at whittling down the remainder of the contents of their house. We took everything to his new “apartment” as we call it, that we thought he wanted or needed. My sisters and their kids have gotten everything that they want out, we’ve sold some furniture and big items to some extended family, and now we’re down to the last set of items. I swore years ago I would never have another garage sale, but you know what they say about never saying never… LOL!

So, yesterday was another long day, about 14 hours in all, and this week will be a lot of prep work. Everything that I spent all day yesterday packing, has to be unpacked and setup and priced for the garage sale. Thankfully, we had most of the big pieces out, so there was very little furniture to haul. It’s just down to kitchen stuff, linens, old clothes, etc. I wonder what kind of prices to put on things these days. I don’t have garage or yard sales and don’t go to them, so I don’t have any idea what people sell these kinds of things for today.

Get this – we found 2 or 3 film cameras, and he was like, sell those. I softly told him, Daddy, today people have digital cameras and cell phones for taking photos! LOL!

Anyway, we have the house empty, so we can now move forward with trying to clean it up, getting it painted, cleaning or replacing carpets, listing with a realtor, etc. It’s such a big job. And in so many ways, it’s so hard. Even though this wasn’t the house I grew up in, my parents lived there for many years, my dad about 21 in all, 10 of those with my mom. All of their earthly belongings have been divvied up and sent to various family and friends, and the rest of it is sitting in my garage, waiting to be paraded out to strangers, to sell for little or nothing. There’s something so inherently sad in that, the end of things, the summation of a life.

Yes, I’m obviously a bit melancholy with this post, please forgive me. I still miss my Beau so much. Yesterday was one month since we lost him, and I still miss him so.

On to bigger and better things, but first, a lot of work to do with this garage sale!

Well, it was three weeks ago yesterday that we lost my precious dog, Beau. I still miss him terribly. He was so very loved. I talk about him all the time, and I think Tim is tired of it. I have looked on PetFinder and found a dog in a nearby shelter that I want to go see, he reminds me of Beau. But Tim is not ready. He wants to rebuild the fence. He wants to work in the yard. He says a dog will tie us down while we go back and forth to work on my dad’s house, cleaning it out and getting it ready to sell. We can’t go on vacation at the drop of a hat if we have a dog. He has a hundred reasons, but I just want a new dog to fill the humungous hole left in my heart by having my Beau go so fast and so suddenly. Sigh. I know he’s right, but still. I want my Beau back, or I want a new puppy to love.

It was three years ago this morning that I woke up with tinnitus. I hear it now, screeching away. I’m grateful that I hear it, and I hope that I never lose my hearing. I’ve learned to live with it, most of the time. I can now sleep most nights, although there are times when I wake up, hear it, and can’t get back to sleep. I’d like to think that’s part of the whole middle age insomnia thing. I know I’ll have tinnitus as long as I’m on this earth, but I have learned to be ok with that.

It’s been three days since I’ve seen my dad. That’s the longest he’s gone since we moved him up here in mid-February. It’s still been an ongoing thing with him. He can’t seem to catch a break. First was the kidney infection, dehydration that caused his fall. Then after we moved him into the assisted living facility, he was starting to get better, and he got a bad stomach virus. They shut the whole place down for several days until they could get everyone semi-healthy. Then he got an upper respiratory infection. Then, my sister Gail and I took him to the eye doctor for a steroid shot in his eye (an ongoing thing, he’s been seeing a retina specialist for about 18 months). The shot seemed to have gone ok (it’s an implant thing, a one time only thing, thank goodness), but he scratched his eye with the gauze patch they put on. So, a corneal abrasion necessitated 3 more trips back to the doctor to get his eye checked and repatched. He had a patch on his eye for about 5 days and he was so tired of it, and I don’t blame him. Now, the home health nurse says he is probably anemic. We just can’t seem to get him well and feeling better. I’ve stayed away this week, giving him time to feel better and try to get settled in. We think he’s in a great place, they have lots of activities and things for the residents to do, but my dad is not a social person. He has no interest in bingo, or card games, or movies or chapel or devotions, or going on the trips they schedule, or any of the other activities they plan. I keep hoping he will, but so far, he’s just not interested. He is getting therapy about 4 times a week, 2 times OT and 2 times for PT, which should help him. And he does get out of his room some, and go sit in the lobby and people watch, which most of the residents do, LOL!

Easter is this weekend, really early this year. We’ve had cold weather all week, very unusual for us this late in March. 29 at night and 50’s during the day have been awesome. I’ve worn my thick hoodies, snuggled under a big quilt at night, drunk hot tea and coffee and cocoa, trying to milk what last little bit I can out of winter. Spring is coming, and Tim will be gone a lot playing golf. He ordered a new bag and it came in today, so he’s really pumped up to get back to playing. He’s been doing P90X since right before Christmas and he’s doing great. He’s down nearly 25 pounds and looks very slim to me. He still says he has a long way to go, and I keep telling him, if he loses much more, he’ll be thinner than me! LOL! 😀

So much has been going on lately. My dad fell in mid-February, which started a cascading set of events. We went down, took him to the doctor, the ER and then stayed while he was in the hospital overnight. We brought him home with us, and less than a week later, we had moved him into an assisted living facility 10 minutes from our house. That was about 3 1/2 weeks ago.

This past week, I thought things were getting better. I had been telling Beau that soon, things would get back to normal. Soon, we would be able to start back walking, me and Beau. Soon the time would change (it did today), which means that Tim would start back playing golf, so that Beau and I could hang out more while Tim was gone. We go on walks, we go out back and play, he chases squirrels, we read together on the glider, we hang out on the deck and talk, and on and on and on. Beau was my constant companion, and especially all of the times while Tim is gone, he is my best friend, my comfort and my security.

Tuesday, he was out back playing, chasing squirrels. Tim was cutting down the last of the tree in the backyard, so he had to go behind the fence for his squirrel obsession. He seemed fine. Wednesday morning, we got up and he seemed really lethargic. He didn’t want to eat or drink and just wanted to rest. He seemed restless, not staying on his bed, but wanting to move some, and he never could seem to find a comfortable place to stay long. He had been sick the previous week, not eating and then throwing up, but he had gotten back to normal, or so we thought. Wednesday, early afternoon, I went to see my dad and do things for him (errands, paperwork, bill paying, visiting, etc). I left late afternoon, telling Dad that I needed to go check on Beau, that he wasn’t feeling great. By the time I got home, I could tell that Beau was not doing well. His eyes looked like he was in pain, and he could barely raise his head. I called for Tim, and we couldn’t get him to get up, he was so weak. We called the vet and ran him over. Tim and some of the vet helpers helped carry him in on his bed. They checked him out, and a few minutes later, they told us after the doctors looked at him and ran some tests, that he was in very bad shape. His belly was full of blood, from either a tumor on his spleen that had ruptured, or his actual spleen had ruptured. They didn’t think he was strong enough to survive surgery, and we made the most difficult decision, to let them end his suffering and go to sleep. We brought him home and buried him out back, where he had been playing less than 24 hours before.

My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces. I miss my baby. We should have had so much more time with my Beau baby. We only had him 6 1/2 years, but we loved him every single second of every single day since we rescued him. I see him, hear him … everywhere. I look for him constantly. I think of him constantly. We went through this when we lost our Sally girl, so I know that I will get better in time. But right now, it’s the toughest part. I miss him so, and just want him back.

My darling Beau, I hope heaven is full of squirrels and lizards and squeaky toys and your favorite treats. I hope you’re happy and at peace. Know that we love you and miss you. Now and always.

Mondays are apparently the only time that I think to blog! Well, that’s not true, but since I am back to blogging to mostly remember what is going on with us, and we mostly just stick close to home during the week and do “fun things” on the weekend, Monday is logically the time for me to do a catch-up type blog post. 🙂 There. That’s why!

Last week was another busy one for Tim. I went to get my hair cut on Wednesday, and then to run errands and grocery shop. That was it for me leaving the house during the week! Tim never set foot in the car until Saturday. He worked all day, every day, and several nights. He’s got a big project at work, and they’ve suddenly decided to hit him with a lot of other issues, so he’s stayed really busy. He works from home, but I’ve gone almost all day, every day and not seen him at all. He only ate lunch one day last week. He did eat supper, albeit late a few nights. I even planned burgers for him to grill out one night, but he was busy, so I bit the bullet and cooked them inside in a cast iron skillet. Owie, the mess from the grease! They were good burgers though (turkey ones!).

Anyway, that is good news, him being so busy, since his foot is still bothering him and he’s not playing golf. It’s about to kill him mentally, but he realizes his foot is not 100%, so he’s not going to play. So, I know it bothers him. Not enough to go to the doctor, but enough to keep him off the golf course 🙂

Friday night, we didn’t go out for date night, since the Saints were playing a preseason game and we could get it on TV. Tim finished work a few minutes before it started (poor thing), and we watched the Saints struggle and lose to the Jaguars. Sigh. I hope preseason is not a sign of things to come. 🙁

Saturday morning, we slept in a bit and then decided last minute to drive down and visit my dad for the day. We got there around lunch and visited a bit, then took him out to eat at the new-ish Cheddars there in Hattiesburg. We had tried to take him on our last visit (Father’s Day weekend), but the wait was over an hour, so we went to Logan’s instead. This time, the wait at Cheddars was about 25 minutes, so we stuck it out. Good food (I had salmon, broccoli and carrots, Dad had salmon, broccoli casserole and loaded potatoes and Tim had a sirlion/rib combo with a loaded potato). Some of us were obviously trying to eat healthier than others! LOL! We had planned to visit more after we took him home (I’d asked if he wanted to go anywhere else, but he didn’t… I think just going to a restaurant wears him out), but on the drive home, it was cloudy, dark and lightning. We had left Beau on a stake outside, so I was worried he was soaking wet. Thankfully, that smart puppy had the presence of mind to stay up under his deck, so he was mostly dry when we pulled up. Dad had asked for Tim to help with something on his truck, so after we did that, we headed out. It was pouring rain, and there was apparently a wreck on Hwy 49, for traffic came to a dead stop. Tim does NOT like to sit still, so we made a U-turn as soon as we could, ventured off and took back roads a while till we could get back on the highway. The back roads were slower, it was pouring rain, and we ran through two big places of standing water on the road, a good ole flash flood! Anyway, it took about 45-50 minutes longer to get home, and we were glad to make it home safely!

We had that big lunch at Cheddars, a bit late, so we weren’t overly hungry. Tim was good with eating leftovers, and I had a big bowl of cereal, and we settled in to watch the last Harry Potter movie. I am still missing the books and am now ready to watch the movies again. Tim, however, says that is not going to happen, that I’ll burn him out, and he doesn’t want any more of Harry, Ron and Hermione for a while. Sniff sniff. 🙁

Sunday was church, and then we came home and changed and headed over to my pick, Mr Chen’s for lunch. We ordered a bunch of good stuff, all dishes we have had before, and enjoyed every last bite. We got steamed buns, I ordered a veggie combo to share, Tim got sesame chicken and I got fish in black bean sauce. Deee-licious! Enough left for lunches for a couple of days too! I asked Tim if he wanted to go anywhere else (I had a couple of returns I could have made), but he didn’t want to walk much more on his foot. So we came home and had a mini movie-marathon. We watched some I’ve recorded on the DVR… The Core, then Hancock (both of which we’d seen), and then finally Real Steel.

All in all, another good weekend!