The 50's

Not the year or someone's age but the temperature.  Yippee!!  We are suppose to get into maybe the mid 50's - temperature wise this week.  It can't come too soon for me.  The snow is slowly starting to melt.  I can see some grass.  In the flowerbeds, I can see the dead marigolds that still have to come out LOL.  My husband never even got the stalks from the sunflowers out yet.  In the fall he just cut them real low.  I do see some green in there although it's weeds but for now I'll take it. 

Sunday when we pulled into the driveway at the nursing home we had to stop for a few minutes to let the geese get off the driveway.

I can't wait until I can open my doors and windows.  Although this little warm up doesn't fool me.  We've had snow on Easter and Opening Day of baseball.  But I'll enjoy it knowing soon it will come and stay.

Mom

I was feeling pretty good yesterday so I went to see Mom.  She was doing well physically.  She's off the oxygen during the day and the steroids.  Her legs looked great.  They were testing her sugar 4 times a day but the nurse said she was going to talk to the doctor about reducing the number of times a day, since its been so good.

Her mind was another story.  She seemed a little confused the first day she was back from the hospital.  Yesterday, she kept trying to tell me things but would just use pronouns and then would stop talking like she forgot what she was going to say.  I've seen her like this before but usually I can figure out what she's trying to tell me but I couldn't. She couldn't seem to concentrate.  It does sound like my cousin, aunt and uncle visited her some time.  Mom didn't remember when or what they talked about.  Good thing she was back from the hospital because I never thought to call them and tell them.

I just got back from seeing her.  She seemed a little less confused today. She talked and talked but really about nothing much.  But still, when I tried to talk to her about the Oscars and stuff she didn't really seem to understand what I was talking about or else couldn't concentrate enough to understand.   She did tell me she got a blood test.  We'll see how she is by Wednesday. 

Random Friday

1.  I watched Parenthood on NBC (must have been all those commercials during the Olympics) on Tuesday.  I guess it is loosely based on an old movie which I don't remember ever seeing.  It seems its not getting great reviews but I kind of liked it.  I hope NBC gives it some time.

2.  I saw a commercial that V is coming back.  I loved the original V and would like to watch this new version but unfortunately it seems they are going to put it back on Tuesdays which is Biggest Loser night for me and now Parenthood.  When the new version was on a few months ago I flipped back and forth for the first episode but I couldn't do that every week and we are not DVR people.  I hope eventually it gets switched to another night.

3.  Even though I haven't seen any of the movies, I look forward to Oscar night to see who wins.

4.  With me being down for the count this week, my house is a wreck, I've got loads of mail to sort through, laundry to do and I'm also behind on my blog reading.  There's always next week.

5.  Its been somewhat sunny.  We are supposed to be in the middle 40's over the weekend.  So bring on the dirty snow and lets melt that snow LOL.

6.  Last Saturday Magellan dropped me off at the hospital to see mom and then picked me up.  We then went to the Olive Garden.  I usually always get Chicken Parmesan.  This time I was more adventurous and got Chicken Alfredo ;-)  It was very good and I brought half of it home to eat the next day. 

7.  I used to be a TV watching news junkie.  Then I had enough and stopped watching.  This week since I had a lot of down time I figured I'd give it another chance.  Nothings changed much in the last few months.  I think my one woman boycott is going to be on again.  I still read their web sites but its easier to control.

8. I'm starting to feel better.  I've been resting, sleeping and drinking a lot of stuff with Vitamin C.  Probably by the weekend I should be good. 

9. PSA -  If you are sneezing a lot and you try to sneeze into a Kleenex, you could accidentally bite the inside of your bottom lip.  So, be careful, ouch!!

10.  Have a great weekend.  I hope you see sunshine and warmer temperatures. 

Alphabe-Thursday

For G I came up with Gambling. It was the only thing I could think of.

I'm not very much of a gambler.  I've been to a casino once and that was in Canada.  I had gone on a bus trip with some friends to see The Phantom of the Opera.  Before we hit the border at Niagara Falls to cross over to America, we went to Casino Niagara.  We stayed a few hours.  I played the cheap slot machines. I had a great time.

For years, my husband used to play this one particular game in our State lottery.  I forget what the name of it was because we don't have it anymore.  Every week though he would play the same numbers.  He would always play them because we would say "if we don't play and those numbers come up after all these years we'd have to kill ourselves"  Of course, we were just kidding; kind of ;-)  Finally, that game ended and then the State went to Mega Ball.  Now unless it's over 100 million he doesn't play.  I guess we're choosier now.  I think we might even get Powerball soon.  We very rarely play the instant tickets.  I think they do a good business because we see people come out of the store and then gleefully scratch them off in the vehicle, not even waiting to get home.

For many years some people have wanted casino's in Ohio but the majority did not.  In all those years, casinos have been coming to other states surrounding Ohio.  Finally, last year they were able to get a vote from the people to put four casino's in Ohio.  It always seemed rather hypocritical to me that we were allowed to have horse racing, the lottery and church bingo but somehow casino gambling - not so much.  To me it's all gambling, and why should people go to surrounding states to spend their money (no offense to surrounding states ;-)  I guess only time will tell if it will be good or bad for Ohio.  I know I will go at least once to check it out and look forward to it.


Go over to Jenny's and see what others did for the letter G http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com/2010/03/alphabe-thursday-g.html

FYI

I'm sick still.  Another day of rest for me. 

I called the nursing home and Mom's doing well.  That's a relief.

Mom

Mom went back to the nursing home yesterday.  She seemed well except she was a little confused when she got back.  I think it will just take her a while to get used to being back.  A lot of the swelling went down in her legs and her breathing was good.  She's still going to get the breathing treatments though and stay on the oxygen for awhile.

All my cryptic talk about the room change ended up being nothing.  Thursday on the day she went to the hospital, the social worker called and said they needed mom's bed for someone else. They were going to pack up her things and store them until she came back.    She said when she got back she might go back to her bed or might end up somewhere else.  Turns out they never did move the person to mom's bed so when she got back her part of the room was empty plus no clothes.  I had to get housekeeping to bring all her stuff back and put everything back myself.

I'm not going today because I think I might have caught some of what my husband had.  When I came home from the nursing home today, I slept about 2 hours and I've been coughing.  I think I'm going to rest all day today and hopefully, I'll feel good on Wednesday.  Thank goodness he's finally starting to feel better.

People we see

We usually go to see Mom a certain time every day at the nursing home.

When the weather was nice and even when it started to snow, we would always see this guy we called "the runner".  He was an elderly gentleman.  We would either see him when we were going or coming home from seeing Mom.  Rain, shine or snow there he would be appropriately dressed for the weather and carrying one weight in his hand.  My husband said sometimes when he was out he would see him running other places.  For the last month or so, we haven't seen him.  Isn't it funny someone we don't even know and we're wondering if he's all right.

We also frequently see a woman that carries a bag.  We call her the "bird lady".  She has what looks to be bread in a bag and we see her stop at different places and puts it out for the animals.  Finally, one day we saw where she actually lives. 

Then there were these two old guys.  We only saw them a few days.  The first time we saw them we were making a turn and there were two turning lanes.  We were in the right turning lane and these two guys when they turned went right into our lane.  My husband honked at the guy and they went about their day.  The next day we noticed these two guys again in the same lane.  I told my husband there are the "two grandpas" and this time we waited to see what they would do.  Sure enough after they turned they came right into the lane they weren't supposed to turn into.  This time my husband didn't honk.  We only saw them one more time but we're always on the lookout for them now.